Brady, Finn and I along with the girls had all successfully beaten our combat trials. This resulted in shouts of glee and congratulations from one another.
Pain usually did not tolerate any loud noise, but given that his pupils had more or less just graduated, he let us have this moment.
After all of the remaining H rank students had finished their combat trials, we were escorted out of the dungeon. We all lined back up into our spots, passing the body of Hughey that still took residence on the arena floor.
Pain then walked out in front of us and stepped onto a platform. He cleared his throat and began to make a speech.
"You have all grown by a large margin in the last six months, I am proud to have been the teacher to lead you to this growth. I am not as blind as some of the other faculty at this academy, I can see the loss that many of you have suffered. I know that I can be cold hearted but believe me when I say that I understand what you all must be feeling, especially rank H.
However, being sad about it won't bring back those who have perished. The only thing any of you can do is keep training, become stronger and avenge your fallen friends.
As of today, I will no longer be your instructor, instead you will be split into your career path courses as well as combat and ability training. I have complete faith in all of your abilities as young soon to be adventurers. That being said, if I see any of you growing complacent I will personally grind your bones into dust." Pain said as he concluded his speech.
After we were dismissed, I met up with Brady and the rest of the group. I looked at the smiles on their faces after having survived the first hurdle on our way to becoming adventurers.
I looked at the variety of weapons that they had all chosen, each glowing with a distinct blue light signifying an E rank beast weapon. Brady had his two handed axe and Finn wielded his deadly dagger. Dana had chosen the bow and arrow, Valerie a spear, and Linda a metallic whip.
With the addition of our beast weapons, everyone in the bottom three would now be able to take on even an E or D rank student. If only it were that simple to rank up.
The process of achieving the next rank only applies to a person's ability, not the physical strength of their body. So, even though we could probably handle an E rank student now, it did not mean that we would become E rank ourselves. The only way to become stronger was to absorb a certain number of beast cores.
None of that mattered to me in the current moment. The only thing that I cared about was finding the person who wiped out hundreds of good people just because they saw them as weaklings.
"Hey guys, you know that if we cant beat the H rank killer then he will most likely kill us right?" I said, suddenly shifting the tone of our conversation.
"Yes, we all know and we are all in on the plan. With our beast weapons and numbers we will definitely have the edge." Brady said confidently.
Everyone else just looked at me with determined faces. I was so lucky to have found some truly good friends.
I suddenly had an idea and walked away from the group and over towards Pain. I had a few questions that I knew he could answer for me.
"Excuse me Mr. Pain, but could I speak with you a moment?" I asked as I could see he was not busy.
"Sure kid, what is it that you need from me?" He asked.
"First, I need to know what the repercussions of killing a higher level rank than myself would be. I suspect that the person killing the H rankers is at least rank E. Should I be concerned with any backlash from such an act?" I asked with a stern face.
"Well if you're looking at anyone over C rank you would be screwed, but if anyone below that dies nobody will blink an eye. This should not come as a surprise since the academy has done nothing to prevent you H rankers from dying." He said, putting emphasis on the latter half of his statement.
"Sir, I have one more thing to ask. Why did you kill Hughey? I am sure that even not knowing the full situation, a man such as yourself must have realized that he was only heart broken and was lashing out in grief." I said.
Pain took a slight pause before sighing and looking down at the ground.
"Kid I have seen it a thousand times, death changes a person. That boy was already gone, he drowned himself in anger and regret and a million other negative emotions. The poor kid was either going to die by my hand or his own by the end of the day, so I made the choice for him." Pain said as he looked towards Hughey's corpse.
I thanked Pain for his time and went back to my friends and we left to go back to our dorms.
Upon returning home, we found Clark Green, our dorm administrator waiting for us. He looked as tired as usual, but he wore a big smile on his face.
"Excellent, I see we had no casualties during the combat trials, thats is quite the achievement, you should all hold your heads high." He said before continuing on.
"I would like to announce that due to your passing of the trials, a few restrictions have been lifted concerning the lower three ranks.
First, you students are now allowed into the main education building. This is where you will find your career path courses.
Second, you have all been granted access to the coordinates for the arena and the main education building. This means that if you wish to go there just input the proper coordinates into your watches and you will instantly travel to the desired building.
Finally, and this is a side point, but due to the large number of students who were killed, the academy renovated all of your dorms. It seems that they had some extra money when it came to H rank and decided that you all could use an upgrade. Additionally, if you had less than three people in your dorm room this morning be sure to check the updated list of dorm room assignments." Clark finished with a sigh.
I was shocked, this was the academy's way of apologizing for everything. But I knew that no matter what superficial act they pulled, I was going to tear the academy apart when my time came.
Everyone in our group decided to go check out our new rooms and then meet back up in the girls room to plan an all out attack on our assassin friend.