It’s A Wonderful Life - Volume 2 Chapter 10 2.1

Hundreds of students were gathered in the large auditorium, sitting in rows upon rows. At the lowest point, in the middle of the room, right in front of the stage, sat the freshmen. The uniforms blazers were colored a dark red with black linings, the school-crest in silver on the right chest, the girls wearing kneelength black skirts and the boys black slacks. As they were only freshmen, they only had the one silver pin on their collars.

Up on the stage stood a proud old man, the Headmaster of the school, delivering a speech that only the freshmen were actually listening to.

In the middle of this mess of new students sat Ira with a bored look on his face. The body he was possessing was once more average. Brown hair and brown eyes, together with the most common magical element in this world, that of the Earth. After his leave was over, he was finally asigned a new Host, this one hopefully better then the last one. He wasn’t holding his breath though.

The mission this time was drastically different from the last one. There was no world that was ending and his new Host was in no danger from death, unless she screwed spmething up royally. As evident from him possessing a body, they were once more in the Tutorial Mode.

They were in a world of magic, but monsters and demons didn’t exist here. No, this was a love story.

Unfortunately, the heroine died before it could begin.

So his Host had taken over the heroine’s body and her mission was really very simple. Make sure the story played out as it was supposed to.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The heroine was Eliza, a fifteen year old girl from a small village in the country-side. She grew up with a single mother and had to work hard every day in order for them to make it through the years and she never knew her father, as he had died before she was even born. It was the classic sad backstory.

But this girl had something incredibly rare in this world. The magic element of Light.

At the age of fourteen, all subjects of the Kingdom were required to take a test. This test revealed if you had the ability of magic, and if so, what sort. If it was rare or powerful enough, then no matter your standing in society, you were offered a scholarship to the most prestigous (and only) academy of magic in the land. Only a fool would turn it down. It was a free ticket to a better life. Even if you did poorly in academics or you couldn’t even read, as long as you learned to use your magic in some capacity, you were essentially set for life.

For nearly everyone in the Kingdom, it was a dream come true to be offered a scholarship.

Eliza, the heroine, was like all others when it came to this. Once given the scholarship after her test, she immediately started learning how to read and write, something she had never had the time for before.

But, sadly, distaster struck.

Bandits came to the village and while trying to protect her mother, Eliza was kidnapped. She was a young pretty woman, why wouldn’t she be?

The bandits headquarters were in the mountains above the village, so that was were they headed. But while on the road, they were attacked by a pair of bears and in the terror, Eliza was dropped and as the mountain was very steep, she rolled down kilometers of it. By the time she slowed to a stop, she was already dead.

During no part of this tragedy had she used her magic.

It was at this time that his Host had jumped in.

When his Host transmigrated into Eliza’s body, the body was automatically healed of all major wounds and the heart started beating again. Everything pretty much fixed itself, aside from a few minor bruises, scratches and broken bones. But no life-threatening injuries remained.

Sadly, because the body he was possessing was utterly average, Ira hadn’t been able to be physically by his Host’s side until they finally started school. This body, after all, came from an average family in an averaged sized town. No tragedy had ever occured to it, aside from an outbreak of a plague a few years back that had taken the lifes of some of his family members. But the plague had taken family members from everyone, so that was still completely average.

Now, here they were, about to begin their first year of study at Hope Academy.

It was such a drag.

Sighing, Ira leaned back in his chair and returned his focus to the stage. The President of the Student Council was in the middle of another boring speech. This was the man that had Eliza not died, she would have eventually, after an unnecessarily dramatical journey, married.

The Second Prince of the Kingdom, and the future King.

The speech was concluded to a thunderous applause, probably just because he was a prince, as the speech had been downright dull. And a dull speech never got appluaded like that.

Ira stood with the rest of the student body after the torture was finally over with. He stretched his body and followed after the other freshmen as they departed from the auditorium. Following along behind them, he caught sight of his Host walking a few meters ahead of him. She was a golden haired woman with a pair of deep green eyes. Despite the fact that she had worked at a farm her entire life, she still looked dainty and fragile, and her hands were completely free of any callouses.

It was either due to her magic or the fact that she was a protagonist.

Ira, on the other hand, came from minor nobility, so he only had the callouses that came from spending a lot of time writing. Apparently, this body had aspired to be an author before it slipped in the bath and died, which was when Ira had oh so conveniently taken over.

He had read the boy’s works. It wasn’t anywhere close to good.

In fact, it was so bad it was actually funny.

Ira had, like all the new students, gotten a packet from the school which contained a map, information and key to his room in the dorms, and a schedule as well as a list of books necessary for his classes.

He used the map now to find his way to his dorm.

As he was possessing a boy and his Host a girl, they, unfortunately, couldn’t room anywhere near to each other. The school took its students chastity very seriosuly, mostly because the majority of the students came from good families and had arranged marriages ahead of them. Therefore, the girl and boy dorms were on completely different ends of the schoolgrounds.

When Ira reached the house (mansion) his room was in, he entered it dutifully behind a gang of other students, both new and old. One thing that he enjoyed about this school was the fact that nobody had to share rooms, unless of course, they were a scholarshup student. So Ira would have a whole room and bathroom to himself.

His room was on the third floor, though the building had five. After ascending the stairs, he had to walk quite a bit in the halls before he reached his door, where a silver plaque had this body’s name on it.

Ira shoved a silver key into an equally silvery lock (this school really liked silver) and opened the door.

The room was comfortably sized, containing a bed and bedside table next to one of the walls. There was a desk under a window, a drawer and closet at the foot of the bed and two bookcases on the same wall as the entrance door. On another wall there was another door, presumably leading to the aforementioned bathroom.

In the middle of the floor was a grey carpet and the walls were the same dark red color as the school uniform.

Ira loved it.

It held everything he needed for a quiet and peaceful school life.

On the carpet in the middle of the room stood two giant trunks. They contained his luggage, one of them filled with nothing but books.

Immediately, Ira began the process of unpacking. He had brought everything he needed with him, and uniforms according to his measurement were already in the closet. His own clothes he put in the drawer, like his underwear and socks, as well pajamas and the clothes he had brought from home, comfortable rather than fashionable.

Finished with his collection of clothes, more then he honestly thought he needed, but this body’s mother was a force to reckoned with, Ira moved on to the books. The books (among which was his school books) managed to completely fill one of the bookcases and the other was left empty for yhe lack of more things. But Ira had the sneaking suspicion that this was going to be a long mission, much longer than his last one, and he would probably have time to fill it later as time passed by.

The trunks only just managed to fit under the bed and Ira had the unsettling feeling he probably wouldn’t ever manage to get them out from under there. They seemed to be quite thoroughly stuck.

As he was finally done with all that needed to be finished before school started the very next day, Ira took off his uniform and hung it up on the closet to be worn the next day. Instead, he dressed in his pajamas, which were a light blue color, and went to explore his bathroom.

Like his bedroom, it was of decent size, not very big or very small, but still gave off a feeling of style.

There was a white bath taking up a whole side of it, with a showerhead above it, an ordinary toilet and a sink, above which there was a silver-framed mirror. Truly, it was a very good bathroom, containing everything Ira needed. And he wouldn’t even have to share it with anyone.

When he saw the bath, Ira just couldn’t resist it.

It was like it called to him.

After his bath, Ira brushed his teeth, did his business with the toilet, and turned off all of ghe lights. He saw just fine in the darkness and found his way to his bed easily, slipping under the covers without a sound.

Once in bed, Ira stared up at the white ceiling.

In his mind, he could see as his Host settled into her own room, whoch she shared with another scholaship student a year above her. She unpacked her meager belongings, and then started up a conversation with her roommate.

Eliza (What? They had already been in this world for a couple of months, Ira couldn’t be expected to still remember her name.) sat on one of the two beds in the room as they spoke, the other student situated on her own bed. His Host seemed genuinly interested in her roommate, which Ira reluctantly supposed was a point in her favor.

Ira watched as she talked about her (Eliza’s) childhood and how traumatic it had been. How it was her hope that she would do well at school so she could provide a better life for her mother. Ira didn’t care if that was the truth or not, but there was no need to start crying while talking about it.

That was a little over the top.

His Host seemed content to talk long into the night, but Ira actually wanted to get some sleep, so he stopped paying any particular attention to what his Host was doing and closed his eyes. He hummed a little melody to himself and let his mind slow down. He had the feeling that there was something he should remember, something about a promise on his last mission, but really, it had been so long, he couldn’t be expected to remember every insignificant detail.

Well, it wasn’t like it was important.