Chapter 39: Ch79. Return ceremony - 2 (Ghosts from the past)
"First, I have some things I’d like you, new students, to know. Since we don’t share our ways with the outside world, you may find it strange that we don’t follow the US regular grading system. The color of your uniform shows your experience level. There’s the Indigo class, which is the very first and lowest..." Kurt looked at his uniform and smiled, proud to be right on his first assumption.
But as he looked around, he noticed that only a very few students had the red stripe on their uniforms.
He decided to let the question sit for a while longer, and kept listening to the headmaster’s words.
"We have Dark-green for the intermediate students, and there’s the Crimson class, which is the closest to graduation. If you survive your internship by the end of your school period, that is." She chuckled as if she didn’t basically gave the students a scheduled death sentence. "But, enough of the grading explanation. The first years will enjoy a brand new event of selection that we’ve been working on along with our newest allies from Isariah, and with the warm welcome of our new combat instructor, Zaval, we tell you that this period’s selection will be a special raid!"
The crowd of new students all started muttering to each other in quiet protests.
"Selection? Weren’t we already enrolled?"
"Special raid? What kind of school system is this? We don’t even have combat experience! How are we supposed to survive a raid?"
"Oh, my gods, I’m dead, I’m so dead..."
Kurt, however, didn’t pay attention to any of it. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth at the mention of Zaval’s name, and had to refrain the boiling rage that built up inside him as he watched the Ishir disguised as a human walk to the stage and wave to the students.
’Huh... What a lucky coincidence...’ Kurt unconsciously smirked at the thought, and when he looked at Zaval again, he noticed that the Ishir was looking exactly at him, as if the alien had read Kurt’s thoughts.
Kurt kept smirking. He opened his fists and released the tension from his body slowly, taking deep breaths.
’Yes, keep looking, you bastard. Because this face will be the last one you see in life.’
The murmur among the crowd kept on until the Ishir raised his hands and asked for the students’ silence.
Once they were all quiet, he spoke.
"You kids may not be used to the ways that the Boston Wielders Academy work, but that’s always been how they sort the best out of you all. And since we have a great need for new, capable wielders, we, the Ishir, chose to help mankind improve their technology and the strength of their wielders." He put his hands in his pockets and kept speaking. "And to do so, we created an artificial Nest that will be used as an introduction to raids to you all. This event will sort out the most capable of you, and the ones with the best score will be placed in the Dark-green class immediately after that."
There was a tense and shocked silence among the crowd of students.
"The students with lower scores, among the survivors, I might add, will stay in Indigo, in order to ensure that these stragglers gather enough experience to understand that this is not a game."
Jaws were fallen slack, eyes glared, lifeless, at the Ishir.
Some, though, just looked at him with smirks and confident looks.
Kurt noticed that Lester looked at him, holding back the laughter, as if it were a death sentence.
The boy stood by the red-haired girl’s side, and for what Kurt could feel by the mood around them, she definitely wasn’t comfortable with the rat-looking boy’s presence.
"So, are you ready for the test, kids?"
"Wait, what? Now?"
The crowd got more tense all of a sudden, without knowing what was going to happen.
Kurt just inhaled and exhaled.
"Ready? No way in hell, but let’s go." ’I’ll depend on the other Kurt’s memories to understand it, and adapt as the situation deems needed.’
"Follow Zaval to the training grounds and listen to his every word. The equipment will be borrowed to you at the anteroom and you’ll give it back once the test has ended."
Just like that, the headmaster finished speaking and got out of the stage, while everyone walked like zombies, following Zaval to the training grounds.
"This Nest was developed to simulate ten floors, and the fastest person to clear it in the test run, took two days. So I hope we have some special seeds around today, that will be able to break this record." Zaval looked discretely at Kurt and other few students.
Kurt followed Zaval’s eyes, and noticed that they laid only over students with the red striped in their uniforms.
He spoke out loud, so that everyone could hear.
"Hum... Sir, what does this red stripe in my uniform mean? I couldn’t help but notice that only a few of us have it, and we’re all indigo."
"Good question, Mr. Blake." Zaval answered. "It means you have something that the other students don’t. It means you’ve been irregularly awakened, either in an early age, or with an unrecorded ability. Which means that you’ve been put in a special, separate class of Indigo, even though it won’t save you from having classes with the other Indigo students."
’Segregation, huh? What are they trying to do with us, here?’
Kurt didn’t retort to Zaval’s answer, and after a few minutes of walk, passing by every building in the academy, they finally arrived at the training grounds.
It was a massive facility with different rooms, each one serving a different purpose for training.
The anteroom were full of equipment, and everyone scattered to find pieces of weapon that suited them best.
Kurt walked around for a while and found a pair of daggers that fit well enough in his hands.
A few students looked at him, and Kurt could feel the grudge building up in their eyes.
When they arrived at the central room, that looked more like an arena than a room per se, there was a glowing white bubble, as if it was welcoming the students inside.
"For those who want to be accepted by the academy, the limit completion time is ten days, once you get inside the Nest, you’ll only be able to leave once the boss is killed, so good luck, and may the best of you thrive."
With that grim remark, Zaval left the room, leaving the students at their own devices, which immediately caused chaos.
"I DON’T WANT TO GO!"
"I-I’M OUT OF HERE!"
Other students shouted similar things and stormed out of the training grounds, leaving only two hundred students, with Kurt among them.
He looked from the bubble to his hands, at the daggers, and sighed in relief.
’So I finally get the chance to level up a bit, huh?’
But before he could step forward, another student did it, bumping into Kurt in the process.
Kurt laughed at the student’s force that almost took him off-balance.
He used [QUICK FINGERS], and stole the student’s pendant right from his neck.
[QUICK FINGERS HAS LEVELED UP]
[QUICK FINGERS: LVL 03 → 04]
"Hey!" The student immediately grabbed Kurt by the collar. "I saw what you did there! Do you want to fight?"
The accent in the boy’s voice made Kurt’s heart throb.
’Oh, no...’
Nikolai looked at him with silent rage in his eyes.
"I asked if you want to fight." Nikolai repeated, but Kurt was still a bit taken aback by the sight of...
’No! He is not my friend.’ Kurt slapped himself internally. ’No matter how bad I feel, he’s not my friend.’
An unconscious voice inside of him made him feel otherwise, though, when it said yet.
But Kurt had other plans in mind.
"What if I do?" He smirked.
If the counter for [SLIGHT OF HAND] didn’t accounted it as a pick pocket, then it meant that, either Kurt wasn’t good enough at picking pockets yet, or Nikolai had sharper senses than he did in that other version of Earth.
And if Nikolai was enrolling in the BWA, then it meant that things were different from the last time.
’So what if I made him hate me this time around?’ Kurt’s smirk enlarged, but his chest felt tight as he said. "What if I do?" And he slapped Nikolai’s hands off of his collar.
Nikolai immediately retreated two steps, his hands high in what looked like a surrender.
The other students, ready to step into the Nest, all stopped to see what was going on.
"Uh, a fight already?"
"Can’t wait to see what they’re capable of."
"Shut up, they’re probably just two basic users trying to show off."
"Yeah, shut up, guys." Lester retorted to them, glaring at Kurt. "They’re just two nobodies."
But the girl with the red head looked at them with an intrigued expression on her face.
