After being stuck in traffic for nearly an hour, he finally managed to turn into his apartment parking lot. Excited to get home and check out the setup options, he nearly leaped out of the car.
Walking towards the building with a little spring his a step, Ensen soon made it halfway across the parking lot when he heard somebody calling out in his direction.
Quickly analyzing the parking lot, Ensen noticed that the old lady that he had seen on a few occasions was staring directly at him with dead eyes.
“Hey you, come help me!” Her old shaky voice called out rudely.
Deciding to ignore the rude old lady, Ensen turned around after glancing around in confusion, acting like he didn’t know what was going on.
After a few seconds, another shout came from behind him. “Hey, I need help!”
Looking back, Ensen began wondering if she was in trouble with all of the efforts she had been going through to get his attention.
Deciding that he should check on her before going back to his apartment, Ensen began to walk over.
Noticing that he was walking over, the old lady frowned and wait for him to arrive.
After around 30 seconds Ensen arrived in front of the lady.
Looking at her, he didn’t see anything urgent. She seemed completely fine.
“Why did you take so long? Didn’t you hear me?” The lady said, obviously annoyed that Ensen had ignored her earlier.
“Oh, I thought you were talking to somebody else, sorry about that,” Ensen said convincingly.
With a heavy sigh of irritation, the old lady continued to speak “fine, help me take my groceries in.”
“Help you what?” Ensen said without a hint of respect, not believing that the lady had been yelling at him repeatedly for such a simple thing.
“You heard me.” The lady said with a heavy frown.
“Why don’t you carry your own groceries in?” Ensen said, his attitude slowly turning more and more hostile towards the old lady.
“I’m old, now help me carry these in.” She said while opening her trunk and pointing towards a few bags laying in back.
Feeling annoyed by the rudeness the lady had shown him, Ensen decided to carry the bags in to get away from her as fast as possible, then ignore her from thereon.
Slightly smiling at his plan, Ensen began picking up the bags and walking with the lady towards the apartment.
Although the lady had spoken to him quite a bit, her rude attitude did not dissipate even when he brought the groceries into her room.
Without even a word of thanks, Ensen was pushed out of her apartment and back into the hallway.
Walking back to the elevator to go to his floor, Ensen imagined himself yelling at her which made him feel slightly better.
After a few minutes, Ensen arrived in front of the door of his apartment. Unlocking the door, Ensen quickly entered, fed up with people for the day.
After taking off his shoes, Ensen stretched his arms and nearly sprinting towards the couch in excitement, Ensen shouted: “Okay, show me the setup options now!”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Responding to Ensen, the system displayed a large forum like box that had checkboxes, name fields, and other information on it that related to the academy.
[School Name: ]
[Emblem: ]
[Age range: ]
[Student body: ]
[Specialties: ]
Looking at the list of information in front of him, Ensen quickly analyzed the items before proceeding to enter information on what fields he was clear about.
For the name, Ensen thought long and hard about it for the past few weeks. After all, he wanted it to signify something and be meaningful. He stood for nearly a minute before he finally confirmed his decision.
After much contemplation and many scrapped ideas, he had finally arrived at the name ‘Evergreen Academy.’
“Set the name to Evergreen Academy please,” Ensen said clearly. He was proud of the chosen name.
[Why did the host choose this name over more domineering names such as onslaught college?] The system wrote confusingly, obviously not paying enough attention to humans to understand how terrible of a name that would be.
“Evergreen means timeless, and my academy will be too,” Ensen spoke strongly, ignoring the horrible recommended name from the system.
With no further questions, the school name field had been changed.
[School Name: Evergreen Academy]
Looking at the name with a satisfied smile, he turned his attention towards the emblem. Although Ensen had not paid much attention to this aspect since he had the name already chosen it would not be too hard to make a good design with the system’s aid.
After thinking for a few minutes and crossing multiple designs off the table, Ensen came to an emblem that he thought just might work.
“Could you make a stylized evergreen tree?” He asked the system.
Following which a big blue box that seemed similar to a canvas appeared before him.
In the center of the canvas was a small evergreen tree that did not take up too much space.
Nodding in approval at the appearance of the tree, Ensen sank back into his thoughts discarding ideas left and right before he thought of a suitable addition.
“How about a sky blue background in the shape of a circle around the evergreen?” Ensen asked to see how it would look.
After the system had changed it accordingly, he nodded in confirmation.
Still feeling something off, Ensen put his finishing touch onto it. “Add a golden border around the sky blue circle.”
Stepping back and looking at it from a little distance, Ensen approved of the logo and moved on to the next step.
‘Age range is pretty self-explanatory.’ Ensen thought to himself as he told the system how he wanted it set.
[Age range: 16-18]
[The age may be adjusted later on, but the initial missions will target the age-range more so it would be optimal to keep the same range.]
Nodding in understanding, Ensen looked at the following option in confusion.
“What exactly does it mean by the student body?” Ensen asked curiously.
[This specifies the species that can be admitted to the academy. Does the user wish to see a full list?]
While Ensen was still slightly befuddled by the information given to him, he was curious about what other races would show up.
Hesitantly, Ensen said, “Sure I guess?”
Listening to Ensen’s request, a new blue box popped up with a variety of different species along with a checkbox to the right of it signifying if they were allowed to attend.
[Species]
[Aaba]
[Aanaro]
[Abrhai]
[Alti]
[...]
Looking at the list of species with a blank expression, Ensen asked the system a question.
“What even are these? I thought they would be like weird crocodile things.” Ensen said confused by the peculiar names.
[That is incorrect, take the Aanaro for example. They are most similar to the bullet ant species in your world and live in small packs of 10 usually. They are most commonly about the size of an average car and weigh about the same. In addition, they also have razor-sharp noses which can be used to attack and defend themselves.]
Looking at the blue box shocked, Ensen asked a question “So they must be incredibly dangerous, right?”
[Incorrect, they are mostly employed by the upper-class population in the world as farmers, gardeners, and similar roles, due to their razor-sharp nose being useful for quick harvesting and cutting of grass when properly positioned. They have been a well-respected species on their respective planets for many millenniums.]
With an odd expression, Ensen turned his gaze away from the blue box after he had finished reading.
Quickly changing the subject and trying to forget about what he just read, he asked in clarification “So these are all the species right?”
[How ignorant. The list contains the most populated one hundred thousand species in the universe. Naturally, there is a nearly unlimited count of species.]
After hearing the system’s answer Ensen began to scroll down the list to find humans. Arriving at the H, Ensen looked around.
[Hummus]
[Hulok]
[...]
“Wait where are humans?” Ensen asked curiously.
[You don’t really think you’re in the top one hundred thousand do you?] The system wrote in obvious contempt.
“Uhh… of course not? Well, can you select humans for me then?” Ensen spoke, irritated that all of his hard work had gone to waste.
[Very well. What other species would you like to select?]
Looking at the message in confusion, Ensen retorted “Only humans. Does it look like I can randomly choose different species? Look around, I don’t want a weird bloodthirsty pig species coming here and killing everybody or something like that.” Ensen said seriously, worried about the drastic consequences it might have.
[Unbelievable. That race isn’t even in the top one hundred thousand either.] The system wrote annoyed with his host.
“Wait that actually exists? Well, either way, I’ll just stick with humans for now.” Ensen said stubbornly.
Looking at the information, Ensen was satisfied with himself so far.
[School Name: Evergreen Academy]
[Emblem: Evergreen tree with a circular background and a golden border]
[Age range: 16-18]
[Student body: Human (M, F, O)]
[Specialties: ]
Looking at the final category, Ensen was at a loss about what it entailed.