Maxime smiled slightly and asked him in a whisper:
"No, could you please pass me a sheet of paper and a pencil?"
Samuel shook his head in exasperation, but took out a sheet of paper from his binder and a pencil from his pencil case anyway.
"Here, don't thank me."
Maxime nodded, smiling at Samuel, then began to take notes of the lecture.
Just then, the language teacher began to tell the story of the Piran language.
"At the very beginning of the Piran story there were of course gestures to communicate, but these gestures gradually disappeared to make way for verbal language."
"Like any species, various language systems emerged throughout history until they succeeded in merging their entire population under a single banner."
"This enabled their people to have a common language, although many other languages remain spoken in order to maintain their cultural heritage."
"However, the Piran civilization became extremely militarized when it began to make contact with other civilizations."
"Hundreds of years passed, and as time went by, the military atmosphere became more and more oppressive."
"From an early age, every Piran trains so that he can be mobilized in case of absolute necessity."
"So every Piran knows the military rules and gestures."
"In order to be able to communicate as quickly as possible on the battlefield, words began to be shortened, certain syllables disappeared forever giving way to gestures with the meaning of those syllables."
"In our army we also have a similar system of language but generally these are unique languages and developed by certain elite units."
"But on their side they have promoted this language system throughout their army and therefore to their entire civilization."
"Their language had some flaws at first, and above all it was very complicated to harmonize this language to a civilization as big as theirs."
"After all, at that time they already had 5 habitable planets and just over a hundred billion inhabitants."
"That's when Emperor Hydra V stepped in and instituted a special education policy to complement an extremely innovative method."
...
"So much for the Piran language history lesson. Make sure you remember the history of this language, as a question on this subject has already appeared in the university competition."
"Also, to learn a language well, it's important to know its history."
"That concludes this lesson, you may dismiss."
As the students began to leave the room, Maxime was still immersed in the teacher's lecture, recalling both the key notions of the course and the murder scenes from 3 days ago.
"Hey."
While he was in a mini-trance, a soft voice entered his ears, but Maxime remained in his thoughts, as if he couldn't tear himself away.
He could see the countless corpses of Piran and his comrades on the ground. Blood spread over hundreds of meters.
A scene worthy of a horror movie, and yet what Maxime had experienced was far worse than anything horror movies could produce.
Moments later, he felt a hand on his shoulder, which woke him up and made him jump slightly.
"Are you all right, brother?"
Maxime looked up to see Samuel with a worried face.
"Yeah...Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry," Maxime reassured him with a slight smile.
"It's such a strange situation to study a civilization and see their magnificent prowess and innovation just after killing dozens of them a few days before." thought Maxime with a strange face.
"So our celebrity can have this face, no one would think so after seeing the videos on TokTik!" scoffed Samuel lightly.
Looking at his friend's slanderous face, Maxime couldn't help but smile and shake his head.
"Samuel, there are just a few thousand likes on those videos, that's not much."
"Every day heroes emerge from the human race, I'm just one of many."
"But how many people really dare to do exactly what you did at your age? Even if there are many, the proportion remains a very small minority among the billions of human beings there are on the blue planet."
"Even counting the other human planets there wouldn't be many."
These few sentences, said in a melodious voice, entered Maxime and Samuel's ears.
Turning around, Maxime's eyes widened, as did Samuel's behind him.
"Wow, did you see that, bro, a beauty just spoke to you," Samuel whispered discreetly to Maxime.
But Maxime was unperturbed as he asked:
"You're Lisa, aren't you?"
Lisa also happened to be a high school senior. She was a young woman with long, black hair.
Her hair seemed to be extremely silky as it swayed gracefully in the air thanks to the wind entering through the classroom windows.
The scene seemed almost fairytale-like as the students still in the classroom and the teacher still not having left turned their attention to the two protagonists.
But Winny and the few other young noblemen who had fought alongside Maxime and his mercenaries had a shocked expression when they saw her.
"That's right, Lisa from the Reiner family to be precise. Pleased to meet you, Maxime."
"Quite my type." commented Maxime silently, keeping his own opinion to himself.
He knew Lisa slightly because Samuel had already shown him a few photos of her, saying how this young woman was the goddess of their school.
He stood up and faced Lisa, with less than a meter separating them.
"Maxime from the Valdreuve family, to be precise. Pleased to meet you Lisa," he said, extending his hand.
Lisa seemed slightly surprised, but simply smiled, then extended her hand as well.
"The Valdreuve family? Is there a known family with that name?" asked Lisa curiously.
"No, not yet."
"Oh, what ambition!"
"Just goals."
"But, tell me Lisa, why were you coming to see me?"
Faced with this question, Lisa smiled mysteriously before replying:
"I just came out of curiosity, to see what the mysterious TokTik hero looks like."
"But now I've satisfied my curiosity, so I'm going to leave, see you soon Maxime!" she continued as she turned to get ready to leave under the curious eyes of Maxime and his comrades.
"Just wait two seconds, could you answer another question for me?" asked Maxime after a few seconds' thought.
Lisa stopped, curious as to what Maxime wanted to know.
"Please, my hero," she said teasingly, winking at Maxime.
Unfortunately at the time, no one had any idea that this sentence was far more significant than it first appeared.
"Could you also be a heroine if the need arose?" asked Maxime very seriously.
The atmosphere in the classroom suddenly became tense.
After all, this was a question most people would want to avoid.
Who would want to risk their life if someone else could take the risk for them?
But Lisa was still smiling.
"Isn't it obvious? Of course I couldn't become one, after all I'm not as strong as you."
"I hope I've answered your question correctly Maxime, see you next time!"
As Lisa quietly left under the more or less bemused eyes of the teacher and classmates, Maxime was happy.
"What makes Max so happy?" asked Samuel, observing him.
"That girl, I like her!" said Maxime full of confidence as he looked at Samuel.
Samuel's eyes were far more surprised than before, and he looked left and right to see if anyone else had heard what Maxime had just said.
Observing that no one had heard Maxime, Samuel breathed a sigh of relief then exclaimed in a low voice:
"You're fucking crazy, Max! That girl is not just anyone!"
"Is it Lisa?"
"No, that's not what I mean. I'm telling you that her family, the Reiner family, is much more important and powerful than you think!
"Who cares, right?" asked Maxime with a slight sigh of exasperation.
"Of course not, if you want to date her you have to at least have a status equal to or higher than hers otherwise it's impossible!"
"Then I'll just have to get that status, story settled."
"It's not as simple as that, the Reiner family is one of the 12 ruling families of the human race." replied Samuel, shaking his head.
"Ohhhh, so much the better that means if she becomes my wife then I'll become super rich and influential!" commented Maxime, laughing.
"That's it, I give up, you're a hopeless case bro."