“Alright, you noobs! Follow me!” The tall senior led Nox and around 20 others down a hallway. “From now on, if you have anything related to your dorms, you’ll answer to me!”
Nox didn’t see Gyir as the handsome 17 year-old senior like everyone else. Nox could only see signs of anger, boredom, and depression. Growing up in a place like Sector 4 gave him the ability to see certain emotions on someone’s face. Notably, the negative ones.
Not like there were many positive ones where he came from. Or in the whole world, really, ever since the demons attacked. Of course, there were faces of fake happiness, either from substance abuse or elsewhere. But there was no such thing as true happiness.
“Sir?” One of the kids asked. “When are you going to show us the Sim?”
“Ah. Eager, aren’t you? Well, that’s for tomorrow. Actually, no, never. That’s for the teachers to show you. Today I’ll show you everywhere else.”
The senior showed them around the large canteen, the dorms (which they had already explored), the engineering rooms, a few dozen classrooms, and a library.
“Why do we have a library? We have holopads, don’t we?” A student asked.
“Yes, but some things are better read physically. Besides, holopads can be tracked. Books? Not so much.” The senior looked at the towering walls of bound leather. “Some of the better stories cannot be found online.” He looked away. “Anyway, let’s continue.”
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By the time Nox’s group had completed the tour, most of the other kids had claimed their dorm rooms. The ceiling was low enough for him to touch. They were child sized rooms, each one having only a bed, a pair of lockers, and a small desk.
Most of the kids rushed forwards to claim their own tiny rooms. Nox seemed to be going inches at a time compared to the rush around him. Eventually, he ended up at a free room:
ROOM ID: 44 OCCUPANT: VACANT
Nox put his hand to the handprint reader. The whole room seemed to light up as a screen that was hidden on the ceiling unfolded to head height.
ROOM ID: 44 OCCUPANT: NOXUS
Greetings, Noxus!
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Note: No last name has been found. Please confirm this when possible.
The smaller of the two lockers had another hand-print reader on it. As Nox opened it, he saw… Nothing?
It looked like some kind of customisable weapons rack. But where were the weapons?
“You aren’t given weapons,” said a man. Nox turned around. It was Mort. “But you are given the components to make them. The more complicated ones you have to buy.”
“With what?”
“BP, otherwise known as Battle Points. But we’ll talk about that later.” Mort left Nox’s new dorm, and marched into the main-area. “Alright, noobs! Fall in!”
The kids rushed out of their dorms, before looking at each other in confusion. They ended up in a strange clump.
Mort shook his head. “Right, you’re freshmen,” He muttered. “Line up!”
The kids then formed one, large wavy line that curled around the edges of the room.
“Split up into equal rows, for God’s sake!”
Eventually, the freshmen managed to line up equally. Mort paced up and down at the head of each row before stopping and pointing to the big scoreboards covering one wall. There were two scoreboards - Solo and Team. Each one had names on the left and numbers on the right, split up into several columns: Kills, Style, and Wave Number. On the Team scoreboard, one of the listing numbers was constantly changing. Going up, mostly.
[Must be playing the Sim right now.]
“I want all of you to look at the scoreboards. These numbers,” He waved, “Will determine your rank in the battlefield. You may not be trained enough to play the WarSim right now, but in a year’s time, your life will revolve around it.” He stared at a few kids who seemed to be chatting. They were silenced.
“I would suggest looking at the seniors for advice. Especially those on the board.” He shook his head. “Tomorrow, your classes will start! Timetables can be seen on your holo-screens. Don’t be late. Dismissed!” And he stormed off once more.
[Jesus. Does he have to storm everywhere? It’s becoming a real pain in the ass.] He walked back to his dorm. [I swear, at this rate, he’s going to be stormier than Vergil.]
His dorm contained a funny smell - as if the room itself was made in a factory. He looked up. There was a single air vent, and on the top of one of the cabinets…
[Wait, is that…]
Pulling the study chair from the table, he stood on it and looked at the cabinet’s roof. On it, there was a simple wire system with a single, tiny lens the size of a pencil tip.
Tearing it down, he unplugged all of the wires before throwing it in the bin. [There’s definitely more cameras in here. That one was a decoy. I’ve seen a few the size of a needle.] He lied down on bed. Knowing that he was being watched, sleeping was much harder. But it wasn’t like he was doing anything weird. The bathrooms were separate from the dorms, and…
[Wait, what if they put cameras in there too? Jesus. They’re a bunch of creeps.]
Covering himself with a blanket, he tried to fall asleep.