Unacceptable (2)

"Watch where you're going, idiot!"

A boy who could only be defined as a delinquent shouted at a girl who was knocked onto the ground.

'You're the one who bumped into me!'

Jennifer thought to herself, as she dusted off her hands and brushed the dust off her skirt.

'Great. Now my clothes got dirty... I hope there is a washing machine at the academy.'

Just as Jennifer reached out to grab the books that she was holding, a foot suddenly came down onto her hand.

"Oops. Look boys, I stepped on some shit. Ahahah!"

"Hahah! Look at her books, they're used, she's probably a commoner!"

This caused all the boys to laugh heartily, and stare at Jennifer like a bug on the road.

Jennifer grit her teeth, so she wouldn't cry, but the pain in her hand was intense.

'He has to be in the Hero class... There's no way a Support student can match his strength... I should just get my books and get out of here as soon as I can.'

Jennifer tried pulling her hand out from underneath his foot, but when she tried he just pushed down even harder.

"Trying to escape? Don't you owe me an apology for bumping into me? Huh?"

Jennifer looked the boy in the eyes with a gaze that could kill, but the boy simply sneered, he applied more pressure when he saw her expression. Causing Jennifer to wince further.

Leaning down, the boy whispered to her.

"Apologize, bitch."

Jennifer looked down in shame. She had never been treated like this before, but the pain wasn't even the worst part of the situation.

She looked around and saw that no one stepped forward to help her.

'Academy for heroes... No one here is worthy to call themselves a hero... Whatever, I should just set aside my pride and apologize. I'll get back at them later.'

On the verge of tears, Jennifer forced herself to slowly open her mouth.

"I'm... Sor-"

However at that moment a gust of wind flew over her head, and when she looked up she saw a boy with his fist connected to the bully's face.

The bully fell back, caught off guard by the attack, and looked incredulously at the attacker.

Jennifer stared at her saviors back, as he stood staunchly before her, looking down at the bully.

"Truly unfortunate that the entrance exam doesn't include categories to judge someone's character. If they did you bunch would surely not have made it in."

All the boys looked at the guy in front of them like he was a maniac.

"Who the fuck are you? Do you know who I am?!"

The bully on the ground pulled himself up quickly. From the impact of the punch from earlier, the person before him wasn't from the hero class, he was almost like a normal person in terms of strength. Due to this deduction, the bully knew he didn't really have anything to be afraid of.

As he was about to stand up again, a kick suddenly came in, and landed squarely onto his temple. This impact, along with the placement of the kick, ended up knocking the bully out cold.

The rest of the posse stared in horror at the state their leader was in, and looked at the one responsible for the whole ordeal.

"Get your loser friend and fuck off."

With that the boy turned around, completely ignoring the existence of the group that clearly outnumbered him, and held out a hand to Jennifer.

"Are you okay?"

Jennifer looked up at the boy before her. He had incredibly deep and mysterious purple eyes. She found herself lost in those eyes, and when she tried to pull herself out of the trance, she found herself bewitched by the rest of his face.

Calm and handsome, with sharp features that pulled your attention to him.

Jennifer slowly reached out her hand to his, and began to blush.

"Th-thank you... I'm Jennifer Burgess..."

The boy pulled her to her feet. He walked forward and reached past her face, looking like he was going in for an embrace.

Jennifer's heart began to race, and she subconsciously closed her eyes while slightly leaning towards him.

However the kiss she anticipated never came, as she felt the sensation of fingers straightening her hair.

She opened her eyes, and the boy looked down at her.

"Your hair got rustled."

Without a change in his expression, he adjusted her uniform and then patted her on the shoulder.

"It was nice meeting you. Stay out of trouble now."

With that the boy turned around and began to walk away.

"W-wait!"

Jennifer blurted out, covering her mouth immediately after out of embarrassment. 

However the boy did end up turning around, and looking at her.

Uncovering her mouth, and mustering her courage, she asked him a question she felt she had to know the answer to or she wouldn't be able to sleep peacefully.

"What's your name... So I can repay you in the future, not for anything weird..."

The boy's eyebrows raised slightly, but then he nodded as if he understood.

"My name is Artemis Kiltec."

'Artemis Kiltec... Artemis...'

Jennifer engraved the name into her memory.

The boy then turned around and continued walking.

"S-See you around!"

Without turning, he waved his hand.

"See ya."

He said, disappearing into the crowd that was walking towards the dorms.

Jennifer clutched her books close to her chest, trying her best to stop herself from jumping around all giddy.

'Artemis... Maybe I was wrong... There's at least one person who is capable of being a hero.'

She smiled as she walked forward, forgetting completely about the pain in her hand.

Further ahead, deep in the crowd, Artemis was looking at a panel before him that only he could see.

[Quest complete!]

[Maximum reward earned!]

[+100 gold.]

[Pride Shop has been opened.]

While his face remained unchanged, Artemis did feel a small bit of pride welling up about having done a good deed.

****

It was another twenty minute walk from the place where I got into a fight, but I had finally arrived at my dormitory.

I walked into the dorm and made my way to the elevator. I already knew what room I was in.

Making my way to the 5th floor, which was where all the freshmen rooms were, and stepped off the elevator. I made my way down the hallway until I arrived in front of room 508. I entered the code that was on my admission papers, and the door opened smoothly.

Stepping inside, my immediate evaluation was that it was pretty nice for a room for a commoner in this world. I had a private room, with a full bathroom and a balcony that overlooked an enormous hedge maze.

I walked over to the desk that was next to the bed, and noticed there were a few items for me to take.

There was a smart phone, along with a student ID, and a note.

I picked up the note and read over it. The contents making me furrow my brow.

[Congratulations on your admission to our academy, we hope you not only make meaningful memories, but also find your purpose in life.

But you will have to find your own way, much like in life.

The classrooms are at the end of the hedge maze to the North of the dormitories.

P.S.

The maze changes everyday, for a brand new experience every day!

Best Wishes,

Dean Hardings]

"That's going to be incredibly annoying... Classes start at 9 AM, which means I will have to leave much earlier to make it on time... I wonder if there is anything in the shop I could get that might help."

'Shop.'

I thought to myself, and a panel that looked like an in-game shop appeared.

I scrolled through the items, slowly reading their descriptions. There were plenty of different things I could unlock in the shop, but the thing that interested me the most were [Skills].

From my knowledge, the concept of the status screen was not in this world, and skills were not a thing. This meant I was the only person who could get stronger just by leveling my skills up. I could also learn things that were not necessarily possible for me. Some people had a talent, or affinity to different things, but I could do whatever I wanted.

However the price of skills was staggering. With 100 gold, I couldn't afford a single thing in the shop.

However, there was one thing I could afford:

[Daily Lucky Roulette- 100g]

I had to get a skill as soon as I could, since the first day would consist of evaluations from our teachers, which meant I had to get lucky with this single spin.

It wasn't overexaggerating to say my future depended on this.

Taking a deep breath, I purchased the lucky spin, and pushed the [Spin] button.

I closed my eyes and waited for the wheel to stop spinning.

[Ding Ding Ding!]

I opened my eyes, and they went wide as I saw the that it had landed on an A-Rank skill. I clicked on the panel, figuring that's probably how I open the reward, and it turned out I was right.

The panel glowed in an awe inspiring golden light, before finally dimming down to allow me to see what the reward is.

[Spirit Hand (A-Rank)]

I quickly opened my Skill panel, and read the description.

"I can manifest an arm made of spiritual power, and the higher the level of the skill, the more hands I can create. Skills can go up to level 10 max... Then that means 10 arms? They get stronger with it too."

As I was thinking about what it would be like, I suddenly remembered that I probably had a Status page.

'Status..?'

I thought, almost thinking I might be delusional in expecting it, but to my delight another screen appeared.

[Artemis Kiltec]

[

Strength: F-Rank

Constitution: F-Rank

Agility: F-Rank

Dexterity: F-Rank

Spirit: F-Rank

Mana: F-Rank

Will: F-Rank

Charm: A-Rank

]

Unsure of how much F-Rank was, I decided to just use the skill and see how long I could maintain it.

Immediately after I thought of using it, I saw a semi transparent arm come from behind my back. I was able to make it move, but I noticed that my control was lacking. I couldn't use fine motor skills, but it would definitely be able to punch or swing a weapon.

I tested out the strength of it, by trying to lift my desk, and found that it was at least twice as strong as me. It could easily lift the desk.

"This should be enough, I think, to at least keep me from getting expelled on the first day. I wonder if it's possible to raise my stats though? If I work out will my strength and constitution increase? I'll have to experiment."

Satisfied with the skill I received, I organized my room to how I liked it, and decided to look at the smart phone they gave me. I was thankful that this world had a level of technology that was similar to mine, but it was cool that a lot of things used mana crystals to power them instead of electricity.

I browsed the internet, and began to simply gather information. While there was a high level of technology, there were still some archaic social practices. Such as the concept of nobles and commoners. There was even a royal family, which didn't work in my world because they didn't have any tangible advantage in their DNA, but this world was different.

The Royal family and other nobles had a real advantage from their births. They all had a higher chance of awakening high ranking talents. In this world, everyone saw it only as them being born with elevated talents, but from my perspective it was simply that they had [Talents].

There were a few talents in the shop that I saw, such as having a Draconic Bloodline, which allowed the owner of the talent to use Dragon magic. Others made someone incredibly durable, or resistant to different magics. Those were more common ones, but there were also talents that simply allowed you to use different magics. The higher the rank of the talent, the more powerful their talent.

However these were incredibly expensive, even the F-Rank talents costing five thousand gold.

'I wonder if there is a skill or talent for being lucky? That would have incredible influence on my lottery draws.'

However that was certainly just wishful thinking.

Looking at the clock, I noticed it was almost 10 PM, and decided I should get ready for bed.

I put my phone onto the charger that was in the room, and took care of my hygiene.

When I was done with washing my face, I laid down onto my bed and began to let myself succumb to sleep.

****

In the morning, I woke up to my alarm at 7 AM, and dressed myself in my uniform. It was a simple white uniform, with gold trim, that looked really nice. However, since it was white it would be easy to see any blemishes or stains.

Taking my bag with me, which had some books that I apparently needed for my courses, I made my way to the elevator. To my surprise, there were not a lot of students out yet.

'I guess that's to be expected. Many of these kids are privileged and probably never had to wake up early. But that will probably come to bite them in the ass. If the school felt that telling us about the maze was important enough to include in a letter, then it isn't a simple maze.'

I pressed the button to go to the ground floor, and as if to reaffirm my thoughts, the amount of upperclassmen far exceeded the amount of freshmen I saw. They had been here for over a year, and knew that the maze was a challenge, so they left very early to ensure they were not late to their classes.

Once we got out of the elevator, everyone headed to the maze. It went, for what seemed like forever, in either directions. No matter where you tried to enter, you had to go through the maze. After looking online, I found some more information about it.

At 9 AM, the maze would open entirely, and allow for anyone still stuck inside to go to their classes, but they had to have their school IDs on them. Without that, the maze would treat them as an intruder, and only let them leave the maze in the other direction. This also acted as a defense mechanism for the school.

However, the most interesting part, was that there were said to be mysteries hidden throughout the maze. Some people spoke of finding weapons, or other pieces of gear, and some told that they had epiphanies or found hidden tomes of magic.

I would take my time to explore the maze over time, but for now I simply wanted to get to class on time. I entered the maze through one of the random paths, and began walking along. Along the way I ran into many students, but it would take a long time. I saw a few people trying to employ the one hand on the walls, but that could take too long. Instead, I simply moved according to my feeling.

30 minutes later, and my perspective had changed dramatically.

"If I find a single person, I am following them until I get the hell out of here. I didn't think I was lucky, but to be this unlucky? I haven't found anything, and I keep running into dead ends."

I wiped the sweat off my head, and continued walking. I turned the corner, and found myself looking at another dead end.

However this one was different. I looked towards the end of the path, and noticed there was a chest made of wood. However it looked more like a big... Chestnut? It was completely covered in wood, but there was a horizontal line that went all the way around it. I walked up to the weird thing, and walked around it.

"I don't see any obvious traps... The maze typically isn't dangerous, and instead it actually seems to have a will to help the students... But how am I supposed to open this?"

I could fit my fingers in between the crack, but when I tried to pry it open the shell refused to budge at all. Taking a short breather, I continued to wrack my brain on how to open it.

I sat on the ground, thinking, when I suddenly remembered my skill.

Standing up, I walked to the big chestnut, and place both my hands on the top lip of the crack.

[Spirit Hand]

The arm formed, and I placed it on the bottom lip of the crack. I began pulling up, while willing my spirit arm to push down. Slowly I began to lose my resolve, but then I heard a faint cracking sound.

"ALMOST!"

I grit my teeth and pushed my muscles to their limits.

It was almost to the point where I began to believe the cracking sound I heard might even be my bones slowly crumbling, but the the chestnut gave way.

I flew backwards in a shower of splinters, and landed harshly on my butt.

I stood up, and turned my waist only to see a large dirt stain on the back of my pants.

"Great... Sigh, I'll have to come in here in some exercise clothes, then change at school. Lesson learned."

I then turned my attention back to the chest. I walked forward, and this time there was no hard exterior. Instead there was simply a chest with no lock. I put my hand onto the chest, and carefully pried it open.

Inside the chest sat a pair of gloves.

I reached in and picked them up.

Surprisingly, a panel appeared with the item's description.

[Iron Grip Tuxedo Gloves][Unique]

[Increases grip strength by 4x.]

An incredibly simple description, but it made me wonder about something.

To test my theory, I put on the gloves, which were incredibly comfortable and looked high quality.

I then reached out with my Spirit Hand, and picked up a piece of the shell that was around the chest at first. With a quick squeeze, the shell exploded into small pieces under my grip.

I smiled, realizing the true meaning behind this discovery.

"There is item synergy with skills."

However short lived was my happiness as I came back to my current situation, of still being stuck in the maze. Wiping the unfamiliar smile off my face, I turned around and began walking again. Not long later, I found a senior, and began to follow them.

I wouldn't figure out the trick to the maze for now, but I knew there had to be a trick to shortening the time, that only seniors or gifted students would know.

And I was right.

Not more than 15 minutes after following the senior, I found myself walking out of the maze towards an unfamiliar campus laid before me.

I then followed the signs until I found the homeroom class for the freshmen of the hero department. Taking a deep breath, and wiping off what dirt I could, I opened the door quietly.