Five minutes later, the tray was completely clean. Not a single crumb remained. Even the bruised apple cores were gone.
Kaizen rubbed his stomach. It was not actually full. It just felt confused about what had just happened to it.
'I need to hike up a mountain today. A tall one. I need calories. I need to stockpile body fat like a bear preparing for winter hibernation.'
He stood up and marched back to the counter with renewed determination.
The bored woman looked up from her oatmeal pot. Her name tag read in bold letters: HELGA. She had arms thick enough to strangle a bear and a face that clearly said she had seen everything in life and hated absolutely all of it.
"Back already?" Helga grunted, her ladle hovering over the oatmeal pot like a weapon. "What, you got a tapeworm or something? Students usually do not come back for seconds of the slop."
"I have a really big day ahead of me," Kaizen said, trying his best to look charming and failing miserably. His smile came out looking more like a grimace. "Lots of walking. Need fuel."
"Hmph." She eyed him suspiciously from head to toe, taking in his thin frame. "You look like a twig that would snap in a strong breeze. You better eat every single bite. I do not tolerate waste in my cafeteria."
"I promise," Kaizen nodded with complete seriousness, placing his hand over his heart. "Every single bite. I will lick the bowl clean if necessary."
She softened her expression slightly, which was barely noticeable but still there. She slapped an extra-large scoop of oatmeal onto his bowl and tossed him two more eggs without being asked.
"Going somewhere?" she asked while glancing at the backpack sitting on the seat behind him. "Hiking?"
"Visiting family," Kaizen lied smoothly without hesitation. "Just for the weekend."
Helga nodded slowly, her harsh expression softening by another fraction.
"Family is good. Important. Make sure you call your mother when you get there. Mothers worry."
She turned back to her pot.
Kaizen felt a weird pang in his chest at the mention of mothers, but he pushed it down. He took his second tray of food and sat back down at his corner table.
He grabbed a cup of hot, free coffee that was black as tar and tasted like burnt rubber mixed with dirt, then started eating again with mechanical efficiency.
Slurp.
The cafeteria doors suddenly burst open with a loud bang that made several students jump.
A scrawny young man with thick glasses and an armful of books came running inside at full speed. He was panting heavily like he had just sprinted across the entire campus, his tie completely askew and hanging off to one side, looking like he was five seconds away from a complete nervous breakdown.
He sprinted directly to the counter, books nearly tumbling out of his arms.
"Miss Helga!" he squeaked in a high-pitched voice that cracked with panic. "Where is he?! Where is the Professor?!"
WHACK.
Helga did not even turn around from her pot. She backhanded the guy on the head with her ladle in one smooth, practiced motion.
"Quiet!" she barked. "People are eating! Stop screaming like a banshee in my cafeteria, you twig!"
"Ow!"
The scrawny man rubbed his head while adjusting his glasses that had gone crooked from the impact.
"I am sorry! But he is missing again! The Vice Principal is looking everywhere for him! The council meeting starts in twenty minutes and he is the keynote speaker!"
Helga let out a long, suffering sigh that spoke of years of dealing with this exact problem. She pointed her ladle toward the far, dark corner of the cafeteria where the morning light had not quite reached yet.
"He has been sitting there since three in the morning. Drank four entire pots of coffee and ate half a loaf of bread. Also muttered something about the futility of existence and that our conciousness is an alien existence that control our nervous system."
Kaizen perked up immediately. He looked toward where the ladle was pointing, curiosity getting the better of him.
Slumped over a table in the shadows was a man.
He was wearing a pristine, charcoal-gray three-piece suit that probably cost more than Kaizen's entire life savings, which was now zero. So technically, Kaizen was right. His hair was silver-streaked and messy but somehow still stylish in that effortless way that rich people managed.
He was currently drooling on the table while muttering something unintelligible to a salt shaker that he was holding like it was a precious artifact.
"Oh thank god," the scrawny young man actually started weeping tears of relief. He rushed over to the shadowy corner, nearly tripping over a chair.
"Professor! Professor! Wake up! Please wake up!"
The sleeping man stirred slowly like a bear coming out of hibernation. He lifted his head with great effort.
He was devastatingly handsome in that unfair way that some people just were, with a sharp jawline and heavy-lidded eyes that looked simultaneously exhausted and deeply amused by something only he could see.
"Mmm?"
The man mumbled. His voice was deep, smooth, and unmistakably aristocratic British, but slurred with the elegant quality of a functional alcoholic.
"Is it... the apocalypse already? Did the Abyss finally consume us? Or did the secret organisation came for me already?"
"It is Saturday, sir! And you have the Council Meeting! You are the keynote speaker! You are extremely late!"
The scrawny assistant grabbed the Professor's arm with both hands and tried desperately to hoist him up. The Professor was complete dead weight, smiling goofily at the ceiling like he had just heard the funniest joke in the universe.
"Ah, Saturday..." the Professor drawled slowly, each word dripping with theatrical despair.
"The sacred day of rest promised by ancient texts. And yet, here we are... shackled by the heavy chains of bureaucracy and the tyranny of scheduled meetings."
He stood up with a groan that sounded like it came from his soul, swaying slightly on his feet like a tree in the wind. He towered over his tiny assistant by at least a foot.
Students scattered around the cafeteria stopped eating to watch the spectacle unfolding before them.
"Who is that?" someone whispered.
"Is he actually drunk at five in the morning?"
"He is kind of hot though..."
"Ugh, that is him! The professor with no students!"
"Girl, he is an Axiomancer, what do you expect..."
"Tsk, tsk. Professor of the most useless branch of magic in the entire world!"
"Boy, he's getting paid to get drunk. Now that's life."
"I heard he can manipulate gravity or something crazy like that."
"Yeah, like that is going to help with his drinking problem."
The assistant dragged the Professor toward the exit, struggling desperately under the weight and looking like he was one minor inconvenience away from bursting into tears.
As they passed the counter, Helga yelled after them without looking up from her oatmeal, "And do not come back until you pay your tab, you lush! You owe me three hundred Crowns!"
The Professor stopped walking. He turned his head lazily, moving like he was underwater. He brought two fingers to his lips and blew a dramatic kiss toward the angry lunch lady.
"Farewell, my grim Valkyrie," he declared with a lopsided grin that could melt hearts and probably had. "Your oatmeal... is truly the cement that holds my fragile soul together in this cruel, uncaring universe."
"Get out!" Helga threw a spoon at him.
He stumbled out the door, being dragged along by his weeping assistant who was apologizing profusely to everyone they passed.
Kaizen watched them leave with a half-eaten egg still in his mouth, completely frozen in place.
He swallowed slowly.
Wait.
He knew that scrawny assistant. That was Mr. Finch. The NPC who gives you the tutorial quests for accessing the restricted section of the library.
Which meant the drunk guy in the expensive suit...
Kaizen's eyes widened in realization and his heart started beating faster.
That was Professor Ezekiel Xavier Mortimer. The S-Rank Axiomancer. The legendary Vector Gentleman who could manipulate the fundamental forces of physics itself.
Kaizen stared at the door where they had disappeared.
Why is one of the strongest Axiomancers on the entire continent drunk in the student cafeteria at five in the morning? And why does he owe Helga three hundred Crowns for oatmeal?
He shook his head firmly and shoved the last of his eggs into his mouth.
"Not my problem," Kaizen decided firmly while chewing. "I have a sword to steal and a mountain to climb. The professor can handle his own existential crisis and breakfast debt."