Shim and Cleo had led Alex around the church which was in fact the school, they shared the building and differed between times of holy rituals and learning.
Though the towns kids where, well, only three, the church did not mind cutting it’s time down to accommodate the learning for the children.
And even if they needed to meet on a day that the school was running, they would just gather in the town or even gather in the great tree library, as for Sharku the old man.
Alex had concluded that Sharku was part of the church as well as the head teacher for the school, he had many roles, but he was a good teacher nevertheless.
Shim and Cleo fished setting up the ‘school’ which mainly comprised of moving three desks, three chairs, and a chalk board, the layout was up the front of the church.
Alex was seated on the left, Shim was in the middle, and Cleo was on the right, all three desks and chairs lined up side to side.
In addition, Sharku the old man had taken the preaching pulpit, with the blackboard behind him along side some sticks of chalk, that was the so called humble ‘school’.
Alex had paid no mind though, if anything he stared around the room looking at the old architecture that plagued the church, and the colorful glass murals scatted room to room.
But the overall ‘school’ part wasn’t hard,
Alex just had been looking around and thinking about other subjects, and whenever Sharku tried to call upon him he would ace the question.
Math was a hard subject, but early Math was easy to understand so Alex with his prior life as Cael had aced this fact, Alex wouldn’t even pay attention and still ace the questions.
Granted Alex wasn’t a wiz at Math, but Sharku had started at the basics of Math so questions such as ’44+22′ or ’11 – 9 + 2′ or even ’16 + 4 – 10 – 6 + 11 – 4′ would come to be, but such questions where just the basics staked ontop of eachother.
Sharku quickly gave up on trying to pull Alex into the lesson as he was already displaying his understanding of the material, this is how Alex just started to look around the church.
Alex did remain respectful and stayed in his seat, but his mind and gaze wondered far off, and almost like an instant had passed the lesson was over.
This was mainly due to Cael handing his control to Sub-Alex, though he was a little scared to do so after finding the mist in his gate, but he didn’t mind.
So with the lesson over and the day setting
Cael jumped back into place, Alex was holding his heavy desk and was placing it down into a storage room.
“MAn, you really are a gifted Child at the Maths! Despite your Weird gate, you still brought flames back on the old man! I am sure he was Shocked by your understanding today!”
It was Shim who was holding his desk behind Alex, he placed it next to
Alex’s as he sighed out loud, it was clear that the lesson on Math had a boring effect on Shim.
And it was even clearer he was very exited to get out of here, this was because of Shim’s facial expressions and ques, even his voice played a part in Alex’s assessment, Alex then spoke;
“Don’t call me a gifted child, I am just like you guys, if anything Cleo is the gifted one… He knew so much about magic, I wonder where he learnt all of that…”
Cleo was standing behind the door, he had hesitated to go in after Shim, and after hearing the two talk about him was even more hesitant to go into the storage room.
Cleo lent his back on the wall listening into their conversation, Shim spoke patting his back on Alex;
“Ah, Cleo has learnt all of his magic stuff from where you learnt your Math, isn’t that correct?”
『 uh?
What?
』 Alex this time knew Shim had misunderstood something, so he didn’t panic as hard this time; 『 That is clearly wrong, I learnt math in my past life, so I doubt Cleo is from my past life, though something weird is up with him… 』 Alex held his surprise, this had happened one to many times, so he was wary of what exactly Shim meant, questioning Shim further;
“What do you mean by that? Can you explain in more detail..?”
Shim looked confused for a moment, before a flushed look of surprise came over him, he backed up slightly in worry, speaking;
“Ah, did you learn from your mother? I d-d-didn’t mean it like that, sorry, I thought your father, the man in the library would have taught you Math, ah, forgive me for assuming he was your source of knowledge!”
Shim’s understanding of Alex had risen significantly, and with that he started to admire Alex, not only was his gate a mystery.
But Alex had also moved Cleo’s entire personality, and went head to head with the old man, so Alex was making a lot of waves in Shim’s head.
Alex hadn’t really cared, Shim was wrong on both assumptions of his knowledge, but that was to be expected.
If anything the fact that Shim was talking about Roland was a bit strange in the first place, Alex thought;
『 If what Shim says is true then Cleo has met with Roland, or worse, Cleo
What right does an historian have with a boy in school teaching them magic?
Does Roland know about my black gate?
Shit, what are you hiding Roland?
What could be so important to teach Cleo magic and disregard me?
』
Alex had a slight bit of jealousy, but if anything it was fear and curiosity that swept over Alex, he yet again didn’t know anything about what
Roland was doing behind Alex’s back.
“No your fine Shim, it’s okay no need to worry I picked up my Math skills from a mix of everything..” Alex said, he didn’t want to lie, but he also didn’t want to tell the truth, so it was ‘a mix of everything’ as
Alex had said.
With the door creeping open Cleo slowly entered he had heard everything but didn’t say such, Alex also tried to hid his new gaze of him.
Shim spoke up as Cleo walked towards them carrying the desk, “Well, it’s time to go home now… Good first day at school, and we will see you again tomorrow Alex…”
Cleo placed the desk down, he also piped in, “Yes, good first day, s-see you again tomorrow..” Cleo said shyly, Alex saw right through it, although he was sure he was hiding something and it was only a mater of time before Cleo’s true colors where to spill.
“Yeah, good day..” Alex said as the three walked outside of the small storage room, they started to walk past the long chairs on the side of the church before they walked down the aisle.
Shim raised his hands above his head almost laying his head back into them as he relaxed, turning around Shim spoke to Alex;
“Hey, don’t you live outside of town? Are you going to walk all the way back?”
Alex didn’t really understand the question, “Yeah..” He said slowly, Shim turned back to the front,
“I was just wondering..”
With that they final made it to the large wooden doors, Sharku had been waiting at the doors, he held his book and some lose paper, speaking as the three stopped in front of him;
“Do anyone of you want me to walk you home? I can if you would like, though I have papers to do…”
They all had said ‘no’ politely, opening the large front doors, the setting sun gazed it’s light into the church, as a figure was standing just outside of the gate..