17 Kindergarten.

I was late for the first day of school. Now there's no way that I would be held accountable for this. It was Yuu-chan's fault for going off about some pudding that early in the morning. But the end result was that I was late.

The school itself- Amone's Kindergarten, wasn't all that far away. It was close enough that the mode of transportation we chose was by foot. But you couldn't do 100 metres in 20 seconds if you started a minute after the timer did.

By the time we arrived, the doors had been shut. Or at least that was what I expected.

"Welcome! Yuuno-kun and Mao-kun!" What seemed like the entire fleet of faculty was stationed outside.

"You have to be kidding me."

"Huh? Isn't this greeting normal?" Yuu-chan looked down at me Rune's shoulder.

"Normal my a- I mean... uh I think that you have gotten too used to this sort of stuff." I changed my phrasing after noticing Dad's presence.

"Oh well, just get used to it. I don't see any going back from this."

"No shi- I see what you mean."

"Are you ready for your class Mao-kun?" A wrinkly somewhat old lady walked up to me.

I looked up at Dad.

'What does she mean ready for class? Did I have to prepare something?'

"Yes, he's ready." Dad patted my back.

"Great... then I shall take him inside!"

"Nhhn." He nodded.

And that was when Yuu-chan and I split up for the day. Being born a year before me, She was a year higher. I was still in the first year.

"Are you excited?" The lady asked me.

"As excited as can ever be." I replied lethargically. There was no way I would put on a charade for three entire years trying to act like a cute infant. Rather I chose to embrace it.

They might find my mannerisms weird, but really... how weird could they be compared to my senior who unlocked her mana field control at age 6.

"I see. Well, I hope that you enjoy your new class!" She opened the door to a noisy class.

"The hag is here!" A kid shouted and everyone immediately settled in their place.

"Now now class~ It's not 'hag', it is missus Pologroin." You could practically see the veins popping out of her head. "Mao-kun why don't you introduce yourself?"

I realized that formal introductions were only a thing of the adult world a couple of months ago. So this time I was cautious with how I presented and introduced myself.

There was a group of 5-year-olds seated on little chairs in front of me. I forced a smile.

"Hello. I'm Asama Mao, 5 years old. My favourite drink is black coffee." Smile and wave, Mao. Smile and wave.

A round of cheers and applause reverberated through the classroom.

'That went well.'

And that was how it started, the first day of my education in the modern world.

The institution was grand and befitting to those who belonged to the upper echelon of society. In my eyes, it was just a display of the nobles' flamboyance and misuse of the precious taxpayer's money.

I can only imagine the looks the common folks would be giving if they saw this monstrosity of a building.

Marble pillars, carpeted floors, chandeliers. What are these 5-year-olds supposed to do here? Get prepared for another reign of terror?

Nonetheless, I cast my thoughts aside and stationed myself on the back-most seat, next to the window.

Not because I liked pretending to be the protagonist but because this was the only place that didn't reek of perfume. The sweet smell of lavender and child shampoo was nauseating. The fact that I was surrounded by the kids didn't help.

Needless to say, I was popular… Either that or the parents brainwashed these little kids to suck up to me. Cuz there were a lot of kids around me. I didn't even get the chance to imprint all of these folks into my memory before they started gathering around me. And by 'folks' I meant the entire class.

Was I angry? No... kids are cute. Was I annoyed? Slightly... because kids were also incredibly dumb- as evident by their questions.

"Mao-sama, have you watched the new episode of Drymon?" What does he mean new? Does this kid think re-airing episodes are new ones?

"Mao-sama, are subscribed to chocomellon?" Sorry, but I'm not mentally a kid, but even if I was I'd rather get bitten by mosquitos for 5 hours straight than watch that shit.

"Mao-sama, do you play tennis?" Oooh, a normal question. Only if it wasn't asked by a girl with hearts in her eyes. Instead of being curious about my interest in the sport, she was trying to project the image of a prince onto me.

Which is weird because I didn't look attractive. Then again she's a kid, so I doubt that attractiveness is on the top of her priority list.

"Mao-sama, what are your thoughts on crippling stress we implant on the middle classes to suppress any revolt that might take place in the future? Do you believe that their unhappiness is justified as long as we can establish a stable nation?" What the heck is wrong with this kid?

Needless to say, all- I mean most of the questions were stupid. One of them was just bizarre.

"Calm down kids, I can't possibly answer all of you at once."

As much as I wanted to be alone, I had to play the role of the ideal 5-year old in front of my parents. Being weak was fine but being dumb wasn't.

Plus, I could act a little more crass with Yuu-chan not around.

I prepared myself to answer them, but-

"Hey kids, don't flock around Mao-kun… he'll get nervous." The teacher called out. She was short and stubby. The kind you would sleep on top of comfortably. A person with an extremely warm disposition. "Let's get started with the classes, okay?"

"Yes, Miss Pologroin!" She had an unfortunate name. I think that being called 'hag' is better than being called Pologroin.

"Now! Our first class is English, where we'll study the alphabet."

I was quite an expert in literature. I learnt the art of language by decoding subtitles and text. So something as trivial as the alphabet posed no threat to me.

"In today's lesson, we'll study the first five alphabets. Can anyone tell me what this alphabet is?"

The television screen behind her displayed a letter.

"Ooooh! Ooooh! ME!" A dark brown-haired kid rose her hand.

'Don't know what she's so excited about. You don't have to brag about knowing something as basic as the alphabet.'

"Luha, answer please."

"It's A."

'And there she goes, getting it wrong, despite all that confidence. It's clearly an E. How embarrassing.

How pitiful. But she's just a kid, so her mishaps are just cute errors. It'd be wild if a twenty-something-year-old got it wrong th-'

"That's correct, good job!"

Eh?

I got puzzled for a second. I looked at the screen, and then Pologroins face.

'That's an A? What the what now?'

Nonononono... that's fine. I accept this blunder. It's easy to confuse vowels since their sounds are interchangeable. Which makes it hard to correlate the sounds people made on the television and the subtitles when I was learning the language a while ago.

It was fine.

"Next." She said and the letter on the screen slid out for another one.

"Oooh! Ooooh!" Luha raised her hand again. Se was what I now assumed a teacher's pet was.

"No one else?" Miss Pologroin looked at me expectantly. I looked away. There was no way I would be active in a class full of kindergartners. I had the pride of an adult.

Ultimately, the room remained silent.

"Luha it is then."

"It's a B."

"That's correct."

Guess I really did up. The letter I assumed to be R was a B.

I was illiterate.

As the class continued, my illiteracy became even more apparent. I mean sure the letters should have been easy. But in my defence, Yuu-chan was illiterate too until a couple of months ago. On another thought, I should've just learnt from her. But me... asking her a favour? I don't think so.

Anyhow, illiteracy was not an issue I couldn't tackle. Now that I knew exactly what went wrong I had the tools to better myself.

"With that lesson over, we'll move on to our second lesson of the day- Social exploration. The topic for the day is 'the crippling stress we implant on the middle classes to suppress any revolt that might take place in the future. And if their unhappiness is justifiable for the stability of the future of our country.'"

"Oooh! Oooh! I know about that!" Luha turned around and smiled at me innocently. "See see? That's the thing I wanted to talk about."

I had never wanted to pat a head so bad in my life.