Towards The Entrance Ceremony

After a few hours of training and cutting down the time from 8 minutes to 5 minutes, I decided to call it off, if I don't leave now, I will be late for the entrance ceremony.

And if I ended up being late for the entrance ceremony, I would have received the punishment, that is 24 hrs of community service.

How do I know what punishment I will receive? Of course, I know because the protagonist was late for this entrance ceremony in the novel.

Regardless, I was drenched in sweat and the sticky gel-like liquid after fighting off these slimes. I can't go like this to an entrance ceremony.

It went without saying that I needed a bath but since I didn't want to go to my room before the entrance ceremony, that left me with one option, that is to hit up a hot spring or a bathhouse, nearby.

But there exists a problem with this approach, what about my clothes?

This left me with one last option.

I concentrated my mana, letting it flow through my body and clothes, carefully gathering all the sweat and grime clinging to me. Before long, a floating glob of filth hovered in front of me, leaving me clean again.

Now, where the fuck am I supposed to throw it?

Let's go to the restroom and flush it down the drain there.

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The entrance ceremony will be held in the Event Block, so I decided to hop on the bus, since I arrived early it was quite empty but because it was air-conditioned I found no problem sitting idly by, and man, I watched it happen, the bus getting packed with students as it slowly started to become noisier.

It made sense, it was the first day, an entrance ceremony of a prestigious academy, it was easy to see why they would be so excited.

See, till this point, everything was fine but then somewhere things went wrong, oh so wrong.

And now, I am sitting beside the window, enjoying the view. The speed of this bus was almost double or triple of with which the vehicles in my world normally ran around.

It went without saying that the wind felt nice to the face.

"Um... this is an air-conditioned bus. So, maybe, close the window?" The guy sitting beside me spoke awkwardly as if he didn't know how he should approach the topic which made sense since he had lived his life like a lab rat until this point in life.

I slowly turned my face towards him, looking at his features, he looked decent looking, he had aqua-colored hair and aqua-colored eyes, and even his name was Aqua.

Who is he?

Well, he is the protagonist of this novel.

Still, what are the chances that of all the people in the academy, he will be the one who will end up sitting beside me?

No, I know that the probability is the same as any other student sitting here, I know how probability works.

But that's not what I am talking about.

Whatever, let's give him the reply first.

"I like the wind"

"...I see." The protagonist backed off pretty easily, looking confused about what he should be saying.

But he was not the problem for me, the problem was the girl behind me.

"Stop fucking kicking my seat, you stupid little shit" I turned backward and complained.

"Then close the damned window, the wind's annoying, you dumbass!" She barked.

I couldn't see her face since it was covered with a face mask and her hoody.

Wait.

"The fuck are you wearing a hoodie? Where is the damned school dress? I ain't going to hear complaints from someone who ain't even bothering to follow the school dress code"

She got to be the last person who had the right to tell me to close the window.

"Is the only thing good about you your fucking face? You dumbass. Look at this school symbol, it belongs to our school" She tugged her hoodie, pointing to the emblem, with swords and wings, the typical fantasy academy symbol, stitched on the left side of her uniform.

This is legit...?

Why do I not know about this?

"And before you complain about my dress code how about you give yourself a look? You aren't wearing the school uniform. You are the last person who has any right to call out someone on their dress" 

I mean, it's just an entrance ceremony, you know? I didn't see any point in wearing the school dress for just an hour or so of an event.

"Wait, how come you are talking about this school dress code shit and all? Wasn't the main problem you kicking my seat? Don't change the topic, man."

"You are the one who started talking about the school dress! And just close the damned window and I will stop!" She shouted, kicking my seat once more.

She has some anger issues, it seems.

"Um... Calm down guys" Aqua said with hands fluttering in the air not knowing how to deal with the current situation, which I couldn't care less about.

"Shut the fuck up dude, do you know how annoying it is to have your seat being kicked from the back?"

"How about you tell your seat partner to shut that window! Maybe you can just shut it since you are sitting there? And you, could stop eating for a fucking second? It's annoying how you seem to be enjoying yourself" The masked girl first shouted at Aqua and then admonished the girl sitting beside her which I appreciated, she was eating chips and enjoying watching us which was quite honestly annoying, she had cerulean blue color hair and slate-grey eyes, the part of the damned main cast, Lisa Roland.

Anyway, the main cast wasn't important right now. It was this extra who is having a fucking argument with me who is.

"I already told you, the window is not going to shut down, so stop kicking my seat, it's not going to achieve anything."

My words were pretty clear.

"And why are you opening the window in an air-conditioned bus!? I am not buying all the I like the wind bullshit, that's one shitty reason."

"Alright alright, I just don't like all the noise everyone's making in the bus. So, I opened the window to help with drowning their voices, happy now?"

Man, what's her problem? I am opening my side of the window not her's.

"Excuse me, can you two explain what seems to be the problem here?" Suddenly, a voice cut through before the kid could say anything, we all turned our heads towards the woman who had just appeared.

Probably the conductor of this bus or something.

"This bitch is kicking my seat constantly"

"This bastard isn't closing off the window"

We both spoke at the same time, and then the masked girl huffed, glaring at me.

"I understand the situation. Sir, kindly close the window off, this is an air-conditioned bus unless you have some kind of reasonable issue, you are not allowed to. If you still insist on keeping the window open, we will have to ask you to leave the bus since it seems to be disturbing other people."

"..."

Did I just get a threat that I would be kicked outta the bus...?

"Ptff!"

I didn't even need to look at which fucker it was who just laughed at me.

"And Ma'am, stop kicking the seat in front of you. If you dirtied the cover one more time with your shoes, I will have to ask you to leave as well"

That's what you get for laughing, dumb kid.

"Now, please be seated in your seats and do not cause trouble for your fellow friends," The woman said keeping that fake professional smile on her face.

"Bold of you to assume I have friends, lady." I couldn't help but retort.

"Friends? Who?" The masked girl also asked feeling quite confused.

"Please, just be seated" The professional fake smile was still there but her eyebrow was twitching, I could tell she was quite pissed at us.

Better sit quietly if I don't want to walk the rest of the way to the entrance ceremony.

I slowly closed the window and the woman left and the kid behind my back stopped kicking my seat.

I wonder what had happen if I just break the damned window.

Hm? Not a bad idea, if I do say so myself.

"You, what are you doing...?" The protagonist of this novel who was sitting beside me asked in horror, his face realizing what I was doing.

Hm?

I thought I was good at being sneaky.

"You can't be serious..."

"How the hell can you even tell?"

Is this one of the perks of being a protagonist? You gotta be kidding me.

"It was hard to sense but I did feel the dissonance at the beginning though now it feels impossible to tell. You are really good at mana proficiency. Still, you shouldn't be doing it."

At the beginning, huh?

I guess, I am not good at it.

Though he was wrong about one thing, I wasn't just using mana but other components of World's Will as well.

Something the people of this world didn't know anything about.

How do I know? The damn midgets I met in the hidden dungeon were more than happy to indulge me.

What I am doing is simply integrating my own components of energy along with the window.

As Aqua said, I guess I'm not good enough not to give myself away.

The beginning part is always tricky, to begin integration without causing any dissonance was the hardest part since I had to integrate my own components of energies which have different frequencies and all, with the windows.

Of course, as I keep going, the integration process becomes much smoother, just like now, I have gotten good enough to match the frequencies and all the other shit of the object with my own making it impossible for anyone to tell that I had integrated my components of energy with the objects.

It was kind of similar to a machine starting or any motion, the beginning part is kind of slow, and it makes noise too but once it starts it becomes quite smooth, if you get what I mean?

Didn't change that the beginning gave me away, well all I can do is keep trying and raising my proficiency in the different components of energy.

At any rate, let's continue.

Once my components of energy had completely integrated with the window. I began removing the window without making any noise.

Slowly, without any haste.

While I was doing this, Aqua was looking quite intently at me.

"What?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Hm.. uh.. it's just my first time seeing someone with such delicate and precise control. You must be a really high ranker"

"I am just a G+ ranker"

"What....?" 

Aqua's confusion was quite apparent and it made sense, my efficiency was much higher than other people's but that was also because I was capable of using more than one component of the World's Will unlike the other people in this world who can only use one component of the World's Will, this is a very important detail, so it needs to be said again and again. 

To begin with, they didn't even know the other components of energies that swirl around in the environment except for mana, aura, and demonic energy (soul energy).

"Wha? What the...? Where the fuck did the window go!?" Before I could say anything to Aqua, the girl sitting behind me stood up leaning over to my seat and looking at the missing window from where the wind flew in.

"Window? What window are you talking about? It's always been like this" I replied.

"Bastard!" She shouted and started kicking my seat non-stop making my body jerk.

"Hey, stop this." I had no choice but to stand up since she kept kicking the seat.

"You crazy bastard! What the fuck did you do!?"

"I didn't do shit"

I made it disappear but there's no evidence I did it.

As they say, innocent unless found guilty.

"You two, why are you causing a commotion again?" The woman once again appeared, her eyes darting at the missing window and then toward the girl's leg that was kicking the seat "Both of you, get the fuck out of the bus, right now"

The moment she cussed at us, we knew there was no arguing.

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"There wasn't even any evidence that I did it. This is ridiculous" I couldn't help but complain.

Why the hell did I get kicked out? In the middle of the road at that?

I mean, I planned it but still feels like shit.

What? What do I mean by plan?

You gotta be kidding me if you thought I was dumb enough to fight for fucking window in an air-conditioned bus.

Like I said, everything was fine until it wasn't.

The moment the protagonist boarded the bus, I knew I had ended up sitting on the wrong bus.

You see the bus that the protagonist takes ends up with a technical problem, thanks to some guy pulling a stupid prank on the bus, which results in them getting stuck in the middle of the road.

In other words, the people on the bus ended up running late for the entrance ceremony and despite not being at fault they had to help with community services for 24 hours.

Now, you might be wondering why did I not change the bus right away when the protagonist boarded the train.

The answer to that was simple, it was the last bus left.

Look, I boarded the bus when it was empty alright. How was I supposed to know that this will be the damned bus that protagonists will board, that this will be the last bus to depart?

That's why, with no choice left, I decided to let the bus take me as far as possible.

Then why cause trouble and get thrown out? Why not just do whatever I am planning on doing right now when the bus stops working?

That too has a reason, I have no idea where exactly the bus will stop, all I know is the bus driver will try taking a shortcut and end up on a road which ...is fucking dead, with no vehicles passing by.

What I am going to do right now is simply, ask for a lift from someone going to the Event Block.

I can't ask for someone to give me a lift when no other vehicles pass by, can I?

Well, anyway, there you have it. My reasoning.

But now there's another problem.

"Could you for a fucking second stop kicking my foot?" I turned my face towards the masked girl.

"It's because of you we are going to be late! You deserve every bit of beating! And why the hell you aren't hurting" She huffed and puffed and barked.

It was quite impossible for her to hurt me. She was an extra character of the novel, in other words, an average academy student, and the average rank of first-year academy students are around F rank while I am an E+ ranker.

It would be absurd if I got hurt by her, more so, when she isn't really trying to hurt me. 

And the answer for her was simple, no, we are not going to be late.

...Unless no vehicle passes by.

Which shouldn't be a problem since this seems to be a main road.

"Just calm down. I ain't planning on doing community services"

"Community what?" She let out a confused noise, which was an obvious reaction considering she didn't know what the punishment for being late would be.

"You do know, we were already running late, right? The estimated time of our arrival would have been just 10 minutes before the beginning of the ceremony. And now that we are kicked out, it's obviously going to take us more time to reach there than before?"

"I know, alright. And it's not like the entrance ceremony is gonna start right away, it's fine if we are late by 5 or so minutes. More than that? Well, we are cooked"

It's not like they gonna be strict with the time. At least, that's what I hoped for.

The problem was, that my plan completely depended upon a vehicle passing by and then hijacking that vehicle and running full speed, faster than what the bus was going with.

Whatever, if worst comes to worst I will just have to run all the way but

...she won't be able to run as fast as me.

"Don't worry, I won't be late" I said to her, and as if picking on the subtle meaning she tried throwing a punch to my face, which I dodged.

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(Aqua's Pov)

That was seamless integration...

I couldn't help but think about the mana integration that the person who was sitting beside me had shown prior to the moments of getting kicked out of the bus.

Jane had told me that it was absolutely impossible to integrate one's mana or aura in such a seamless manner, there will always be dissonance when one tries to integrate their mana with any object, no matter how high-ranking a person is, and no matter how small the dissonance will always be present.

But the person who was siting beside me had left no trace or dissonance, the only dissonance that I felt was at the beginning and even that was so small I had thought I was mistaken for a moment. 

That's why I thought that maybe he is a high ranker, maybe that is why I can't seem to find dissonance in his mana integration, maybe my rank was too low to catch it but ...

I am a G+ ranker.

I recalled the words he had spoken and I still couldn't believe them.

He wasn't a high ranker but a low ranker, lower than me but then how was it possible for him to integrate the mana without leaving any dissonance that was almost impossible for me to sense?

Does he have a class that boosts his mana proficiency? Or maybe a skill? 

Or ...did he lie about his rank?

It would make sense if that were the case.

Vroom!

People who are higher rankers have naturally higher charm stat, while the charm stat is said to be an accumulation of several qualities of a person such as their aura, their confidence, their charisma, and several more qualities, one of the main qualities of charm stat is one's beauty.

And that guy was handsome.

Vroom!!

Quite literally.

He could easily give a model or an actor a run for their money.

And that's why I still couldn't help but think he is a higher ranker.

But why would he lie about his rank?

"Hey, wanna hop on that ride?"

Breaking out of my thoughts, I looked at the hand that tapped on my shoulder and then turned towards the person.

She was the person sitting beside the other girl who was wearing a hood, who was also asked to leave the bus alongside the boy who was sitting next to me.

Her grey-slate-colored eyes were looking in a different direction and I followed her eyes only to see a high-speeding mini cargo truck, on the top of the truck was the boy, and inside the truck, on the seat beside the driver, the girl, the two students who were kicked out of the bus by the bus attendant.

Both of them sitting in their respective spots, while the girl inside was screaming, and the boy remained unfazed by it all.

And the driver seemed to be a bit crazy with her scary smile on her face.

Vroom!!!!!

In the blink of an eye, the mini cargo zoomed past us, sending a gust of wind that swept over all the other students who were like me stranded on the roadside due to our stalled bus which had stopped working.

The next instant, the girl beside me started running towards the cargo, and I followed her suit.

Our plan was simple, to hop onto that cargo.