“Stop.” And so I did.

Luckily I'm a calm and patient individual, so I didn't REALLY snap at baldy.

While pointing her cyan blade at my throat, I felt the chilly steel as she spoke with an indifferent voice “You’ve said enough, things said in the heat of the moment, you will find, are often regrettable. Calm yourself young man.” her blue pupils mercilessly pierced my soul. Cold sweat formed on my forehead.

“Fucking asshole.” My sworn enemy spat out.

The blue haired lady – probably – teacher sheathed her sword after seeing me nod in confirmation.

Not sure what she meant because I was very patient and calm throughout the ordeal, right? Damn it.

Behind the blue haired ice-queen, - which, I daresay, had a uniquely beautiful hair – showed up a tall, strong-looking man with cropped black hair and an ugly looking scar on his right cheek - which, I daresay, looked somewhat scary - with widespread hands. The man clapped his hands as if trying to draw everyone’s attention and said in a very deep voice “Now now, everyone, please turn your attention to the platform at the front of the field.” His smile really didn’t suit his scary looking face.

As I turned my head towards the edge of the sand field I realized, this red-haired pretty boy, he didn’t say anything ever since we ran into the robbers, was he shaking in his luxury boots?

On the platform a very knightly-looking person with an extremely stern expression on his face - so natural that it made me wonder if his face was actually just permanently stuck from frowning too much - was standing behind a black podium with a small, black stone that had white stripes on it.

“Students, I welcome you all, I am the captain of the knight’s unit - Silver-1 - of the royal army, Gorin.” stern-face gave a short salute “I also work in this academy as the weaponized-combat instructor.” His voice was basically as deep as the voice of the scarred person, but it’s kinda weird that I can hear him so well from this distance. Is there some sound amplifying Seal’s power inside the stone or something? How interesting.

“We will now have a few words from your student council president.” Red-hair was the person that stepped up to the podium next.

Very much unsurprisingly so.

His name isn’t Charisma for nothing… Or at all but that’s beside the point.

“My fellow students, I wish to welcome each and every one of you.” He said with a clear voice that sounded strange as it was somewhat louder than expected.

“My name is Leonardo, but you can call me Leo,” is he for real? I swear he practices this line in front of a mirror… “Some of you know me as Leonardo Hyland – son of the king and 3rd in line for the throne, but please, just think of me as one of your fellow students, feel free to come to me as well as the other student council members for any complaints you may have.”

I wonder if him being the 3rd prince was a very important thing to point out, if I was working right now, that big tree to the left of us would have been an awfully convenient spot to assassinate him from with a single poisoned arrow.

After Red-Haired Charisma left the stage, the scarred, powerful-looking person walked up, is he someone important?

“Dear children” 20 Year olds, by the way… “my name is Rick Liamendo and I am the principal of the military academy of Mil-Ansk, pleased to make your acquaintance.'' He stopped to give a small bow and everybody started clapping and cheering.

“I’ll keep this speech brief, in our academy city, status or social standings do not apply, if you are qualified to be here then that’s that.” He opened up his clasped hands and announced in a loud voice.

“I welcome all of you to try and be the best fighter this continent has ever seen!” closing his fists he announced loudly “Strive For More!” Again with a short pause to let everyone cheer, is this some speech tactic? so annoying…

He dropped his hands on the sides of the podium with a thud, leaned forward and continued with a serious expression "You're all very skilled, you all have your expertise, you're all from exclusive, interesting types of backgrounds… But hear me well, here, you are all average at best, humble yourselves, keep yourselves straight, straight and honest and… of course." Rick stopped to take a deep breath before shouting "Strive! For! MORE!" Every student who wasn't a first year joined him for the last part.

With that he waved one last time and finally stepped off the podium and the ceremony was basically over, it was somewhat exciting. Honestly.

As I walked to my assigned class my efforts to stay out of trouble actually paid off for a change.

“class A-2 huh? Thank god baldy is 2 years older than me.” Walking in while whispering to myself wasn’t quite my best idea as the students inside the class all looked at me funny, I think.

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Stupid idiots, these losers probably can’t even kill a person, yet here they are, in a prestigious military school.

The straightest I’ll keep myself is like a banana with all those monkeys around me.

Humble yourselves? yeah right, I wanna puke just looking at them.

Ahhh, this is gonna be such a nightmare, why did Kiyoko even send me here?

I don’t do people well…

After taking the most strategically viable spot in the classroom, in the left hand corner by the window of course.

The blue haired lady from earlier entered the classroom, she seems to be our teacher, I’m not so sure that I’m entirely here for it.

“Good morning everyone,” she opened, does she always sound so indifferent? “Today is your first day so we’re not going to learn anything" How very direct, is this normal for schools? "After a short introduction we will go to the inner training facility for an evaluation which will help determine your overall combat capabilities.” With a small bow that seemed somewhat comical to me she introduced herself as ‘Lissandra’.

Introductions finally reached me and I needed to make the most unfriendly and unapproachable intro I could think of.

After standing up I announced my name in the coldest manner possible, undoubtedly this will keep those idiots away from me, I hope…

Just like Lissandra said, we made our way to this inner training place and the knight guy from before - I think his name was ‘Groin’ - as well as some other brown-skinned dude with a lean, kinda scrawny physique were standing in the middle of a gray room that looked like a stadium.

The big white arena they were standing on made the brown color of this bald, scrawny guy stand out even more.

Groin’s armor clunked from him lifting his hands to point to the seats around the hall “sit yourselves wherever you want in front of us, Lissa, come join us down here.” My cool teacher went on stage and kicked Groin, that’s kinda funny.

Their chemistry was somewhat surprising, endearing even, but is he mad at her now? He looks so angry all the time, I can’t tell…

“Haha, now that everyone’s seated, let me just introduce myself once again, my name is Gorin, and I will be your instructor for combat with weapons.” Oops. Well, I kinda prefer Groin now so... sucks to be you I guess.

While entertaining myself with the thought of his stupid name the brown person opened his mouth to speak.

“Hohoho, my name is Djah’ckel, I come from the free autonomous area - in the desert to the east of our city - named ‘Markahtples’, bery nice to meech you all.” With his hands behind his back, he gave a curt bow before going on about his role as a hand-to-hand combat instructor.

For some unclear reason, his nasally voice made me think it was kinda funny that he’s gonna teach us hand-to-hand.

Maybe because of his unclear nasal system. I need help.

In any case, I’ve never heard of this ‘Marketplace’, and they’re autonomous too, that means they don’t live like us, right?

“Lissa- Lissandra, please pick a student to have a small bout with me and mister Djah’ckel.”

“Very well, mister ‘I have my own morals’.” She said looking me dead in the eye, I felt the cold in her eyes even from that range, guess I made a bad impression, fuck.

After climbing down from the seating area, I picked a bow as my weapon. The knight guy – Groin – was wearing his armor so this is going to be - probably - impossible to fight, but I just really liked bows so…

“Are you sure about using a bow kid?”

“My apologies, respected instructor, I only know how to use a bow or 2 knives, I chose a bow however, simply because I just like it better.” With a nod from mister stern I took my position as he began talking. “Oh, and I’m not a kid” He let out a sigh.

“Very well, here are the rules - injuries are allowed but fatalities are an auto loss, no Seal abilities if you have those, no Sy energy, you either win with your weapon or you lose.” he pointed behind him at some lady sitting on the sidelines.

“There’s a healer with the ‘Hazel-Foam’ Seal here so you don’t have to worry too much, but be careful nonetheless, she can only heal so much.” he said to no-one in particular, probably just wants the class to hear.

Examining the knight’s armor something was obvious, it isn’t an actual knight’s armor - or at least I hope it isn’t - but rather a shirt with a few steel plates attached to it.

“2 arrows huh? Let’s make it flashy.” Concluding to myself I took a deep breath.

Everything slowed down for a second, I will win.

After confirming that I’m ready, we both waited for a cue to start from miss ice-queen.

Lifting up her hands, she paused for a second, she nodded at both of us before dropping her hands back down as she announced, unenthusiastically.

“Begin.”

The knight, of course, started running straight at me with his mace in his right hand and a shield in his left.

I aimed my bow directly upwards as I held my breath tightly and let go of the string after adjusting my strength so that the arrow wouldn't hit the ceiling.

As the knight closed in I drew another arrow, held my breath, time as if slowing down just for me, I felt extremely calm. I shot the arrow straight at him.

My instructor lifted up his shield to block my shot which would probably hit directly between his shoulder plates in a soft spot of his plated shirt if he didn’t.

My arrow was just about to hit his shield when a loud grunt came out from his direction. The plan worked perfectly, here I thought the teachers would be more experienced than that… Disappointing.

“What an interesting way of fighting, way too flashy for a 1 on 1 duel.

I applaud your technique, if nothing else, but you lost this battle.”

I found myself standing with a mace aimed at my throat while the teacher had one arrow dripping blood to the floor lodged into his left forearm that held onto a shield until just a moment ago and another stuck exactly where I aimed at – in the gap between the shoulder plates, so then, why - why and how did I lose? it doesn’t even make sense.