Instead of meeting Sh.e.l.ly and Ellen in our usual café, we ate some deli sandwiches on a soft mat under the lovely trees that had the most beautiful flowers bloom in shades of blue.

"This is Miele," Ellen showed us some pictures of her newly born younger sister.

Miele was wrapped with many blankets like she was inside a coc.o.o.n.

"She's so cute," I observed her soft features.

She had the same gentle silver eyes as Ellen as she brightly smiled in the picture taken by Ellen when she visited her parent's house.

Did 'Rika' have any siblings?

When I visited my parent's house last time, I noticed the house was way too big for just a couple to live in.

There was no way that a middle-aged couple would need four bedrooms in one house unless I had siblings. Especially when I almost never visited them as my room remained undecorated and bare.

"Do you want to visit my house next weekend?" I asked them.

"Don't you have to ask Luke first?" Sh.e.l.ly reminded me of the necklace around my neck.

Fortunately, Luke made some adjustments so that we would be able to have some fair distance between us on campus. However, it meant that I couldn't leave campus on my own without Luke or Alex following along with me.

"I'll just drag him along," I confidently claimed.

I had my ways to bring Luke along the visit. I planned to push him into the teleportation gate with me as I pretended to inquire him about the functions of the gate for 'studying purposes'.

"Sure!" Sh.e.l.ly agreed.

"I've never been inside a regular house before in the third district," Sh.e.l.ly antic.i.p.ated visiting my house.

"Same," Ellen agreed with her glittering eyes.

We lifted our tea cups at the same time as we glanced at each other knowingly before laughing.

"You're back?" My mom opened the door to find the four of us that waited for her to let us in.

"Yea," I changed into a pair of slippers near the doorway.

It wasn't hard to convince Luke to come along with us.

"Luke," I called his name as I interrupted his sword practice with Alex after separating from Sh.e.l.ly and Ellen as our picnic finished.

"What do you need Rika?" Luke apologized to Alex before coming to greet me.

Luke was covered with sweat as he developed a nice lean figure from the exercise.

He held a wooden sword in one of his hands that was enchanted with various mana spells to help grant a variety of advantages while fighting.

"Can I visit my parents this weekend?" I pouted as if I was suffering from homesickness.

"How else will we complete our usual sessions?" Luke declined as he needed to complete our intense study sessions during the weekends as they weren't really effective during the weekdays.

During the weekdays, I could barely concentrate when Luke tried to recap all the things we learnt earlier on in the day as most of my energy was already spent.

I didn't really think a normal human being could withstand an extra ten hours of lessons in addition to the normal 24-hour school day conducted in the cla.s.sroom manipulated by s.p.a.ce and time.

Maybe I was only able to withstand this torture from gradually increasing my study time ever since kindergarten.

It was obvious why most partners immediately dropped back to the lower ranking schools they came from after coming to our school as they couldn't adjust to the inhumane workload that was given to us on a daily basis.

However, Luke and I were an exception as Luke would do almost everything to prevent me from earning minus points as he earned exceptionally high scores to balance out the overall scores.

"I promise I'll actually start paying attention in cla.s.s. I'll also listen to you during our study sessions in the weekdays," I pleaded to Luke.

Luke sighed as he took a glance of my hopeful eyes.

"And you'll get up in time in the morning?" Luke recalled me making a fuss during the last several months of waking up in the morning.

Lately, I found myself already ready to go to cla.s.s except for changing into my uniform and shoes. Luke quickly got me ready while I slept as I hugged my blanket.

"I will," I confidently a.s.serted to Luke.

Alex pitied Luke as he listened to our conversation while taking a brief break from his sword practice.

"Let's go to my room," I guided my group of friends to my small room.

My room in my parent's house could not compare to my room at school and Luke's estate.

It was smaller and lacked the luxurious decorations to fill it up as it was mostly empty due to its lack of use.

"I've never been inside a room like this before," Sh.e.l.ly took a glance of the small room.

"So this is what a house in the third district is like," Ellen commented as she sat on the bed which sunk in quite easily.

I smiled as I took a breath of the fresh air in the third district. I spun around to face my friends and my partner after I opened the window.

"Welcome to the third district," I showed them around my empty room.