We didn’t expected that would happen. We thought that everything was settled. Looks like this was just the beginning of our journey. But why didn’t Rulend said that we don’t have enough member earlier?! Is he trying to make a joke or something?

Rulend would probably jokingly say, “Hey, I thought we were celebrating” or something like that.

Nice way to ruin my speech about Stardust. Rulend can sometimes be a bit weird. Even though he is the The Mastermind, I never expected that he will be orchestrating this kind of joke. It was kind of brutal since I just made a very inspirational speech and he just burn it down with that single sentence.

“You could have told us earlier!” shouted Hosuke.

Blax made a stern look and said to Hosuke, “Be quiet, this is the library.”

Rulend continues to laugh softly. We were kind of annoyed by his savagery. We endured it until Rulend was done laughing at us which doesn’t took that long actually.

Rulend begin to explains, “Anyway, in order for us to enter The Magic Duel. We must have a Team of seven people. Right now we only have four members. So, we need to recruit another three members.”

“Ah great, who are we going to recruit then?” asked Hosuke who was still annoyed by Rulend’s 'joke'.

Just as we were all thinking for some idea, Kaym brilliantly hatches one, “I got it! How about we recruit Rider! In addition, we can also get Lore to join us!

Rulend took out his small notebook and began writing something on it, “Rider and Lore huh? Interesting. I believe Rider is close with you, Kaym? Hence the reason you suggested it.”

So Kaym suggested we should recruit Rider and Lore. Rider, he was a very weird person in my eyes even though we are friend. I try to understand him but sometimes you just can’t understand him. All you could say was that Rider was just being Rider.

Hosuke’s mood was suddenly brighten up, “Rider huh? That would make a great advantage for us right? I mean I always love seeing him use his magic.”

“His magic will be quite useful in The Team War since he is literally an instrument of instant kills.” said Blax.

Hosuke begins to glorify Rider, “Remember the time during my training class? You guys notice it too right? When Rider transformed into a powerful hero. He eliminated all 10 target practice under 60 seconds can you believe that!”

Rulend adds up the glorification by explaining, “He uses his Blade to transform into multiple different character. Almost something like Requip but the difference is that Requip only change the user’s equipment while Rider’s magic can even change personality and fighting style. You can say he is very unpredictable whenever he changes a style.”

Blax was disgusted looking at the two of them glorifying another student as if he was a being sent from the heaven. He grabbed a magazine and rolled it and hit the table using the the rolled magazine.

“That’s enough, you two! I know Rider is a good choice but he is too unpredictable for him to join us.” said Blax.

Glad there was a straight men over here to assess the situation. It seemed to be great and all until…

Blax continued, “And besides, how can you forget, Lore? His magic will certainly be useful during Puzzle and Speedrun!

Serena sighed and said, “Oh great, and here I thought I’m the immature one.”

I’ve never seen them being like this before. Its not that I never met Rider or Lore at all. In fact, we’re buddies. I guess people can change over the course of a school holiday. That’s it I had enough of these guys.

“Guys! Please! Stop!” I shouted.

“This is the library, White.” exclaimed Blax.

I ignored him and said, “Okay, I get it. Those two are wonderful and all but what if they don’t want to join us? We even still need to find one more member by the way. We should at least think of a backup plan on who to recruit.”

Everybody returns to their seat and started to think. Then, unexpectedly Serena stood up.

She suggested, “I know! What about The Reanimator, Haz_Kama?”

Rulend corrects her, “You mean, Haz Kazama? Haz_Kama is his name tag he uses whenever he joins a competition.

“Oh I see. I didn’t know his full name was simply like that.” said Serena.

Blax, “Haz could be another great member to join us with his Reanimation magic. He is also an A ranked wizard, correct?”

Rulend tries to remember and said, “Indeed he is ranked A. Which is a high rank.”

Kaym asks Rulend, “What is that?”

Rulend explains, It's the ranking system to determine how powerful a wizard is. To put it simply, in ascending order we have,F,E,D,C,B,A,S,SS and SSS. It used to have a longer name we usually just call it by alphabet because those terms were only used in the old days.”

Kaym once again asks, “How do you determine an SSS Wizard?”

“A supreme wizard with SSS has a tremendous amount of power that consist of either white magic or dark magic. It can really be just anything honestly. Those rank only exist because some wizard don’t like being among the so called weaker ones.”

Kaym finally understands and also added, “So it’s basically created out of those wizards ego, huh?.”

Blax continued back his thoughts about Haz, “Haz Kazama…he should be a great member for us if we use his ability well.”

Serena suddenly gave another suggestion. But this time, it was probably a joke, “How about The Thunder Mouse?”

“Thunder Mouse? Who is that?” I was very clueless.

Too clueless because usually those with a nickname was always those who are famous enough to have one and I never heard of that one before. Little did I know it was actually someone I know too well. I just never realised it.

Blax chuckled, “Are you serious, White? You gotta be joking. It’s Rika.”

“Rika?” I was so surprised. “What kind of name is The Thunder Mouse?! That doesn’t make any sense!”

Blax laughed and said, “You got to be kidding me. You of all people don’t know her nickname.” Blax continues to laughs.

I was hoping for an answer but everyone just started laughing.

Thankfully Rulend stopped laughing and explained it to me, “First of all, Rika use Lightning. That’s is why it is Thunder. Then, she is, like how you used to say back in middle school, “She is a Shockingly Cute Mouse”. That’s why it is funny. Hence, Thunder Mouse.

I was kind of mad, “Are you serious? Her nickname origin came right out of my own mouth?!”

Rulend corrected me, “‘Your’ young immature dirty mouth.”

“This is a joke gone too far, you know! Who did this?” I claimed.

Blax patted my back and said, “We didn’t expect this joke would be this bad, you know?”

“You guys?! Alright that’s it, I’m leaving now!” My emotions was everywhere.

There was no words that can describe my feelings. I was confused. I was angry. I was embarrassed. I was…I don’t know. I left the school compound in these mixed feelings. Suddenly, I accidentally bump into someone I know.

“Oh, hi there, White. Leaving already? How about we go home together?” said the guy that I bumped into.

“Yeah that would be great!” said his friend.

It was Rider and Lore.

TO BE CONTINUED