"Welcome, dear Heroes! Welcome to our home, Pelzerd. I am the king of this land! It is nice to meet you all."
I opened my eyes to see a man in a red cape trimmed with ermine, a crown on top of his head. The man had a clean shaven face, and bright-white hair.
I looked around to see twenty-three other people staring at him, all the same as I was—in confusion.
My name is Yuu Tofunami. I was a fairly normal high school student at Kujan Academy—an academic school that is renowned for being the most graduated school where I lived. When parents didn't believe in their kids to graduate, they sent them to Kujan. Sadly, I was one of those kids.
—Not that I am dumb, though.
"Where are we…?" Ayumi Kayano, the girl who was called the "Beauty Princess" in our grade, said. That was the first time that I had seen Kayano genuinely shook. Her dark red hair flowed to the back as she expressed her movements.
"That's a great question, young woman!" The man in the red and white gown said, "You are in the 'Kingdom of Pelzerd.' The main utopia of the 'Human Lands.' From I, the king, it is an honor to meet you all."
I felt my face scrunch up as a reaction to what he had said.
'Human Lands? What the hell does that even mean?' I thought.
A woman who was beside the proclaimed king stepped forward. "I am your 'Appraisal System.' My job is to test what your magic type is…"
With hesitation in everyone, a person finally said, "Sure, I'll go first, creepy woman."
From behind, a male's voice called out. I turned around to see it was Riku Kazuma, a delinquent who was known for targeting teachers if they pissed him off.
"Come up." The woman said, a smile on her face. It looked like she had found a new toy.
Kazuma followed her instructions.
"Just stand there." She pointed to the floor, slightly away from her.
When Kazuma sat in the spot she had told him to, her smile got larger, almost sinister.
A dark-blue type of liquid started forming at the base of Kazuma's legs. It slowly climbed up his body. His face gave an expression of pure fear, before he got entirely swallowed by the entity.
Silence befell all around the room. Moments later, though, Kazuma reappeared, shock laid upon his face.
"What the hell was that?!" he shouted towards the woman. Kazuma grabbed the woman by the shoulder and balled up his fist, getting ready for a punch.
"I appraised you," she said. "Would you like to hear the results?"
Kazuma, confused, let go of the woman's shoulder. "Go on…"
"Riku Kazuma. Age: sixteen. Abilities: Fire attribute, 'Teleport'." She had said, her face lighting up in surprise, "Oh, a rare ability, huh…"
'Teleport?' Couldn't be more obvious what he can do…
"Now, now. Next person—come up." She looked up at all of us.
"Uh… I'll go," came another male's voice. I looked to see it was Sho Takeshay, a person who is called a delinquent among delinquents. He's not really that scary, though. He just looked like an average high schooler.
Takeshay stood up beside her, exactly where she had told Kazuma to stand before. He looked a little terrified as the liquid-like entity crept up on him.
"Sho Takeshay. Age: sixteen. Abilities: Water and Earth attributes, last skill is… 'Saint'?" Her eyes squinted at the air and her smile dropped. It was almost like she was reading off of a system-screen you would see in video games.
"Is something wrong?" Takeshay said. He looked dizzy, and caught himself multiple times, seeming to stop himself from falling over.
"Yeah. Everything is okay. Just…confused," she mumbled, just loud enough for me to hear.
*
After almost all the class had gotten their abilities measured, there were only two left—me and Kazata Moshi.
Moshi decided to go before me—making me the last.
Once my turn had come up, I stood up to the place where the woman had told all the other students. The entity, which crawled up everyone else started to crawl up my body.
From outside, the liquid looked like it was slowly eating you alive. However, feeling it, inside, it was calming. It was like what I had felt towards my parents whenever they held me in their arms when I was a baby.
The initial shock from it was surprising, yes, but afterwards, it felt soothing.
However, it went away as fast as it came. Putting me back in the spot I was moments before.
Looking slightly downwards, the woman said: "Yuu Tofunami. Age: fifteen. Abilities: water and air attributes, and 'Steal'."
Steal? So, what? Can I steal people's possessions…? That seems kinda useless…
I sighed. Of course, of all people to get a useless ability, it had to be me!
*
"This is your room, Mr. Tofunami." A girl in a typical maid outfit stood in front of me. She was fairly beautiful, and made my heart skip a little.
No wonder she got added to the royal-maids, or whatever they're called!
"Thank you!" Being the awkward teenager I was, I couldn't come up with a way to conversate.
It made the two of us feel awkward.
"I shall leave now. Have a good sleep, Mr. Tofunami," she said. She left soon after.
I entered my room. It was like one of those rooms you'd see in manga. A bed on the left, a big window in the middle—showing the outside town—and finally, a desk on the far right. It had paper laid upon the top of it.
I laid down on the bed, and was ready to sleep. They hadn't given us anything to change into for the night, so I had to sleep in my school uniform.
*
The next morning.
"Mr. Tofunami?"
A woman's voice called out from my left. Light flashed on my eyelids, forcing me to open my eyes.
I looked at the woman who called out. It was the same one from the night before. Her wavy-blonde hair flowed seamlessly, her blue eyes accompanied it nicely. She looked down towards my eyes.
"...Hm… Good morning." A yawn fell from my mouth after greeting her.
"Morning to you, too. I've left your clothes on the desk over there. Get dressed and come down to the eating-quarters."
"Yes, ma'am." I said, still slightly tired.
She left the room. Once she did, my senses finally kicked in. Once getting out of bed…
I talked to her! Let's go, Yuu!
I thought to myself, my fists bumped with each other.
I turned to the desk she had mentioned before. My clothes were sitting atop.
*
I put the clothes on and stepped outside into the main hallway where my peers and I were assigned our rooms.
I looked down to see if I thought I looked good in the outfit. I couldn't see my face, but I thought the black suit looked good on me.
"Tofunami? Why are you just standing there?"
I looked up to see Takeshay. His blonde hair looked wet, almost like he had gotten out of the bath moments before.
"...Uh, nothing much… You?" I hesitantly said, not wanting to seem like a narcissist.
"Sure, sure…" There was a brief moment of silence after Takeshay spoke. "Let's go to the dining hall."
With the awkward conversation out of the way, we made our way into a room. The room was huge, and had a table in the middle, stretching across from one end to the other, leaving enough space for anybody to casually walk across to get to the other side.
The food was a weird type of lobster.
*
A few hours after we had eaten, the sun had risen a fair bit, almost reaching three quarters into the sky. It was then when I heard a knock come from my room's door. I answered to see Takeshay on the other side.
"Any reason you came over here at this time?" I asked, confused on why he would come out of his way to come get me.
"Yeah, yeah… The instructor told me to come get you." Takeshay said, turning around right, "Just follow me."
I did so.
We ended up at a field-like area. All twenty-four of us stood beside each other, staring at a woman in front of us.
"Alright. Everyone here?" She said, squinting her eyes to get a clearer view. "My name is Jen Shalm, your Sword-Arts instructor. As the name suggests, I will be teaching you how to use the sword, spear, axe, etc. All of you will learn equally, depending on your abilities you were given upon arriving. Take, for example, Ms. Kayano. She has the abilities of Earth and Air, along with 'Lock,' which could possibly freeze an enemy in place with enough training. So, maybe an ideal weapon for her would be, let's say, a...sickle."
Sickle, huh. Sounds cool…
Jen Shalm then pulled out a sickle out of thin air. I heard gasps of air from everyone around me. I was one of the people gasping.
She then gave the weapon to Kayano. Afterwards, Shalm said, "This is your weapon that you'll be training with. If your training gets nowhere, I will give a different one. But, for now, you will get lessons on how to use it for fighting."
One by one, all my peers got their own weapons—swords, shields with spears, and more. Once again, I was the last one to get any of the sort.
"Mr. Tofunami, please come here." Shalm said, ushering her hand for me to come closer.
I did so, and then she pulled out a weapon from the thin air, like she had done to everyone else. It looked brown from the handle, but once it came out completely, I found out why.
A wooden sword?! What the hell am I supposed to do with that?!