I welcome you to the Academy, your transfer to the Novice Academy will not be a mistake. I hope that you make the best of your time here and be able to job-advance with the other graduates.
On your first day of attending the Academy, bring your uniform that you will order from the catalog enclosed; make sure that shirt, pants and shoes are all the same color.
There is only one rule that applies to everyone, here at the Academy: Your uniform must be one color, for example, you must have a full red or full purple uniform. The color does not matter. Other than that, I and your teacher, as well as your classmates, will explain the other rules to you should you ask questions about them.
I hope you enjoy your stay here. Signed, Principal Bryan.
The sky was a nice shade of blue, fluffy, white clouds dotted the skies in tiny groups. The sun was bright and hot, shining across the sky for Rune Midgart to see. The Novice Academy sat next to a forest to the east of Lighthalzen, facing the bridge connecting Lighthalzen to Einbroch. It was like any other school with two buildings, one of which was a dorm. The other building was one office and four classrooms, one for every year, and thirty students in every class.
A boy dressed in full black was sprinting his lungs out, heading towards the Academy from across the bridge. "Shit! I'm going to get in trouble on my first day at the Academy, what a bad way to move to a new school," he said to himself as he ran.
He suddenly saw a girl step in front of him, and he tried to stop, but to no avail. He still slammed into her, causing both of them to fall to the ground. Before the girl hit the ground, he caught her and pushed her upwards, letting her catch her balance as he fell even harder.
He slammed into the concrete hard enough for lights to pop in his sight. Despite that, he still managed to get up, apologize to her and continue running. He didn't turn back to see the girl that he ran into look at her camera to gaze at his picture that she had taken when he regained his composure.
It was 9:00AM on a Tuesday morning when a black-clad boy walked through the door to the admissions office, panting hard. The principal welcomed him, and gave him his classroom. He called the teacher to the office, and told the boy that he would have a good time learning to class-advance. The teacher arrived and he saw the new student. With a smile on his face, he lead the boy to the classroom.
The clock read 10:35AM, the calendar was marked on July 27th. Another boring day at Novice Academy. The class of thirty-five fourteen-year-olds always knew what their day was going to be like; sleep in school and then hang out with friends. Today was a strange day though; the teacher was called to the office. "Class, today we have a new student. He's from Prontera and has moved here for his dad's new work. Treat him nicely, please," he said. A new student had been placed in the class, which rarely happened, as the school was pretty far away from civilization and it was their final year in the four-year course at the Academy.
The new student was dressed in a sloppy black uniform. His short black hair was slightly messy and he had black eyes under his glasses. "Hi, my name is Kevin, nice to meet you. I'm fourteen and I'm trained in hand-to-hand combat, which started when I was six. I hope we can all get along," he finished with a smile.
He took a seat at an empty desk at the back of the room. The girls and the guys kept their eyes on him. The girls thought he was really good-looking while the guys wanted to try his strength. The teacher called for their attention as class began.
"Oh yes, class, today is D-day, so I want to see you guys participating," the teacher announced.
Soon, without much further event, the lunch bell rang. As Kevin took out his lunch, the girls left the room to eat outside. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bunch of guys following the girls. Kevin quickly finished his sandwich and followed his classmates.
Kevin saw them stop at the edge of the forest. The girls turned around to face the boys; both groups drew their weapons.
Kevin heard a boy say, "I hope you girls improved from last week, you don't want to get humiliated again."
Within moments, a full-out brawl had started with spells and swords flying in many directions. One red spell shot by Kevin's head and hit a tree, causing it to ooze into a goopy solution, while he stood as a bystander, almost having his head turned into the mess. He was utterly confused and scared about what was going on.
Just then, another girl from his classroom came out and explained to him, that today was a Tuesday, so Duel-day was in session. As Kevin watched the battle, he saw the girls getting injured, being unable to take physical damage from taking the magic course. He learned that on Duel-day, everybody in the same class was allowed to have a duel with each other to test out what they've learned over the week and what they've practiced over the weekend.
The girls were losing, big time. Four out of seven of them were already knocked down, while the guys still had everybody in their team of five. It was obvious that the girls were going to get beaten.
As the battle finished, the third-year teacher came out with a scroll, which she unraveled and healed the battlers. Soon, the guys helped the girls up and congratulated them, since the guys got hit by many spells, even if they didn't go down.
Then they went back to the class to eat lunch like nothing happened.
"How odd.." Kevin muttered, unaware that the girl was still there.
"Yeah, sure is," she said, causing him to jump from surprise. "So, what course are you taking this year?" she asked him.
Kevin didn't know how to reply; he didn't have any idea what she was talking about. He did notice that she was the girl from this morning though, but he didn't say anything..yet.
"Well," she said, "maybe you should talk to the principal about your courses if you don't know what you're taking yet. Only fourth-years get actual courses; the other three classes have only physical and mana training, so I don't think you're missing out on anything."
"Oh, alright then. Thanks a bunch, uhh…I didn't get your name," he said to her.
"My name's Chloe, don't forget it," she said to him, throwing a smile his way.
"I won't, Chloe," he assured his new acquaintance, "oh yeah, sorry about this morning, I wasn't watching where I was going," as he turned and dashed towards the principal's office.
"It's quite alright," Chloe said. As he was going away, she called after him, "You do realize that school starts at 9:00 and that you were half an hour early when you ran into me right?"
Not hearing her, Kevin arrived in the principal's office, a little short on breath.
"Why is it that whenever you come to my office, you're out of breath?" asked the principal when Kevin entered.
"I have..no idea.." Kevin said, in between breaths. He took a moment to catch his breath and then asked the principal about his job course.
"Ahh.." Principal Bryan breathed. "I take it that you have witnessed D-day?"
"Yes I have," Kevin replied, "so what is this job course?"
"A job course is what it's name implies, a course to take on a job. There are three possible paths, single-class, duo-class and tri-class. Whatever course you take, you will be a master of either one, two or three classes respectively. First, you'll need to select your weapon, or weapons." With a snap, the top of the principal's desk cleared and flipped over to reveal a weapon case, with all sorts of weapons for every class. Three of them particularly caught Kevin's eyes.
"Hmm, I'll get the Garm Claw, the Garrison and the Desert Twilight and Winds set," he told Principal Bryan.
"Alrighty then, you'll be in the tri-class course, so you'll be doing three times the work of the average student. Are you okay with that?" Principal Bryan told him, finishing off with a questioned look.
"Yeah, I'll technically be only taking two, since I'm already practiced in a monk's fighting style," Kevin stated.
"Cool, so then, let's continue. Your teachers will be Bullet Bill for the gunslinger course, Joker John for the thief course and Choker Charles for the monk course. I, Principal Bryan, hereby give you, Kevin Duong, the tri-class job course," he said, and with a wave of his hand, everything returned to normal, except for the fact that Kevin still had his weapons and their holders that he could attach to his belt.
As Kevin walked out towards the classroom while putting on his newly received claw, he felt a murderous aura. He quickly turned around and tried to find where the aura was coming from. Slowly…find the pressure.. he thought to himself. There! he noted while mentally pointing on the aura. A rustle in the bushes, a quick gust of wind and then the world went black
When he came too, he had no clue what had happened. Oh man, I forgot it was D-day, he mentally slapped himself. Everything was still where it belonged, his glasses were still on his face, and he regained his senses.
Kevin stood up, his eyesight not quite focused yet, and tried to see what was in front of him. Shaking his head to clear his eyes, he noticed that there was a bundle of blue near him. On closer inspection, it was Chloe unconscious from some unknown reason. And to make it worse, she wasn't breathing.
Being quick to react to emergency situations, Kevin immediately tilted her head back and began CPR on her. After a minute of mouth-to-mouth recuperation, Chloe began to breathe ever so slightly. Relieved by the reaction, Kevin continued to give her air. Breathe in, plug her nose, open her mouth, breathe out.
***
Chloe slowly came to when she felt a sudden pressure on her chest. She tried to inhale, but could only take in a small breath. Then she felt someone pressing on her mouth and breathing into her. Sensing the air, she breathed it in, happy for the life being given into her. Chloe could start to open her eyes a little bit now, though everything was still unfocused.
She started to take in her surroundings with whatever senses possible. She heard the wind, felt the grass, vaguely saw the blue sky, and a very familiar body outline. It sort of looked like…Kevin?
She snapped awake, but her savior didn't notice. Suddenly sitting up, she banged her head against his.
***
There Kevin was, being the hero and saving the maiden from death. It was the right thing to do, nothing wrong with saving someone in trouble. Until that person wakes up suddenly and gives you a headache that was worse than Morroc Satan with diarrhea. Kevin continued inhaling and exhaling, trying to bring Chloe back from unconsciousness, when she sat up and hit her head against his forehead with a thump loud enough that even Odin could hear it from the Heavens.
Walking around aimlessly, Kevin tried to ease the throbbing pain coursing through his head while Chloe tried to stop the pain on hers.
After what seemed like hours of pain, they both could use their motor skills without their heads getting extremely painful.
Chloe started to apologize to Kevin when suddenly. Over the P.A., the principal called Kevin and Chloe up into the office.
They both looked at each other questionably, all the could do was guess what was going to happen next. Little did they know, things were going to get very complicated.