"..." looking from afar in the audience, Ethea was on her chair, tapping down in deep thought as she stared at the winner of the duel. Her eyes would only look to this person as if he was something that could do the impossible.
'...he beated Jo, even with the 2nd form of technique in use.'
She could not believe it, a first year student was able to beat a C-rank 2nd year who was considered a genius. A lot of things could be considered to why Jo lost the fight; one thing being that he probably underestimated Hamil, or that Hamil took him by surprise at the last second. But nonetheless, Jo lost and Hamil won.
But the way he won gave her nothing but a chill to her spine. She saw it at the end…a black spear…a black form…a desperate will filled with power…all of those was to take note of his character as a person. She thought that the boy would show a case of humility and accept his weak stature when he would lose, giving him the chance to have a few positive impact to her judgement, but instead he won the fight and with such a fierce and inelegant way at that. It gave her seconds thought to even consider accepting Hamil into the counsel. Because if he was to be apart of the counsel, what action would he choose to fight against someone way beyond his capacity. Would he do his reckless act of a desperate show of power or will he back-down and leave it to a more competent senior?
Ethea was at two complicated ends of choices…but nonetheless, Hamil did gain his victory and she should at least respect that.
So she smiled and stood from her chair, following with a humble clap of congratulations to the victor. Soon the other members followed the same way along with Jo who raised his only arm left in an act to congratulate Hamil.
"..." Hamil was bewildered though by how Jo had that much pain tolerance in him from how he could stand with a smile while his other hand was torn apart.
The Secretary on the other and could only stand with her arms crossed and with a maddened expression even with her aloof eyes.
"...great, another member gets to join in..." said the secretary as she sounded sarcastic in her tone. But in truth, she was ecstatic to find someone who she could push all of her paper work to.
Meanwhile, Arthur was quiet in the audience as he stared at Hamil with a rather cold gaze.
'...Another genius joins the school.' thought Arthur as he compared him to the students who were very talented as well. From Liam, Martha, Licia, Ethea and the others and even to Arthur himself. Thinking of how much Hamil could take on Arthur, in response to this, he was confident that he could still win against Hamil. There were many reasons to this confidence, for one, their power gap was still that far apart, Arthur had mastered a few techniques and skills and probably even his experience was a winning factor as well.
But either way, he didn't intend to demean Hamil in anyway. He was just thinking of the possibility for a battle between Hamil and him. He recognizes that Hamil was a strong student, especially now that he showed his capabilities in defeating Jo who Arthur considered to be strong as well.
When after finishing the whole event, Arthur looked to Ethea with a curious gaze.
"Hmm?" Ethea could only stare back with a confused expression as well.
"..So, is this why you brought me here?" asked Arthur.
"...Well, I thought something else would have happened and that he would have showed something more humble...just like what he showed us during that time at the Class Rumble Event." said Ethea. Reminding herself of that time Hamil saved Martha against the orc guard. He showed his sense of protection against the orc using a shield and he even did issue a bit of a desperate selfless act. But today he showed another desperate emotion of towards winning.
"What do you mean by that?" asked Arthur.
"...I was just wondering what you think of his play compared to before." said Ethea.
"...there's not much to think of it except that he was strong in both the situations. Both scenes were desperate, selfless and willing to accomplish a job. You need someone like that in the counsel…" said Arthur as he began to walk away from the arena.
"...Hmm, is that what you think?" mumbled Ethea as she stared at Arthur walking away with a furrowed brow of concern.
As the event ended and Hamil was being treated from his wounds, Ethea visited him to tell him of her decision. She visited him while he was at the medical center and seeing his wounds, she couldn't help but be in shock of how deep they were and how many bags of blood was in line to be injected into Hamil since he lost a lot in the fight.
"...You doing okay?" asked Ethea as she looked to Hamil with a furrowed look of concern.
"Yeah, this isn't really that big of a deal." said Hamil as he shrugged the pain.
"...I see, you're a tough cookie then just like Jo." said Ethea as she smiled at Hamil.
"Speaking of Jo, I think Jo is in the other room as well. He's getting his arm reattached." said Hamil.
"I know. I came here first to tell you that you are accepted to be a part of the student counsel now." said Ethea straight to the point.
"...I see. From the way you said it, it sounded like the certainty of me joining wasn't decided by my win."
"It may sound rude, but I wanted to see how you reacted if you lost the battle. Watching you fail or accept failure, I wanted to see how you handle such a state."
"Did you think that I was the type of person who never lost? That I would be mad if I did lose?" asked Hamil, thinking that what Ethea was expecting was his character to probably act like a one dimensional snobbish noble kid who has a golden spoon.
"...No, I didn't think that. I just wanted to see if you would show a certain characteristic…but I didn't get to see it. Instead, I saw something else entirely." said Ethea.
"What did you see in me?" asked Hamil.
"...I saw a great fight." said Ethea with a straight face, hiding the fact that she was somewhat scared of saying her real thoughts.
"I see…so what do I do now?" asked Hamil, asking of what proceeds after gaining the approval of the student president into the counsel.
"What happens next is your transfer. I heard that you don't live in the student dorm...one of the perks of being a student counsel is that you get to be have your own dorm room, but only because sometimes we have a lot of work to do that goes beyond midnight. You need a close place to stay because of this." said Ethea.
"Oh, I see." said Hamil as he fully understood the reason. A lot of times, some of the students would go beyond the curfew and walk all over the school without a care for it, especially the nobles who like to mess around and beat some commoners without having the guard to 'Find Out' (meaning they bribe them). the student counsel handles this work by patrolling all over the school.
"Next thing I should give you is the monthly allowance that the school provides. This is given because a lot of times, some members of the counsel really don't have that much to go by…some of them join mainly because of the perks and allowance." said Ethea.
'Hmm, I guess they don't have time to hunt in a gate because of the school's priority. And even if they do get to hunt, a day of hunting wouldn't even last them a week in the school.' thought Hamil.
"And with the allowance, I'm also giving you an ID card that gets you access to some rooms inside the school that aren't normally accessible by students. I'm giving you this because a lot of things happen in the school that normally not a lot of students know of. If you do access a room using the card, it will record your name, so try not to go to some pretty suspicious places in the school."said Ethea.
'Hmm. This is one of the things I need to handle the terrorist that's going to be attacking in a few days." said Hamil as he smiled when receiving this news.
"The next thing I will give you is the student counsel arm band. Wearing the arm band gives you authority to handle specified work given out by me and your seniors. Do not wear this during your class hours and only wear it if you come across trouble."
"And the last important thing I should hand you is the Rule book. For us to do our job well, we should follow the book on towards the characteristics of a proper student and use it on things that specify to problems that usually don't come to in our day to day lives. But if I say something that the Rule Book doesn't imply, you should ultimately follow my orders." said Ethea.
"..." Having handed a medium-thick sized book, Hamil felt a tinge of headache all of a sudden.
"Well, that's all the important things I usually hand out to some new member. But there area few more minor things we will give out the next day after you have completely moved in the school." said Ethea.
"And aside from material things, we expect you to also give the school and students the proper image of a proper student counsel member. Meaning that you have to have good grades and good physicality, but we already know that your great in the physical aspect already, so do your best in the grades part." said Ethea.
Having said these things, Hamil simply received and was gratefully humble to the president. After she left to visit Jo next, Hamil was already nearly fixed and was about to go home.
During his way to the train station, he was meet with someone who he completely forgot to meet today.
"!?" standing in front of him was none other than Iris who looked to him with a smile on her face.
'...damn, I completely forgot.' thought Hamil as he panicked at the sight of her still waiting for him, even though it was quite late already, Iris still waited for him and his answer to her question.
"...Iris, I'm sorry I forgot about today. I got caught up with something." said Hamil as he tried to express his excuse to her.
"...It's okay, I was getting worried because I thought you got into something dangerous…I even saw one of your friends come by and when I asked where you were, they told me that you went to meet the student counsel committee for some reason." said Iris.
"I did go to the student counsel." said Hamil.
"Why?" asked Iris.
"...I tried applying to be a part of the committee, Mr. Hoffman told me to." said Hamil.
"You tried to become a student counsel member!?" asked Iris in a rather shocking way.
"Yeah and because of that, I came late and forgot about you." said Hamil.
"Oh, I see. So did you get accepted?" asked Iris.
"...well, I did." said Hamil in a rather coy way, as if he was embarrassed of his accomplishments being said to another person.
"Congratulations!!" Iris, could only smile ever so joyfully to the news of Hamil accomplishing the position, to a point that she wanted to jump to him to give him a hug. But she held herself back..
"Thanks, you're the first person I told this to." said Hamil.
"!" Having heard that, it made it feel as if Iris felt special to be the first one to hear of it from Hamil. She couldn't help but blush a little.
"...So anyway, I'm sorry I made you wait this long." said Hamil again in an apologetic tone.
"It's okay." said Iris as she began to walk her to the station and Hamil followed by.
"..." having stayed silent during their walk to the station, Iris wanted to let Hamil have the courage to say his reason without being forced by Iris's curiosity And Hamil did took charge.
"...About your question, I don't think you would believe me if I said this…but the truth is…