Spider

After two long hours of horrendous physical training, Instructor Raven was finally done as none of the cadets were in any shape of learning Combat Arts so he had to let them go.

And right now the cadets were dragging their tired bodies to the training hall situated on the ground floor.

The Global Military Academy course for first-year cadets is divided into eight classes;

Mana Theory.

Mana Arts.

Anti-personnel Combat Training.

Combat Arts.

Weapon Arts.

War tactics.

High Order Thinking Skills (applying scientific and mathematical theories to mana arts).

And lastly, an Elective Course (Extra Class) allows cadets to select a specific field of study that'll help them build a career later.

In a day, one cadet has to attend five classes according to the timetable provided by the academy, where one of them is a joint class session between two class sections.

Yesterday, Lucas's Extra Class was a joint session with class 1-G-14.

Today is the first day of Weapon Arts class and it will be a joint session with class 1-C-8.

And Lucas was on full alert since this could be an event in the original story as this was the first time, a compulsory class was held with another section. 

Lucas was also a bit excited since there might be some juicy drama to keep him entertained as he was bored with his monotonous routine life.

Get up, come to the academy, train, go back, sleep, and repeat.

No matter how much Lucas wanted to live in peace, he could not ignore his true self which craved thrill and excitement.

And right now, he was itching for some juicy drama of the story and even had snacks and beverages stored in his bracelet.

While walking with light steps among the tired cadets, Lucas searched for the story's protagonist and found him.

While all the other cadets around him looked like they were about to drop dead any moment now, that guy seemed as if the abuse all the others just went through was akin to a morning jog for him.

Nero Dekrauf.

Whether something happened or not, Lucas was sure that Nero would definitely be involved. He was looking forward to seeing what kind of person Nero would be in an actual battle.

In fact, Lucas's ideas were spot on as something did happen in the original novel.

A cadet of class 1-C-8 picks a fight with William, a part of the main cast, due to some trivial reasons.

And like a knight in shining armor, Nero took a stand for his fellow cadet in need.

That little feud transpired into a chain of events and morphed into a full-blown clash between the two classes.

That in turn, forced the 'Queen' of the Global City, Cadet Council's vice president, Yelena Morningstar, to interfere.

She proposed an idea of a 'mock war' between classes 1-C-8 and 1-A-1 in the virtual world on the condition that the losing class would give up their total monthly Merit Points to the winning class.

And both of the classes willingly accepted it.

But amidst all this, there was a traitor in class 1-A-1 who leaked all the crucial information to the enemy.

That traitor was Grace Goodwill. 

And to avoid getting caught, she framed Lucas as the traitor and set him up. 

Lucas' brilliant reputation didn't help him either and everyone instantly believed Grace.

But to make sure no one would ever believe Lucas if he were to try and plead for innocence, Grace paid a commoner girl to provoke and get beaten up by him.

After the end of the first arc, Nero engages in a duel with Lucas and thoroughly embarrasses him for assaulting a helpless girl.

And the mock war arc concluded with class 1-A-1 scoring a dangerously close victory over class 1-C-8 after six long days of the hard-fought war.

Obviously, the person who played the key role was Nero Dekaruf.

Out of 20 Squads of class 1-C-8, Nero single-handedly wiped out 6 of them essentially giving class 1-A-1 a major number advantage over their enemy.

So despite their whole strategy being leaked, they won through brute force alone.

After that event, Nero's rank was updated from 000021 to 000019.

The first arc was the reason for bringing all the important main leads together, forming a bond amongst them that set them up for the challenges ahead.

But now that Lucas will be involved, there is no guarantee that the arc will end the same way as it did in the original story.

******

Finally, the cadets arrived at the training hall.

As the name suggests, it was a huge hall. But instead of a training hall, it looked more like a dojo.

In front of the cadets was a raised platform— a stage covered with cushioning mattresses.

At the back of the hall, several pieces of training equipment, practice dummies, combat dolls, and all sorts of bladed weapons packed tightly on the walls.

Axes, scythes, whips, swords— all kinds of blades.

"Attention cadets!"

A loud booming voice came from in front of them grabbing everyone's attention to the stage.

On the stage was a man with a lean build and long crimson hair tied into a braid, seemingly in his mid-forties, glaring at the cadets.

A pair of enchanting crimson eyes adorned his perfectly chiseled face. Even though a large scar was running down his left cheek, it did nothing to hinder his beauty.

He was wearing a loose dojo robe with a deep v-neck that completely revealed multiple other scars on his bare chest that he must've received during his time on the battlefield.

"I am Leo Kurogami. I'm currently on a year-long leave from the Military. My rank is Captain and from this moment on, I will be your weapon arts instructor!"

A Japanese, huh. This is going to be interesting. Lucas looked amused after seeing a culture he was familiar with, in this world.

"You will all address me as Sensei starting today and I will call you all by your names. Follow my instructions without fail. If you don't, be prepared to face consequences that'll follow."

He was of Japanese lineage with mixed Mexican blood. Not that any of those countries exist now but it's rare to see someone of Asian roots alive in this world.

This is because, during the Demon invasion that happened seven centuries ago which lasted for six days, the first countries to be annihilated were mostly Asian countries.

Almost 62% of humanity was wiped out by Demons and roughly 48% of those casualties were Asian people.

After that, bloodlines and cultures started to blend together when the landmass of the world began to collide into one.

It was difficult to even keep one's traditions alive at that time because of how chaotic everything was back then.

But on the bright side, religious, cultural, and racial conflicts were ceasing to exist drastically with each passing year.

Discrimination and prejudice were becoming things of the past when the world was literally brought together.

That was until the Central Government was formed, and they proposed a law that stated that every individual who could wield mana had to serve in the United Military for four years.

In itself, that wasn't such a bad proposal since the Northern Continent needed more soldiers to defend its borders from the Vampires.

Space defense stations required more soldiers to deploy too, since the threat of Kalis seemed to have been growing with each passing day.

However, Asians, who had already lost the majority of their population, were firmly against the notion of sending their sons and daughters to the border to fight in an extinction-level war.

So they protested against it.

At least they tried until their voices were silenced as the government imposed strict laws and suppressed dissent

After that many similar incidents occurred in which the Central Government demonstrated its power and shut down people's voices and opinions– essentially stripping them of their freedom of speech.

In the following years, the members of the Central Government declared themselves as the supreme authority of the world and made it very clear that anyone opposing them would be suppressed.

The people of Earth had their birthright— their freedom stolen from them just like that and they all were just too powerless to do anything.

They could do nothing but endure under the utter monarchy of the Central Government.

There were some individuals, however, who wanted to reclaim their birthright, some who wanted to take back their freedom, and decided to overthrow the Central Government in order to rid the world of its perceived 'tyranny.'

This sentiment of overthrowing the one supreme authority of the world gave birth to an organization that very few know of in today's times– Spider.

'Spider' was a group that sought to achieve complete anarchism by dismantling the hierarchical system of governance established by the Central Government.

But no one knew if this organization really existed as it was completely shrouded in mystery and no one knew of its members. 

It was possible that anyone– your brother, your friend, a person you sat next to while traveling on the train, your own parents, your lover— could be a member of Spider.

The organization completely hid itself as the very idea of Spider's existence posed a threat to the Central Government.

This is because anarchism, which is the goal of Spider, seeks to eliminate hierarchy and governance altogether in favor of replacing it with voluntary cooperation and mutual aid.

As such, the existence of an organization like Spider challenges the very foundations of the society created by the Central Government

But that was not the reason why they were considered to be so dangerous.

The reason for them being so dangerous was that, according to some conspiracy theories, few of the most influential people in the world were affiliated with Spider.

Some of them even acted as its legs as the organization was structured with nine main seats - eight 'legs' and one 'head' - and all the other people affiliated with Spider were referred to as 'workers' or 'cells.'

And Leo Kurogami, also known as the 'The Second Coming of the Sword Saint,' and Lucas's weapon arts instructor, was one of the Spider's legs.