Classes droned on.
At that moment, our class was Classical History, and we were discussing the history of grimoires.
My body felt like shit and I was nearly about to collapse.
"...in a-many past grimoires—in truth, even fiction can be applied—most mystics relied on the reader’s interpretation."
I was not particularly interested in this topic, but only slightly.
"...when a reader or writer loved a story so much, it would manifest into reality. It’s the same in the mystic arts. When you emphasize your desire to conduct, say, a ritual, it would also manifest in reality..."
I was more interested in the next subject, which happened to be...
Masochism.
Upon the entrance of students, just by the doorframe, we were assaulted by a flock of bats while the instructor sharpened a blade.
The herd of bats, who seemed to refuse to be in an underground cave any longer, found release and freedom.
I scanned the classroom.
Masochism 101 was a subject for students that were mages or had mage titles.
That meant that I had to take this class.
However, I wasn’t even aware what my mage title was...
I sighed.
I was hoping to ask one of the teachers if they could identify it for me, but I hadn’t an idea on which instructor to choose.
At the Colegio, not all students of the school were mages. But that also meant that not all mages were students.
According to Horace "Four-Eyes" Jameson, the Colegio’s administrators would let their staff go out of the tower at times to find illegal mages.
I was one of the illegal mages they spotted.
Though, it was a rare occasion that they actually found one, so finding me was just pure luck. And by the words of Horace, I was his first find. Braham, who had been working for years at the Colegio, had only found two and that includes me.
This instructor had told us to refer to him by the moniker "Jibril."
Instructor Jibril was unnaturally tall, possibly nearly three meters in height. With a dark mullet that made him resemble a horse, half of his face was grotesque and seemed to be burnt off by acid or flame. It revealed the gory half of his mouth, showing off the purplish gums and rotten teeth—though, due to the darkness, his face was not very clear.
He was the very definition of a dead man.
But, unlike the decaying bodies underground, he was alive and walking.
He wore tattered clothing that looked like it was snatched from a dead man. His pinstripe vest was the only that looked clean enough, but his blazer was ripped in some parts.
To put it all together, he was a dead man walking.
The classroom was rather small and was about the size of my previous hospital room.
This one, however, was not as bleak. Instead, it would’ve been pitch black hadn’t there been a singular lit candle on the instructor’s desk.
It was almost akin to a cave due to the natural shapes of stone that made up the walls of the classroom.
Green vines run down the jagged and organic cobbled walls of the classroom of which was in some sort of basement.
I stared at Jibril curiously, who had a knife and was scraping the knife on a block of stone, as I seated myself.
Once the students had settled in on their seats, Jibril placed the knife on his table with a clink.
"Pupils—"
The death bell rang all of a sudden.
Another student mage had passed.
I myself expected a silence would befall us, but I should’ve known better.
My classmates continued to babble and chitchat. Their voices rang as high-pitched as the bell.
When the bell faded away, Jibril, sighing, grabbed the knife and, in a stabbing motion, pierced himself directly on his stomach.
The students gasped, about to panic.
Even someone like me who usually avoided meddling in other people’s matters had stood up instantly and was about to call the school’s security guards or staff, but...
"Pupils, calm yourself.
"This is your first lesson."
In the past classes, Jibril wasn’t around so Masochism 101 was replaced with Advisory Hour where we learned about the history of the school and its goals.
So, us students weren’t aware of the instructor’s eccentricness...
The pupils looked at him with expressions of terror, mouths agape.
Jibril stumbled down as though he had just only felt the excruciating pain of being stabbed—
"I don’t feel anything."
The words that came next had contradicted my assumption.
Jibril reached out for the drawer of his desk and pulled out a metal tin of cookies. I knew it was for cookies since it had the logo of a brand with images of butter cookies.
One of the students winced at the sight of it.
"...huh? What’s he doing?" the student beside me uttered.
"He’s hungry, maybe?" another quipped.
With one hand pressing on the wound, the other hand clasped the tin’s lid and opened it.
"...ah, generational trauma."
Inside were sewing materials such as sewing needles, threads, as well as staplers and its respective staples.
He took one of the needles that were already threaded that was protruding from a skein of thick, multiple-twined thread.
Then...
With the students’ utterances of shock, he punctured his skin with the needle, then stretched it out so the thread fully went through.
As he moaned in pain (or ecstasy?) and pulled his head away with a hiss, he did this multiple times, and each time the students muttered out their terrified surprise, until the wound was fully closed.
In minutes, when the wound was finally sewed shut, creamy white liquid that I assumed was pus began spilling out of the holes where the needle pierced the skin. The wound dried out at the same time.
"A mage rots quicker than the average dead man."
His voice was deep. It reminded me slightly of a pirate.
"Your first lesson is..."
Jibril waddled to straighten his back and looked to be in pain.
But his face did not show that.
In fact, he looked euphoric, as though he...
"To forget the pain.
"And learn to love it."