Otherwise…nothing happened.

"Good luck with your exams," I told the both of them before we started our journey toward school one day. As I said, we had reached the end of the month, so about three weeks or less after the whole incident in Lupin City with the Cyclops Rats.

"It's just theory exams today," Adrian replied dryly. "No big deal. I'm more worried about the practical exams."

"Hey, don't underestimate the theoretical exams," I told him sternly. "Even if it's just filling out answers on paper with a pen, that doesn't make it any less difficult. They still determine your overall scores, and knowledge is power. The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. It's good to excel in fighting and magic, but you need the theoretical knowledge to truly master combat and spells. Without theoretical knowledge, you would never be able to learn how to cast your spells."

"That's true," Adrian admitted, but he brightened up with a smile. "Don't worry. I'm confident in my theory exams. I've always scored consistently well on them. I won't say I'm the top of cla.s.s, but I have no difficulties pa.s.sing them."

I nodded, already aware of Adrian's ability. Then I glanced at Melina and smiled rea.s.suringly at her. If Adrian was competent and above average, then Melina was a genius and an elite who frequently ranked at the top of theoretical exam scores. She certainly put in a lot of effort into studying, to make up for her lack of swordsmans.h.i.+p, and to prove to her family that she could not merely meet but in fact surpa.s.s their expectations.

As such I was confident that Melina would perform well, and I had faith that Adrian would pa.s.s at the very least. I was blessed with two diligent students, who rarely let me down. I didn't have to worry about them flunking, not like all those characters you often read about in shounen manga, who were for some reason always bad at studying.

"What about you, Sensei? You spent so much time training us. Will you be all right with your own exams?"

Melia voiced her concerns. I shrugged, aware that Saint Teresa Academy still required exchange students like me to take exams. We couldn't be seen slacking off and doing nothing while the official students worked their a.s.ses off. Besides, some people might abuse the system to their advantage to avoid taking exams by applying for exchange programs, so…yeah, they clamped down on that. Not that I cared. I was used to taking exams, being someone who chose to study for most of his career prior to his death. What could you expect from a study maniac insane enough to apply for graduate school?

"Don't worry about it," I a.s.sured her with a smile. "I studied consistently, and did all my homework, so I should theoretically be able to pa.s.s without any problems. I won't be as good at exams as you, but I shouldn't fail. I hope."

Melina's eyes widened at my last utterance, but I waved her worries away with a forced chuckle. Even though I couldn't guarantee that I would pa.s.s my theoretical exams, I didn't want her blaming herself and worrying herself sick over my own circ.u.mstances, so I had to at least fabricate a façade of confidence at least.

"Focus on your own exams. Let me worry about mine on my own, all right?"

"Okay…" Melina didn't look convinced, but she was the student and I was her private tutor. In other words, she had to obey my orders.

"All right, let's go!"

With that, I led the way to school.

*

A week later, right before the practical exams were due to take place, the results for the theoretical exams were out.

After splitting up with Adrian and Melina, I proceeded to the high school section. As usual, I watched the duo break off and proceed to the middle school section before I resumed my journey to my cla.s.sroom. Even though I was an exchange student, I still took my ice magic lessons with Teacher Einsberg seriously.

I mean, I wanted to master ice magic, so obviously I had to put in as much effort as possible, right?

While I strode through the courtyard leading to the main school building, I caught sight of a large crowd of students in white and maroon uniforms gathering in front of a gigantic holographic bulletin board. The huge hologram hovered in the open, and displayed upon its blue-tinted screen was a list of names that were ranked according to numerical scores.

"Look!" one of the female students pointed the electronic bulletin board to her friend. "The ranking list for the latest semester exam is out!"

Her friend, a girl with light brown hair, followed her friend's gaze and gasped.

"Wow, Zhao Yan takes first place again."

Who?

For a moment, I had no idea who they were talking about, even though those names sounded extremely familiar. Then I suddenly realized why I thought I had heard the name before. It belonged to what we could call a celebrity in school.

Nan Gong Zhao Yan was one of the two famous beautiful twin sisters who were often gossiped about and held in high regard as Saint Teresa Academy's twin idols. Come to think of it, I had frequently caught glimpses of Zhao Yan and her twin sister, Ji Yan, when exploring the school premises, but I never actually interacted with them.

The reason was mostly because they were always surrounded by male and female fans alike.

Well, it was none of my business. I stopped and scanned the holographic bulletin board for my name and quickly found it. I was nowhere near the top, of course. Instead, I was ranked a mere forty-eighth. Then again, forty-eighth out of over five hundred second year high school students in Saint Teresa Academy wasn't bad, considering that I was still within the top ten percent. It was unfortunate, but I was neither a genius who could consistently get into the very pinnacle of thereotical rankings, nor was I a hopeless student rooted at the bottom like those shounen manga or light novel protagonists so common in anime adaptations.

I knew that manga, anime and light novel protagonists were often at one extreme end or the other, either being geniuses who were somehow achieving top two rankings or morons who could never study to save their lives, but being stuck in reality, I found myself frequently hovering around the above average mark. Not too bad, but not extremely superb either. Not that I was complaining. Scoring within the top ten percent of my cohort (even if I wasn't among the top ten) was still something to be proud of, after all.

On the other hand, the twin sisters seemed like Mary Sue or villainous characters straight out of a shoujo manga.

"Umm…"

Speak of the devil. Nan Gong Ji Yan had shown up, her trademark twin tails and cute face catching a lot of attention from her schoolmates. One of her friends – and I used the term loosely because it was clear that she was the kind of shallow girls who followed Ji Yan around only because the latter was popular – a girl with a bob-cut, hurried to her.

"Ji Yan, you don't need to look. You're in second place again."

Was it my imagination, or was there a hint of a sneer in Ji Yan's friend's voice? As I suspected, she was real friend but one of those superficial entourage who tagged along solely to ride on Ji Yan's coattails. What a b.i.t.c.h.

Ji Yan appeared to have noticed the subtle derision in her friend's voice as well, and she frowned. However, she did well to conceal her irritation.

"What?"

A second friend came alongside her, this time a girl with long brown hair. Raising her hands, she sighed and shook her head in resignation.

"Looks like you've been stuck in second place ever since we've enrolled in Saint Teresa Academy. But that's not all. This time, there's a new transfer student who has also managed to achieve first place along with Zhao Yan."

For a moment I wondered if they were referring to Kureha Franklin, but she wasn't a transfer.

Putting Zhao Yan aside, who had always monopolized the very top rank of theoretical test scores, I wasn't aware that there was a new transfer student. Adrian came to mind, but obviously they couldn't be referring to him because he had transferred to the middle school section, not the high school one.

By the way, while Kureha Franklin, Kufa Van Peer and the others were all ranked at the top when it came to combat apt.i.tude, their academic scores were a little less impressive. Nonetheless, Kureha, Kufa and Miura La Noir were within the top ten, while Eliza Franklin was twenty-seventh and Rossetti Picket was a respectable sixty-eighth. As for Lute Dragoon…let's just say he was in the bottom three and leave it at that.

So I had no idea who this new transfer student was. Fortunately, the girls were on hand to provide me the much-needed information of their own accord.

"That good-looking transfer student, right?"

"Yeah! That's right! I heard that his name is Xu Wu Cheng!"

Uh huh. So why was he able to achieve so much (it's a Chinese pun joke here, because Wu Cheng is h.o.m.ophonic with no achievements) and score first place? His parents must be twisted to name him as such, or were geniuses who thought that such a terrible name would motivate him to work harder than everyone else to prove fate wrong.

"He's really handsome."

The two friends were gus.h.i.+ng happily while Ji Yan sulked to one side, evidently sore and bitter over losing out to her sister and a newcomer. Was she serious? She was number two, you know? She was ranked above almost five hundred other students in her cohort, which was already quite the amazing achievement. h.e.l.l, she outscored me by a huge margin and I wasn't complaining about being utterly defeated!

Neither of us had a chance to whine because Ji Yan's bob-haired friend chose that moment to squeal excitedly.

"Look! He's coming!"

The girls all crooned and swooned in lovesickness as an incredibly handsome guy with red hair confidently strode across the marble path and toward the main campus building. The white and maroon uniform, as much as I hated to admit it, matched his flaming hair perfectly. Adjusting his tie, Xu Wu Cheng smiled smugly and looked up at the electronic bulletin board, his eyes immediately flitting to the top as if already expecting his name to be there.

Ugh…as much as it was vexing to admit it, his overwhelming arrogance was well-deserved.

"Wow! How handsome!"

The crowd of girls, on the other hand, were all drooling over Xu Wu Cheng's presence, their eyes transforming into hearts. The guys, like me, glared at the handsome playboy in bitter envy. How could the heavens be so unfair? Giving everything to this guy, granting him great looks, an intelligent mind capable of acing exams, an athletic body that was the stuff of every girl's dreams, and if rumors were to be believed (because I could overhear the girls whispering right now), coming from an extremely wealthy family suspected to be n.o.bles. There was no way any of us could compare with a guy like him, with the exception of Lute Dragoon. If this was a fanfiction, I would instantly write him off as a Mary Sue character.

How could someone so perfect and flawless exist in real life?

Fortunately, it seemed that not all the girls were so smitten with Xu Wu Cheng. Never mind Kureha, Eliza, Rossetti and Miura, who had better things to do than to ogle at a handsome guy. Ji Yan, already in a bad mood, completely ignored him and turned away to pout. The girl was probably more jealous that he was hogging the limelight than being infatuated with him, or she knew something about him that the rest of us didn't. In any case, she huffed as she stomped off.

"Hmph! I'm not in the mood for this sort of thing…"

So if you were in the mood, you would be falling all over Xu Wu Cheng? How shallow.

In any event, I also wasn't in the mood to be glaring daggers at a total stranger and getting all jealous of him. I had more important matters to attend to, particularly my teaching duties. The practical exam was tomorrow, if I wasn't mistaken, so I had to make preparations so that I could watch my charges perform. Both Adrian and Melina had predictably formed a team, and I wanted to watch them compete against others of their cohort in the arena. So if I could arrange for my own exam to take place earlier in the day, I should be able to make it in time to rush over to watch them.

So absorbed was I in my thoughts that I almost ran into Ji Yan when I stepped into the campus building, where all the lockers were. Fortunately, she was too engrossed in carrying out her vendetta against her sister to notice me. I could hear her muttering under her breath.

"Why is Zhao Yan always better than me?"

Um…because you suck?

"I thought I could surpa.s.s her in this exam, but I can't believe she outscored me again! How is this possible?! She and I have the same genes! So this can't be possible…how frustrating!"

Hey, I can hear you, you know. Okay, so maybe you don't know because you're too obsessed with hating on your sister to notice my presence. Not that I cared.

I was tempted to advise Ji Yan, though. Something along the lines of, "maybe you might want to improve your att.i.tude and reflect on your petty and compet.i.tive personality first instead of looking at your genes." But that might earn me an earful of condescending responses and a terrifying glare. Even the enjoyable sense of gloating wasn't worth earning this b.i.t.c.h's grudge.

So I tried to step around her to proceed into the corridor leading to the cla.s.srooms, but I ended up almost colliding with her when she suddenly stopped in front of the lockers to open her own. While I somehow dodged what would surely be a "lucky accident" where she would slap me for being a "pervert" for inadvertently groping her, I caught sight of the contents of her personal locker that Ji Yan was staring intently at.

There was a single blue flower lying within its interior.

My eyes widened when I recognized the flower as the symbol of the infamous Guang Zhi Yi Sect, which apparently was one of the infamous monster hunter groups under the Hunters a.s.sociation. The Hunters a.s.sociation, by the way, was yet another huge ma.s.sive mercenary guild, and one of the Silver Wolves' rivals.

I only knew that because Christopher Redfield told me once that they had clashed over a certain quarry, on some battlefield far, far away…