Chapter 3 - The Stereotypical Jackass

The next day, I woke up confident. Since arriving in this new world, everyone I talked with had been either academic staff or Veritas. I felt excited at the possibility of meeting fellow students during the orientation.

I had never been a social butterfly in my past life, but I concluded that if I wanted to be successful in MANC, I needed friends. Perhaps I could find other Synthetics like me, and we could hang out together if the privileged kids of this world didn't accept us.

Another thing I concluded was that, if I wanted to talk to Veritas, I would do that before I went to bed at night. I was mostly fine yesterday since I didn't have any duties, yet, if I were to take this academy seriously I couldn't do that while constantly having headaches. Therefore, if I didn't desperately need answers during the day, I would only talk to her before I slept so that I would minimize my time suffering from migraines.

Also, I decided to explore the academy a bit in my free time before the classes started. This was the future, so maybe there were strong painkillers that could negate the headaches I was having. Even if not, I was sure that I could find interesting things around the campus.

I cooked scrambled eggs (partly because that was one of the only breakfast meals I could prepare, and mostly because I didn't have too much stuff on my fridge), and after finishing my breakfast, I wore the special pathwalker tracksuit they gave me after I accepted MANC's offer in the hospital, and left the dorms.

A lot of students walked alongside me towards a building called The Theatron for the orientation meeting. I could feel people throwing glances at my weak body occasionally, but I didn't mind it too much. Sure, I stuck out like a sore thumb among all the other athletic students who had passed a challenging entrance exam, but the cold, autumn morning wind caressing my hair gave me enough joy to not care about what others thought of me.

Weak or not, I had been given a second chance, and I had no intention of wasting it by worrying about people's perceptions of me.

I made my way into The Theatron, a big, theatrical building that looked like a Renaissance church. Most buildings in MANC had designs resembling the old baroque architecture of the established universities in my previous life, and both the exterior and the interior lobby of this building were no exception—the marble floor reflected the light coming from an enormous crystal chandelier hanging above us. Two dark, heavy, wooden double doors covered one of the walls, and I followed the other students and passed through them.

The conference hall, lavish by all standards, could easily fit in a thousand people. It paralleled more of a Renaissance amphitheater than a basic conference room; hundreds of seats with dark blue suede fabric covered the elevated seating area, while the dark wooden stage rose at the far end of the room. A few teachers -or at least I assumed them to be teachers- stood in front of the enormous blue curtain covering the stage.

Plenty of students had already taken their place in the luxurious seats. I found an empty seat around the back rows and sat, waiting for the meeting to start.

But nobody sat next to me. My entire row filled up except for the two seats to my left and right.

I knew I didn't have the best looks, but was I really that disgusting? My body was just really thin and weak, and I certainly didn't consider myself that appalling.

I must be unlucky, that's all. Most students already had one or more friends accompanying them, and I had sat in the middle seat of three available seats, so this arrangement left no space for people to sit together with their friends in my row.

As I was contemplating whether I should just move to a different seat, a group of three students started to make their way towards me.

The leader of this small group, an athletic guy with a samurai bun, wore the pathwalker tracksuit same as many other students including myself, but instead of wearing the jacket on his body, he tied it around his waist, revealing the white undershirt that left his toned arms exposed.

Two girls walked closely after him—one of them didn't wear the tracksuit at all. Instead, she was garbed in a white spring dress, stunning most students trying to give them some space with their knees. Her long blonde hair that reached almost to her hips swayed gently with each step she took.

The other girl was the exact opposite of her—her short brown hair falling on her shoulders gave her a tomboy-ish look. Her denim shorts hugged her legs, and the sporty checkered shirt she wore hung loosely, threatening to slip off her fair shoulders, revealing a black undershirt beneath.

Even though there weren't any empty rows that could have three people, the guy still led his group towards me. From his knitted brows looking directly towards me, it didn't take me too long to smell trouble.

"Yo, Twig," he yelled as he approached. "Get up."

I stared directly at his eyes. I could see that for some reason, many of the students near us had directed their looks towards us, watching this whole ordeal.

"Why?"

"Why?" He looked at me as if he just heard the stupidest question ever. "Because we're going to sit there."

"I get that. I meant, why don't you go search for somewhere else to sit? There are seats all three of you can sit near the stage."

"Who the fuck wants to sit near the stage, you moron? Now get up."

"I don't either. I came here first, so you can fuck off."

[Your charisma score has increased to 5!]

It was evident that the guy tried to restrain himself to not kill me immediately. With his athletic body, one good shove to my neck from him would probably break my brittle spine.

"It's okay, Matias," said the short-haired girl, grabbing him by his arm. "We can find another seat."

"No, Jewel," the blonde-haired girl interrupted with a whisper, thought it was pretty easy to hear her since everybody around us had become dead silent, focusing on our little drama. "I don't like this guy's language. He needs to learn a lesson."

She turned to me and raised her voice instead of whispering. "Can you get up, please? There are a lot of seats for lonely people like you. We just want to sit together in the back."

I ignored her last request completely and instead addressed the whisper. "You don't like my language, but you hang out with this douche?"

As I was pointing to Matias with my thumb, he grabbed my collar in the blink of an eye, his eyes flaming with disdain. "No need for requests, Daisy. This guy clearly won't heed them. You need to give orders to these types of snarks, otherwise they will become too self-important and think that they're better than everyone around them."

I tried to resist, but he lifted me as if I was just a nylon bag, hurling me to the side. My feet leaving the ground, I crashed into the seats in front of me, nearly flipping over and falling into the front row.

A gentle shove from my side and I lost my balance, falling into the laps of the seated students next to me.

"Go away," he yelled, comfortably sitting on the middle seat. "Before I break your stick-like legs."

I muttered clumsy apologies to the students as I rose back. I clenched my teeth—if I did something here, I would be further humiliated by this well-built guy. If I turned back to find another seat, I would be deemed a coward by the people around me.

Both choices were worse than the other.

With a thought, a window popped into my vision.

[Current pain level: Meager.
STR increase: 0
DEX increase: 0]

If I can make him hurt me more, to the point of being agonized, maybe I will have a…

"Hey!" Someone shouting at me completely took me away from my thoughts. "Hey!"

A few rows below, a giant guy crazily waved his hands towards me. A red t-shirt tightened around his colossal figure, easily the biggest guy I had ever seen in this new world, even bigger than the Vice-Chancellor himself.

As he noticed me noticing him, he pointed at the seat next to him. "Just let it go, man. There's an empty seat here. No need for trouble."

I thought my dignity could probably survive if I left these three alone now that some called out to me to stop, so I let out a deep sigh as if I could easily beat Matias but just decided not to, and made my way towards him. My bluffy sigh probably sounded really funny and unconvincing, but what could I do? This was another one of those "lesser of the two evils" situations, and I had simply chosen the less bad option.

A lot of curious looks fell on me during my walk of shame, probably wondering how a stickman like me had even become a student in their prestigious academy.

Walking to The Theatron, I had made up my mind about not caring about what others thought, but in practice, this proved too hard to achieve. How can I not care about it when dozens of students scrutinize my body and whisper among themselves?

I made my way to the big guy's row and slowly side-stepped towards him.

The dude loomed even larger when I approached. With his towering two-meter height and buffed physique, his biceps alone were bigger than my head. His fringed-up brown hair completed his "gym bro" look perfectly. Occupying almost two seats, he covered the empty seat next to him with his wide shoulder that didn't fit his own seat.

I greeted him with a nod and took my place on the seat. His shoulder left less space for someone to sit, sure, but thanks to my small body, we fit in the two seats like two pieces of a puzzle.

"Don't mind them, bro," the guy said, patting my shoulder with his wide hand. "You were right, but you can't reason with rich folk. There was nothing you could do."

"I guess not," I said, throwing a glance over my shoulder to the three of them. "Do you know them?"

"You don't? Well, that explains what you did back there."

"I'm a Synthetic. I know next to nothing about the academy."

"Wait, really?" The guy turned to me and I saw the other person next to him getting hit by his wide shoulder thanks to his sudden move. "Me too, bro! Thank God, finally someone like me!"

"Huh." He must have had a relatively peaceful life. At least he probably didn't die miserably from cancer. "You too?"

"Yeah, man! When did you wake up?"

"A day ago."

"Oh, that explains it. It's normal, then, if you don't know that jerk. I woke up like, two weeks ago. Those three became really popular after the entrance exam. I didn't enter it since that simulation stuff and all, but I was here in the academy when it took place."

"What did they do?"

"They were all in the top ten. That blonde girl?"

"Daisy, was it?"

"Yeah. Daisy Elliott. Third place. Apparently, she is the sister of some popular pathwalker, one of the first ones to hit level 250, or so I've heard."

"Who? Might look them up when I go back to my room."

"Uhhh…" He scratched his head. "I don't remember the exact name. She had a name about irons or something, though."

"Hmm."

"Never mind about that, bro. That douche? Matias Garcia. Fifth place."

"Wait, Garcia?" The image of the bald, muscular suited guy in the hospital immediately appeared in my mind. "Like the Vice-Chancellor?"

"Oh, you've met him too? Yeah, I believe Matias is his nephew. I've heard Garcias are like a big family of famous pathwalkers."

Well, that explained both their arrogance. While I didn't know the Vice-Chancellor too well, his lofty attitude and the unnecessary destruction of furniture didn't leave a favorable first impression on me. Admittedly, I was the one who first made aggressive comments back in the hospital, so I could give him at least that. But this Matias guy?

I wanted to beat the shit out of him.

Of course, I had no way of achieving that right now, but one day, I was going to do it.

"What about," I asked, "The other girl?"

"Uhh, I forgot about her name, but she was the eighth. Maybe ninth? I don't know. Also comes from a prestigious family, though. Most people in the top 10 do."

If I'm not mistaken, Daisy called her Jewel. Well, at least some things are still similar in the future. Rich people stick together and dominate the poor folk.

This hyped me up quite a bit. Surrounded by students who came from wealthy backgrounds, with access to the best resources and training humanity has to offer, I had a severe disadvantage. But instead of feeling defeated, a fire ignited within my heart—a determination to prove myself. To defy the odds stacked against me.

I was the underdog, and who didn't love a good underdog story?

I promised myself to show Matias, all these nepo babies, and most importantly, myself that I was capable of pulling my weight. That, I vowed.
As I was smiling, thinking about all the cool possible scenarios I could have in the future, the big guy's words pulled me back into the real world.
"I'm Tyler, by the way."

He reached his hand, and I shook it. "Kayra. From the Faculty of Mind."

"Oh, I thought you'd be something like that. You must be pretty smart if they accepted you with that body of yours."

Although his words jarred me a bit, I could see that he had no ill will in his words, so I didn't comment on that.

"To be honest," I said, "I'm not that smart."

Tyler slapped my back so hard I felt my lungs coming out of my mouth. "C'mon bro, don't be like that. No need to be humble. If we weren't geniuses in our own rights, that A.I. thing would've never accepted us."

This, on the other hand, bothered me. Tyler labeled me "smart" for being in the Faculty of Mind, and there was nothing wrong with assuming that. But this meant that a lot more people, potentially teachers and the academic staff would also assume the same, which would certainly make my time harder in the faculty.

Sure, guys like Matias and Tyler surpassed me physically, but one would expect that I would be smarter than them as a Mind student. My intelligence exceeded the average only by 1, though, and my high willpower didn't do shit. At least yet.

I was at a disadvantage even in my own faculty.

"Sure, I'm not good at smart kid stuff," Tyler continued, "Below average, even, if what that simulation voice said is true. But I'm strong. Like, really strong. And there's nothing wrong with admitting that you're good at something, y'know? I mean, don't be a jerk about it like that Matias guy, but… Be proud of yourself."

"That's," I said, looking at Tyler with awe. "Actually a pretty good mindset to have. Thank you."

Tyler smiled gently. "No worries, bro!"

He said he had below-average intelligence, but I could see that he had a lot of emotional intelligence. Maybe the vitality or vigor stat was related to that. I made a mental note about asking this to Veritas or read the manual Hayabusa sent once I went back home.

"So," I picked up the conversation, "You're from the Faculty of Body?"

Tyler grinned widely. "Pretty obvious, ain't it?"

"Nah, just a lucky guess."

Tyler let out a loud laugh and smacked my shoulder, almost making me fall from my seat.

"See," he said, still laughing. "Only a smart guy can make a joke like that."

I thought my joke was pretty bland, but I joined Tyler in his contagious laughter.

He seemed like a nice guy, and it made me happy to make a new friend, especially another Synthetic like me.

He is the complete opposite of me, but… Don't friendships usually work that way? You sit next to someone in high school and somehow, you are friends for life, even though you're completely different than one another.

At least that's what I observed in my old life, as I had no friends like that. Most of my friends remained in contact with each other and met up pretty regularly after we graduated. Except for me.

This was the first step to becoming someone different than my old life. Having good friends.

I wanted to talk more to Tyler, but our good time was interrupted by the curtains in the stage drawing open, revealing an old man with a grey ponytail and a well-trimmed beard. He waited for everyone to stop talking, and started his speech.

"I welcome you, freshmen," the acoustics of The Theatron carried his voice even to the back rows without a microphone. "To the Millennium Academy of New Constantinople. I'm Principle Kartal, and today is your first day on your journey to become the best pathwalkers the galaxy has ever seen."