"Today is the freshman ceremony day and the very first day for our freshmen starting their journey in our academy-"
Currently, the Vice Chief of HGA was giving a speech as the representative for the academy chief, that was absent.
The student hall was built like an amphitheatre where the freshmen sat at the lowest level while the fourth year sat on the highest level along with the instructors and professors. There was a huge screen on the stage where it projected the people standing on the stage. The sound system in the hall was also good since the sound transmitted evenly across the hall.
Each student could be differentiated by the colour of their neckties were navy blue for the first year, dark green for the second year, maroon for the third year, and gold colour necktie for the fourth year.
"Thank you Vice Chief Almer Dario for the speech for the freshmen students. Now we will invite the representative of the freshmen, Cedric Hel to give his speech" said the President of the Student Council, Carion Heizt who was also one of the main characters.
I was currently sitting in the back row of the first year along with other Rose Quartz residents, mostly the main characters, including the protagonist, Cedric Hel.
Yes, Cedric was the protagonist, he was the one giving the speech right now. He's a protagonist so that is to be expected right?
Since he has the protagonist halo and a system. Yes, he has a fucking system like a transmigrator even though he was not.
In the game, he was the only character that would always have a good outcome because of his system. That system helped him to become stronger no matter what. He could get mana stones and artifacts just by buying them from the system store using points. And here I'm wrecking my brain to make sure I get stronger and survive until the end of the novel when the Demon King was killed.
"Hello, my name is Cedric Hel, the representative of this year's freshmen and the top graduate from Hargan Intermediary Academy. I would like to express...." Cedric said giving his speech smoothly like he has done this many times before.
His charisma made the audience in the hall focus on him. People envy him due to his look and talent. A lot of noble spend tons of money to train their kids but they still couldn't beat Cedric. He was also insulted for being a commoner, but HGA gave him a full scholarship until he graduated due to his talent.
"With that, I end my speech," he said ending his speech. Later, the light blond hair with light purple eyes Cedric Hel went back to his seat which was on the opposite side from my seat since I'm seating in the last seat of the row. The seats were arranged based on your rank and looking at my seat, I think HGA put me the 15th on the freshmen ranking.
In the novel, Ares dropped out in less than a year thus I was not sure how capable 'Ares' was but the current me would try to stay in the top 10 since I didn't want any other room other than the one I have right now as the saying said once people experience richness they couldn't go back to being poor.
"All the other students except the freshmen can go back to your classes in an orderly manner. The freshmen will now be assigned to your designated classes. Please check your smartwatch for any notification" said Carion from the stage.
I quickly checked my smartwatch and there was a message from the HGA admin thus I quickly opened it and it showed my ranking which I have assumed and my class name which was 1A as expected.
HGA would put all the top rankers into one class to make the students more competitive while the other classes were randomly assigned based on ranks to balance each other.
'A' class is a special class for the most elites and the most imbalanced. The students sometimes created their factions in the class, unlike in other classes where students would try to get along with each other.
Those factions sometimes lasted until adulthood when they rely on each others' connections to get better career prospects, especially the nobles. The commoners also rely on each other to get a better jobs.
'By the way, where is the second prince? Did I mislook him somewhere?' I thought while looking around slightly.
Suddenly someone put his hand on my shoulder and when I turned around, a male student with dark skin and silver-grey hair was smiling beside me. Looking at him up and down, I could say for sure this was the person I thought of just now.
'Speak of the devil and here he is'
"So which class are you?" he asked me naturally as if we've known each other for years.
"1A your highness" I answered with a voice-only he could hear me.
"Call me Theo. Aren't you my best friend?" he said grinning at me while his hand is still on my shoulder.
"This is my first time seeing you, your highness" I whispered.
"Yeah and starting now you're my best friend. Don't forget to follow my Star account since I've followed yours yesterday" he said while tapping on my smartwatch screen like it was his.
"....Sure" I answered hesitantly.
'Isn't he kind of weird and obsessive in the novel so why is he acting like a normal easy-going person like this?' I lamented while letting the second prince play with my communicator.
"Alright now, please gather according to your class starting from class A over there, B beside them and continue so until F" Carion ordered us while pointing towards my area as class A.
It's understandable since Rose Quartz residents were all in this class and since they were already all here, class A automatically gathered here to make things easier.
"So which building are you staying at?" I asked in a tone between formal and informal.
"Rose Quartz, opposite of your room," he said after giving back my communicator to me.
"Ohh" I replied
'Damn, I can't run away I lamented.
I didn't remember reading about Ares having any friends in the novel but I didn't think I've changed anything much that could affect the second prince to change. Thus it kind of possible that 'Ares' did have some sort of friendship with the second prince during his short time at HGA.
"I will come to your room tonight so please open the door when I come" he whispered to me while I was in a daze causing me to nod without many thoughts.
"Alright 1A students, my name is Zane Cornwell and I'm your class guardian and also your Advanced Math instructor. So please follow me to your classroom" said a brown-haired woman that look in her late 20s.
*************************************
We arrived at a classroom situated in the first year building and the class was on the top floor just below first-year instructors' office rooms. The class looks like a regular normal classroom with the desk arranged in a stadium-like classroom style.
Me and Prince Theo chose to sit beside the window area on the second row. At first, he wanted to sit in the back row but most male students already occupied those seats so he just followed me sitting in the second row where in front of us were all female students.
Luckily, no one sits right beside me and the other students on the same row sit two tables away from me.
"We will do a roll call now. Please raise your hand when I called your name. Ares Zanuki " hearing Miss Zane called my name, I raised my hand.
"Next, Gerald, ...." I can see the students raise their hands one by one until the last one, "Lastly, Theodore Geshin."
'The second prince, Theodore Von Hargan but in the class registry was Theodore Geshin?'
The second prince seems to be using his mom's family name rather than the royal family name since the royal family name seems overkill to be used in a public academy.
"Ok for our first day today, I won't be teaching anything but I will explain what I expected from you and what kind of tests will be given to you in HGA. So here as you can see....." while talking, Miss Zane started writing on what looked like a whiteboard with a quilt. The writing looks like it has been written with a marker, but she wrote it using an ordinary quilt amazed me.
'Is she using magic?' I thought but seeing other students seem unfazed, I just kept the question to myself until I could feel Prince Theo tapping my shoulder.
"Is there anything wrong? If you want to ask about something you can ask me, Ares, " he whispered.
"Hmm, I'm just curious about the quilt Miss Zane used, " I said while scratching my cheek.
"That quilt is a magic quilt. If you observe it, there's a mana stone embedded in the quilt. That's why the writing seems bigger and clearer. The whiteboard also has been embedded with mana stones at each side of its corner to make sure everything that is written on its surface seems clearer, " he explained clearly to me.
"Ooh that's how " I'm amazed
Without me or Prince Theo noticing, two people have been listening to our conversations.
**************************************
[POV: Cedric Hel]
"Did you see that Ceddie?" Shino asked.
"What?" I replied confusedly.
"The second prince. He's in our class" Shino exclaimed.
"So?" I asked since I still don't understand if there's anything important about that.
"The issue is not him but the person beside him"
"That masked guy?" I asked.
"Yes him"
"Oh, the guy who doesn't even know what magic quilt is" I replied remembering the red hair guy wearing a mask who was sitting in front of me in the class just now.
"I've told you before, some noble families never send their kids to school and instead chose to homeschool. Ares is from one such family. So it's no wonder he never saw a magic quilt before since he has a personal tutor that guides him one-to-one. What's the use of a magic quilt when a regular pen or marker is enough to teach him"
"So are you jealous of him or what?"
"It's not that. Even my family is kind of similar to his family and I have to beg my parents to send me to school with you. The noble family that chose to homeschool usually have their reason like my family, it's because we can't bring our familiar animals with us to school but since school's period usually not more than 8 hours a day, my parents allowed me to leave my familiar at home when I'm going to school."
"The Zanuki on the other hand doesn't want their descendants to harm other kids since it was said that they have monstrous physical strength thus they decided to teach them themselves. The Soraz chose to not send their kids to school because as a mage family, they awakened their mana as early as four or five years old and their IQ was usually higher than normal kids thus it doesn't seem appropriate to let their kids mingle with other kids when they can just properly learn the more magic related subject at home"
"The Heizt and Tadraz family chose to teach their family martial arts and swordsmanship techniques from a young age, thus homeschooling is more flexible for them. Lastly the Manic, they're just a bunch of haughty and arrogant people so when the other prominent noble families chose to homeschool their kids, they also follow suit" Shino explained to me in detail.
"I don't see anything wrong with him from your explanation," I said confusedly.
"Oh my god Ceddie, I don't mean about him being homeschooled. It's about him being close to the second prince. This is why I said you have to keep updated on the current rumours and news. He is Zanuki's youngest grandchild. The Zanuki family that never interfered with any noble is now close with the royal family" he replied seemingly frustrated.
"So?"
"Damn Ceddie, it's hard to make you understand when you know nothing. Let me tell you, Hargan Empire is a country where it has an emperor but he can't pass a verdict or bill if more than three out of the six council members have not agreed to it. The six council members come from six prominent noble families which are the Kiba, Manic, Heizt, Tadraz, Zanuki, and Soraz. So usually, these families will not show too much favour to the royal family members to ensure the integrity and put the citizens as their priority"
"And they also rarely become close to each other especially the Manic since they control the empire intelligence network. The other five will only sometimes work together in an effort of defeating demons and subjugating monsters"
"However, the interesting part that I want to tell you today is that, in this generation, both Zanuki and the royal family hide one of their family members from the public and until just recently they showed that family members of theirs but not officially"
"And that family member is Ares and Prince Theodore?" I asked.
"Yes, you catch on quick. The information about Prince Theo is so limited and no one knows whether that information is even true or not. Ares on the other hand seems to suddenly show up out of thin air and then be hidden again until last year when he created his Star account. So if the other nobles know that Ares and Prince Theo are acquainted with each other, there will be tons of rumours going around. Someone might even speculate that Ares might be one of the emperor's bastard sons"
"...Ok" I replied seemingly uninterested.
We continued walking through the hallway, towards the cafeteria. Seeing that there were more and more students around us, he stopped talking and quickly go to the counter to buy lunch. Later we sat on a bench outside of the cafeteria yard and eat our lunch there.
"Continue our conversation from before, even if Ares is not the emperor's bastard son, there will be tons of rumours on why a Zanuki become so close with one of the royal family members. Some noble might even start to support Prince Theo rather than the crown prince since the Zanuki has a lot of prestige and authority compared to other noble families, even the other five prominent families won't hastily touch them" he continued explaining while eating his lunch which consists of chicken fried rice, a burrito, and a strawberry milkshake.
"But I think they might just simply be friends like us" I commented after a moment of silence.
"Us and they are different Ceddie, but there's also a possibility of what you said being true" he replied before pointing towards a bench not far from us.
Sitting there is Prince Theo and Ares eating lunch while chatting like any other students. The other students that passed them kept on glancing at them as if seeing something shocking.
"Hey, why are they keep on glancing at the prince?" I said curiously since it's not like no one has ever seen the prince. You can find his picture by simply searching it on the internet.
"They are not looking at the prince but Ares. He must've taken off his mask when eating" Shino explained to me while we are still focusing on the two figures. Currently, Ares's back was facing us, thus we couldn't see his face.
"Well whatever, I'm not that interested in knowing other man's face since having one rival is enough for me," Shino said after we finished our lunch.
"Who's your rival?" I asked curiously.
"Of course it's you. Only your face can rival mine" Shino said proudly while I just ignore him since I never really care whenever anyone said I'm good looking.
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Can click the link below to see different type of classroom arrangement:
https://www.displays2go.com/Article/Tips-Most-Effective-Classroom-Seating-Arrangement-32