Cecil was intrigued by the word. King, it meant someone who ruled over many. Since someone was called a 'King', then it meant that they towered over the rest of the student body, maybe even standing above the factions–no, they most likely did stand above the factions since the first party of 'Kings' kept on winning the year-long tournament for 4 consecutive years.

Lucia was also interested. A king would be someone that was strong and Lucia's goal was to become the strongest in the academy. This way she could proudly stand by the side of the abnormally powerful Cecil.

To her, Cecil wasn't just the boy she liked. He was her teacher, best friend and role model. Cecil was unnaturally strong for his age and although he seemed cheerful and simple minded, Lucia knew that there was another side to him, a darker side.

On their journey, there were times in battle where the boy would exhibit a cold and calculative side of himself. A machine-like side that completely disregarded everything else with the sole purpose of efficiently eliminating whatever it was that he was targeting.

Lucia didn't like this side of Cecil because when he was like this, then no matter how many times she called out to him, Cecil wouldn't respond. All he would do was intermittently mumble to himself while calmly staring at his target. It was this cold disregard and personality change that Lucia absolutely hated. The 'peaceful' look in his eyes made her especially scared.

Whenever she looked at Cecil when he was like this, she always felt like he was going somewhere far away and if she blinked her eyes for even a moment, he would suddenly disappear. Another thing that she noticed was that this side of Cecil would only come out whenever hers or Silver's life was at stake, though most of the time it was her life that was in a pinch and Cecil would always come swooping in to save her. She was always grateful, but with how prideful Lucia was, knowing that her inadequacy and weakness was the cause of Cecil's change frustrated her to no end.

Hearing about these 'Kings' made her hopeful. If she was able to reach this level of power where she could blatantly ignore the power of a faction that was comprised of numerous individuals, then maybe, just maybe, she would take a closer step towards the power level that Cecil was at.

She turned a determined gaze towards Fina, prompting with her eyes that she continue with her explanation. Seeing the two's interest, especially Lucia's, Fina continued with her words.

"A King would be someone who stood above all the other students in terms of technique, skill, mana cultivation stage, and combat prowess."

"Sure enough, it equates to the strongest." Lucia said excitedly.

"There will only ever be 10 Kings in the academy. Of course, no one can self-proclaim themselves as a King. The only way someone could be recognized as a King would be through the acknowledgement of the school's faculty."

"So the teachers and instructors are the ones who decide?"

"Yup, this system was something implemented by the previous headmaster to counterbalance the faction system that dipped more towards the side of a group's prowess instead of an individual's prowess." Fina said.

Ainz interjected on her explanation, "The upsides to a group or faction are that it helps build responsibility, relations, and teamwork. The downsides are that most if not all of the individuals in the group lack individual strength and character. If you take a look at a faction, you will see the similarities between the members' personality and thought process."

"It's the mob mentality." Cecil said.

"Mob what?"

"It means that an individual would respond, react or follow a group's actions instead of doing their own thing. They may even take up their group's unique characteristics and lose their own individuality..."

"Yeah, that's basically it! So what I'm saying is, if a faction is strong then the members would also be strong. If a faction is weak, then the members would also be weak."

Lucia nodded in understanding, "So the King's would be there to change this, mob thingy right?"

Fina liked the word so she corrected Lucia, "Mob Mentality, Lulu! Hmmm... Somehow it has a nice ring to it!"

Ainz then continued explaining, "So, to become a King, you can't join a faction and you had to prove yourself to the academy's faculty."

Lucia smirked and said, "This King system suits me just fine!"

"Yeah... that was only up until the current Student Council President broke it."

"Huh?"

"The current president is someone who's part of the Arks Royal Family. He enrolled 3 years ago so he's a fourth year now. On his 1st year he purposefully didn't join any faction and by the start of his second year he was able to prove himself to be worthy of the King title. He was given the title Sky King, then he broke the rules and was dethroned."

"Dethroned?" Lucia asked.

"Yeah, he joined the Student Council right after he was crowned King and became the president. He also persuaded 2 other Kings to join him."

"Is that even allowed?"

"It shouldn't have been. So when that happened, the King's System was further improved and that if you were crowned King, you would be banned from joining any of the 10 factions."

"I see..."

"However, because of what the current Student Council President did, the power balance of the 10 factions have become completely broken and skewed in their favor, so they've always kept on winning the academy tournaments and if the student council wanted to implement a new rule of some kind, no other faction would be able to protest against it, because protesting would mean going to war."

"War?"

"Yes, faction battles is a thing here and they're called 'wars'. Other than the tournament, another important thing would be that, the yearly faction wars."

"What's it for?" Lucia asked.

"It's to determine the rankings of the current factions. The rankings determine the quantity and level of resources the faction would get every year which they use to attract new members and cultivate their existing members."

"Ah, so having 3 King-level individuals really help the student council cinch the first place ranking, huh?"

Ainz nodded and said, "Yes, and because they're in first place, they get a lot of good quality resources which they use to attract new members every year. Mostly the more powerful and talented ones. The rest of the factions only get the 'scraps' as a nice way of putting it."

"Hmmm, so the other factions are disgruntled by this, I'm guessing?"

"You guess right. From what I've heard, the other 9 factions have silently banded together to suppress the student council this year. It's going to be really tricky to decide which faction to join since it's become like this."

The room fell silent. Lucia looked around and saw that everyone was thinking hard about which faction they wanted to join...except Cecil, since it looked like he was about to doze off.

"Okay, one last question. Who are the current Kings in the academy?"

Fina and Ainz looked at each other before the former opened her mouth to answer her friend's inquiry, "I don't know. Other than the dethroned kings Zephyr, Lilith, and Alex, I don't have any info about the others."

Ainz smirked at Fina and laughed, "HAHAHA! Looks like I'll be one upping you, aqua brat! Listen here, fox brat! There are currently only 5 Kings in the academy."

He raised his fingers up and began going through the names of the Kings, "The Disaster Queen, Audrey Flei. Sword King, Robert Stein. Nature King, Anixio. Nature Queen, Anixia. And finally...uhh, sorry I don't know who the last one is... the dude keeps a low profile so not much is known about him, except that it's a guy and he's known as the Ghost King."

Lucia put on a charming smile and stood up, "Hmph! Well you two should be honored, then!"

Cecil who was almost in dreamland was brought back to their plane after Lucia shouted her words. Fina and Ainz were also a bit surprised seeing Lucia stand up and shout so abruptly. She started laughing and suddenly said, "Before you both stands a future King AND Queen! Nahahahaha~"

Fina only smiled gently at Lucia's declaration while Ainz started mocking her, which of course earned him a few violent smacks to the face and an endless serenade of insults. Cecil, who was awoken, turned to look at his 2 new friends and Lucia.

'Confident as usual...'

He stretched and stood up.

"Hey, Ainz... it's getting late, let's head back. I'm tired," Cecil said with a yawn. Lucia immediately quieted down when she heard his words. She wanted him to stay a little longer and brush her hair and tails, but seeing that it was dark outside and he was really tired, she decided not to bring it up.

"We'll send you back~" Lucia said after she punched Ainz one last time in the face.

Their day finally ended when Fina and Lucia walked Cecil out of the girl's dorm complex. Ainz, however, was literally kicked out of the building by Lucia with a smile.

On their way back, Ainz started conversing with Cecil who looked like he was about to doze off where he stood. They were still walking back, so it amazed Ainz at the possibility of Cecil falling dead asleep even when they were still on the road.

'Would he just drop onto the ground asleep, or could he sleepwalk back to the dorm? Hrmmm...'

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Cecil perked up for some reason and turned to Ainz and asked, "You were thinking about something rude, huh?"

Ainz chuckled and said loudly, "HAHAHA, what are you saying, brat?! Oh, and by the way...that woman of yours, she sure is violent!"

Ainz rubbed his buttocks that were still stinging after Lucia had kicked him out of the building. His face however was still in mint condition even after Lucia had slugged him a couple of times.

"My woman? You mean Lucia?"

"Yeah! Her!"

"Oh..." Cecil yawned in response and didn't bother correcting him since he was too tired. When the two finally made it back into their dorms, Cecil immediately plopped onto his bed and was immediately whisked away to dreamland.

'Ahhh, can't wait for school...'

---------------------

Cecil got up real early the next day. Since he was now starting his academy life, he had to adjust his schedule a bit so that he would not miss his morning training. When he came out of the dorm complex, it was pretty silent as everyone was still in bed and the sky was still dark. This was the first time in a while since he's been able to train alone because usually, he would always have Lucia and Silver with him during his morning routine.

After Cecil did his stretches and got his body warmed up, he began running. He had no particular route, so he decided to just run a couple of times around the entire academy district. Unexpectedly, he met up with a certain silver-haired fox girl during his run.

It became a habit for her to train in the morning, so Lucia also had the same idea as Cecil and was running around the campus. Cecil only felt that it was unexpected because he thought that considering Lucia's sleeping habits, there was no way for the two of them to meet up so early in the morning. At the very least, she would've slept another hour before getting up.

"Hey, Lulu... I guess you're not skimping out on training, huh? I thought you'd be relieved that I wouldn't be there anymore to monitor you," Cecil teased as he ran up alongside her and adjusted his pace to match hers.

"Hmph. It's not like I need YOU to coerce me to train!" Lucia snapped back and then continued softly, "...I thought you'd be lonely if you train by yourself, it's not like you would take the initiative to invite Ainz. Anyways, be grateful that I took the time out of my beauty sleep to train with you!"

"Haha! Thanks, Lulu, but that's not a bad idea! I guess I should invite Ainz next time!"

The thought had never crossed Cecil's mind until Lucia brought it up. He thought that what Lucia said was true and it did seem pretty lonely to train alone, since she was no longer sleeping in the same room as him and Silver was staying back at the Ironforge Smithy.

He decided that he would surely invite Ainz to train with him in the morning next time. Maybe this way he could also get along better with that loud roommate of his. With this thought, he thanked Lucia once more in his mind and kept on running.

"..." Lucia kept silent and smiled at him though inwardly she was thinking, 'This idiot!!! Invite Ainz and I'll turn morning training into morning massacres!'

Back at the boy's dormitory...

"ACCHHOOOO!" Ainz was woken up by an intense sneeze. He looked at the clock and saw that it was only half past five and immediately went back to sleep since the academy's morning assembly didn't start until a little past 8.

"Too early..." he mumbled. A minute later his snores were what rang throughout his room.

Back to where Cecil and Lucia were, the two of them had finally made one lap around the whole district, but the sun had finally risen in the horizon at this point. Cecil took a look at the sunrise and thought that their run took up quite lot of time. The academy district was pretty big so of course it would take very long to run an entire lap around it. However, he wanted to go for another lap, but decided against it since the other inhabitants of the district had probably already woken up by now.

"Tsk... our run took too long... we couldn't even train our forms or meditate."

Lucia heard him and suggested, "Why not just do our forms while we run? This way we'll still have a bit of time to meditate and cultivate our mana stages."

Cecil brightened at the suggestion.

"Hrmm... instead of just training our forms and stances let's also spar along the way by only using our martial arts! I mean, it'd be pretty embarrassing if people accidentally saw us running around the district just practicing our forms! It'd be much more acceptable if people accidentally saw us sparring instead."

Lucia didn't think of that and thought that it would look strange and embarrassing if people saw the two of them practicing only their martial forms while running around the district. Her face flushed a bit and she hastily said, "Y-yeah! Let's do that!"

"Okay! Remember not to be late tomorrow morning! Or else I'm going to leave you behind!"

"Tsk, with you dragging along a deadweight I won't be surprised if I was the one waiting for you!"

"Deadweight? Ah, Ainz you mean. Well, that's if he agrees to join us of course."

"Whatever... I'm heading back now. It's probably 6 already and I have to practice that speech for later."

"Oh! You mean the 1st year's representative speech for the enrollment ceremony?"

"Yeah, that one~ I'm not used to doing something like this, so I guess I should go practice. I don't want to embarrass myself after all~"

"Okay, off you go then! Just know that I think you'll do just fine!"

"Thanks Cel~ bye bye~"

Lucia walked off while waving at him. Cecil smiled at the receding figure of hers and thought that he should also head back.

'Although we did say that it'd be better to stand out a bit, but I didn't think that she'd stand out like this!'

Lucia had placed first and he second on their entrance exam tests, so it was already a given that the two would have some degree of fame when classes started, but now that Lucia would be presenting herself in front of the entire student body, everyone would know about her after that. Inexplicably, Cecil grew irritated at the thought.

'Weird... I'm happy for her, but it's making me irritated for some reason...'

The irritation sprouted after Cecil had thoughts of how everyone would have their eyes on Lucia once she presented herself as the academy freshman's number one ranker in the entrance exams. He was number two, so similarly, he would also receive some attention, but he didn't feel anything from it. However, the thought of people buzzing around Lucia just because she was the number one irritated him.

It was just like back at the guild when their abilities and prowess were first exposed and their titles were finally acknowledged by everyone. Cecil thought nothing of the attention directed at him, but the attention directed at Lucia caused him to feel irritated for some inexplicable reason. He couldn't explain why though because he himself didn't understand why he was irritated.

Cecil stopped himself from thinking about it since he only felt anger brewing in him if he continued to keep his mind on that, "Whatever, I'll just punch away the source of this irritation when the time comes."

A Cecil-like conclusion was reached after Cecil spent his entire time walking back to his dorm thinking about it. If Lucia found out about his thoughts, she would no doubt be very much elated and irritated at the same time. Elated because the effort she spent on the idiot weren't in vain and irritated because the muscle-head didn't understand where that feeling of irritation and anger came from.

When he arrived at the front of his dorm complex's admin building, he saw a group of people unloading boxes into the building and the building's staff moving about and unpacking the boxes. From where he was standing, he saw that the contents of the boxes were the academy's uniforms.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Our uniforms would be delivered this morning! I wonder if mine's already arrived?"

Cecil rushed into the boy's dormitory complex and quickly arrived at the front of his dorm building. He dashed straight to his room on the second floor at the thought of his academy uniform finally arriving. He had only seen his siblings wear school uniforms and it greatly interested him since he thought that the uniforms were so much cooler than his training garments.

He never experienced school life or a childhood that any normal child would go through because of his family's tradition, so he was very much looking forward to experiencing academy life here at Arks Royal Academy for himself.

If the transfer never happened, Cecil wouldn't have had the opportunity to experience something any other normal child would have already gone through. Although the circumstances that led to him being here were somewhat unfortunate, and that it was also regrettable for him to be separated from his family, deep down he was also somewhat thankful since he could experience a lot of different, interesting things.

Cecil was looking forward to all the colorful experiences he would go through now that he was finally away from his family. His mother, Anastasia, would probably cry an ocean if she knew what her beloved son was thinking. He wasn't crying somewhere in a corner, fretting over whether he would be okay or if his family would be okay. Instead, he was taking his time enjoying his newfound freedom.

Speaking about his family, somewhere faraway from where Cecil was, a man was abruptly awoken by the loud sobbing cries of his wife.

"UWAAHHHH!!"

"W-What is it honey?!!!"