TLNC Chapter 19 – Faust Academy ForschungsInstitut

A nauseous feeling like sinking into the darkness overtook me and when I opened my eyes I was lying on a bed starting at a decadently decorated ceiling above me. At the centre hung a large chandelier which was surrounded by a fresco featuring angelic nymphets bathing in a lake. There was only one question on my mind.

“Where the hell am I?”

I woke up in a white dorm room bed. The ceiling was high and the floor was covered by a carpet of deep crimson. Seated on a chair next to me with his legs crossed one over the other was a tall handsome blue-haired boy of about 16 reading from a book. He was wearing glasses and had an intelligent-looking face but underneath the unfamiliar-looking summer school uniform, he looked quite muscular.

“Oh, I wondered when you would wake up.”

The boy shut the book aside and left it on the bedside table.

“I’m Hisao your roommate, how’s it going?”

The boy, Hisao, brushed his hair in a confident way that pissed me off, but that was not important now. He reached out his hand to help me sit up but I ignored that and stood up on my own. I was still wearing the same same white and blue boy’s school uniform.

“What’s going on?”

I was in my friend’s room a second ago.

“Have I been drugged?”

Hisao flashed a perfect smile straight out of a toothpaste commercial, or in other words just a tad too perfect to be reassuring.

“Of course not!”

Hisao touched the side of his temple.

“You got an email, right? That must have told you something.”

“Well, not really.”

I hadn’t checked my email in ages since no one mailed me other than spammers, so even if I had been mailed I would have ignored it as spam. Besides I could not see how any mail could possibly explain my current situation.

“Humm…That Maya must have messed up the emails. Classes will begin shortly, you should probably change into your uniform before you get there.”

“Wait a minute, what lessons? I just came back before going to the club, and I am already wearing my school uniform.”

“Forgive me, you are on an island called Furosatoshima located in Ai Prefecture. Your curriculum and uniform are not valid here.”

He carefully took a neatly folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to me. I impatiently quickly unfurled it over the bedside table. It was a map of an island with cartoonish fairy-tale-like illustrations, like one you’d see in the overhead map of an RPG game. Most of the island was forested. There was a waterfront and a dock to the south. On the northwest, there was an Radio Tower structure labelled as “Fukugawa Tower (‘Oracle’)”. Close to the waterfront was a grouping of buildings. Among a French architecture-like grouping of buildings, there was a flashing red arrow pointing towards a building named the Male Dorm Rooms. I assumed that meant that this was where I was right now. The blinking red-arrow was not the only mysterious thing about the map but how also it laid perfectly flat without any creases despite the fact that it was folded a moment ago, and yet it felt like  glossy coated paper to the touch like you’d find in any ordinary school textbook.

I looked from the map on the bedside table back towards Hisao hoping for some kind of an explanation and he obliged, though it may not have been the explanation that I wanted to hear.

“For one hundred years, the island has been dedicated to the education of a select few individuals.”

I waited a few seconds for him to continue but he stopped speaking like some sort of a video game character waiting for me to press the “A” button.

“Right, is that all?”

“There’s more. Selected for reasons unknown, new pupils must attend Faust’s Academy for one term. After this time they are then free to leave the island or move on in their education.”

“What are you? A Chuunibyou serial killer kidnapper?”

Would we have to kill each other in a Battle Royale?

Unperturbed by my comment Hisao continued with his speech.

“This year is particularly special, it will mark the changing of the epoch, life may remain unchanged or be uprooted beyond recognition.” He turned around to grab something from his bag. “But more importantly here’s your Faust Academy uniform.”

Hisao handed me three neatly folded pieces of clothing; a greenish-blue short-sleeved shirt, a necktie with blue and green stripes running diagonally across it, and long grey trousers. On the shirt’s shoulder, there was an arm patch featuring an eagle with two heads facing opposite sides. The heads had open beaks and sharp eyes, and the eagle had its wings spread wide open. Beneath it, the academy’s name was written in Katakana. The same design was also on the tie.

“There’s more uniforms in the cupboard, including gym uniform but you won’t be needing that today, and don’t forget to wear your black shoes.”

 Seeing no way out of this I ushered him out to change my uniform. He made a confused face as if to say ‘Why should I leave while you are changing” but he obeyed me and stayed out. I felt like I was being made a fuss over like a kid, especially when he helped me fix my collar but I quickly got dressed.

When that was done Hisao returned back to his Non Player Character mode.

“What we do know is that the new pupils this year will play a significant role in what may unfold… Okay, I think that’s everything.”

I felt like he had left something, well actually a lot of things unanswered, out of that explanation but at the same time I didn’t want to hear any more of it.

I looked up while acting like I was taking in some air to have a final look at the lewd ceiling but then right in the middle of my vision of the ceiling covering those parts like a mosaic there appeared a pinkish-beige-coloured floating text box. I turned back to Hisao but he was just looking into empty air. Moreover the text-box followed my sight with a slight delay. Isao’s eyes were glazed over, vacant and a shade darker than they had been. Time had frozen for him. I tried to move my legs but I could not move them an inch. I needed to do something fast as I felt my body become more rigid as well.

In a panic, I tried to touch this floating text box but nothing happened. Or rather I could not touch it, it was like those eye floaters you see in your eyes something, it was overlaid on my vision itself.

“How do I leave this fucking place!”

I shouted and the text-box disappeared. Hisao continued speaking as if nothing had happened without a tense nerve in his body, and as if not a moment had passed. For a moment I feared I’d have to live the rest of my life with a floating text window in my eyes.

“I think a ferry will come and pick you up at the end of term.”

I didn’t know what the hell was going on but I knew one thing.

“I really am kidnapped, aren’t I? I’m sure getting out of here!”

I pushed Hisao away and rushed down the door

“Hey, wait, chosen, you were chosen!”

I ran down a wide flight of stairs decorated with a red carpet until I came to the horrifying realisation that I was not the one initiating my own movement.

My legs moved on their own and I was taken to the edge of a white cliff where I stopped and finally regained motor control. As far as the eye could see only water. In the distance I could see the docks.

“Damn, it really is an island huh?”

Hisao had either stealthily trailed right behind me, or seemingly teleported behind me, without breaking a sweat. He stood leaning next to a tree about ten yards behind me.

“Let’s get ready for class. “

Defeated I returned to the dorm room where I changed out of my soiled socks and put on my shoes. As I tied my laces Hisao began to speak to me again.

“They want to have an induction ceremony first but after that, we will have a history lesson. Anyway, get some rest but be quick. I’ll meet you at the academy. Your schoolbag is next to your bed. I took the liberty of preparing it for you since you were one of the last students to arrive this semester.”

Hisao pointed at the school on my map and left me in the room with nothing to do but prepare for lessons and an induction, even though I had done a high school induction a few months ago already, and today’s lessons had ended just a few hours ago at North High. I was not in the mood for more.

Get some rest he said, but how the hell was I supposed to do that in this situation. As I sat on the bed I looked at the pendulum in the grandfather clock swing back and forth for a minute or two until I came back to my senses.

Besides the grandfather clock, in terms of furniture there were two beds, two chests of drawers, and two cupboards. There were all identical to each other. I decided to look for any clues as to what was going on in this room. I opened the drawers and only found socks, underwear and schoolbooks.

“Nothing of any use.”

I turned my head towards the door adjacent to the entrance. I entered the room next door and turned on the light. Inside was a bathroom with checkerboard-like black and white tiles. I childishly stepped over only the black tiles diagonally until I reached the mirror. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with me, in fact if anything it was the other way around. The pimple I had on my forehead this morning was gone as were the dark spots under my eyes from days of staying up at night to play an nukige Yamada had lent me telling me it was a masterpiece from the Golden Age of Eroge. In reality it was boring but it had a strange hold on me. If this was a dream this was way too realistic and rational. I could even think about Yamada’s bad taste in stories and fetishes.

Perhaps to calm my thoughts, I flushed the toilet. It made a perfectly fine, normal slushing sound. I don’t know what I was expecting there but for some reason, I felt calmer and congratulated whoever had made this W.C.: “There, well done.”

There was nothing else to do but go to my second induction this year, then I might be able to meet someone else, other than Hisao, who’ll be able to give me a straight answer about what’s going on without any of Chuuni talk.

Following Hisao’s instructions rather than heading south to the cliff, I turned east along the paved and balustraded pathway.

I soon reached a red-brick building which looked like a stereotypical European educational institute. There was a metal sign of a two-headed eagle and also a gold-framed clock-tower. Like all other buildings here, it had a pre-French revolutionary era Neoclassical style— it was a symmetrical, geometrical, winged building with Greco-Roman influence but on the other hand unlike the other building it a hardy and practical look, being made of brick.

I walked into the school courtyard where there was some commotion or at least a gathering going on. There was an elevated platform, a temporary stage really, and on the back of that stage stood at attention twelve stern-looking male students (disciples), and no doubt one of them was evil. They wore a uniform similar to that that I and Hisao did but with their short khaki shorts and black ties they had a sort of fash-y youth league look to them. It didn’t help that one of them was holding up a flag from a flagpole dipping it forward.  The flag featured a medieval shield on a military green background with a set of initials written in Romanji. It was too far away for me to make out what was written on their headbands. However, it was clear who they were guarding, a spunky blonde girl with drills who stood behind a podium. Next to the blonde girl, there was a brunette with a severe look on her face, she wore a maid uniform so she was probably not a student although she didn’t look much older than us. Unlike the rest of the students below the platform, there were about six of us, she wore a red coat over her shirt despite the heat and her skirt was longer than that of any student, although I am sure there was a fetish for that. Her hair being set in twin drill-tails immediately set me against her. There was a tall tall hazel-haired European man with a neatly trimmed beard wearing a brown suit leaning against the wall of the school, reading a book and not paying attention to what was going on.

Standing below the stage there were us the hoi polloi, six other students, three girls and three boys, who looked as bamboozled as me, and stood in a disorganised manner compared to the girl and her lackeys on the stage. Hisao was there too with his calm and handsome demeanour, not on the stage but beneath it, but too calm and serene to be lumped with the rest. Clearly he was in on something that the rest of us of were not. He turned in my direction and smiled amiably like I was some kind of old friend, even though we had just met. Very suspicious. Soon enough he reached my way. I shouldn’t have looked at him.

“Good, you’ve made it.”

“Doesn’t seem like I had much of a choice anyway.”

“Oh but you did get a choice, didn’t you?”

Before I could question him on his needlessly cryptic comment a loud authoritative female voice interrupted my thoughts and our conversation. It was a blondie with twin drills on the stage.

“Ah-hem” “Attention please!”

Then she crossed her arms and glared at us silently while looking from side to side until everyone’s attention was on her and nothing could be heard, even the light breeze had stopped. 

“Thank you, today I have been given to opportunity to welcome you all to our academy. For over a century, this academy has been dedicated to raising the world’s best and most influential minds.”

She was no longer glaring but instead had a melancholic brooding look on her face.

“Many of you might be confused at this moment but rest assured that the Great Oracle has never once made a mistake.”

The Great what? I had just about had enough of this Chuuni nonsense now.

“The Great Oracle? The hel-“

Hisao gripped my back and interrupted me before I could finish.

“Quiet, I’ll explain later.”

The girl speaking at the podium eyed me for a moment before proceeding with her spiel. I thought she was going to point at me when she raised her arm sideways but then she brought her white gloved hand back to her flat chest.

“Now, allow me to introduce myself. I am Melena Mathews, president of the Student Council!”

A maroon-haired, green-eyed male student with a scar across his right cheek raised his hand and spoke up.

“Excuse me!”

The Student Council President didn’t look so pleased at being interrupted again, she had one might describe as resting bitch face.

“Yes, what is it new student?”

“I was told that we were stuck here, is that true?”

Melena placed her chin between her extended thumb and index finger. Then she cocked her head sideways while touching her chin, feigning thinking about the question, finally she tapped her black shoe three times gaining everyone’s attention. 

“Well, stuck is a strong term don’t you think?”

“Strong term? How about abducted?”

This time it was a blue-haired girl who unlike the rest of the girls was wearing a yellow-white coloured sailor uniform. In the heat of the moment, I deluded myself into thinking maybe we could overwhelm her with numbers and mouthed my own complaints.

“Yeah! Abducted!”

Hisao didn’t try to stop me this time but he pushed up his blue half-rimmed glasses even though they were already as high as they could be, and then shook his head sideways with a disappointed face.

“Oh no.”

The President once again crossed her arms and stood silently until people got quiet again.

When he realised he was not going to get an answer the student with a scar across his right cheek, just stamped his foot and then stormed off with a look of disgust.

“Now, now, settle down.”

When the girl president did not get our attention once more she closed her eyes, pretended not to hear our protests and smiled as if imagining something pleasant.

“It would be a pain if I had to…”

She leaned forward pressing her hands on the podium.

“Put you down!”

At this, the male students standing in the back rushed forward forming a wall between us and the the president.

“Don’t worry Ms. President, we of the Melena Mathews Defence Forces will protect you!”

‘Ms. President’ didn’t seem pleased at this however, perhaps it was the suggestion that she’d need their help to dealt with us.

The tall hazel-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard wearing a brown suit, and rimless glasses, who had up till this point been leaning back on the red brick walls of the academy, sprang forward and spoke with a commanding yet calming voice.

“Attention! Let’s try to avoid a trip to the emergency room.”

The adult’s calm yet commanding voice broke through the commotion.

“Oh, where are my manners. I am Dr Fulvio. I’ll be acting as your nurse and counsellor during this semester. These first moments will be confusing to you.”

The crowd calmed down again. I remained still sceptical but this was an improvement from being talked down to by that ludicrous girl from up on her stage with her rabble-like “Defense Forces.”

“We all have a duty we must fulfil, one that nobody here has chosen for themselves.”

He commented pointing to the book which he had been reading. I was not particularly interested in religion but even I could say that that black book cover with a cross on it was a Christian Bible. I hoped he wasn’t going to use scripture as evidence for why everything was normal and going to be alright. Was it going to be: “God is in his heaven and all is right with the world,” or something like that?

“You may also be worried about your friends or loved ones back home but understand that you have only been summoned here out of absolute necessity and that their safety is assured.”

Dr Fulvio’s blue eyes turned to look at each of us to see if there would be any objections before continuing. The small crowd had lost its initiative, now we were helpless sheep being corralled by a shepherd, hopefully not for a slaughter though.

“If you do not believe me then please visit the bell tower north-west of here, there you will be able to locate the oracle we speak of.”

Finally, Dr. Fulvio turned back with a disarming smile at Stella and the other girl dressed as a French maid. President Matthews turned away with an “Umph!” and then after making a quick nod to the maid probably asking her to stay, she walked off with her “Defence Forces.”

After that hot-tempered person had left, the glasses-wearing black-haired maid who had looked unemotional throughout the whole while walked down the stage with a clipboard in her hand. Without looking at us she touched the rim of her glasses and spoke to Dr Fulvio in a voice we could all hear.

“The mistress was annoyed she hadn’t got the chance to put down one of the new batch to teach them a lesson because you diffused the situation.”

The doctor let out a sigh and continued.

“And next…”He opened his palm towards the maid. “We still need to get you all organised so please let us record who’s present. Please come up to Vice President Misa and she’ll get you registered.”

“… “

For a moment there it looked as though Misa was staring right at me but when I blinked she had addressed the whole class.

“Pleased to meet you all.”

Her words and short but straight and polite bow did not match her unemotional face.

“Hey, she’s cute,”

“No, you don’t get it. It’s always the quiet ones…”

The boys in the crowd got slightly excited while the girls looked on just as coldly back at the maid.

I looked up at the building only to notice a pair of Cheshire cat-like yellow eyes peering down at us from a window on the second floor. It was Melena. Once she was satisfied that things were going according to plan, or I hope that’s all it was, she turned around and closed the curtain.

“Your name, please.”

My attention was brought back to ground level by the maid with the clipboard. Her maid outfit was, how should I say, more modest, it covered more of her body than those at the Moe Delight Maid Café Empire. She had long black sleeves and had dropped her hemlines with self-sufficient disregard for the hopes of men and boys. Well, some men anyway, for I for one preferred this look.

“It’s Ishikawa Isshin.”

She turned around and held out the clipboard with both her hands and asked me to sign next to my name. She held the clipboard perfectly still but my attention wandered to the narrow band of skin on her wrist, so my signature ended up being slightly slanted.

“Thank you”

She bowed again causing me to bow as well.

“You have a history class at ten but I’m sure you’ve already been told.”

Hisao gave me a thumbs-up from the side with that honour student smile of his waiting for me acknowledge that he had informed me. I did my best to ignore him but I may have popped a vein on my forehead in the process, so I responded somewhat wryly to the Maid Misa.

“Yeah, thanks, I guess…”

Fifteen minutes later, I and the students were in a classroom. Thankfully we were spared from having to introduce ourselves to the class. That quirk of school should be regarded as harassment bordering on psychological warfare. Annoyingly Hisao was seated next to me smiling, this was also harassment although I refused to acknowledge it as sexual harassment. In all, there were about twenty of us, probably students who had joined, I mean who had been abducted earlier.

There was a wooden podium in front of the classroom, much like that which President Matthews had spoken from but other than that it looked like your normal classroom; a blackboard, a clock on the wall ticking at an excruciatingly slower rate due to the effects of time dilation, chairs and desks. The blue haired female student who was making a fuss earlier was now expertly twirling a pen around between her index finger and her thumb as if she had always been in sitting at the back seat next to the window in this classroom. Everyone seemed to have accepted the situation a bit too easily, then again I had also taken my “history” textbook out and turned to a random page.

50,000 B.C (approximated) The great empire of Mu has its humble beginnings in the continent of Mu somewhere north of Hawaii to the south as far as the Fijis and Easter Island. Every civilisation since then has been a step-down.

40,000-35,000 B.C. (estimated) Having conquered their continent the Empire of Mu began spreading to the rest of the world. In rapid succession, colonies are formed in Egypt, South America and Burma. South America is the earliest and most widespread colony effort with the greatest effect on the native peoples of all the colonies. Egypt is second with Burma the last. The architectural styles of the Mu people, along with their technological advancements and culture spread in the world at large. The legend of the Atlanteans is born.

It was all crack-pot conspiracy theories… I turned back to the table of contents page.

I closed the book and sighed. The door to the classroom opened but there didn’t seem to be anyone at the door until I lowered my gaze and a little girl of about twelve with red eyes, square-rimmed glasses, and long straight  dark hair hanging down up to her waist entered the room and headed towards the podium. She resembled a younger version of Izumi in some ways but she had a smug look on her face and upturned lips which would have looked out of place on Izumi’s face. Her clothes consisted of a white labcoat worn over a black suit.

At first nobody other than me seemed to pay attention to her as she confidently wrote her name with white-pinkish chalk on the blackboard: “Akane Augustine.” Perhaps because of her diminutive stature, I was the only one, other than Hisao, to pay attention until she scraped her fingernails on the blackboard making a horrible noise.

“Welcome to the Faust Academy’s History and course. I am Akane Augustine. You may also call me Unpopular Teacher Augustine… Of course, I am only unpopular because the truth is unpopular. ”

“Our first lesson will be about the Economic History of the Empire of Mu.”