(Author’s note - This is a huge milestone for me. It has been a long journey from chapter one to one hundred and I am going to specially congratulate myself for all the hard work. Just joking, God be doing the most. I know that this completes ten chapters of the school arc. But as I said before, am not sure I can complete it by the twentieth chapter. So please keep staying with me)

The next day, Andrew doesn’t change one bit and still oversleeps. An unfinished wine jar could be seen close to his bed. But this time around, the old madam enters his room without knocking and wakes him up. Andrew wakes up while grumbling.

His waking up by this time doesn’t mean he doesn’t wake up early, he sleeps later than usual and performs every kind of exercise he knows before going to bed. His body needs to be in the top shapes after all. He quickly goes off to freshen up, eat a nice meal and sets off. Maybe he forgot to or something else, but he didn’t carry along the food he had thought of carrying.

During their breakfast though, the old madam tells them that Sophia would soon be returning home for her breaks. Although the hospital was not that far away from their home, she was forbidden from leaving its perimeters during her work days due to the fact that emergencies can come in at any moment and before she was called back could take a lot of time and perhaps the person could be dead. Her work period happens to be every three months with a break of just barely a month. But that was more than enough for her though, as she had signed for it.

Andrew has just communicated a little bit with this Sophia and to him, she seems so self-righteous that it was annoying. He takes it like she hasn’t been out in the world, hence her limited view of everything.

They both get to school early this time around and to his shock, Andrew saw Eve standing nervously at the school entrance like she was waiting for her prince charming to come by. Her face lights up which increases her beauty the moment she saw Andrew. She runs forward and drops a well-wrapped package in his hands.

If looked carefully, some bandages could be seen wrapped around her hands. Seems like she went through a lot to prepare this for Andrew. Andrew notices this and Marian has formerly hinted at the fact that she doesn’t know how to cook. He was touched by this act, after all, he had thought that she was joking about bringing meals for him, he says with a touching smile, “You didn’t have to do this”. “I already made a promise to you, and I have to fulfil it”, she says, and a cool wind just had to blow past at this point which raises her hair a bit and she uses her fingers to try calming them down. It just feels like it was the both of them in this environment as time seems to be at a standstill. But in the background, students were still walking into the school and Marian was sulking. She wasn’t comfortable with what was going on over here, hence she ruins the mood by saying, “We are getting late for class, Andy”.

This destroys the perfectly romantic dating space on which both of them have encamped themselves.

Andrew coughs dryly while saying, “Thanks. I would make sure to treasure it”. “Mmhmmh”, sounded forth as Eve's reply.

On getting to class, a voice grips Andrew with so much fear that he had to forcefully hold himself from running out of the class, “Bestie”, the voice came forth. Who could it be apart from his new acquaintance. Marian extracts herself from him as if she hasn’t met him before and heads off to a seat. Andrew quickly calms down and ignores his call while walking towards a location way farther from where he was. No matter how the fat meatball called out to him, he doesn’t pay any heed to him and acts deaf. Some of his classmates already knew what has happened, Alex was presently in the class spacing off as if he was thinking about something and nothing in this world could ever stop his thoughts. But it was at this particular time that someone came to disrupt his thought.

It was Andrew who came to his side as he says, “Excuse me, I want to take the seat over there”. The fact that someone would dare to disrupt his thoughts was annoying to him at first and the fact that it was Andrew got him angrier. Everybody usually gave him space as he was known to be evil and without a heart. But not Andrew as he climbs over the desk and was about to take the seat, but Alex prevents him from going across the table and hence he only had one of his feet on the table. All the students paid attention to what was going on between them as they never would have thought that anyone would go against Alex in this school as everyone was avoiding him.

But it was at this moment that the teacher came in and saw Andrew on top of the desk. “You over there. Horse-playing isn’t allowed in this school. Leave my class this minute”, the female teacher says. She has worts over her face and seems to be the perfect definition of ugly and extremely old too as she had white hairs all over her head. Just seeing herself made Andrew erase any and every thought of resistance as he quietly went outside to wait while staring at Alex with a face full of anger. Alex in return just smiles at him. But it was at this moment that the teacher’s voice sounds out once again, “You too. I don’t care if you are royalty or not. But you have to behave properly in this school. Leave my class at this moment”.

Alex was shocked that he was called along with Andrew out of the class, but he still stood up to leave the class.

The class was for poetry and Alex just walks out of the surroundings, heading to where Andrew had no idea. Andrew just squats down beside the class for a while and after a while of waiting, remembers that the class would take until break before ending. Andrew does not intend to wait that long and hence walks off. Strolling around with his hands in his pocket, he saw Alex laying beside a tree while staring upward as if something was bothering him. Seeing him in such a way, Andrew has a wicked smile on and starts tiptoeing towards where he was with little to no sound. But unfortunately for me, before he got close, Alex’s voice sounds out, “What are you trying to do?”. Although he had expected such a reaction, Andrew was still downtrodden. But he didn’t answer the question and just walks off, heading towards the library. Since he doesn’t have anything better to do, at least he could learn a thing or two from the library.

The classes which Andrew had to attend had to range from poetry to art to military to medics and the rest. The first-year students were made to have a general idea of all that they were meant to know about each critical part of life. They would be divided into their specialities from their second years. It was a full year before that time and hence the huge class was needed.

Andrew gets to the library and although the librarian was shocked that a student in his first year came at this moment, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary over the years he has been a librarian but one at just the second day of resumption was rare.

Andrew doesn’t pay any heed to the librarian and after having his identity card cross-checked, he quickly went to the area meant for history. The first book he picked was about the kingdom he was currently in. It took a fairly long while before he was able to go through the book and from what he learnt from the book, he has gained a bit more understanding about this kingdom. Although there would always be some lies in history, the truths were still more. This kingdom happens to be a good nine hundred and eighty-seven years old. There have been generations after generations of kings and the one present happens to be the nineteenth-generation king.

The kingdom started from a village in one of the kingdoms and the young and only son of the chief warrior at that time was the first king and founder of the kingdom. His father was sent on a suicide mission by the greedy village chief who after getting his father killed, stole his wife. He ran away from the village as per the advice of his mother and also with her help. He escaped successfully with great grievances in his heart. Years later, he came stronger and with allies and successfully killed the village chief together with his generation. The people were tired of the tyranny of the village chief, but the young man didn’t want to stay in that place, he aspired greatly, and the villagers hence followed him as he left. He settled at the place that was now the capital of the kingdom, but at that time, the surrounding areas were filled with savage tribes and some cannibals.

Since he has followers, he had no choice but to start expanding in order to fulfil their living conditions and had to create a route to get food successfully. Bit by bit he started expanding the small camp he has but wasn’t ruthless as he took in the warriors from the defeated tribes. Although there was some kind of disagreement during the conquest due to the different tribal warriors he took in, he always partook in wars in order to delay it all. When he thought he has expanded to a large extent, he did something crazy. He sent all of the various tribal warriors to their death. He did the same thing which the village chief has done to his father but this time around due to different reasons as he knew that leaving them any longer while he was taking care of his newly expanded territory would prove dangerous.

He used them against the alliance formed by the remaining savage tribes. It weakened them greatly and since they didn’t accept any outside help from the other kingdoms, it created a short break for each party.

The young man who was now riddled with various scars from his conquests took this time to properly manage all his territories and groom his army with all the loot accumulated from their wars. This deadlock lasted for more than five years and the alliance broke up once again thinking that the young man didn’t plan to expand his kingdom any more.

But that was exactly the time he resumed his conquest with his personal troops and aides whom he could trust and has full power over. In a swift move, not lasting more than a year, he took the remaining areas belonging to the broken alliance of the savages. In this time of just establishing his kingdom, he registered under one of the empires to produce some kind of protection against other kingdoms. It was helpful a bit though as it did produce some kind of deterrent force against greedy eyes. Luck was on his side as he built such a kingdom solely on his own without the help of other kingdoms and the fact that other kingdoms didn’t participate to prevent them from growing to that stage.

There were twelve main warriors whom the young man trusted and who had been with him during the conquests. Although one or two of them died, he didn’t let their deaths go in vain as he gave their descendants great powers and authority and their future descendants became known as the dukes. So they weren’t positions given at will to them but they were given out of respect for their great exploits and friendship, and the fact that they were still holding their powers goes to show that such admiration towards their ancestor's work still exists to date. Maybe that was what they prided on and made them feel superior to other nobles and with almost equal standing as that of the king himself.