Act I
"Hello? Is anyone here?" I tried calling out for anyone but, it seems the front lobby was empty. There weren't any guards inside the academy, but I did bump into a couple of students from the last year's batch and they pointed me towards this building.
The lobby was small, a circular desk was clerkless as I approached it, but then I saw something that proved me wrong. I looked at the time on my caller, [4:07] after seeing the time, I looked back towards a clerk lady.
She was sleeping on her desk, it was a normal scene seeing workers sleeping on their stations. Especially those that took the night shift, but seeing them almost naked while they sprawled on their chair wasn't normal.
The young woman had her blouse opened, her bra unclipped while her undergarment was hanging on the edge of the monitor at her desk. It was cute, a simple cotton thing with stripes and a charming bear logo.
I moved to her side, and checked her neck. She had a pulse and from how she's breathing she was very much deeply asleep. I wonder who stripped her, she didn't smell of alcohol or sex, so. . . Then I noticed something, as I followed her hand and saw a small silently vibrating thing in the shape of a small mushroom.
I can feel my cheeks turning red, and then I looked at her monitor, and touched its screen. It came out of sleep mode and then showed me a kind of pornography, a lady riding a boy while sucking on another boy.
I paused. Then a thought came to me as I pulled my camera and started taking pictures of a few of the clerk herself and another at her back while the adult film was playing and then I turned off the monitor.
I took her undergarment, from the edge of her screen and started fixing her outfit, first by clipping her bra, then buttoning her blouse and finally removing the adult toy from her hand, turning it off and placing it inside a drawer.
After everything was done, she was still asleep, her mouth open and a bit of drool was leaking from her light brown lips. It almost made me laugh, but I stifled it as I gently shook her awake.
"Ma'am? Ma'am?" I kept saying, as she stirred, then she looked at me confused.
"Yawn* Hello? Are you a student?" She asked, her voice a little strained from sleep.
"Yes I am ma'am, I wanted to ask if this is the student guidance office." I told her, as I showed her the brochure and its direction for new students to visit the guidance office after arriving at the academy.
Act II
I was led into an empty office, and then asked to wait. So I laid down on a couch, as the lights were on. From what that perverted clerk had said it was the policy of the guidance building for every light to be on, even if no one was using the offices. I wonder how much the utility bill the academy pays the city, or is all funded?
With that idle thought I started reading the brochure some more. After reading it twice, I left it on the coffee table on my side. After that I took out my camera, ignoring the new pictures of the perverted clerk. Eventually I reached the group of pictures of the orphanage siblings I grew up with in this life.
Many had found a good home, some even visited me a few times. I was happy for them especially for the nut cases, it took awhile but I think I helped them enough. Atleast they found work in the city, hopefully I can see them again after I become a hero.
I felt my smile as I imagined how they would look at me as I'm wearing some kind of spandex. . . Although thinking about it now, not many city heroes actually wore any traditional hero clothes, most wore ornamented renaissance armor or some kind of sci-fi battle suit thing that reminds me of the man with a reactor heart.
"Bell* Sorry, sorry, I didn't expect anyone would come this early." A soft voice spoke, as the bell to the glass door of the office opened. What I saw was a petite lady, she was a bit taller than me but I can see from her aged eyes that she was already in her thirties.
"It is fine ma'am, please take your time to set up." I told her with a smile as we met each other's eyes, as she placed down her handbag on her office desk.
"Oh, aren't you a young gentleman?" She said, while muffling a laugh by covering her red painted lips. She was very slight, I mean even with her office blazer I can still see how thin her limbs were.
I waited for a handful of moments as she accepted my offer, fixing her bag and taking out a few documents, after that she started typing on her monitor and then she started printing a few things before she approached, sitting across from me.
"I am Lylithe Knight, I would be your guidance counselor for the duration of your stay in Dawn academy. . ." She started but then an uncertain pause appeared.
"Before we start, you should know I will be using a dream essence, called the charm of truth during our conversation, and that everything will be recorded for documentation." Her voice was serious, her light almost flirtatious candance was gone, as she sat stiff infront of me.
I gave it a moment of thought, but then what is there for me to hide? My Dream name? Well eventually it'll come out, if not here, then I might accidentally tell it to a classmate in passing. . . Everything else was something people should know, in the end I smiled and nodded.
"I'm fine with it, I just have one question, how available is this documentation?" This made her pause, and looked at me confused.
"It depends on the Dawn City Curator office, they would either make this documentation public, or give it a ranked restriction." She answered, it was the same answer as Constable Emmer had told me so I nodded. That sounded fair enough, I mean I've seen those restrictions before, I think it was one of the reasons I got over my adult film addictions.
I mean this era doesn't even have dirty magazines. It's weird that they don't even censor anything, the city just has really good information control, for example the library I used had computers but each one was restricted depending on the level of the library card you used, and it was the same way with books fiction or not, educational or dirty.
"I understand, please we can start counselor Knight, I have no objections." I told her, it made her smile as she took out a small crystal ball and a video camera.
Act III
"Alright, with all those general questions out of the way we can begin with your experience of the first Dream Challenge." Counselor Knight was more relaxed now as we both sat down, each of us a cup of coffee in our hands. I gave her a nod telling her to ask her questions, to finish the questioner she was holding.
"Good, good. . . First question, were you a human in your Dream challenge?" Huh? I paused, was there another option? I sat there in silence as she looked at me waiting.
"We can ignore this. . ." Counselor Knight started but I interrupted her, feeling heat on my cheeks.
"Yes! I was a human. . . is that not common?" I asked her as I stared at her, a little shocked that you can challenge the first Dream as something else. . . Could I have become some kind of animal or did elves exist?
Beep* The glass ball on the table made a sound as its color turned green. Counselor Knight looked at as I did the same after that she smiled and then started laughing with mirth.
"Ha ha ha! Yes, challenging the first Dream as a Human is common, but there have been records of Aspirants challenging the first Dream as beasts or very rarely in two cases a tree and a patch of flowers." That is just, wow. . . I'm not sure if I got lucky or unlucky for not getting a unique Dream challenge.
"Alright for the second question, did you kill a human during your Challenge?" I didn't pause or even take a moment to think of the words I would use, as I shook my head.
"No, I did not kill any humans." Beep* The glass ball turned green and beeped once before turning back to normal clear glass, this made counselor Knight smile.
"That's good, you're lucky. . ." That was all she said before she started writing on her questioner.
After that we continued on, as she asked me of my Aspects and Arcana, I explained to her what mine were and then after that she asked me about my Dream Challenge and after recounting what I remembered we took a break.
"Am I your only client, Counselor Knight? Or does a personal counselor really mean that I have you all to myself~" I hid my mouth as I cringed, it was my first time trying to flirt and it hurts! How the hell did those people in movies do it so naturally?!
There was a moment the room grew quiet, my eyes gazing at the back of the lithe counselor as her back turned stiff as she refilled our coffee cups. Please don't be angry, please don't be angry. I prayed in hope, as she turned around and gave me a forced smile before sitting across from me again.
"Ha ha ha, no. I would be counseling other students as well, but for now you are my only client atleast until your batch starts filling up for this year." She said after a forced laugh, I nodded along pretending to not have tried flirting earlier.
What did I expect? I'm still the sexless virgin from my past life, that didn't change. Of course I had a new childhood, spent it with children learning to be more social but. . . that was it, I only learned how to be friendly again, I still don't know how to make jokes or get pretty women to like me.
I smiled, as we talked off the books. The recordings were turned off for a while as she asked me to share my experience to tell her what I feared most during the challenge, the anxieties I had and eventually I opened up about the regret I have for treating everyone that helped me inside the first dream challenge as illusions.
Act IV
"Haaa. . ." I gave out a satisfied breath, my chest felt light as I walked out of the guidance building, the day was bright as the light touched my pale skin.
I started walking, a new file in my hand, I just need to give this to the registration office, and according to Counselor Knight, they'll give me my boarding room keys and directions.
I smiled, it wasn't my first time living in a boarding house, but it is the first time I'll be living in a fancy university's Dormitories. I was looking around as I relaxed my walk, there were other people around, most were young as they jogged or walked their dogs.
Others were much older as they walked with a casual pace, as they wore fancy suits or professional dresses. That was when a reminder struck me once again, there were barely a handful of boys exercising in the morning or men in fancy suits.
I took another breath as I sat down, it wasn't hard to notice how few men exist in this new world of mine, especially after reading that during the century war. The nation called Yamato had developed a weapon called the zoonotic sex flu. . . using mosquitoes as carriers, they infected the whole world in weeks.
With it everyone with an XY chromosome died or bedridden sick, and every woman who caught the flu had become carriers. It took decades for the rest of the world to make vaccines but even then, a lot of countries suffered from the aftermath of losing so many people. Yamato's last middle finger was truly painful, before they were annexed by the last red country.
Even with the vaccines the biological weapon did something to everyone's DNA, even in its dormant state the ZS flu virus had still kept the male population low.
" Only two out of eight children, were male the rest were female. . . I still don't know how humanity survived having women leading for so long. But it seemed to be working, atleast we proved Einstein wrong. We still used iron to kill each other rather than sticks and stones." With those words I stood up and looked towards a building of glass and white painted stone.