Shortly after, we finally arrived at Atlantis, and I have to say… it really is something from up close. I hadn’t managed to concentrate on it while descending that hellish tube. But now that I was a few meters away from it, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
It was a gigantic city in the middle of the ocean. There were skyscrapers, roads, shops. It was simply incredible. I never thought I would see something like this in my entire life, and it was a nice surprise.
I could see literal fish-men walking all around me. They looked like fish except for the fact that they were a lot bigger and had a slight resemblance to humans.
“Here we are! Atlantis!” the mermaid exclaimed with a grin. “For your accommodations, as decided beforehand, you will be staying within the Atlantis Academy. I’m sure you’ll love it.”
She pointed in a direction. “To reach the Academy, you simply need to follow the main road. You will find it at the end.”
Everyone nodded. It was simple enough, right? Just follow the main street. And that’s exactly what we tried to do before I bumped into a fish-man.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
Look, it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t even paying attention, and the guy rammed into me. I even apologized to him, if that isn’t proof of my respect, I don’t know what is. Still, he just had to act like a jackass to me…ah, sometimes I really don’t know what to do.
“Watch where you’re going, human.”
There was disdain when he uttered the word “human.” It seemed we might not be as welcome as they let on. Maybe there was some sort of drama between humans and the fish-men that I completely ignored.
Still, I didn’t give him anything to attack me on, just nodding as I continued to walk forward with the rest of my students. The rest of the groups didn’t wait for us since we were the last ones. No one even noticed that we had stopped.
I prayed that he would let us go in my mind as I didn’t want to make a bad impression everywhere I went.
“Are you ignoring me?” he uttered as I was already a couple of steps away from him.
I continued walking as if I hadn’t heard anything, but it seemed that wouldn’t work as I felt something tightly hold onto my shoulder, making it impossible for me to keep walking forward.
“How dare you ignore me, puny human?” He spat right at my feet.
I kept a straight face as much as I could. “Sorry about that. I really didn’t see you back there.”
The students also glanced at me, wondering what would happen next. However, none of them seemed worried about me; they looked more concerned about the fish-man. They remembered what happened to the last person who had tried to pick a fight against me.
“We should go, Professor…”
The fish-man laughed even louder. “Did you hear that? Even your students know that you have no chance against me.”
I blinked a couple of times and glanced at my students. “Look. I don’t want any trouble. Just let me go my own way, and we won’t ever see each other again.”
I didn’t want to fight him. I could feel the glares of all kinds of bystanders around, and I knew what would happen if I were to fight him and win. I would only be getting in a load of trouble again.
Tsk. It just had to be me. It always had to be me.
“Well, you should have thought about that beforehand.”
He pushed me as hard as he could, but it didn’t even make me take a step back.
“Look, I would advise you to stop. You’ll just end up getting hurt at this rate.”
I was actually giving him tips to not injure himself. It wasn’t my fault that he wasn’t listening. He tightened his fist and aimed right for my head. However, I grabbed it without much problem and pushed him away very slowly.
I turned to my students and said, “Alright, let’s continue walking. We’ll make the others worry if we don’t arrive at the same time as them.”
I continued ignoring the fish-man as I even turned my back to him. He tried to punch me again, but I narrowly dodged it without any problem. I knew he was getting angrier by the minute. But, hey, I wasn’t the one trying to fight him. I was actually acting quite mature for once.
The guy kept trying to attack me as I walked backward, but nothing worked. Slowly but surely, the bystanders started laughing at him more.
“Did you see that?”
“Is that Finley? Why is he trying to fight a Professor of the Royal Academy?”
“Stupid question. It’s all because of his ego. It’s always because of his ego. Luckily, that teacher isn’t trying to fight him or else he would get absolutely demolished.”
Even I heard the bystanders and couldn’t help but sigh. The same question was still on my mind.
Just why did it have to be me?
He could have picked on anyone else, but no. It just had to be little old me.
Tired of him trying to hit me over and over again, I subtly tripped him up and decided to accelerate the pace, leaving him behind.
“Y-You!” Finley shouted. “If I ever see you again, you’re a dead man!”
I just smiled in his direction as I continued to walk down the main road with the rest of my students.
Soon after, we arrived at the end of the road, right in front of a beautiful building which was most likely the Atlantis Academy. The rest of the professors had already reached it a few minutes ago, and I could already hear their confusion.
“Caedrel? Why did it take you so long?”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Nothing important, don’t worry about it. Should we go in now?”
