Once Cecil woke up, the party, with the addition of Lucia, immediately set off back towards Angla City. He was still a little lethargic from the after-effects of using Over Flash. If he had to, he never wanted to use that technique again. Just one shot and he was rendered incapacitated soon after. It didn't suit his fighting style, but he did think that it could be used as a last resort... if he ever needed it for that matter.
Lucia was bugging him and fretting over his condition the entire journey back towards the city. The rest of Cecil's party could only smile wryly looking at the couple. One was constantly worrying over the other while the other one was only brushing it off lightly.
"Well... 12 is the normal age where a noble's child gets engaged right? Then are Cecil and Lucia nobles?" Ghina whispered towards the merfolk girl sitting next to her.
"No...Well, at least I don't think so. I mean... the two of them don't look like it."
"...yeah, you got a point there."
"Well, maybe their parents arranged for it. I mean even commoners do the same too, you know."
"Oh! Yeah, you're right!" Ghina said in realization. "Though, I do feel bad for Lucia..."
The two girls turned their attention towards Cecil and Lucia who were having an argument.
"Like I said, stop worrying already! I'm fine now, sheesh! What're you, my mother?" Cecil said while backing away from the foxkin girl leaning close to him.
"Hah! In what way is that pale looking face of yours fine?!"
"My face is always pale!"
"Pfft, last time I checked it was a bit tan!"
"Well, now it's pale! I spent a while in the dungeon and had no contact with the sun after all!"
"You'd only be pale if you didn't have contact with light at all! And the dungeon is full of light you idiot!"
"So now I'm an idiot? Aren't you being too harsh towards a sick person?!"
"Now you admit that you're unwell?!"
"NOPE!"
"Well, TOO BAD! YOU ARE SICK SO SHUT UP AND SLEEP!" Lucia said and abruptly sent a chop towards Cecil's neck.
Cecil easily blocked the chop, but didn't expect her other hand to come flying at him as well. It was even enhanced with Elemental Burst so it came pretty fast that Cecil couldn't block it in time.
"Gah—"
Her chop struck him on his nape and Cecil immediately fell unconscious on top of Lucia's lap.
"Good boy~"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Lucia..." Fina had a strained smile on her face.
The rest of the party could only stare dumbfounded at the couple. The boy was sick! And Lucia just sent him to sleep with a karate chop! He was just being stubborn, but was there a need to be so unreasonable, was there? The girl in question even had a satisfied look on her face as if her previous act of aggression wasn't anything bad.
"...How unreasonable..." Ghina softly said.
"Strong!" Lu Garulle smilingly exclaimed.
"I guess even Cecil loses sometimes," Light said wryly.
The group arrived back at the city a few hours later. They had taken the dungeon's return travel service since Silver wasn't with them, so it took quite a while to get back to the city despite it being rather close. Speaking of Silver, the large monster companion somehow knew that his master was currently in a bad shape and was waiting for them in front of the city's gates.
"Silvy! Good boy~ come carry your stupid master. He did something unreasonable again so he fainted!"
'You're the one that made him faint!' the rest of the party retorted in their heads.
The small puppy-formed Silver immediately changed his size and grew bigger. Ghina, Light and Lu were very much surprised to see this. Lucia quickly loaded the unconscious Cecil onto Silver's back and the group proceeded into the city, heading back towards the academy.
When the group got back to the academy district, Ghina opened her mouth to speak, "Fina, the report's already finished. I guess we'll separate now?"
"Okay! We'll hand in the report once Cecil's written down his opinion."
"We already wrote his. He did tell us to just right down that it was boring."
"Nonono~ we can't have that! I'll make sure to tell him to right a proper one!"
"Uhm...okay."
"Okay, everyone; we'll see each other tomorrow! Party dismissed!" Fina declared, imitating Cecil's way of dismissal.
When everyone dispersed, Lucia giggled and said, "That was a good imitation of Cel! Party dismissed! Hehehe~"
"Ahaha! I just thought it'd be proper!"
"Let's head back Fina, we still have to take care of this sleeping idiot."
"...you're the one that smacked him to sleep."
"Hm? Did you say something Fina?"
"No~pe!" Fina replied with a playful grin.
*************************
It was the end of the week and everyone in S class had finished their assignments. This week didn't have any classes since the instructors had to give the first year students time to finish their dungeon explorations.
Cecil and his class party had already turned in their report. Lucia and everyone else's party had done so as well. Cecil's group had submitted a report about Angla's Public Dungeon, Lucia's group report was about the Great Erlutian Forest Dungeon and Velicia's group was the same, but instead of the forest area which Lucia's group had explored, Velicia's party went up to the upper floors of the dungeon. Ainz's group also went to the same dungeon as the two girls, except he went to the underground floors instead. Eli's group went to the Wyrm's Lookout, which was a field dungeon based high up in the Anglaria Mountains close to Angla City,
Everyone had a nice experience dungeoneering with their classmates. To many of the students, it was their first time dungeoneering. It was a good thing that everyone made it out there safe and sound. The funny thing was, that after returning from the dungeon, Light was now constantly by Fina's side when they weren't in classes chatting her up.
Fina appreciated the company while Eli, Velicia, and Lucia were constantly sending her meaningful and playful looks, which of course the girl in question did not quite understand.
Cecil was still feeling a little downtrodden however. For some reason, his arms were semi-paralyzed until now. It was hard for him to move his arms and there were short bouts of intense pain being transmitted from the mana pathways in his arms. It was already 3 days after he had used Over Flash, but there were no signs of it healing.
'What the hell's wrong with my arms?'
Cecil, of course, didn't tell any of his friends about his dilemma. Especially not to Lucia, who knows what kind of unreasonable fit she might throw if she found out.
'Crap... I'm never using that skill unless I'm about to be killed! Darn... the pain's killing me...that's ironic.' Cecil retorted at his own thoughts. He wouldn't use the skill unless was going to be killed, but the pain coming from the after-effects was killing him instead.
It was a good thing that Cecil could control his facial expressions, if not he'd be wearing a dark frown all day long with the short grimaces of pain flashing every now and then.
'I hope my arms heal before the next segment starts.'
When all the classes for today were finished, the academy had every student assemble at the large stadium before they went back to their dorms. Instructor Jin explained that the headmaster would be announcing the ending results of the tournament's first segment today. There was also a slight change to the second segment of the tournament and the headmaster would explain to the student body regarding those changes.
********************
In the stadium, the headmaster was now on top of a podium addressing the student body.
"My young students... it's been 2 months since the start of the school year and here we are at the end of the tournament's first segment! I congratulate you all for doing such splendid work for this past month!"
"WAHHHHH!!!!"
The students cheered at the headmaster's words. It was kinda funny though since technically the students had been doing community service for the past one month. Adventurer quests had rankings and low ranked quests mostly had miscellaneous tasks like finding a pet, mowing the grass in some areas or picking up the trash in the city area, basically community service-like quests.
But it was a good thing for the academy since it helped build a positive image and it showed that although the academy had its own isolated district they still cared and played a large part in the city's system.
"Today I will announce the top 10 rankings for our tournament's first segment!"
The large, aqua screen monitor floated down from above the stadium's arena. Immediately the screen lit up and the rankings from 1-10 were displayed. With no due fanfare, the headmaster immediately exclaimed.
"Rank 10!"
At the headmaster's words the placing for rank 10 lit up and letters began to form next to it. Cecil looked up at the monitor and saw the party's name, 'Natural Disaster? What kinda team is that?'
"Audrey Flei, Anixio Las, Anixia Las, Barth Flux and the other members of the party! Please come up to the podium!"
From the 3rd years' seating area, a beautiful, sexy, red and yellow feathered Harpy drifted down to the podium where the headmaster was standing on. Behind her, 2 identical, child-like half elves followed suit, as well as 7 other students, totaling 10 people.
"Woah, 3 Kings... seriously?" Ainz exclaimed.
"3 Kings... but they're only 10th ranked," Fina said anxiously.
"Look at the score! It's only in the 8000s!" Velicia exclaimed.
Everyone around her began eyeing her differently. It was ONLY in the 8000s? A small group of 10 were able to accumulate over 8000 points... that alone was noteworthy already! Lucia smirked and so did Eli. They had kept track of the numbers and tiers of quests that their party had done in the past month. It was safe to say that their points were well over 8000.
"Hehe... we got this," Lucia said smugly.
"Isn't that a given?" Eli responded similarly.
The headmaster smiled at the 10 students and turned his attention back to the front. He opened his mouth and exclaimed, "Rank 9!"
The rank 9 placing lit up and words once again began to form.
"Alchemist Faction!"
"A production faction actually cinched 9th place?!"
Everyone was in awe at this. Normally production factions such as the Research, Alchemist, and Ironforge factions were never able to get a spot in the top 10. Just what could have happened that shot up their points?
"They have over 9000 points!"
"It's over 9000!!!"
"PFFFTTT!!!" Cecil started laughing immediately after he heard that.
'Who the heck said that?!'
"What's wrong Cel?" Lucia asked.
"N-Nothing... pfft... man, didn't think I'd hear that on Alterna..."
"Hear what?"
"Nah...It was just something funny from Earth." Cecil snickered as he whispered to Lucia.
The leader of the Alchemist faction with 9 others walked down towards the podium. The principle continued announcing the next rankers. The rankers from 8th to 4th were announced in quick succession. 8th was surprisingly another production faction, the Ironforge Faction. 7th place was the World Tree Faction, 6th was the Dark Moon Faction, 5th was a tie-breaker between the Warrior Faction and Mage Faction and 4th was also a tie-breaker between the Royal Fox Faction and the Draco Faction.
The factions of each rank sent their leaders and 9 other people to go stand on the podium as their representatives. After a short intermission where the headmaster displayed short footage of each ranking's most memorable adventurer achievements during the past month, god-knows-where he got it from, the headmaster finally began announcing the top 3 rankings.
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By this time, the Little Kings were beginning to grow anxious. After the two production factions displayed their total points, ranging around 9000-10000, the subsequent factions had a large jump in points. The discrepancy of points from 8th to 7th place was a total of 5000. 7th place's World Tree Faction had 15500 points and the increment for the next rankings was around 500-1000 points each.
The 4th place's Royal Fox Faction had over 18000 points. From what Lucia and Eli had calculated, their party's points were just a little over 18000. This means that the Little Kings most likely ranked 3rd or 2nd... they had no chance of ranking at 1st during this segment.
Lucia and Eli were a little dispirited since they had confidence that they'd take 1st place, but the power of numbers from the factions were hard to beat and only now did they realize this. They only had 6 members. Even the Disaster Queen's party had 10 or maybe more in total, yet even they, lagged far behind the rest.
Ainz, Velicia, and Fina were still a little more enthusiastic since they hadn't done any calculations. They were eager to hear their party called out since it was such a great honor for them to stand side by side with the other top students of the academy up on the podium.
"Third Rank!"
Word's began to form next to the third rank, Phantom. The singular word caused everyone in the stadium to fall into discussion. Even the faction leaders on top of the podium began to frown at the word.
"Phantom?"
"A party?"
"Holy crap! Guys! It's the infamous and elusive Ghost King! He actually got 3rd place! Is Phantom his party?!"
"Wait... I heard he worked solo..."
"Woah!"
The Ghost King working solo was common knowledge within the academy. The Ghost King was also very elusive to the point where no one knew the actual identity of the person. They only knew that it existed and maybe it was actually a man. The headmaster raised an hand and immediately calmed the commotion within the stadium, then he opened his mouth and said,
"Robert Stein!"
"Robert?"
"The Sword King!"
"!"
"The Ghost King is actually in a party!"
The headmaster then announced another name, one that no one knew. "Alice Mayden!"
"Who?"
"A girl?"
From an inconspicuous corner of the stadium, the Sword King jumped out of his seat and landed lightly onto the podium. He was a big and buffed gray furred rabbit-eared man. His facial features indicated that he was still in his youth, but it could be seen that he was almost in his late teens. The Sword King was obviously in his last year in the academy. There was also a long, thin, centipede-like scar on his face. It ran diagonally from the top right of his forehead to the left of his cheek, almost touching the corner of his mouth.
He looked sharp and handsome, but the fierce scar on his face made him look very intimidating. Although he was a rabbit-kin, he stood at a height of almost 2 meters tall. He had a large dark colored great sword on his back and he was wearing a large robe over his body, but the buffed arms and legs of the young man showed that he wasn't shyly hiding away his body.
The headmaster smiled at him and looked around, "And Alice?"
"...she's right here."
The large rabbit-kin teenager pulled away his cloak and underneath was a petite, pink colored rabbit-kin girl snuggling on him. The girl had her arms wrapped around the intimidating Sword King's thick waist.
The Sword King's face twitched a little seeing the clingy thing on his waist, then he called out, "...oi."
"Hmmm???"
The girl only responded with a long moan which caused the headmaster to let out a small chuckle.
"Alice, you're in front of a large crowd right now," The headmaster whispered.
The small rabbit-kin opened her eyes and looked around. The whole stadium was silent and only small murmurs of discussion echoed around. The girl saw this and shrieked in horror.
"UHKYAAAHH~!!"
She immediately separated from the Sword King and out of nowhere a black cloak with a large hoodie immediately covered her body. One could see the raised and surprised pink rabbit ears poking out from under the hood. The 'Ghost King' noticed this and raised her hands to quickly tuck in the ears under the hood.
"...umu..." The 'Ghost King' nodded and stood there silently right behind the large Sword King.
"..."
By this time the entire stadium was only staring back at the comical 'Ghost King'. Everyone began to laugh a little, but the Ghost King kept silent, not giving any response to the light laughter that was directed at...her.
"Well, the Ghost King was actually a girl!"
"A cute girl at that!"
"Ahahaha~"
The next instant however, the entire stadium became dead drop silent. A short footage of Phantom's adventure was currently being played on the monitor. It was footage of the Sword King and Ghost King destroying a large flock of Wyverns and the most ghastly part of the footage was the multiple wyverns suddenly plummeting down from the sky for no reason whatsoever.
What was common from all the fallen wyverns were that they all had a missing appendage or an unsightly wound on their bodies. They were dead, but no one in the stadium saw how they died.
It was only when the Ghost King reappeared again next to the Sword King, near the end of the footage that they saw the petite figure. She was raising one of her blades to her hood and a cute, small red tongue began licking the blood off of it. There was also the faint pair of red glaring eyes from behind the dark hood which caused many of the laughing students to shiver in silence. After the footage, the headmaster then continued on to announce the 2nd ranker.
"Rank 2!"
When the students noticed that no other people were being called by the headmaster, another uproar ensued.
"Wait! Rank 3 only consists of 2 people?!"
"Phantom...only has the Sword and Ghost King in it?"
"The two have almost 19000 points! That's crazy!"
On the monitor the space next to Rank 2 began to light up and words began to form slowly, except this time, the points were the ones that formed first.
"22000!"
"Woah! Which party could have done this?!"
"Party? More like faction!"
"The only factions remaining are the Researchers and Student Council!"
"Don't tell me... the Researchers did this?!"
Everyone of course thought that it was the Research Faction, there was no way that the unannounced Student Council didn't get 1st place. The Little King's, however, thought otherwise.
"Well... I guess that's us, right?" Ainz said.
"Yeah... but... how come it's more than what we had counted?" Eli asked, turning her head over to Lucia.
"Hmmm... Cel?"
The girl's only conclusion was that Cecil had kept some quests a secret from them.
"Huh? Oh... it's not what you think. If you're thinking that I did some more quests behind your backs then that's wrong."
"Anyway, let's go down. 2nd place isn't so bad~" Velicia said smilingly.
The people around them began eyeing the group weirdly. Did these kids just say that they're the ones who got 2nd place? Just them 6? What a joke!
"Oi, kiddo, don't get ahead of yourself. What do you mean it's your turn? 2nd place isn't so bad? Sit down and wait for the name to actually come up before you start spouting nonsense," An upper class man said.
Class S was sitting just next to the area where the 2nd year students were so some of them had heard the nonsense Cecil's group was spouting.
"Huh?"
"What? Got a problem kid? Just so you know, you're only 1st years. Don't be so delusional and think that you'd be able to make it up into those rankings."
"..." Everyone else began looking at each other in awkward silence. Their fellow classmates were also eyeing them strangely. Only Lucia flared up at the insult.
"What's that?!" Lucia said raising her voice in protest.
"Hmph. Naive!"
"Lulu, that's enough. Just sit back down and wait. It's only second place why are you guys even getting up for that?"
"Eh?"
"Huh?"
Cecil's friends were looking back at him, puzzled at his words. It's only second place? Why get up for that? Wasn't that their rank?
"Besides... our upper classman it right. We should obviously wait for the name to come out~"
"Heh, at least one of you is sensible."
Cecil smiled slightly and eyed the upper classman playfully. He could see that the dude was part of the Draco Faction and he wasn't so happy seeing his faction only being 4th, not to mention their placing was actually being shared together with another faction. He laid back into his seat and began meditating. His arms were still hurting and cycling his family's mana technique helped alleviate the pain a little.
He could also feel that the pathways in his arms were somehow transforming and mending itself with each circulation. Cecil didn't know if this was a good or bad thing, but at least the pain was lightening albeit awfully slowly. After the points fully formed on the monitor, the name began forming. To everyone's astonishment however, was that there were only 2 letters in the ranker's name.
"Ah... I knew it..." Eli said dejectedly.
"Tsk...Damn," Ainz faintly cursed.
Everyone else was silent and a little dejected. Only Cecil stayed calm with his eyes closed. While their party was down in the dumps, everyone else in the stadium began to exclaim in surprise at the name of the ranker.
"What?!"
"How could it be?"
Up at the 4th years' seating area, the main members of the student council were sitting together and they too were eyeing the name displayed on the monitor with surprise and disbelief.
"How..."
"But... there must be something wrong!"
"..."
Zephyr was glaring fiercely onto the name etched next to the Rank 2. He scowled in annoyance and stood up.
"Let's go."
The core members could only follow after their president. Up on the monitor, the 2 large golden words of the ranker was finally displayed. Student Council. Yes, it was the Student Council to everyone's disbelief. Everyone began discussing and they were all now wondering who it was that got 1st place in this year's first segment of the tournament. It had to be known that the Student Council had one 1st place 2 years in a row and this was supposed to be their 4th year of being the undisputed top ranking faction.
"C-Could the Research Faction really have beaten everyone else this year?!"
"Oh my gosh... look the president and his members are coming down..."
"They don't look like they're happy."
"Who would? They've been first place ever since the new members joined the Student Council... this was supposed to be the 3rd year of their uncontested winning-streak..."
Everyone in Little Kings was now looking hopeful and they turned to look at Cecil in astonishment. They only saw that the boy currently had his eyes closed, paying no mind to the commotion that was ongoing inside the stadium.
Cecil felt the gazes on him and opened his eyes slightly, "...what? Didn't I tell you? We're taking first place."
Every member of Little Kings smiled back at him and they stared back up onto the monitor, precisely at the 1st Rank's empty spot.