I headed towards the classroom, not trying to get myself into more troublesome situations. Luckily, nothing of that sort had occurred for the time being. All classrooms were labeled from all first-year classes to random ones that didn’t make much sense. Due to me running a bit late from the encounter with Lester, I had no time to check those particular rooms. 

Grabbing the handle to classroom 1-B, I gracefully opened it and entered. The classroom in itself was bigger than expected, pretty much being an auditorium. No wonder each class was nowhere near the other. I mean, there were forty students per class. 

Each desk was gently placed evenly in an eight by five structure. Well, desk is not the correct description. It was more like a long table with a long seat that could hold eight people per one. When getting closer to inspect the area, nameplates were placed on each desk. 

Hm. Really? It’s sort of surprising that they would have assigned seats. Or maybe I had the wrong expectations. Reading the names one by one as I passed the desks, I found my seat rather quickly. My seat was in the second row, seat six to the right. I was placed in the front, and that’s a one way ticket to a horrible experience.

I turned around to count the current number of students present, a total of sixteen including me. By the looks of it, I was pretty early even with being delayed. Having complaints, I still sat down as if nothing was bothering me. It is what it is, that’s all I have to say. 

As I had nothing to do, all I had to do was wait for all the students to arrive. Oh, yeah, I didn’t mention this, but most of the students were talking to each other. They were getting to know each other better while I just sat waiting for class to start. I dislike waiting, but there wasn’t anything I could do to pass time. 

There’s absolutely no way I’ll talk to a fellow classmate. Not because I’m too nervous, but because I like being alone. Not to the point where I secluded myself, making myself unapproachable, but more like I mind my own business. If someone talks to me I talk to them as I don’t take the initiative. There is one exception though it isn’t worth mentioning. 

“Yo.”

A voice called me, in response I turned at the direction where the voice came from. A black-haired male student rocking a pompadour. Might I add, it didn’t look as bad as most people would imagine. In addition his was quite short and stylish compared to what you see in other media. 

What media? 

Huh, that was strange…

Why did I say that?

Anyways, his mean looking eye stared deep inside my soul. His dark brown sanpaku eyes did not help with his appearance, people may outright avoid him due to that. 

“What’s up?” I replied, sitting more upright. 

“Just came here to introduce myself. Y’know we’re sitting next to each other so we might as well do it,” he explained, cocking his head towards his left. 

He doesn’t seem the type of person to do such things. Well, I guess I can’t judge a book by its cover all the time. Plus there’s no harm in an introduction. But since each name plate contained our names so there really isn’t a need for one. Oh, he might want to hear my name since it’s spelled and pronounced differently. I see.

“Sure, I’m Taetel Chaim. Nice meeting you.”

“Miki Mitsugi, first name Mitsugi. Hope we can get along…” he said, mumbling the last part.

And with that quick introduction, he turned a bit and sat down to my left. I went back to waiting, placing my face on the long desk like thing before immediately removing it instead opting to stare at the ceiling. 

After waiting for who knows how long, almost everyone was present, sitting in their assigned seats. Soon the figure of a teacher was seen walking inside the room. Crossing my fingers, I eagerly waited for the teacher to enter. A woman in her mid twenties entered the room. 

I internally sighed, not because I was dissatisfied with my teacher, quite the opposite, however things are going to get complicated in the future. Unless, I’m wrong about all this and I just look stupid. Being cryptic is one of my favorite things to do. 

“Hello, everyone. My name is Rei Tanimura and I’ll be your teacher for the next three years so get used to seeing my face,” Rei said, then slightly bowed.

Her short Byzantium color hair gave her a younger appearance than she really was. She had to be at least in her early thirties by the way she’s acting or at least that was my take on it. 

But that’s besides the point, I would like to listen to what she has to say. I know for a fact that everything coming out of her mouth will be important in the structure of the academy or system. 

“First things first, I’m going to pass these papers. Since there’s eight, once you grab yours and pass it to your right,” she said, place some papers to the people in seat one.

They quickly found their paper and passed it, it didn’t take long before it got to me. It looks like the teacher actually went out of her way to sort the papers depending on the seat number. Meaning when I grab it and pass it on, the next sheet of paper should be for the person to my right.

“The sheet of paper contains your basic results from the entrance exam. While specific details are confidential, the information is more than enough.” 

Indeed, this contained some basic information about our results. Which probably means that the teachers or staff members have a better version of this. Perhaps the teachers need a more detailed version to deal with all forty students. After all, some are bound to be troublesome to deal with.

The paper had my name written on it, including my height, age, weight. But that wasn’t the important thing, the thing that caught my interest was the stat-esque rating we were given. I probably forgot to mention this but almost everything in this academy is rated by the A through F system. 

My stages were as the following;

Power: B

Speed: C

Technique: A

Intelligence: C

Cooperativeness: E

…

Well, this hurts to see. Am I really this bad? Though I’m surprised to see potential isn’t included. 

But why is my intelligence that low…? I considered it to be average. And what even is cooperativeness? I didn’t know we were tested on how obedient we are! 

Oh. I almost forgot this:

107th student out of the total 240 students in the first year.

Damn…

This really does confirm it, I really am cannon fodder for this class. Sucks to be that guy. My only chance will be to stay here until I can get demoted. 

“The ranking does not account for the whole academy as you can see. You will only be evaluated as a first year. Our expectations increase the longer you're here, so don’t let us down,” she explained, giving a sweet smile like she wasn’t pressuring us.

“As many of you already know, the higher class you’re in the better education you get. Of course, for each of you to strive to be promoted, there are many incentives the higher your class is. This includes better opportunities and rewards when getting work through the academy, higher quality items, discounts on many things, meeting certain people, and many more!”

“Not only that, but the higher your standing is in your own class, you can earn individual rewards based on your performance. I know that was a lot to take in, so I’ll be taking questions.” 

Isn’t it a bit too early to let students ask questions? Wouldn’t explaining everything work better? Or maybe that’s how she does things. 

“Um, how is the standings decided?” asked a timid girl. 

“I’ll explain that soon.”

“O-okay.”

Yeah, that's the same reason why it’s better to take questions after the explanation. But I guess it’s if they have a question about a specific thing, or so that she can see what type of questions we have. Who knows what’s going inside her head.

“Teacher! Is violence inside the academy allowed?” A confused student asked.

What kind of questions is that? You’re acting as if something like that—oh.

Shit.

“Absolutely not! Violence for no reason is not tolerated. You either issue a duel or keep it within limits. But why do you ask? Don’t tell me a student has already broken the rules?”

There aren’t rules if you don’t know them. Go on, tell her. 

“Yes, a short scuffle happened in one of the hallways. I wasn’t the only one who witnessed it, a group of students were there.”

Ah, so that was why nobody was near when I knocked out a girl. 

“What did the students look like?”

“If I remember correctly one was a female student with long strawberry blond hair. The other was a male student with messy black hair. Sorry, that’s all I can recall.”

I don’t like how that situation just went. Really? Really, huh? I just can’t catch a break…

“It’s fine. I’ll make sure to sort the situation out so don’t worry. Anyways, does anyone have any other questions?”

Normally, I wouldn’t ask a question, but the pros outweigh the cons. Aka I can’t let this chance go. It doesn’t matter if my reputation goes down. I mean, my question isn’t that big of a deal. I casually raised my hand to gather her attention. Once I got her attention, as well as everyone, I prepared to ask my question.

“Do the discounts apply for buying slaves too?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Um, unfortunately they do not,” she answered a bit weirded out. 

“I see. Well sorry for asking such a peculiar question. I just wanted to see how far the so-called incentives would be willing to go. But I guess I shouldn’t have gotten my expectations too high,” I sighed, shaking my head.

For a place like this. 

Haah, it seems like there isn’t anything that makes me want to stay in this class. So the better option is to get demoted to Class C. For some reason the teacher stared lingered a bit longer before she went back to answering questions. I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of them, instead waiting for the rest of the explanation. My reputation didn’t go as low as I expected, just people staring at me a tiny bit with judging eyes. 

“Okay! That’s it for questions. I’ll be explaining the rest about this academy. Standings are based on your performance on the test given by us. Duels are a viable way to increase your rank. You will also be taking exams as the whole class, being split up, being teamed up with random students, all of this to test your capabilities in different situations.”

“As for classes, I'll be observing your progress and marking it down. You’ll have different instructors and professors teaching you in specific fields.”

In short she isn’t doing shit for us. Well, I do know there’s more in what she is letting on, but I can’t prove anything. What is left is for me to experiment with the rules to see what’s acceptable and what is not. The teacher proceeded to explain some facilities within this school which weren’t as important so that’s why I briefly mentioned it. 

“That’ll be it for the time being, I’ll be guiding you through each class only one time so make sure to remember the way there.” 

Students then began leaving one by one, following the teacher. I waited a bit before following, sticking to the back. Once we had arrived at the next class, we entered. When I walked past the teacher I could feel her gaze watching each of my movements. 

“Chaim.”

“Hm? What?”

“Can I speak to you for a second?”

“Sorry, I’m going to be late for my next class. I don’t want to try to get off a bad start with someone who’ll be teaching me.”

Unlike a certain someone. 

“That’s right, as your teacher I don’t want you to be late on your first day!”

After that I just went back inside, not in the evening bothering to turn back. I feel like she could sense how I felt, not like it was a negative emotion.

Still, I guess should’ve kept the question to myself…