Devon had woken up earlier that morning compared to any other day since he arrived in the underworld. In fact he was not supposed to be up for awhile so he used this extra time to try to compose himself. Today was supposed to be his first day at his new school and he needed to be fully mentally prepared.

  He knew he could probably just say he did not want to go and would be allowed to stay home and never have to worry about it again. However, the fact of the matter was, while he really did not want to attend school and deal with a group of strangers, he knew he still wanted to make friends and that this was his best option to do so. So he ultimately decided to put his best foot forward, or at least try to put his best foot forward. He even saved a certain set of clothes that included a dark blue button up shirt and a black set of formal pants specifically for this day.

  After waving lady Jasmond goodbye and having a big breakfast, Devon and Leonardo left for his school.

  “Alright sir Devon” Leonardo started “I should give you a warning that we will not be walking the whole way, nor will we be taking any form of travel you may be familiar with, as doing so would be essentially impossible especially for you, since we have to travel between areas in the underworld. I will skip on answering any questions for now as all you need to know is we will be walking to a special facility called a transportation hub and taking a portal to another facility of its kind in the same area that your school is in, then we will walk the rest of the way there. All in all we should arrive in 20 to 25 minutes depending on your pace, more than quick enough to arrive with time to spare.”

  Curious Devon kept trying to ask questions but Leonardo just kept seemingly deflecting with statements such as “We do not have the time right now sir Devon.” and “save that mindset for school sir Devon.” until eventually Devon gave up trying as they reached the school. The school building was huge, looking more like a large university or college than what one would expect from a school Devon would be attending at his age.

  Well sir Devon, I will be parting ways here since servants are not supposed to accompany people on the school grounds. I wish you the best for your first day and will be back to pick you up once it is over.”

  With that Leonardo left, leaving Devon to navigate the school by himself, or at least that was how they both thought it would go.

  However as Devon started walking with a worried and lost look on his face he heard what sounded like a young girl's voice say something, seemingly directed at him “so your name’s Devon, are ya new here to?”

  Turning to look at who said that Devon saw a girl who looked to be his age. She had a lighter skin tone that one could see belonging to a human, purple coloured hair that was done up in a ponytail and reached just below her shoulders, and horns that curled around her head almost like part of a halo.

  “Well, ya gonna answer my question?” she asked after waiting a bit with no response. But once again Devon did not respond so she took a different approach “here let me introduce myself I’m Mya, and your name's Devon, right?”

  Finally able to force himself to say something Devon responded “...yes”

  “Great. It’s my first day going here and I'ma guess it’s your first day too, right? The girl asked. “...yes” Devon responded, once again seemingly needing to force himself to speak. “Mind if we stick together for a bit?” Mya asked “I’m looking ta try staying out of trouble, and typically that requires more than one person ta do.”

  “I… g… guess… n-not.” Devon stammered out.

  “Cool.” Mya started “I’ll show ya ta way ta the assembly hall, since it seems ya missed out on the tour day. Unless ya started heading the wrong way on purpose that is.”

  On the way there Mya tried talking to Devon some more and prompting them with questions about themselves, such as which area of the underworld they are from and what optional classes they plan on taking. However, since Devon did not know enough to answer the questions he just said nothing, though he probably would have still said little to nothing even if he knew enough to answer them. Eventually they made it to the assembly hall where it seemed like the opening ceremony was still a bit away.

  “So we have ta sit together since we’ve really gotten to know each other” she said with sarcasm that was meant to be picked up on “I'm just messing with ya, but still, lets see if we can’t find open seats together.”

  After finding seats and a few minutes of waiting someone stepped out onto the assembly hall’s stage. He had bright red skin and pale bone white horns. He wore a conventional business suit and tie albeit gray instead of black. His eyes seemed to be gems or crystals of a dark purple colour instead of a normal set of eyes.

  “Attention everyone!” His voice powerfully projecting out over the murmuring crowd. “Apologies for the late start, but we will now begin the opening ceremony.”

  An applause rang out as he said that along with comments such as “About time,” as well as “hopefully this one goes by quicker.”

  “I’d like to start by introducing myself, in case anyone does not know I am Mr. Samuel, your principal, and staff incharge of the opening ceremony. I hope to see you all get along and wish you the most successful year possible. Now then…”

  The opening ceremony trailed on for quite some time going over the school's history and most students seemed to be paying less and less attention as time went on.

  This lasted until eventually the principal realised he was running out of time and finally said “well for now I have to wrap this up but if anyone is interested I’ll be more than happy to continue later on. However for now I shall call up the new honour student for this year, presenting Kane Monol Barbast.”

  Upon being called, a person over seven feet in height stood up. They had a kind of androgynous look to them mostly in their face. Their skin was amethyst purple and their eyes pearl pink they had a primarily muscular yet also slim build and their hair was scarlet and done into a braid. They wore a dark blue blazer, pants, and bowtie along with a pale pink under shirt.

  Upon reaching the stage they took a look around then spoke with a voice that commanded respect and attention “Now then I’ll keep this brief so listen up, I am Kane Monol Barbast, yes that makes me who you think I am, however while attending here I expect to only be treated as your equal not your superior. Furthermore I expect you all to strive for the best and reach it, no matter what that is to you. That is all.”

  As they walked back to their seat no one spoke a word and though Devon did not know why, he knew Kane was someone of great importance.

  After a bit the principal spoke “Alright that wraps this up if you don't have your schedule for whatever reason come to the front once people have started clearing out otherwise you are dismissed.”

  After waiting a minute and grabbing his schedule Devon headed off to find his home room and eventually he managed to reach it. Upon entering he saw that Mya was also in the same homeroom class and so was Kane who, at the moment, was being swarmed by people.

  Devon decided to sit beside Mya who commented “Well well looks like you’re in the same class as me Devon. And that means we’re both in the same class as The Kane Monol Barbast, can you believe it. I mean I heard he was going to be in this school but being in the same class is something else.”

  Devon, trying to hide the fact he did not know who exactly Kane was, responded “Yeah insane right?”

  Then a voice from the row behind them spoke up “well at least you two lowborn know your place.”

  The one who said that had tan skin with horns that curled to the side, and he wore black pants and a red button up shirt with what looked like an image of a coin with a crown on it.

  “Yeah yeah, look at Mr high and mighty over here, or sorry it should be SIR high and mighty noble, right?” sitting next to him was a red skinned seven and a half foot tall bulky guy, who had horns that stuck straight up and had no separation from his forehead. “Anyway hey there I’m Cole the noble there is Tytus Runerood. Are you two new to the area? Don’t think I’ve seen you round here before.”

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  while Devon was unwilling to respond, Mya spoke up “Well hey there I’m Mya and this is Devon. Heads up he’s a little shy, seemingly. But anyway it's nice ta meet ya. As for whether we’re new, I am but I don’t know if he is.”

  Cole and Mya continued chatting meanwhile Devon was in his own world panicking at least until someone entered and called for attention.

  “Now then class I will be your homeroom teacher Mr. Zephyr.”

  looking up Devon saw he had deep blue skin and hair with pitch black eyes, and wore a formal black suit and dress pants.

  “Sorry for being late, the staff meeting went long. Now we will start with attendance, then I will go over homeroom and your class schedule.”

  Despite how nervous Devon was, everything was going smoothly.

  “Devon… huh no last name given?”

  “Here.”

  yet as Devon had come to know his life would never be that simple.

  Mr. Zephyr took a moment to look up as he did after every student responded, then he stopped for a moment and sighed “well I didn’t think someone in this school would try to send a serv…ant… wait a minute.”

  he then walked up to Devon and looked him over before placing a hand on his upper back.

  The look on Mr. Zephyr’s face went from confusion to shock then settled on just an annoyed look “Well now a bound servant in this day and age huh, never would have thought I’d see one.”.

  The whole room seemed shocked and Mya even let out a “WHAT!”.

  “Either way servants are not supposed to be here let alone attending in place of the actual student.”.

  Devon, confused and worried, simply said “Um… I.. I’m not… a servant.”.

  Looking more annoyed Mr. Zephyr simply responded “Really now, am I to believe a human is an actual student here and not someone's servant they sent in their place?”

  Mr. Zephyr was about to wait for a response, however a look of sheer terror appeared on Devon's face, one so visceral that he started to wonder what truly was going on.

  A quiet voice could barely be heard rambling on “No no no no this can’t be happening she said no one would notice i should’ve never come here i should've just stayed out of school i knew this would go terribly.” and so on.

  It took a moment but eventually Mr. Zephyr realized he may have messed up and decided to check something just to see for certain what was going on. Alright… Kid, are you able to summon up the contract you made with… whoever it was you made it with.

  Devon was starting to hyperventilate at this point but managed to get out a “I… … don… don’t Know.”.

  “Alright let’s have you try, first focus on yourself and the connection between you and the other party, then try to manifest it.”.

  It took quite a while but Devon was eventually able to focus long enough to sense his connection with Lady Jasmond after which it only took a single try in order to manifest a physical version of the contract they made, after which Mr. Zephyr took it to look over.

  “Ok… your name is actually Devon and you made a contact wi… but that would mean… Oh. Oh no. I am so sorry I didn’t realise you actually are the student please forgive me.”.

  But Devon said nothing as he had come to realize that he was stuck, stuck at school until Leonardo came to pick him up after the whole school day had passed, a school day with people who thought of him as different, lesser, and probably worse things and in all honestly all it did was make him want to laugh. Why you may ask? Because simply put this was what he was used to. He never thought it would be comforting to be the loser and the odd one out but, honestly now that it meant he had no reason to worry about making a good impression he felt a weight lifted off his shoulders, and finally he said “it’s fine, I’ll manage.”.

  Devon’s first two classes were simply math and physical education. During the prior everything seemed relatively calm, but by lunch it was clear that the fact a human was attending was spreading, with some people in his class were even pointing him out to others as said human, but Devon just kept on ignoring them after all he was used to the whole bad mouthing behind his back stuff from his old school.

  He ultimately decided to sit in a corner of one of the corner tables expecting people to ignore him, but to his surprise two people actually came up to sit with him.

  “Hey… Devon.” Mya said, seeming a little worried “So I wanted to apologise for my over the top reaction earlier to the whole… thing and…”.

  She ended up trailing off so Devon responded “It’s fine I. It seems it was a bigger shock for a human to be in the underworld than I realised.”.

  “Wow, just coming out and saying it huh?” Cole said laughing “well either you have no common sense, or well I guess your mind might’ve just snapped judging by the change in, well everything about you. You basically seem like a different person now compared to when you entered the homeroom classroom.”.

  Devon laughed and responded “Maybe so but I’d say it’s more like I’m back in my element, ya know? Still i'm surprised you two came here I mean I get Mya felt she had to apologise but why are you here Cole?”.

  Cause why not. I mean I don't even need my ability to tell troubles gonna follow you.” Cole said.

  “Your ability?” Devon asked. Cole, realising Devon might not know, explained “Ah right guess you may not know but I’m an Oni we all have a special ability to detect something, like danger, or in my case trouble. Yes it's a vague thing to detect but it helps keep things interesting.”.

  “So… Devon… How long have ya… been in the underworld?” Mya asked nervously.

  “Today marks the start of week two believe it or not… I wonder what… anyway anything else you want to ask I mean there's no way to hide it now so why try, am I right?”.

  Before anyone could comment a message played over a speaker system “could Devon… uh… right no last name. Could the Devon from Mr. Zephyr's home room class please come to the principal's office.”. And so off he went to see the principal.

  After wandering for a bit due to being lost Devon found his way to the principal’s office and was let right in. There both Mr. Samuel and Mr. Zephyr were waiting for him with ashamed looks on their faces.

  “Welcome, Devon.” Started Mr. Samuel “I am sure you know why we called you here, so let’s get straight into it. I’d first like to apologise that your, I guess we’ll say secret, was revealed.“.

  “like I said to Mr. Zephyr It’s fine, even if I wasn’t planning to reveal it.” Devon responded.

  “Well either way it still was not appropriate for a teacher to reveal something like that, even by accident.” commented Mr. Zephyr.

  “Well anyway let’s get to the main point.” said Mr Samuel “That being how we are going to proceed now that we know about it. We did try to contact Lady Jasmond but it seems she must be busy.”.

  ”She said she was called in for a meeting today.” Devon explained.

  “Well despite that we still need to figure out what to do today at least. So what do you want to do? We could have you wait to be picked up in either my office or the staff break room.”.

  I’ll keep going to classes if that’s alright.” Devon stated

  “Devon, are you planning to come back after today? I understand if not but if so there are a few things we will need to cover and do.” asked Mr. Zephyr in a surprised tone.

  “Yes, I think I might. I will need to go over it with Lady Jasmond first, but I have a lot I want to learn and having people who are actually teachers would probably help.” Devon explained.

  “Alright,” said Mr. Samuel “in that case, mind if I just make an announcement about you tomorrow? I know it seems weird but I just want to make sure everyone knows despite what you are, we will not tolerate any harassment of any kind towards you.”

  This actually surprised Devon as he was not expecting them to bother stepping in for him.

  “Sure. I doubt there’s any use trying to hide it anyway.”

  “Alright, then that’s what we shall do.” said Mr. Samuel.

  After that Devon had a general science class then a free period that was going to be used for signing up for electives, but that was pushed back until homeroom the next day, after which it finally was time to head home for the day. After leaving the front gate Devon saw Leonardo waiting for him

  “Well Devon, I hope you had a good day though you may want to save going over it for the Lady.”

  “Ok, but it didn't go how any of you would have expected so it will be a lot to go over.”

  Devon responded, surprising Leonardo with how talkative he was. Eventually they got back home around the same time Lady Jasmond and Emily were returning and once they got inside and settled down with supper Devon explained how his day went and his decision to continue attending.

  “Well that’s pretty brave kid but are you sure?” Emily asked.

  “You remember that we said you do not have to attend if it would be too much for you, right?” added Lady Jasmond.

  “Yes I remember, and Yes I’m sure. Even if it’s unlikely I’ll make any friends I still believe It would be better to learn from actual teachers, so I’ll continue attending so long as things don’t go too far.”

  Lady Jasmond sighed and eventually said “understood Devon but please, don’t push yourself too much.”

  With that Devon went to his room to rest for the night to be ready for what lies ahead.