One week of ‘Orientation’ was given by Ainzlark Academy to make the new students properly integrated into the school system. After this one week was over, the new entrants would be indoctrinated into the school system and the academic system would commence in full force.
Of course, there were other reasons the orientation took one week… and that had to do with the new students.
Having instructors assigned to them for each day, they would engage in various activities such as exploring the school grounds, learning basic school rules, visiting facilities, etc.
In all honestly, the items on the schedules were quite a lot, but not too much to handle. If the Academy wanted to, they could have squeezed everything into a day. However, the reason for spreading it out was to leave more time for the students to have personal time for both themselves and one another.
Bonding, interaction, competition… these would go on to affect the lives of the students even after they had become fully integrated into Ainzlark.
And so, with no housemaster governing the large house, the students within were given free rein within. Whatever they did during their spare time was up to them, after all… there were no rules against it!
And so the days passed… finally bringing an end to the one week of orientation.
The scenery shifted from the building where the students stayed to a massive office situated at the tallest building in the entire Academy. It belonged to none other than the Academic Supervisor of the new batch of students, Damien Lawcroft.
He sat comfortably in his chair as he rummaged through some documents. However, those were just his hands at work. In reality, all his attention was on a single man who stood in front of him.
“Yes… Klaus… the orientation time frame ends today, right?” He asked the tall, lanky man who gave his usual wide smile.
Klaus nodded in affirmation.
“You’ve been monitoring the students with your magic, right? How have they progressed? Anything worthy of note?” Damien asked, narrowing his eyes.
Though he asked generally, he was actually truly concerned about a certain individual from the boy’s form which Klaus monitored.
After his just concluded conversation with Freya Leonhart, the woman in charge of monitoring the girls’ dorm. After she gave her report, he was a little disappointed that no real incident occurred among the girls.
It was most likely due to the overwhelming presence of Maria Helmsworth.
Usually, when people in competition were placed in a confined space with seemingly no supervision, it was only natural for some form of conflict to arise. However, the case would be different if an insurmountable existence existed in the very same confined space.
This existence would deter any form of conflict. Usually, this would be the supervisors or staff of Ainzlark, but they had been intentionally removed from the premises to give the students freedom to do whatever they liked.
However, this time, a single student took on the role of that existence. Maria Helmsworth.
“The girls had no incident occurring in their end, but I suppose in the end they are just girls… what about the boys? Any incident worth mentioning?” Damien asked once again, sensing a form of hesitation form on the face of the man who was reporting to him.
“Well, it was almost that way for the boys as well. While there was obviously deep tension in the air, no one acted on their emotions or behaved irrationally…” Klaus began.
Damien’s eyes instantly fell in disappointment. He had expected more, but it appeared this year’s students had no balls or knack for entertainment.
In a way, it could be considered that they were sensible enough to consider comporting themselves and not cause any trouble. But, it would be a problem if they were just weak-hearted and didn’t want any trouble at all.
What sort of mage would such a student turn out to be?!
“… But, just yesterday that all changed by an incident that caused quite the scene in the form!” Klaus completed his statement.
The moment he heard this, Damien’s eyes flipped as his relaxed body jumped in excitement.
“Oh? That’s interesting! What happened?”
“Well, it started as a little argument and it turned into a form of magic duel…” Klaus spoke with slight discomfort.
He wasn’t too certain if he should go on, but upon meeting the excited eyes of Damien, he realized that it was foolish to consider skimming through the details.
His superior wanted details, and so he had to do what was expected of him.
“A magic duel, eh? Let me guess…” Damien filled in the silence with his words.
He knew boys were more hot-blooded, so his expectations had paid off and an incident had indeed occurred. He also had a hunch on who the fighters had to be.
The ones with inferior abilities were most likely going to shrink away from any form of trouble. However, those with considerable strength wouldn’t run from a challenge.
“… The fighters were Stefan Netherlore and Ivan Smith. Correct?” Damien added.
Those two were the ones with the highest potential on the boys’ side, scoring second and third positions respectively.
While he knew they were both dignified, the two were still kids. Plus, they had huge egos from being praised as geniuses since they were young. Not only that, but they both failed to achieve the top spot and lost to Maria, a girl.
No doubt their frustration was building up, ready to be unleashed by a slight provocation. Those two had every reason to duke it out.
The expression Klaus gave to Damien’s assertion, though, showed that he was wrong.
“Well, the latter was one of the parties engaged in combat… but for the second party…” Klaus said, hesitating once again.
He really didn’t like the idea of doing something as troublesome as this. Still, he brought himself to complete his sentence.
“It was Jared Leonard, the one who got 5th Place in the examinations.”
This statement sent silence into the room. Klaus was right! Judging from the air that had changed around him, Damien was certainly not pleased about what he heard. He appeared disappointed, but another emotion could be seen planting itself across his face.
“And? Who won?” Damien asked, temporarily ignoring the elephant in the room.
Klaus swallowed hard. What he was about to say would cause even more trouble for him. But, he couldn’t refuse the question, could he?
“The winner of the match… was Jared Leonard.”
That little boy achieved an overwhelming victory!