My Bothersome Life

How Did My Situation Get Worse Than Before?

"This school is the most top ranking education facility for young people like you!" Christopher exclaimed.

A weird fusion of the new and the old gave off odd combinations of automatic glass doors and glossy marble tiles mixed with rows of antiques. The exquisite golden velvet wallpaper plastered the wide hallways while expensive oil paintings were found very few metres we walked.

I was impressed by the school's efforts to decorate the school as an expensive hobby for the rich as they had mixed in all the luxurious furnishings throughout the times.

"How many students are within the school?" I asked when I noticed that the large facility was void of students.

I could not recall seeing any student during the duration of the tour. It was odd how empty the school was during one of its busiest hours.

"There are about ten students per grade level in this school. I am your homeroom teacher that will help you adjust into the school properly." Christopher led us into the deeper parts of the school.

I tried not to face Luke's enthusiasm as his eyes sparkled with excessive pride and excitement. Luke struggled to keep his poker face with a big smile plastered over his angelic face.

I was sure that if he always appeared with a grin, he would gather a massive number of followers with his innocent appearance. There was no one more handsome than a good-looking person who smiled at you.

"First of all, I'll give you your timetables for the remaining year of your grade level. It'll be hard catching up to rest of the students but as long as you work hard, I feel like you will be able to mingle well with your peers soon." Christopher handed us a thick document that contained our timetables.

I wondered why a timetable would be as thick as a slapstick until I unfortunately glanced at the outline.

My inhumanely looking timetable reflected my devastated eyes that desperately wanted a break from studying. I had died before I could enjoy my life after writing the SATs. It seemed that I would never get to enjoy my life while I almost sobbed at my new schedule.

Timetable

6AM: Breakfast                                                           

7AM: History                                                                       

8AM: Math                                                   

9AM: Mana Training                                                         

10AM: Language Class                                               

11 AM: Piano                                                   

12PM: Etiquette

1PM: Lunch Break

2PM: Biology

3PM: Additional Instrument

4PM: Physics   

5PM: Chemistry   

6PM: Physical Education

7PM: Dinner

8PM: Accounting

9PM: Geography

10PM: Economics

11PM: Computer Courses

12AM:  Free Time

My free time started at 12AM! I wondered when I would have time to even sleep! I remembered from my past life that children at a young age needed a sufficient amount of sleep to have their brains properly developed!

In a study, it was proven that children in Finland performed better than other countries because they had the shortest hours of class and homework.

However, it appeared that the people in this world never conducted the same study as they overwhelmed its students with the longest classes.

I could not imagine how much homework I would get from all of these classes. I predicted it was going to be tedious to go over everything I had despised in my former life.

I sighed as I had a miserable feeling that Luke would drag me out to "extra study sessions" in the free time period with the lure of using his luxurious desserts.

I couldn't complain about being in the S-class now during the past several of days. I guessed this was what happened when you didn't know how privileged you were. In S-class, I got to eat dinner with my family, but I only had one hour breaks in the hell-like schedule.

I contemplated whether I would sanely graduate kindergarten in my right mind as I slowly lost my bright smile while I despondently studied for my SATs.

I hit both of my cheeks to try to stay positive as I overwhelmed myself with negative thoughts.

"When does this schedule start?" I reluctantly asked as I determined that this new schedule would not define who I would become.

"Tomorrow," Christopher passed me some ice to help with the pain of my red cheeks.

I was losing my sight of a life with manga, light novels and anime that drifted away from me every second I remained in the intense high-ranked school.

I convinced myself that I would not faint when I was losing sight of my daydreams of taking long naps in a plain kindergarten.

The good times of a wholesome childhood slammed in front of me like a guillotine that killed dreams.

I was led into cafeteria after several detours that had a small café. I found cute furnishings of adorable small wooden tables and cute white laced chairs that had their heights adjusted for its use mainly purposed towards young children. The warm reddish brown floors gave off a comfy and homey feel like it was trying to fill in the space from separating young children from their families.

The glass walls allowed the sunshine to tumble through into the café as it pleasantly lighted up the entire atmosphere.

However, the café was similarly empty like the rest of the facility as there were no signs of any staff. There was a long flat tablet on every table that grabbed my interest after I studied the refreshing café.

"What's that?" I asked while pointing at the tablets.

"You order food from the tablets and the food will appear on your table immediately on the metal circle on each table." Luke answered.

No wonder I didn't know why there were no staff. This world seemed to have some magical properties that my past life didn't have, otherwise the immediate appearance of the two worlds looked very similar to each other.

Afterwards, we were led to the music classroom where Christopher asked us to choose one instrument that we wanted to play for the rest of kindergarten. Luke immediately chose the violin and forced me to choose the same.

I did play the violin in my past life and it was pretty miserable to your ears when you got to the higher pitches with the wrong tune. However, since I had the experience, I didn't argue with choosing the violin as I concluded that it wouldn't be as bad as choosing another instrument that I would have to learn from scratch.

We exited the music room as Christopher gave us a tour of all the remaining classrooms for academic learning purposes. They were duplicates of the S-class classroom in my old school. Why was I not surprised?

After exploring all the normal academic classrooms, we led into the dark spiralled stairs into the basement to finally arrive in front of the mana training room. Christopher opened up the metal steel door that led to a huge open space of endless white walls and floors.

"This is where you will learn how to manipulate and control mana!" Christopher started to explain.

"This is a class that you didn't do at your old school, so look forward to it!" Christopher let us look around the mana training room before we were escorted back up to the surface.

While I explored the fascinating endless room that spanned into infinity, Christopher yelled that we had free time to look around until 6PM to meet back at the cafeteria.

I felt faint after exploring the ancient, but well-maintained building as I blinked frequently to keep myself awake.

While Luke was glancing at the fancy paintings, I retraced my steps to the glass greenhouse that I saw during the tour. I avoided Luke's observant line of sight as I stifled my emerging happiness when I noticed a comfy bed in the middle of the greenhouse.

The picturesque view of blooming flowers surrounding a white sheeted bed left a great impression in my memory.

'Is this a painting?' I appreciated the lovely view.

I tried opening the door to the greenhouse to see that it wasn't locked! I went inside to lay down on bed almost immediately. The king-sized bed had white fluffy pillows with soft white blankets. I flopped onto the bed with a big slump as I embraced the cosiness enveloping me inside with nice fragrant aroma coming from the flowers.

'Ahh. So this was what paradise was like~ .' I relaxed as I closed my eyes in peace.

I opened my eyes when I couldn't ignore a feeling of a piercing stare urged me to get up while interrupting my sentiment of harmony with the luscious flowers.

It took a few flutters of my orange-speckled pupils to widen up by shock while I admired the mirage of a child standing in front of me. The child that was around the age of four with bright purple amethyst eyes with flowing hazelnut splattered hair wore a square patterned red and beige blazer with a white shirt combined with a silk red tie. The formal beige knee-length coloured shorts with shiny dark brown shoes made me thought that the uniform must have cost a lot.

Maybe from I was struck with a loss of words from just staring at him due to his carefully sculpted face that I didn't immediately notice that he held a long sword in one of his hands.

A highly-decorated katana sword in shiny blue casing with gold and white embellishments bloomed like vigilantly engraved lilies.

The sword was resembled an ornament more than a weapon for practical use. I respected the well-made piece of craftsmanship with the tiny details finely making it look pleasing to the eye.

Maybe I should have noticed the oddness that such a young child possessed a weapon that could kill. A sword that possessed hints of regularly being sharpened with its fierce shine around the deathly edges.

I clasped my hands together as my eyes sparkled with pure appreciation. The tint of tears in my eyes created an adorable silhouette as I asked, "Wow~ This sword looks so prewttty. Can I try holding onto it?"

I could try holding onto the beautiful weapon while taking the dangerous item away from the child who probably didn't know the purpose of the fine ornament he held. Who knew what a young child could do with such a weapon?

The boy handed me his sword with no hesitation which I try to receive with both of my hands.

However, I barely got to touch the sword for more than a second as I was surprised by its heavy weight. My fingers and arms instantly ached from overexerting them from the brief second.

The sword clattered onto the glassy floors as I dropped the precious heirloom onto the floor the next second.

I was deceived by my initial impression of its weight as the young child had held the sword with quite a bit of ease. I could not find a single sign of the toddler struggling as he casually walked around lightly like he held nothing.

'How could a small sword be this heavy?' I detected all the heavy metals like pure diamonds and gold infused into the sword. The metallic silver and white gold mix gleamed with its sharp edges.

Wait. Wasn't I trying to take his sword away from him? When I was able to drift out of my own thoughts, the child picked up the sword with ease and placed it into his carrier on his waist.

'This child does look experienced,' I convinced myself as I chose to remain ignorant that a young toddler held a deadly sword.

Maybe it was better to just leave it with him, I deluded myself.

To distract the doll-like creature in front of me, I decided to introduce myself. "Hello! I'm Rika!"

"I know, you're the person whose partner is Luke." The child responded quite indifferently.

"How do you know Luke?" I asked curiously as I knew that Luke was new to this school as much as I was.

"Luke's family and mine has been friends for a long time. We used to be very close before we drifted apart a little when Luke failed to get into this school because of his partner," The boy threw me a fleeting accusing glance, which I somehow discerned couldn't be any good news.

No wonder Luke wanted to get into this school so badly. It was because all his friends were there. I felt apologetic to Luke, but I'm glad I didn't get into this school in the beginning.

I was thankful that I was able to be with my new parents or else I wouldn't have the chance to know about their warmth that would encourage me to survive with this crazy schedule without falling ill all the time.

I stopped overthinking as I sunk back into the bed to relieve my incoming waves of stress when I recalled the insane schedule I would go through tomorrow.

'Let's go back to sleep for now,' I started to relax in the scenery in front of me.

"Alex, have you seen Rika?" Luke came in with tired frown when I just started to enjoy myself while I bathed in the warm sunlight.

Alex pointed to the bed while I quickly pretended that I was already asleep. I knew that I couldn't trust Alex after he said that he used to be close with Luke! What regret! I could have escaped to somewhere else by then I became lured in with Luke's bribes.

Luke walked towards the bed as he yelled, "Rika, I know you're awake. Stop pretending to be sleeping."

It was creepy how Luke was way too capable while Alex emitted a similar aura as him. I discovered a combo of two strangely mature chibi ikemen that gathered together to create a bouquet.

I stopped laying down and sprung up from the bed as I asked with annoyance, "What do you want?"

Luke lightly flicked me my forehand as he frowned, "It's already 5:50. We need to head back to the cafeteria."

I was dragged into the cafeteria to eat dinner with Christopher. Surprisingly, the food melted into my mouth with the carbonara pasta with bread and fruits for dessert. I couldn't stop eating until I found my disappointing empty plate.

When my empty plates disappeared when I put them towards the center of the table while I followed Luke, Christopher announced that he would lead us to the dormitory like building.

I thought we would enter one of those fancy rooms with crystal chandeliers and fluffy huge beds, but we were led to a basement with rock walls and stairs resembling the medieval times.  Christopher led us to a room with rock floors, an old wooden door, and straw beds. The only thing that looked modern was the uniforms hung on the hanger and our backpacks that contained all the necessary materials needed for studying.

I cringed when I found the washroom was unfortunately the same with the toilet resembling the ancient times with only a wooden pail to take a shower from the water that came from a well. I faced the dark well composed of rocks right beside the room where you had to pull the rope to gather the water from another wooden pail.

I honestly felt like crying. I grabbed Luke's hand for comfort and lost all hope for the future. Just to make sure we weren't in the wrong place, I asked, "Are we supposed to live here?"

I stuffed my tears that seemed to pour out any moment as Christopher answered with a generous smile, "Well, it depends on you. As soon as you accumulate enough points, you can 'buy' things to upgrade your rooms. Points are granted based on the results of your exams and tests."

I guessed this was the solution to motivate young children to study in those insane schedules. Planting a trauma in these children's lives was what they unfortunately used. Even I had to admit that it worked at least for me because today was the day that I swore to myself that I would study harder to get to at least sleep in a decent bed.

It was an effective strategy for children who weren't used to living like the historical old times.