Two hours.
Two fucking hours.
We did that horrendous physical training on that fucker’s instructions for two fucking long hours.
After Instructor Raven was done with us, none of the cadets were in any shape of learning Combat Arts so he had to let us go.
That guy is not a human. He is a demon! A part of me is already starting to believe that he likes torturing kids.
I swear to god I will put him through something much worse one day! Just let me get strong.
Anyway, right now we were dragging our tired bodies to the training hall situated on the ground floor.
The Global Military Academy course for first-year cadets is divided into eight classes;
Mana Theory.
Mana Arts.
Anti-personnel Combat Training.
Combat Arts.
Weapon Arts.
War tactics.
High Order Thinking Skills (applying scientific and mathematical theories to mana arts).
And lastly, an Elective Course (Extra Class) allows cadets to select a specific field of study that’ll help them build a career later.
In a day, one cadet has to attend five classes according to the timetable provided by the academy, where one of them is a joint class session between two class sections.
Yesterday, my Extra Class was a joint session with class 1-G-14.
Today is our first day of Weapon Arts class and we will be sharing it with class 1-C-8.
Hmm? You want to know why the hell I’m telling you all this useless information?
Well, because starting today the first arc of the story will be set in motion.
And oh boy, I’m excited for it to begin.
Mmm? You wanna know why I’m so excited about it?
Well, firstly, there was finally going to be some juicy drama to keep me entertained.
Even though I was in a fantasy world now, I was trapped in a monotonous rhythmic routine.
Get up, come to the academy, train, go back, sleep and repeat.
I was in desperate need of some nail-biting juicy drama~!
And secondly, this arc will provide me with some good opportunities to get stronger.
So as I dragged my feet and descended the stairs to get to the training hall, my eyes absentmindedly started searching for this story’s protagonist.
There he was.
While all the other cadets around me looked like they were about to drop dead any moment now, that guy on the other hand seemed as if the abuse we all just went through was akin to a morning jog for him.
Nero Dekrauf.
In the novel, this upcoming arc established his presence as the ‘main character’ of the story.
It started when a cadet of class 1-C-8 began picking a fight with William, a part of the main cast, on something so trivial that I can’t even bother to remember it.
Like a knight in shining armor, Nero jumped in and took a stand for his fellow cadet in need.
Let’s just say that little feud transpired into a chain of events and morphed into a full-blown clash between the two classes.
That in turn, forced the ‘Queen’ of the Global City or shall I say, Cadet Council’s vice president, Yelena Morningstar, to interfere.
She proposed an idea of a ‘mock war’ between classes 1-C-8 and 1-A-1 in the virtual world on the condition that the losing class would give up their total monthly Merit Points to the winning class.
Both of the classes willingly accepted, of course.
But amidst all this, there was a traitor in class 1-A-1 that leaked all the crucial information to the enemy. From their war strategies to battle formations– everything.
That traitor was Grace Goodwill. She had no goodwill for her own class.
Hehe. Get that? Goodwill, goodwill? Wordplay. Hehe.
Ahem, anyway…
To avoid getting caught, she framed Lucas as the traitor and set him up. Of course, Lucas’ brilliant reputation didn’t help him and everyone instantly believed Grace.
But Grace was a cautious woman. She had the habit of hammering an extra nail to the coffin.
To make sure no one would ever believe Lucas if he were to try and plea for innocence, she paid a commoner girl to provoke and get beaten up by him.
Long story short, right after the end of the first arc, Nero engaged in a duel with Lucas and thoroughly embarrassed him for assaulting a helpless girl.
By doing that, he made his name known to mostly everyone in the academy. After all, it’s not every day a descendant of a Ruling Family is beaten to a pulp.
Urghh!
Just remembering that last part sent a shiver down my spine. Arghh! I’ll have to avoid that fate at any cost.
Hmm, what happened to the mock war, you ask?
Well, the arc concluded with class 1-A-1 scoring a dangerously close victory over class 1-C-8 after six long days of the hard-fought war.
The reason for their victory?
Nero Dekrauf.
Out of 20 Squads of class 1-C-8, Nero single-handedly wiped out 6 of them. That act gave class 1-A-1 a major number advantage over their enemy.
So despite their whole strategy being leaked, they won through brute force alone.
After that event, Nero’s rank was updated from 000021 to 000019.
Now, although the first arc was largely irrelevant to the plot, it marked the start of the main story.
Not to mention, it brought all the important main leads together, forming a bond amongst them that set them up for the challenges ahead.
That said, I would much rather prefer if the ending does not feature my fragile ass being used to wipe the floor by a monster like Nero.
So, will I be taking it upon myself to change the ending of this arc?
Hell yeah!
By doing so, will I potentially alter the plot in a way that could come back to bite me later on?
Hell yeah!
†
After dragging my tired feet across the corridors and down the stairs one floor after another, I finally arrived at the training hall.
As the name suggests, it was a huge hall. Actually, instead of a training hall, it would be more accurate to call it a dojo.
In front of us was a raised platform— a stage covered with cushioning mattresses.
At the back of the hall, several pieces of training equipment, practice dummies, and combat dolls were neatly placed.𝔫𝔬𝒱𝗲𝓵𝑵𝖾xt.𝒸𝒪𝓜
I looked around and saw all sorts of bladed weapons packed tightly on the walls.
Axes, scythes, whips, swords— all kinds of blades.
I also noticed that even though two classes– by extension, 200 hundred cadets were sharing the training hall, it was still nowhere near its full capacity and everyone had plenty of space to do just more than move around.
It made me wonder, exactly how big was this dojo?
“Attention cadets!”
Shaking me out of my awe right then was a loud booming voice. It was coming from in front of us.
Naturally, everyone shifted their attention to the stage where the voice seemed to have come from.
Surely enough, we saw a man with a lean build and long crimson hair tied into a braid, seemingly in his mid-forties, glaring back at us.
A pair of enchanting crimson eyes adorned his perfectly chiseled face. Even though a large scar was running down his left cheek, it did nothing to hinder his beauty.
He was wearing a loose dojo robe with a deep v-neck that completely revealed multiple other scars on his bare chest that he must’ve received during his time on the battlefield.
I knew who he was….
“I am Leo Kurogami. I’m currently on a year-long leave from the Military. My rank is Captain and from this moment on, I will be your weapon arts instructor!”
He was Leo Kuro– oh, he already introduced himself….
“You will all address me as Sensei starting today and I will call you all by your names. Follow my instructions without fail. If you don’t, be prepared to face consequences that’ll follow.”
He was of Japanese lineage with mixed Mexican blood. Not that any of those countries exist now but it’s rare to see someone of Asian roots alive in this world.
Why?
Because during the Demon invasion that happened seven centuries ago which lasted for six days, the first countries to be annihilated were mostly Asian countries.
Almost 62% of humanity was wiped out by Demons and roughly 48% of those casualties were Asian people.
After that, bloodlines and cultures started to blend together when the landmass of the world began to collide into one.
It was difficult to even keep one’s traditions alive at that time because of how chaotic everything was back then.
But on the bright side, religious, cultural, and racial conflicts were ceasing to exist drastically with each passing year.
Discrimination and prejudice were becoming things of the past when the world was literally brought together.
Well that was until the Central Government was formed, and they proposed a law that stated that every individual who can wield mana has to serve in the United Military for four years.
In itself, that wasn’t such a bad proposal since the Northern Continent needed more soldiers to defend its borders from the Vampires.
Space defense stations required more soldiers to deploy too, since the threat of Kalis seemed to have been growing with each passing day.
So yeah, the Central Government’s decision had the world and its people’s best interests at heart.
However, Asians, who had already lost the majority of their population, were firmly against the notion of sending their sons and daughters to the border to fight in an extinction-level war.
So they protested against it.
…Or at least, they tried to until their voices were silenced as the government imposed strict laws and suppressed dissent
After that occurred many similar incidents in which the Central Government demonstrated its power and shut down people’s voices and opinions– essentially stripping them of their freedom of speech.
In the following years, the members of the Central Government declared themselves as the supreme authority of the world. They made it very clear that anyone opposing them would be suppressed.
The people of Earth had their birthright— their freedom stolen from them just like that and they all were just too powerless to do anything.
After all, what right does the weak have against the will of the strong?
They could do nothing but endure under the utter monarchy of the Central Government.
Well, at least that’s what most of them thought they could do.
There were some individuals who wanted to reclaim their birthright, some who wanted to take back their freedom, decided to overthrow the Central Government in order to rid the world of its perceived ‘tyranny.’
This sentiment of overthrowing the one supreme authority of the world gave birth to an organization that very few know of in today’s times– Spider.
‘Spider’ was a group that sought to achieve complete anarchism by dismantling the hierarchical system of governance established by the Central Government.
Whereas most people treated the existence of Spider as a myth, an urban legend, or a conspiracy, a select few people knew the truth about them.
They really did exist.
And since they were a shadow organization, no one knew who their members were.
It was possible that anyone– your brother, your friend, a person you sat next to while traveling on the train, your own parents, your lover… or your weapon arts instructor— could be a member of Spider.
You see, the very idea of Spider’s existence posed a threat to the Central Government.
This is because anarchism, which is the goal of Spider, seeks to eliminate hierarchy and governance altogether in favor of replacing it with voluntary cooperation and mutual aid.
As such, the existence of an organization like Spider challenges the very foundations of the society created by the Central Government
But that was not the reason why they were so considered to be so dangerous.
The reason for them being so dangerous was that, according to some conspiracy theories, few of the most influential people in the world were affiliated with Spider.
Some of them even acted as its legs.
Oh, the organization was structured with nine main seats – eight ‘legs’ and one ‘head’ – and all the other people affiliated with Spider were referred to as ‘workers’ or ‘cells.’
I think even the dumbest of you must’ve understood where I’m going with this by now, right?
No?
Gosh you really are dumb.
Fine, let me write it out for you.
Leo Kurogami, also known as the ‘The Second Coming of the Sword Saint,’ our weapon arts instructor, was one of the Spider’s legs.