Class

Returning to the Colosseum, I witnessed the conclusion of the third round.

"And the winner is Alice Atkinson!" The camera panned to a blonde girl standing with the blade of a straight sword near a boy's neck.

Alice Atkinson is one of the heroines hailing from England. Her beauty and quiet personality make her unapproachable to many.

"As expected from Alice-sama, what a performance! She is truly a goddess amongst men," one teenager fervently commented.

"Hah- hah, Alice!" Another teenager was breathing unusually heavily.

It seems the two of them are from Alice's fan club, though one of them seems to like her a little too much. Looking back at the stage one last time, I decided to leave as there would be no significant change to what I had written previously apart from the chaos that would occur if I hadn't stopped the Monarchy's Grasp.

I returned to my dorm and rested for the rest of the day.

~~

Facing the door to my classroom, I opened it.

Looking around, I turned my attention toward the five main characters: Liam, Oliver, and Alice, the three I saw at the Colosseum, and two additional girls. The beautiful girl with black hair is Amelia, the daughter of one of the largest corporations in America, and the equally beautiful orange-haired Ava, the strong-headed one and the eventual lover of Liam.

Taking my eyes off them, I walked to my seat at the back of the class to minimize interaction with the main characters, especially Liam since he runs into trouble a lot.

Resting my head on my hand, I looked back toward the main characters. Liam, Ava, and Amelia were talking to each other while Alice quietly listened, pretending to read a book. Oliver's arms were folded as he occasionally joined the conversation.

But that was shortly cut by the teacher entering our classroom and stopping at the podium at the front.

"Hello, everyone. I will first congratulate you on being able to pass the test and enter the Obelisk. Let me first introduce myself. I'm Elizabeth, and I will be your homeroom teacher for the rest of your time studying here."

The Obelisk is the name of this academy, one of the largest academies in the world, and this title is not given freely.

The achievement of being able to produce strong heroes with consistency has raised this academy's reputation to the sky.

Thanks to this popularity, many students come from across the world to study at the Obelisk. Case in point, Alice, even though England has its academies, her family sent her here to give her the best environment to study in.

All these academies have a single goal: raising heroes to fend off the monsters that are produced in dungeons around the world.

Monsters or magic beasts, whatever you want to call them, are a product of dungeons that randomly appear around the world. Though people have yet to know why dungeons appear, what we do know is that they appeared after August 23, 2044. After a solar eclipse, a huge earthquake rumbled, and the earth sent everyone into a state of panic.

After that, sinkholes started to appear, and giant monsters began to emerge from them. Many used guns and military vehicles to stop the monsters, but it did little to no damage. And when humanity lost hope, the pioneers started to emerge from the crowds—heroes who gained their power from the rich mana that began to emanate from the sinkholes.

With their help, humanity recovered its footing and started to take back the land they had lost.

The incident was later called the Great Calamity, but later on in the future, it was renamed the First Calamity.

"Ethan Smith." Hearing my name called out, I snapped out of my train of thought and saw Elizabeth looking at a clipboard. Realizing attendance was being called, I raised my head and replied.

"Alright, everyone seems to be here. Excited about the first day of school, right?" She set the clipboard down and faced everyone.

"Alright, since it is the first day at the academy, we will first let you pick out your weapon and do a status scan." Everyone left their seats and followed Elizabeth to another room that housed a huge weaponry.

Everyone entered the room and looked at every weapon with awe in their eyes. I mean, who wouldn't? Huge weaponry filled the room, and every one of the racks was filled with different weapons originating from different regions of the world.

But my sight landed on one weapon in particular.

Picking up the staff that has a round gem at the tip, the staff—a mage's weapon developed after the appearance of mana.

The reason I chose the staff is that, even though I had practiced martial arts, they are mainly good for defensive and hand-to-hand combat, and martial arts are only made to face normal humans, not superhumans that can teleport.

The second reason is that I had obtained a mana stone from people who lived in the demonic realm, where mana is still abundant in the air, meaning many mana stones originating from there are high in quality. Considering I stole one from a rich organization, I might have hit the jackpot and stolen the highest quality mana stone there is.