Bel approached him at dinner. They both queued up to get the same bread and almost grabbed the same one.

  "Regnicus."

  "Bel. How is the first class?"

  He piled second loaf of bread onto his tray and Bel did the same.

  "The firsts are all stuck up. You know this."

  "Did you pick people for your group yet?"

  Neither of What could loosely be called his friends or with him. They had separated into different classes now that he'd been moved up.

  "I haven't."

  Ludere let the statement sit there. If the man wanted something he was going to have to ask. "How's your reading been?"

  "About as well as expected."

  They left the line together. Miraculously, no one was around. One question couldn't hurt.

  Ludere whispered. "Does the word Alius mean something to you?"

  Bels nostrils flared. He looked conflicted.

  "I can't say that it does. Dare I ask the origin?"

  "Would you believe that a demon yelled it at me?"

  Bel stopped. They were in the short hallway between the food and the seating. "I might believe that. It sounds plausible. Did you know what I was going to ask you? Did Cire pick you for her team yet?"

  Ludere shrugged. They began to walk up to where the second were seated. The first class was beyond them.

  "She hasn't... We haven't talked about it no. I take it that you're not going with your... people."

  "It's hard for that to happen when they're not even... It's different in first. I don't see anyone I can trust there."

  "You don't trust Cire?"

  "She's fine. I just don't know her so well." They paused where Bel would normally have gone to eat with the second class. There were still spots. Only a dozen of the twenty four in second class were there. He knew them all well, or at least he was familiar. Ludere had skipped from fourth to second so he was happy to just have a single friend in there.

  "Go to firsts. Make some friends. We'll talk ancient Celusian later."

  It didn't hit him until he sat down. Then it was obvious.

  "Are you telling me things in Celusian?"

  "Human."

  "My name is Ludere."

  The spear was manifestly not enjoying his company in the slightest. He had half a mind to throw it out if it hadn't been the most expensive single time in his possession. Hell he might just sell it anyway. Who in their right mind wouldn't appreciate a possessed demonic spear? It was the gift that kept on giving no matter how much he asked to not receive a single thing.

  "You should know as well as I do that I'm not going to call you that human scum does not deserve a name."

  "I appreciate your dedication to the cause. More than anything, this has caused me to reevaluate my position on how much work demons are willing to do in order to invade my city. I would really prefer if you guys didn't do that if at all possible. Do you think that we could arrange something like that? Maybe we broker a truce? What do you want?"

  "My body. I want my body back."

  That was unfortunately among the few things that he couldn't give her.

  "Are you even female? I know you're a succubus but... Where do baby demons come from?"

  "Your parents didn't tell you anything did they..."

  "Nope. I'm a big old dumbass. Rek, I am seeking counsel from the enemy."

  He really was tired of the constant insults. Ludere had even brought up buying a new spear with Cire and Mila and they had both laughed at him.

  "Well if you want my advice?"

  His nose twitched. He held the spear aloft. "Yes?"

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  "You can go fuck yourself and then the little Oracle you rode in here on. I ain't telling you squat. Filthy humans."

  "It seems just that I feel like we're on the same side here. You want to destroy the Empire from the outside and I want to reform it from the inside. We have the same goal. And I just think that we could work together maybe."

  For the first time since his spear had the spirit of a demon inside of it, he could hear hesitance in her voice. "You want to reform your government? Curious."

  "I mean-I want to reform your government as well. They've sent you here in a suicide mission. They had to have known it was a suicide mission."

  "I accepted the risks."

  "And now you're a spirit bound to my spear." He got the spear up and began twirling into the air. If the spear was actually a woman, she would have been throwing up halfway through his mini twirls. It didn't seem to matter for whatever Spirit was inside of it.

  "You know what spirit? I'm tired of how your spirit. I think I'm going to call you something else, but do you have an actual name? Or should I just call you Lemon."

  "How dare you presume to give me a name."

  "If you can't tell me what your name is, I'm going to call you something and you're going to have to respond to it because I know you're bored in there. I would be bored. If I'm the only person you can talk to then you're going to have to bottle up all your emotions and eventually let it out at some point right?"

  The silence was deafening. Ludere actually stopped twirling the spear to see if that had stopped her from talking.

  The screaming came from what felt like all angles. It was a wild, guttural and primal thing. It felt like it had weights and heft to it.

  For a while, he let lemon rage. She hasn't fully accepted that she had a new name now. Neither had he. But it just fit her so well. He'd never named someone after a fruit before.

  If he ever got another chance to do it, now he definitely would. Not on any actual children of his though. He didn't want to settle up with names that would get them ostracized for the rest of their lives. He just wanted to name something after say... a banana or an apple.

  He put the spear down and continued to recheck his supplies. He had packed and repacked two times and was just making sure that he'd gotten everything. He bought an extra change of tunic. He was wearing his normal everyday sandals tunic and toga combination. He brought two water skins which were already filled up because they could take them at any time as per the space allotted on there block of instruction. This was supposed to be the easy tests. At the very end of their time, there would be one of these that would last up to two weeks.

  It wasn't clear what benefit the students that were going to pledge religion would get out of it. It was obviously clear what military got and less so what government got. But working together as a team was supposed to build some sort of camaraderie and also because they were expected to be leaders within their sphere after they left, it would put them in a good position to lead.

  What it meant for him though was that he was having to pack his own stuff and then inspect the pack of any of the men that he even had met once. Already, several of the seconds had eyed his pack giving him the idea that they might take his goods because of how well he had rolled up and packed up his stuff. He'd offered to show them several times and indeed done it on a second try, but that didn't mean that they'd got it right. He then resorted to going through and for several them packing their clothing correctly. A lot of students in the academy were very nervous about this experience and he didn't understand.

  Marcel was furiously repacking in front of him.

  "No let me show you this knot one more time," Ludere said. "If you tie it like that it will more easily become untied when you're moving."

  "Have you been outside the academy grounds here? There's a lot of wild country and I've heard there's even wolves."

  "I haven't. I am lead to understand that none of us have. Is my assumption correct?"

  Marcel finally nailed the knot. It wasn't as tight as it needed to be around the pack but Ludere could finally see that his newest discipline knew something brand new.

  "I don't even know why we need to bring a change of clothes. It's not like three days is that long."

  Ludere grabbed a towel and stuffed it into his pack. "I'm sorry what? Do you think that things are going to be just all fun and games out there?"

  "I mean what are we doing. Camping? Hunting wolves?"

  "They will tell us when they tell us. Just be prepared for anything," Ludere said.

  "And how do I do that, exactly?"

  The man looked exhausted. They hadn't given him a list of things to bring but he could extrapolate from what they wanted them to do.

  "I have to think that choosing what to bring is part of the experience. If you choose poorly then you might get a bad grade, or worse be starving for two days."

  Marcel's face darkened. "I hadn't thought about that. I don't even know how to catch bread."

  Ludere paused. He reconsidered everything he knew about the man in front of him. In order to make it to the academy, he'd had to have been a very smart student as a younger man. Further, he'd have to have been trained by someone within his parents employ. If the man didn't know how bread was made then there was nothing that they could do at that time to clarify it.

  He wasn't going to spend his time going through the history of bread and we cultivation and how Marcel would desperately love to hear that kind of information. It didn't help the man in front of him. For a lot of these types of issues he just wondered how it will play out later in their lives. They were so far removed from the people they purported to serve that they didn't even have a good idea of what their people needed.

  "I think a better question for us... How much bread do you think you can carry and then how much do you think you going to need to eat? Because there's only so much dried meat that you can deal with before things start to get a little bit weird downstairs."

  Marcel held up his pack just by the string. It settled and he put his hand into the gap. " I thought that we would be able to get food here and now you're telling me that I should not even think about that? I'm going to be starving. You know what we should do before we go. We should really load up with a lot of food. It might slow us down, right? Should we not eat a lot?"

  "What do you think? If I was going someplace like that and I know it wouldn't be back to civilization for a while, I would eat up a lot. I think this might be why we're not invading the Demon World. Even if we could, we have to feed all of our people. I've got to assume that it's not as hospitable over there."

  "So you tell me the hardest part of invading? The demonic world is going to be making sure that everyone has enough bread? Because if that's what you're thinking then I think that we can solve that problem. It's going to take a lot of work, but we can solve it. It's just math."

  Ludere shuddered. If he could solve all the hungry children that ran through the streets throughout the day just by using math and he might be able to get a lot more people onto his side.