"Oh, and one more thing. You'll not be able to get back to the academy during this whole time. The only way for you to return would be to fail by either giving up or having to be saved by us teachers."
Everyone's expression had changed. They knew exactly what saying something like that would result in.
The nobles and the princess never had to live in the wilderness like this for multiple days, not even talking about weeks or months like in this case. It would obviously result in most of the students not knowing what to do in a situation like that at.
And they got exactly the reaction they expected to see. Everyone stared at the teachers and everyone had different reactions.
It made complete sense for a training like this, after all the nobles have to learn a lot of things at the academy, but the two most important things are to interact with the other future leaders of Raiken and to get stronger to be able to lead the kingdom in the future.
For the kingdom to really work like it's supposed to the leaders, who are going to be these exact people in the lion class have to first and foremost be strong. Strength isn't really limited to magic or physical abilities, it can also be high intelligence, but in some kind of way they have to be strong. Otherwise they would be a weakness rather than a glorious leader.
And second they have to at least be friendly with each other on the outside. If the strongest of Raiken don't cooperate then even thought it might look strong one the outside it would be easy to destroy Raiken by just picking out the different powerhouses one after another.
Without unity and strength a kingdom is doomed to fall at one point in time, may it be earlier or later.
But the nobles believe that their kids don't really need to concentrate on these things. They train them and they may even teach them proper etiquette, but in the end there has to be some kind of place, where all of the future leaders of the kingdom meet each other.
And that's also the purpose of this academy and why it's so important. I had quite a lot of time to think about all kinds of stuff, after all I had already been at the academy for 2 weeks. And one of the few things I was absolutely sure about was a training like this, forming teams and cooperating.
So the only one, who wasn't surprised by this announcement at all was me. There were some reactions, which were a lot more negative than others, but all in all nobody would've expected it. At least not in the 3rd week after the start of the academy.
The teachers also noticed my unfazed reaction and slowly began to understand why I am such a special case even in the lion class.
"Well it seems like most of you are a bit surprised by this, but if you aren't even able to work together as a team for a few months than I'm not sure if you all are really worth to be in the lion class."
The devil of fire always looked like he was a rather smart teacher, since the first time I saw him. Although it's hard for most of the teachers and especially the principal I can kind of tell what he is thinking or feeling.
From the first moment he appeared in front of all of the new students at the academy I could see his gaze wandering through the rows of new students. I can tell that he knows how important his job at this academy is, but something like that can be noticed by other people like me.
My assumptions from back then just seemed to get more and more correct the longer I observed him.
The opposite could be said about our other teacher, the calm stream. Her name wasn't just for show and I wasn't able to see her show any emotions like confusion or anger. She was just calm and interested.
Interested in how we would handle this situation right now. I had the feeling that without knowing her weak point you would't be able to get her to be angry even if you tried to kill her. I could imagine her just slicing you in half while still maintaining a calm expression.
So although she was a lot calmer, to me she was the more dangerous out of the two. Simply, because I couldn't grasp her real emotions at any moment.
"We will now take our leave and from this point on if you follow the path in front of you you'll be able to reach different kinds of areas with different kinds of beasts. It's also important for you to be able to choose wisely where to go, certain areas have stronger beasts than other areas. The same applies to other conditions like cold or warmth, so be on alert when choosing where to head first."
And then they were gone, you could only see fire and water getting absorbed by the ground at the exact point where they had just been standing. I could feel and hear them, so I knew they weren't as fast as the principal, but it was still impressive.
But that should be the amount of strength teachers should have at this academy, otherwise it would be kind of disappointing.
And now began the really interesting phase. What would happen? Who would want to be the leader? Will it all go smoothly or will we encounter problems even before starting the real training? Exactly how will they react?
I would just refrain from saying anything like I mostly did during training anyways. I'll only step in if something goes horribly wrong, well what are the chances for that happening anyways?
Well maybe I shouldn't have thought that back then...
"However we look at it Saburo is the best choice as a leader, he's always been active in lessons and even helping other students if they had problems, he's also the hair of the Matsuo family."
It was one of the friends of Saburo, the 'leader' of their little group, who followed me a few days ago.
The longer I had to hear them talk the more I was amazed by their greed and stupidity.
I had expected a bit of arguing, but even I wasn't able to expect how ignorant these idiots could possibly be. Naturally it wasn't a bad choice to go for the one, who helped others out the most in classes as a leader.
And Saburo wasn't really weak, probably the fourth or fifth strongest in the whole class, but even just saying he helped others out in class was a joke.
Rather than helping others he made fun of his friends for failing to execute some of the exercises on their first tries. He also only pretended to help, when he knew that the teachers were observing him. He's also a big Hypocrite, because if he himself failed even just once he would immediately say it wasn't his fault, he would say his friends distracted him or something.
He's honestly probably the worst choice as a leader in this situation. If I had to be in a team with him I would much rather just go alone, I mean I would never really do that because it was just plain stupid, but if they really pick him as a leader I would have to say something.
I don't want to say that I would necessarily be a better choice, nor did I really want to be the leader. I had the strength, yes, but I couldn't reveal it so easily. I was probably smarter than most if not all of them yes, but I had no experience whatsoever in leading others and I had never really tried to become friends with the other students.
But the choice honestly seemed pretty obvious. Even if she's not the best leader if we're talking purely about her ability to lead people.
Katsumi was strong enough to probably take on one of those beasts here alone. After all this place is a training stage for the lion class and normally there wouldn't be someone as strong as the princess in the lion class so the weakest of the monsters here are probably on her level or just a bit stronger.
She also has a good control of her emotions as I was able to witness a while ago, when she threatened the three nobles and then just completely changed, when talking to me.
If she's able to switch between happy and cold-blooded this easily she should be able to not get influenced by her feelings in a battle.
She seemed to not really want to be the leader either, not that she really cared, she just did the same as me, probably thinking about their stupidity while arguing for so long.
I mean it was honestly pretty amusing, but that was only for 5 minutes or so, then it just made me feel like I was losing brain cells by listening to their ever repetitive arguments about who would be the leader.
If they can't meet ends then I guess I'll just have to suggest 'that', but that would mean that not everyone would be able to pass. Well, thinking about it I don't really care about what happens to them, but let's just wait a bit more.
And so I waited and waited...
And as the minutes passed they had actually managed to argue for over half an hour and I felt like this would go on for the whole day, so I finally said something, which should be able to make both groups happy.
"Why don't we just create two teams?"
Everyone looked at me. I said it as if it was the most obvious thing ever and they already wanted to talk back at me without even thinking about it.
"That might be a good idea."
Now even I was surprised. It was the boy I had always found quite interesting. He was stronger than the rest of them and almost on my level of skill in both magic and physical skills.
As I found out his origins weren't known just like mine and he didn't say anything about where he came from either. The only real emotions I could clearly see from him was the ever present hate against nobles. And although there is one person sitting directly next to me to disprove my theory I still thought that he was probably a commoner.
But he didn't necessarily hate every noble the same, the ones who weren't arrogant and didn't look down on him were not the ones he couldn't stand, he even managed to get friendly with a few of them.
It was the same as me. The exact same three students who seemed to dislike every commoner just for being a commoner. He also openly disliked them and didn't want to have to do anything with him.
After hearing the same thing from two people everybody did think about the idea and although it was a horrible plan to split up and would lead to the obvious defeat of the team without the princess and me they were too ignorant to realize that.
And as expected everybody seemed to accept that idea and Katsumi just said that she would follow me.
And like this the princess, me and the mysterious boy I didn't know the origins of yet formed a team together with a few of the other students, who were all nobles and who primarily wanted to follow the princess.
The other students including the three arrogant nobles formed the other team. And just like that they basically failed right from the beginning.
If the beasts in this are are even just close to being as strong as I imagined them to be the other team would have no chance to survive out here for more than three days at the most.
Their team leader was Saburo. It made sense for their team to pick him as a leader, after all he is the strongest and he's friendly with most of them. The other members of their team were of course all nobles.
They probably decided to join the other team, because they wanted to get closer to the Matsuo family. Of course the best way to do that was to pick the young master of that exact family as their leader.
The princess would of course be a better choice but by now everyone had seen Katsumi's attitude when it comes to to nobles. She didn't really express any dissatisfaction, but every attempt to get close to her also failed and so the nobles just gave up on trying to get close to Katsumi.
But there were still a few of the other nobles, who had more than 2 brain cells left and decided to join our team. It was either because of her strength or because she's the princess and they still hoped to get close to her this way. Maybe even both of those reasons.
Well in the end I was more than content with our own team contrary to the other team. Our leader was Ren, the mysterious boy, who nobody really knew the origins of, but who's talent seemed to be quite good.
After someone from our team asked him to be the leader he accepted after thinking it through for a few seconds. He of course asked everyone else if it was okay with them and nobody had any objections.
And so after the two teams formed although the idea was stupid it still turned out to be a good outcome. Well, at least for the team I was in.
If a team didn't have good teamwork even having a few people more could only be a hindrance for the whole team, so with this team it seemed like we should be able to survive out here without the help of the teachers.
Meanwhile I really doubted the other team to survive for more than 3 days. Although their team would probably be able to work good they were overall two weak and inexperienced. Well not that I really cared about them failing or succeeding.
After deciding on the teams we called out for our teachers and after they arrived a few moments later you could see the disappointment on their faces as they observed the two groups. But it didn't seem like they were surprised, just disappointed.
"So you decided to split up into two teams?"
After nobody said anything for a few seconds I already wanted to explain the situation, even though it would probably make me look bad in their eyes. My patience also had an end to it, so I didn't want to have to stay here any longer.
"It-"
"We thought it was the best, because we couldn't decide on the leader of our team. We thought it was better to have two teams, which work together rather than one team, which isn't able to work together." It was Saburo who interrupted me.
I didn't really know why, but it was either his stupidity, which lead him to think that the idea was actually good or some kind of other motive, which I wasn't quite able to grasp. I really wanted to believe that I just wasn't able to understand this obviously stupid choice, but some part of me immediately assumed it to be his ignorance.
"Well, if you really believe that it's better like this then one of us teachers will follow one team each. But I would really think about it once again, this is not some kind of game, it's training. You also shouldn't underestimate the beasts in this area."
Some of the students looked around, thinking about it once again, but in the end nobody said anything about rethinking it and forming one team.
"Well then, if you are ready you can just head down the path and if nothing happens we will see you in exactly two weeks again. That will also be when your teachers change."
And without saying anything else the two masters were gone as fast as they had appeared.
And like this the two teams were formed, ready to head out into the wild. One team was obviously stronger than the other one, but the choice had already been made and now everyone would have to accept it.