Alex stared at the massive wooden box in front of him, and then at the shopkeeper. He couldn't be serious, right? How was he supposed to carry that? Alright, focus; this is just an obstacle. You can overcome this. His mind started racing with ideas for how he could carry the box. Perhaps he could just shove it over the ground? No, that wouldn't work. The floor inside the building might be smooth, but outside, the box would immediately break. If he even got it that far. Perhaps he could see if Tildia would lend him one of her golems? He pictured himself walking around campus with a large clay golem beside him as his personal moving crew. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. He doubted she was going to just let him use one without compensation, and this job only paid four credits.

  Alex was about to open his mouth to ask if there were any smaller boxes he could repack into when the shopkeeper burst out in laughter. "Oh, you should have seen your face," he said as he wiped away a tear. "I'm sorry, there's no way you're going to be able to just carry that. Perhaps if you weren't a first year, you would have had a skill that could help, but you, no. Here, you can borrow this for the delivery." He pulled a sturdy dolly from behind a corner and put it next to Alex. "Thank you; it has been a while since anybody has made me laugh like this. You were really considering it, weren't you?"

  "I, uhm, yeah, I was," Alex admitted.

  "Hey, that shows determination. Something you'll definitely need at this academy." The shopkeeper said before helping Alex put the large box on the dolly. "Now, since you're new here, do you already know your way around the campus or do you need some detailed instructions on where these need to go?"

  "Detailed instructions, please," Alex said, glad the shopkeeper had offered them himself and he hadn't needed to go asking for directions.

  For the next ten minutes, Mister Klynth did his best to provide Alex with as detailed instructions as possible. The deliveries would clearly take him all over the campus and not just around the main building he was currently in. He tried to remember the directions as best he could, but after the first explanation he had to ask the shopkeeper if he could repeat everything again to make sure he got it all.

  The large box was easy enough to differentiate from the other deliveries, but the only thing different about the sealed scrolls was the signet used on the wax seals. Alex hoped he could remember which scroll was supposed to go where and that he didn't accidentally give someone the wrong one. The shopkeeper reassured him that if he ever wasn't sure about where the next delivery was supposed to go, he could always come back and ask again. Alex was glad to meet another friendly and helpful face at the academy.

  The bell on the shop's counter rang again, and Mister Klynth asked if Alex got everything before excusing himself and heading to the counter. Now alone in the storage room, Alex took one last look around. There were tall storage racks everywhere, all with big boxes that looked like the one he was carrying. There were no clear labels on any of the boxes or even the racks, and he wondered if the shopkeeper used something similar to the Catalogue Stone to know where to look for everything. Maybe Henry would know? Alex made sure he put the sealed scrolls safely into a cotton shoulder bag the shopkeeper had lent him and wheeled the large box outside.

  Mister Klynth waved goodbye to Alex while receiving some Merit Credits from a student as Alex passed the counter and out of the shop. He stood out in the hallway for a moment. This wasn't Earth, but delivering packages, that he understood. And his first stop was the training yard. He knew where that was; Professor Ghestalt had shown him where they were on his first day at the academy. But more importantly, that was where the large wooden box was going, and the sooner he could get rid of that, the faster the rest of the deliveries were going to be.

  As he pushed the dolly out of the main building of the campus, he was glad the supply shop had been on the ground floor. He could just picture himself clumsily heaving the dolly down the stairs. The dolly's left wheel squeaked with every turn he made, and the box rattled with metallic clanks as he rolled the dolly over the central academy courtyard. While the floor was made mostly of smooth stone, there were some cracks here and there from the wear-and-tear of hundreds of students walking over it daily.

  Alex didn't know exactly what was in the large box, but from the sounds it made and the place it was going to, his best guess would have to be weapons or armor. Aside from the knife the assassin had held against his throat, he had seen no weapons or armor in this world, and he wondered if they would look more like the standard medieval stuff, or if they were going to be more fantastical. Just that short thought of the knife against his neck send shivers down his spine again. He was glad he was somewhere at least relatively safe right now.

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  A group of upperclassmen, all displaying the red accents of the Combat Discipline, were having a heavy discussion as they exited the training yard. They didn't seem to notice Alex approaching and were going to block his way if they didn't move. Not wanting to disturb the upperclassmen, Alex looked around to see if there was a way he could move around them, but the path to the training yard wasn't that broad and moving the dolly wasn't as easy as the shopkeeper had made it look. There was no other choice; he would have to ask the students to move out of the way.

  "Uhm, excuse me," Alex raised his voice slightly, trying to catch their attention.

  "Oh, sorry, mate, didn't see you there," one of the upperclassmen apologized as he tapped his friends to tell them to move out of the way.

  The upperclassmen all moved out of the way and let Alex pass, continuing their discussion as soon as he had passed them. Alex was surprised at how easy that had been. If this had been his old school back on Earth when he was a teen, there was no way they would have let him pass without pestering him, if they would have even heard him. But here, people respected someone who was working. Maybe that was because everyone was here for the same goal, to become an adventurer?

  The path to the training yard ended in a large courtyard Alex remembered seeing on his first night at the campus. From the courtyard, it split into different sections, like the path to the dorms had. On the left, Alex could hear the distinctive sound of metal clashing against each other and the thuds of what could only be arrows hitting wooden targets. Despite his view being blocked off by a large wall, he knew exactly what that area was, some kind of place to train in combat.

  Right in front of him, a large cloud of smoke rose from a chimney in the distance, and he wondered how he hadn't seen it before. There were similar sounds coming from there, though they sounded more rhythmic than the fighting that was clearly happening on the left. That had to be where the Support students practiced their crafts. The path leading to the right was strangely quiet compared to the other two directions. Given the clear use of the two other areas, Alex wondered whether the area to the right was for the Arcane students or the Restoration students, maybe even for both?

  Alex stood still on the intersection, unsure of which path to take. Mister Klynth had just said to take it to the training yard. When the shopkeeper had asked if he needed directions to it, Alex had refused, stating he knew where it was. After all, Professor Ghestalt had shown him that first day, but now he stood there, unsure where to go next. He should have just taken the directions from the shopkeeper. His hands started to sweat around the dolly handle.

  "Lost?" a voice suddenly asked from behind him. Despite the roughness of the voice, there was something feminine in it.

  Alex turned around to see who was talking to him and gasped for air as a massive Drake towered over him. The large lizard-like person had rough, red scales and looked somewhat familiar, though Alex couldn't place where he could have seen them before. Red accents on the cuffs of their uniform marked the Drake as a student of the Combat Discipline. He had to look physically up to see their eyes. The large Drake raised a single eyebrow as their tail swished in the air behind them, waiting for an answer from Alex.

  He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "Uhm, yeah, I'm... Mister Klynth said to deliver this to the training yard, but I... I'm not really sure exactly where to go."

  The large Drake walked past Alex and bent down to look at the crate he was transporting. "Hmm, let me take a look," they said as their eyes turned into a shimmer of blue light. A moment later they turned back to their normal shade of black. "Looks like it's new training weapons. Those go to the left. You can follow me; I was heading there anyway."

  "Thank you," Alex said, genuinely grateful the Drake had stopped beside him. "I'm Alex, by the way."

  "Hmm, oh, Lailya," the Drake said, continuing on her way to the left path.

  Alex pushed against the dolly to get it moving again and followed Lailya towards the left path. He was certain he hadn't seen her before, but she still looked familiar. Then it hit him, the Drake twins Aro had some kind of rivalry with. She looked very similar to them, just a lot larger and even more impressive.

  "Are you perhaps related to the Drake twins who stay in the general dorm?" Alex asked, hoping that wasn't offensive. He just had to know.

  "Hmm, oh, yeah, younger siblings." She spun her head to look at Alex. "They didn't cause you trouble, did they?"

  "No, no," Alex protested, shaking his head. He wanted to add that there seemed to be some rivalry between them and another upperclassman, but the Drake spoke back up before he could.

  "Don't know why they don't just come over to the Combat dorm. It's like they want to stay away from their big sister," Lailya said, a hint of sadness in her voice. Maybe bringing up the Drake twins was a bad idea.

  They continued to walk in silence for the rest of the way to the training area. The soft squeak of the dolly's wheel and the sounds of weapons clashing against each other that got louder with each step were the only things that broke the silence. Eventually, they reached the training area, and Lailya suddenly stopped Alex by holding out her arm, causing him to bump into the rough scales on her body. The large crate on top of the dolly almost fell off before she held it in place with her foot.

  Before Alex could ask why she had stopped him, two students rushed by the entryway, swords clashing against each other. They were only there for a brief moment, but that was enough to see that one of them was Aro. The Kahrn had a wide grin on his face as he forced the other student to defend, his sword moving with incredible speed. Even in that split second, Alex saw how strong the lion-boy was. It felt like he was looking at a cat playing with its food.