A large building stood near the northern ends of Agriche Academy's campus. The structure had a beautiful form bordered with straight lines with next to no ornamentation on it. Painted with white and navy blue and covered with black tinted windows, the modernist theme of the building matched the uniform with a white shirt, black tie, and navy blue trousers with a very thin blazer.

"The pamphlet came strangely in handy," I said as walked up the stairs of the school building and turned to the first floor. I swerved my head around and gazed over the bulletin boards, a list of students with their respective classes was pinned on them.

{They go out of their way to keep things retro}

I shrugged and searched for my name.

Class 1-A.

There were quite a lot of familiar names in the list for class 1-A, including most of the top ten, Anna, Reina, to my surprise, Cauldron and Florris were in the same class as well.

Luckily, it seemed that the opening ceremony was still going on, so I avoided being late on my first day of class. I adjusted my bag and went up to the classroom at the end of the floor, the words [AC 1-A] were written on the nameplate of the classroom.

I carefully slid open the door and walked in. A rectangular podium was in the center of the front end of the room, a wide digital board behind it. In front of the podium were forty individual wooden desks and chairs lined up in four rows and a set of lockers and another bulletin board at the back. The flooring was made with marble tiles, giving a classic yet modernish feeling to the overall look of the room.

Turning my gaze to the back of the classroom, beautiful black hair with shades of purple captured my attention. A pair of ruby red eyes met with mine as a familiar enamoring face entered my sights.

"It's you, the one that talks to himself." A sweet voice entered my ears and stabbed me with spikes of embarrassment. "I thought you had failed that day."

I forced a smile and waved my hands at her. "Nice to meet you too! I am Ralph Rubinstein, may I ask what you're doing here?"

"Same as you," Kristina Steitz shrugged and rested her chin on her palms. "I don't like boring long speeches. It's just the opening ceremony anyway, no one will notice."

I wasn't one ready to be pushed around like that, so I walked up right next to her and took a seat in the last row beside her who had taken the window seat. Neither of us attracted a lot of attention, so being in the back was only natural.

"If it's you, I bet people will notice," I said as I sat down, only now noticing that the desks had a tablet pen attached to them with a bunch of other functionalities.

Kristina looked at me from the side of her eye and scoffed. "Why is that?"

A smirk appeared on my face. "You see," I said, turning to face her. "They call out the top 10 students each year in the opening ceremony."

"Wha..."

"My sister is a second year, so I know this from her... What do you think will happen when they call you out and you don't show up? I bet some people might just notice... enough for you to not only get a bad rep among the students..."

Kristina's eyes started trembling, which made my smirk grow even wider. "But the teachers will think badly of you as well. It's quite an uphill battle once people start thinking you are a bad person, especially in a school like Agriche. I can't imagine what would happen."

It was working! She was clenching her teeth and her eyes trembled even more than before, there was no way I'd be embarrassed one-sidedly! When one teases you it's only respectful to tease them back with greater intensity!

"Kuh..." Kristina clicked her tongue and set her head on the desk, turning away from me. "Whatever," she said. "Can't change it now."

{She definitely won't snap at you for a while}

"My reputation will still be better than a crazed self-talker like you," she grumbled and shut up.

{I jinxed it}

It definitely did.

This damn bitch. I'll get back at her.

I ignored Kristina Steitz and turned back to my desk. Flipping a few buttons started the tablet pen and holographic screens appeared all over the desk, but I couldn't access the system so I shut it back down and messed around on my watch instead, I had been browsing an obscure message board called 4Quack these days. It was a miserable place.

Not long after, the door of the classroom opened again and both I and Kristina turned towards the gate.

A young man in a long white coat entered the classroom. Black framed glasses covered his eyes while a slightly messy stubble covered his face, matching the orange-colored hair.

A faculty member!

Shit, were we caught?

Both I and Kristina were halfway off our chairs, staring at the person who was stunned and staring at us as well. The faculty member's face wore a stern expression and he walked inside the classroom. From the door to the podium, he sat down behind the desk and averted his gaze.

"We're in this together. No one sells out the other, ok?"

{He is playing hooky too!}

Kristina sighed in relaxation and went back to rest. I found the whole thing strange, but who wants to be a busybody over the smallest matters? With that thought, I sat back down and messed around on my watch again.

Soon, the door opened again. Locks of blonde hair fluttered in the wind as Leone Hendrickson entered the classroom, he quietly looked at us and took a seat in the middle of the third column. More students that I didn't know walked in soon after. I raised my sight to look at the faculty member, some girls walked in and gawked at him. He was a young man who was likely a teacher for a technical course judging from how thin he looked. It was strange he hadn't left.

The next person to pull the attention of the students was Ardreth Vallen, the tenth-ranked student of the year. Most others stopped and stared at him for a few seconds as he walked in stiffly and took a seat near Leone.

Anna and Reina walked in together. Their eyes widened when they saw me, thankfully neither of them made a fuss and gave me a short wave before settling down near the front. The first day was awkward, even for acquaintances. A bespectacled boy with straight brown hair followed behind them and sat near them after giving me a short nod. I recognized him as one of the people in the gang we had formed during the exams.

More students lower in ranks came in followed by the lady of Exise, Seraphina Exise, and her gang of three that took a seat a few rows behind Leone in pairs of two.

A few seconds later, even Luke Reese walked in. Everyone stared at him with sharp eyes. Meeting that head-on, Luke Reese wore a gentle smile on his charming face and walked directly to the back, right next to me. He tapped his fingers on Kristina's lowered head and gave me a quick nod before taking a seat in front of her. Then, he also greeted his other seat neighbors with a nod and a smile.

The atmosphere visibly lightened when one of the key figures of the class maintained a very approachable and kind attitude.

A few more seconds later, the last member of the class opened the door. More quiet filled the room than ever before as Zachary stepped inside the class. Even the resting Kristina and the faculty member looked at him.

Shook by all the attention, Zachary chose to freeze his face stoically, which in turn made everyone think it was a sign of his unapproachability. His gaze hardened when he saw me.

{He's angry that you ditched him last time}

That was definitely the case.

Everyone watched with peeled eyes as Zachy walked past them all and stopped right next to me.

"Ralph," he said.

"Oh my!"

"Is this some rivalry of some sort?"

"Why is the first ranked so fixed on him? Who's that again?!"

Loud whispers made their way to my ears.

{He's ruining your cover!!}

I had to diffuse this now. "Zachy-ary! Thank you for the help with the entrance exam!" I politely said.

For some reason, Zachy went even paler than the attention had made him, his eyes had widened like he had seen a ghost.

"G-go ahead, sit next to me," I said.

Zachy furiously nodded and sat down next to me.

"Oh, friends from the exam."

"They did lead a lot of people."

"Right, wasn't that golden-eyed kid the one who stuck with Zachary all along?"

It seemed the situation had been temporarily handled. But I had no idea why Zachy was still staring at me as if I were a xenomorph.

With all the students settled in, the faculty member sitting on the podium clapped his hands and slammed his book shut as he stood up and looked at the room. I was denying it, but this person truly was our class's assigned teacher, huh?

"With everyone here, let us start now. Everyone, I am your class teacher."

I bunked with my class teacher!

"Name's Claudio Alo, an official hunter ranked 273rd in the world," the class teacher, Claudio, smirked and leaned onto the teacher's desk. "All of you in Class 1-A of the awakener course...

... Welcome, to Agriche Academy."