A Side Villain…

Two full weeks have passed since then and things have gone as usual in Akira’s life. He wakes up in the morning, gets ready for the academy, eats delicious food made by her mother, goes to the academy, gives full attention to the classes there and then after the classes ends he goes to the dungeon.

His fear of causing a butterfly effect when he saved someone in the dungeon proved wrong as nothing really happened in the city. After searching the city and nearby areas the operation was called off but one thing was off as compared to the game.

It was the security in and around the academy, earlier there were also guards present but now their numbers have increased by more than double and a kind of extra layer was laid at the entrance and exit. Could this have been something related to him? His mind was already preoccupied with something else.

And he was quite ecstatic over this fact, it was his supposed beating by Richard. He had successfully avoided doing that, he had created a change in the plot of this world and this was something remarkable in itself. Well it wasn’t to be honest all he had to do was to stay away from them and that worked.

But nonetheless it was a big achievement for him and his mood was extra happy due to that. So when today he came down to eat the breakfast his mother noticed that and said,

“Hmm, what is it that’s making my son so happy?”

Akira who had his mouth stuffed by bread got startled and coughed a little to which his mother offered him water and he drank that.

“So what is it?” She asked in a cute voice.

“It’s nothing really, just something in the academy.” He said in a normal voice not showing much emotion.

“Ooh, let me guess, is it a new friend?” She was teasing him.

“Nope you are way off.” He said and shook his head.

“Hehe kids these days think they can hide anything from their parents.”

“But I am telling you the truth.” He said innocently and that only prompted her to chuckle at his face.

“Hahaha you look so cute. So when am I going to meet her?” This was really getting confusing for him.

“Wait, her? Who are you talking about?”

“Oh so you wanna keep it a secret. Well even I was doing something like that at your age so it’s understandable.” Her mother said and went away to do her chores.

Leaving a bewildered Akira looking at her with disbelieving eyes and question marks floating over his head.

“What in the world is she talking about?”

“I heard that.” Evelyn shouted from inside.

“MOM!”

His father had already headed out to his shop so it was only him remaining in the house and since it was getting time for the first class to start he too headed out and now was in the streets going towards the academy.

Today was going to be a special day in the academy, it was time to start the physical combat classes and also to organise the bi monthly ranking wars among the first years meaning that everyone in the first year was going to be ranked according to their scores obtained in the ranking wars and based on their ID cards.

He reached the academy gates but it was quite different from the first time he had come here. Apparently Ryan had been doing his job quite sincerely. He was doing it with everything he had and the results were quite evident.

Not many people believed him or his stories but it was still more than enough to deter them from interacting with Akira and like that he was kind of isolated by a big fat percentage of people on the campus. So maybe that was a bad thing for him? 

Not really, he never cared for these people and not for what they thought about him. He already had too many things to deal with and with his mental age greater than them it was much easier to ignore them and continue with life.

So today when he came to the academy gate the seniors who had always welcomed him like others and the members of the student council who oversee every student going in and out kind of ignored his presence and the ones who did notice they only nodded their heads.

Ichinose and Evelyn the president and vice-president had also heard the rumours but they didn’t believe that and more importantly at their level they couldn’t be bothered by something like that. Also there was the fact that he was just a first year E section guy so it didn’t really matter to them.

He went into his class and sat down at one of the last seats, all alone all by himself, the rest of the students came and like that the time for the first class started.

Mr Woods the homeroom teacher came in the class and announced,

“Hello everyone, how are you all doing?” He still had an overly friendly aura around him, maybe old age gives that?

“Two weeks have passed since you joined this one in the world academy and I hope that it has been a wonderful period of time.” Everyone nodded at that and yes these two weeks have been wonderful.

Their lives have somewhat changed, they got to know about so many things which were unknown to them, they got to enjoy this one hell of a campus and most importantly they were creating connections with other students which would help build their future.

This was true not only for the E section but for others too. A section students were the most successful in forming connections and faction building had been running in full force, many capable students from other sections were being poached in those factions.

“From the looks on your face you certainly did enjoy that but now it’s time for that to change.” His expressions got serious and some of students straightened their backs.

“Your physical combat classes were supposed to be started last week but something came in between that and the principal ruled that out.”

“But from now on half of your time would be dedicated to learning essential skills for combat and also mana theories.”

“So are you ready?”

“YES SIR” Everyone shouted their response and similar shouts could be heard coming from other classes meaning that the same exact speech was given to them.

Well these students were part of the next forces of peace so they have to be dedicatedly trained in the ways and ethos of being one so today marked the second most important days in the hearts and minds of these students, first being their first day at academy.

“So please make way to the combat classroom.” Mr Woods said and left the room.

Combat classroom, the showstopper in the Academy, it was the place you wanted to be. If strength is what you desire then this is where you would be. It has the best of the state facilities, combat teachers who would train and guide you, best weapons of all and every category and a special mana simulation room.

Oh and this was also the time people started to form groups, the very same groups that go together in the dungeons and support each other. So now when everyone was going in the combat classroom they were already walking in premade groups and it was both inter and intra sections.

You could see a group containing people from B and A sections while others had a mix of C, D and E. Most of the people from A had their factions which was considered a better place to join so naturally they had large numbers but there were groups made without any faction interference.

The group building process boiled down to a few basic things . First is to assemble all the necessary types like a frontline attacker who would deal the majority of damage, a solid defence who could tank the attacks, a ranged weapon user who could provide support to frontline attacker,

A ranger who had excellent senses ,eyesight and ears to look out for the dangers, a mage who could use mana theories and lastly a healer preferably one with large mana reserves.

Second thing was to identify the skill set of these people, their gears, their knowledge and the overall compatibility of the assembled team because if they don’t feel the spirit of being comrades or being brothers in arms then all else fails.

 Third is the last stage, it is the test of how a group will perform under real life situations, situations where there is pressure and life is being holded by a thin strand of trust in your comrade.

Now everyone had reached the combat classroom which was huge, maybe the biggest single space on this campus. It was a room whose interior was all white and the floor as well as the roof, the transparent roof allowed one to encapsulate the blue sky and also feel the warmth of sunshine coming in through that.

They were currently standing only at the entrance and the minimalistic design of the room had made a deep impact on their psyche, upon walking forward you could see that the corridor was divided into various pathways protruding out of the main straight line.

These pathways lead to specialised training chambers like gravity enhanced rooms, time space dilations rooms, mana restriction rooms, poison filled rooms which could build resistance to poison, mana beasts room and like that. 

But all these rooms were currently not opened to the first years and could only be accessed upon completing assignments or through special permission by the teacher.

While everyone was in awe the sound of footsteps approaching could be heard and from its sound you could infer that it was the sound of leather boots striking the ground. Soon the owner of that sound came in through one of the rooms.

She was a lady in her mid 20s or late 20s at best, her facial expressions were hardened, her eyes had that fire and her apparel was a red armour like cloth which only covered her upper body leaving her arms and anything else, she was also wearing a skirt with black boots and you could say that she gave the vibes of a Military officer.

Everyone was gossiping about her identity but no one dared to ask so when the voices faded the officer came forward and introduced her, 

"I am officer Laura, your combat teacher." Her words were enhanced by mana and hence reached to everyone present in the room. 

"Let's not beat around the bush and get started. you all must have formed some groups so line up accordingly."

She was the same officer Nyla and others reported to at the guild's branch of academy. 

This was the first time Akira was seeing her in real life and he had to say that the Amazonians sure live up to their names. Yes Laura was not a human but an amazonian, they were a sub species of humanity and lived on a small island north west of Origin Continent. 

One thing that was considered very interesting about them was that only females lived on that Island and the entry of males was strictly prohibited, it was followed to a degree that if a man arrived on the Island he would not go back alive. Well that was how things were prior to the Great War. 

That war changed everything, they were the first to be attacked by the Demon Lord armies and despite their valour and resistance to the forces they were defeated and absorbed into Demon Lord's empire. It was expected, the amazonians were far outnumbered and outgunned by the other party their chances were already bleak and in the end they lost. 

Things were restored to their earlier state after the Obsidian Dragon intervened and ended the war but Amazonians were already defeated by that time. That War taught them many important lessons, first was that their policy of living in seclusion was not worth in times like that and second that they needed allies to depend upon so they opened up their borders and allied themselves with the empires in the Origin continent. 

With the passage of time some Amazonians settled in various parts of the continent and also rendered their services to the empires though even now a large majority of the amazonians prefer not to have relationship outside of their island and having a romantic relationship with a man was still looked down at leading to extremely rare sight of a man having amazonian as a wife or a girlfriend. 

Laura was specially asked by the principal to become the combat teacher of the academy and his decision was perfect. She was an expert hand to hand warrior, had godly skills with the Golden trio of Sword, spear and Shield, had a deep understanding of mana theories and her personality traits of being a leader and trainer made her the best for this post. 

Heck she was so popular back in the island that many young girls decided to join the academy and even in the academy she had a secret fan club organized by the students of second and third year. 

Oh and there was also her niece Alexandra present in the A section of the first year, Alexandra was what you could call a smaller version of Laura and she too was a member of Richard's future lovers. 

By this time everyone had lined up according to their groups and as expected Akira was standing alone, he had already expected this outcome so didn't even bother to ask anyone to take him in their group. When he was standing alone at the middle of the someone tapped on his shoulder from back, 

"Hmm?" He turned back to see who was it an-

"Hello Akira-kun, how are you doing?" It was Haruki but what was she doing here? 

"Hello Haruki and as you can see I am doing good but why are you here instead of being with your group?" He had already seen her with some C and B section students so she was already in a group so why here? 

"Ah yo-you se-see I wanted to invite you in my group." She didn't looked at him while talking and was apparently blushing a little bit. 

"Of Course if you are already part of another group then it's fine." 

"I haven't joined one and I am thankful to you for this but are you really sure? Did you ask your group members about it?" 

"Ugh.. I didn't but just give me two minutes. I will go and ask them." With saying that she went running to other way not listening to his shouts, 

"Haruki you don't have to-" Too bad she had already left the place. 

After five minutes or so she came back with a gloomy face and slumped down shoulders and said, 

"Sorry Akira-kun I tried but they don't want another member." Her eyes was on the verge of tearing up so he patted his shoulders and said, 

"Well it's okay, you don't have to push yourself for me." And then he sent her away. 

In actuality she lied to him just now, he had heard her conversation with the other members of her team and at first they were okay with it as they really wanted a good ranger and a marksman but when they heard that she was talking about him they said a big NO. 

Well he was more worried about her rather than himself as if she continued talking to him then her reputation would be affected, given the fact his own reputation was not the best among students. 

"I need to talk to her." 

"Okay now starts the weapon initiation process, you also need to register your groups in the guild's branch of the academy and for the ones who want to be solo it's better to be in a group."

Akira was not the only one to be alone, well he the only one alone in a different category as no one wanted to take him, there were several other people too who wanted to do solo training and dungeon diving. Alexandra was one of those, her being Amazonian a cause of that. 

"Oh and you guys will also be getting your mana watches so take them at the end of the day." Laura announced. 

Mana watches, a communication device specifically made for the students of academies in the continent. They had all the necessary features expected of one and the best thing was that they were given free of charge. 

The students were now taken into the weapons room where they had to choose one weapon of their choice, many students had their weapons prior to this but on Academy grounds you are required to carry academy weapons. Their quality was also top grade so there was not really any problem with any student. 

"Everyone choose your weapons, you have ten minutes."

This was quite easy as the room had separate compartments dedicated to weapons of each category. Swords had their own section and there were each and every variety from a short sword, long handle sword, Persian styled swords, Indian styled swords, bastard swors, Japanese katanas and everything else. The spear department was similar to this and had a good variety. 

Akira waited for everyone else to finish and then went in to choose a sword for him. While looking through them his eyes went to a very normal looking British cutlass and picked that up. 

At the same time something incredible happened in the spear room.