Chapter 129: Quinn Larisch (Part 1)

Since the trials began, my name has been Code.

But my real name is Quinn Larisch, and I never lost my memories.

I was born into a middle-class family, which is surprisingly rare in Iasa. Roughly twenty-five percent of the popular are born into a wealthy household of noble or high military status, while sixty-five percent are unfortunately born into a struggling, poor environment where their next meal is never guaranteed. My family is among the ten percent that make up the middle class.

I suppose in that regard, I got pretty lucky. We weren’t rich like the nobles, but I never had to worry about going to sleep hungry.

Before I was born, my parents worked as teachers at one of the more prestigious school academies in Saneth, the nation's capital. My dad was an English teacher, and my mom taught martial arts, but after I was born, she quit her job as a teacher to take care of me.

My mom may have been a martial arts teacher at the academy, but just like my dad, she was also brilliant. Perhaps it was in my blood already, but thanks to the time and effort she devoted to teaching me things from such an early age, my intelligence developed much faster than the other children. She claims that I learned to walk when I was just six months old, and I could speak complete sentences and uphold a conversation by the time I was two.

In Iasa, attending school is a privilege that only children of the upper and middle classes could afford, and soon enough, my parents enrolled me at the same academy they taught at. The average age for a starting student at the academy was five years old, but I took and passed the entrance exam with flying colors at four. In fact, I had scored so well on the exam that in my first year, I was placed into classes designated for seven to eight-year-olds.

As I became a full-time student at the academy, my mom also returned to work as a martial arts teacher. I got picked on quite a lot over my years at the academy. Not so much at the start, but I became an easy target as my classmates got older and became more aware of how society operated. Children, especially those from more prosperous families, would often tease me, poking fun at my clothes or telling me that the only reason I got into the academy was because my parents were teachers.

They said all kinds of things, but honestly, it never bothered me. I just… ignored them, and when I ignored them, they would get angry at me. Throw a punch, shove me to the ground... they would do all kinds of things to try and get a reaction out of me, but I never stooped to their level of resorting to idiotic violence.

I usually just took the punch or two and moved on without thinking twice. But that isn’t to say I didn’t fight back. Every once in a while, when I felt there was a need to take action and stand up for myself or somebody else, I would recall what my mother taught me and put the bullies in their place.

Fighting back would often get me in trouble, not only because of the physical misconduct but because I was beating up those hailing from upper-class families. It didn’t matter whether I had done the right thing; the story was always twisted in their favor because of their status and money.

And I always ended up being the bad guy. Always.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But my parents' trust in me never wavered. Even when I got suspended, or the dean threatened to fire my parents for what I had done, my mom and dad always stood by my side. They would support my actions, claiming that they had raised their son the right way. And at home, I never got in trouble.

The academy was split into two different departments: an educational-focused and a survival-focused curriculum. From ages five to twelve, students would take classes solely focused on their education, and from ages thirteen to seventeen, students would take classes centered around survival. The idea behind the survival program was to prepare the nation’s best and brightest, or the richest, to carry on their ancestors' legacy as well-trained, competent military leaders or soldiers. At least, that’s what we were told.

I was eight when I graduated with ease from the educational program. After I graduated, my parents waited a year before enrolling me in the survival program. They didn’t hold off on enrolling because of the bullies but because my mother said my body needed more time to develop.

After just a year and a lot of one-on-one training at home, my mom believed I was more than ready to handle the survival program, which I quickly found far more difficult. I was well versed in martial arts, but speaking in terms of raw physicality, I was three to four years younger than the rest of my classmates, who were now entering their teen years and had more developed bodies.

Before, whenever I would fight back against children older than me, I could make up for my lack of size with technique. But now, in the survival program, where we often practiced sparring and other physical activities, it was significantly more challenging to make up the difference.

And it was exhilarating. For the first time in my life, I was genuinely being pushed to my limits. Even though I was much younger than the rest of my classmates, I could still hold my own as I earned passing scores in all of my classes. I also got the occasional targeted comment thrown at me, but I got along with this new group of classmates far better than the previous one, and I even made some friends.

As my muscles grew along with my height, I could see and feel the difference in how much faster my movements were becoming as the months began to go by. Because I’ve always been younger and smaller than my opponents, whether it be the bullies that picked on me, my mom teaching me skills at home, or the classmates I competed against in the survival program… I was always forced to be light on my feet to keep up and retain some advantage. Because of that, I became frighteningly quick in combat, outmaneuvering my opponent's attacks and countering well before they could ever react.

By the end of my sophomore year, I was among the strongest in the entire class, racking up many excelling scores like when I was back in the educational program. So, going into my junior year at eleven years old, I couldn’t wait to see what else there was to learn. It was the first year that I finally got placed in the same class as one of my parents, my mom’s martial arts class. And also… although I couldn’t possibly anticipate the events that would follow, that was the year my life would change forever.

My junior year started out just as the previous two had; it was nothing crazy besides having some pretty straightforward classes. It was fun being in the same class as my mom, even though she would pick on me the most. Many classmates asked me if it was embarrassing or even playfully teased me about my mom being the teacher, but I thought it was awesome. Even though I was her son, and she would poke fun at me during her demonstrations, she treated and critiqued me just as she would with any other student, and I greatly respected that.

Although my mom had trained me in martial arts for years at home, there were still many techniques she only taught in the classroom. Seeing her able to go all out with her assistant instructors made me realize that I still had a long way to go in martial arts, which only made me all the more invigorated to keep improving.

So, I began doing extra training. Nearing the end of my junior year, it paid off as I sat comfortably at the top of the martial arts class. I was even awarded the opportunity to spar for real with each instructor just a week after I turned twelve. I believe I had fought well against each instructor back then, even my mom, but I couldn’t beat any of them, and I went home with quite a handful of new scrapes and bruises. But still, even after I lost, I couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear.

That evening, though… everything was normal. Until it wasn’t.