First Day (2)
Rows of desks that slowly elevate upwards sit in front of an incredibly large open space in front of the room. There are around sixty students in the stands either searching for a seat, or in groups together chatting.
While I look around the room, I'm instantly struck with an immense pressure that makes me instinctively reach for my coat. Aaron, Lyra, and Sylvia all instantly do the same, however, when we each look around, we discover the source behind the insane power.
In front of the classroom stands a tall, somewhat muscular woman with long red hair and a stern facial expression. She is a perfect blend of beauty and aggression and has gray skin with black sclera and shining red pupils. She wears a black armored long coat that's buttoned up in a failed attempt to hide her, ahem, figure. Her chest is rather large, just barely being contained by the coat.
There is no way that could possibly be comfortable, is she alright?
Dark grey metal plates cover her chest area, shoulders, and wrap around her wrists and hands, similar to gauntlets. Below her waist, she wore black pants and combat boots, metal plates covering the lower parts of her legs for protection. Curved red horns protrude from the sides of her head like Stella, which give a powerful impression. She has two short, square shaped sword hilts strapped to both sides of her hips and one long sword on her back. She looks like a War Goddess, or perhaps a War Devil would be more precise.
The woman's eyes alternate between each of us before finally setting upon Aaron, to which her facial expression seemed to relax slightly.
My reader senses have just picked up on something interesting. I think our teacher has just fallen for a ten-year-old boy. I can't exactly blame her though. Aaron is a harem protagonist after all, he's destined to make any woman that catches his eye fall in love.
Considering I have a similar ability, "Goddess' Charm", I suppose we kinda cancel each other out. However, it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on her, how unusual.
The woman turns away from Aaron and her eyes lock onto me, her face immediately goes back to a stern expression, "You all are late! Hurry up and find a seat before I get pissed!"
I could swear flames burst from her head as she spoke.
Not wanting to anger the teacher we all nod in unison and quickly select spots close to one another. We all went to the completely open back row of the classroom and chose seats there.
Although we quickly selected our seats, each of us carefully calculated which spot we took to be closer to the ones we wanted to be with.
The seating for the first row of seats went in order from left to right: Analisse, Reginald, Nathan, Jackson, Nerah, Tessa. The rest of us were forced to pick seats directly across from the others, to which the row continued: Lyra, Nyx, Aaron, Sylvia, Me, and finally, Jeanne nervously sat at the end right beside me.
While I think it's a bit odd both Jeanne and Analisse decided to sit with us instead of their own groups, when I think about it, neither really has a reason to.
Analisse's group likely despises her due to her recent blasphemous acts and nature, accepting those of the demon race, while also being interested in Reginald.
Jeanne's situation is a bit more complicated. Jeanne is one of the only ones from her to even make it to class-A. I look over at different groups of nonhuman students sitting around the classroom. None of them are from the same kingdom aside from one shy blonde haired elf with bangs that covered his eyes, Killean.
It looks to me that none of the students from Jeanne's kingdom really enjoy each other's presence. While I feel a little bad for her, she has us now, so hopefully we can help fill that gap.
I take a quick glance at the other half of the group of students that I'm proudly a part of. Analisse and Reginald are chatting with each other over at the end of their table. Jackson takes the initiative and tries to start a conversation with Nathan, however, Nathan has his attention completely on Aaron and Nerah who seemed to be hitting it off.
Unfortunately, there's no point resisting it Nathan, your sister is simply destined to be conquered by this edgy blonde boy.
"Ahem!" The red-haired woman loudly clears her throat, causing the entire class to go silent, "Alright class, my name is Samantha Satanial, the last living blood relative of house Satanial! As some of you might know, I was a general of the Demon Army before the great war, however I retired before the fighting broke out 200 years ago!"
I recognize her name from the novel. Just as she said, she was a famous demon general during the first human-demon war. Her combat skills were unmatched, however, the Satanial house was considered perhaps the weakest house of the "7 Royal Families", so she was often looked down upon by other noble bloodlines.
Despite being a direct descendant of the Satanial house, however, she was by no means weak. Out of all 7 of the royal families, she is known to have the greatest physical strength, being able to cut mountains with a slash of a sword.
As she says, she disappeared from the demon army around 200 years ago, but in the novel, she was never heard of again afterwards. It was assumed that she had been hunted down by Azuran knights, but that would've been unlikely considering her overwhelming strength. It's more likely that the author simply forgot about her existence and simply never brought her up again, but for the purpose of convenience, I'll think of a more logical explanation.
The only answer left is that she was hiding out somewhere secluded, far away from the rest of the kingdoms. Therefore, it's highly likely that she moved to the Eastern or Northern continents, away from all the action.
The recent appearance of the new four demon kings must have pressured our headmaster to seek out the strength of more dangerous allies, regardless of previous alliances.
The demeanor of the students quickly shifts after she speaks, especially of those from the Azure Kingdom.
Unsurprisingly, most of the arrivals from the Azure Kingdom have managed to land in class-A even despite some of their losses in the tournament. There were also quite a few students from kingdoms affiliated to the Azurans. That being said, a sizable portion of the class was Azuran affiliated and, as expected, their reception of the news was quite negative. Most of them already had faces of discomfort due to her appearance, however, now they're discomfort is even more pronounced.
Samantha, caring not for their reactions, continues speaking, "You all will refer to me either as 'Captain' or 'Ma'am', understood?"
Regardless of the students' disposition towards Samantha, the fierce pressure emitted by her takes hold of everyone and forces them to nod in understanding. She looks around the room and continues speaking.
"Alright!" She clasps her hands together and smiles, "I will be co-teaching this class with another person, unfortunately, she's not here yet, so I'll explain what I'll be teaching first."
Samantha reaches onto her back and draws her red longsword, "I will be your combat instructor as well as your physical trainer for the duration of your enrollment in the Zero Program! I will be teaching both basic and advanced swordsmanship techniques for each of the seven swordsmanship classes. I will also be teaching methods on infusing your own aura into weapons and fighting techniques. Magic, on the other hand, will mainly be taught by my co-worker-"
As she finishes speaking, the door to the classroom flies open to reveal the figure of a petite woman with messy green hair and bangs that nearly cover her eyes. She has pale skin with black scleras and green pupils that have faint shine to them. Dark bags loom beneath her eyes and a long burn mark runs from her forehead down past her collarbone. Despite these imperfections, she has a beautiful face. Despite clear signs of being of demonic descent, she bears no horns on her head.
She walks forward in an awkward manner wearing a black buttoned up blazer, a green under-shirt, and black suit pants with seemingly custom-made green running shoes. She casts a long glance at us before turning away and meekly looking down as she walks to Samantha's side.
Samantha leans close to the woman and whispers something into ear before giving her a reassuring smile and patting her on the back with a hard, resounding smack that echoes throughout the room.
"Umm, uhh… H-Hi…" The woman struggles to let the words escape her mouth.
About a minute goes by and the petite woman remains incapable of forming a complete sentence. It gets to the point that Samantha has to step in and speak for her.
"Fine," She sighs before stepping in front of the green haired woman, "this girl here is Lila Grey. She is the offspring of a demon lord, Desmond Mammon, and a human woman through… less than consensual means. She's really bad at speaking, however, she's probably the most powerful mage I've ever seen. She will be my co-teacher."
It takes a moment, but I also recognize her character from the novel. Lila Grey, or as she was appropriately nicknamed, the "Cowardly Mage".
Lila was an immensely powerful magician that specialized in earth and dark magic. Despite her absurd strength, however, she was notoriously timid and incredibly distrustful of others. It's not her fault though, as being a hybrid is seen as worse than being a full-blooded human or demon as neither side would accept you.
She is eventually recruited into the Knightford Kingdom military, where she worked side by side with, and eventually developed a romantic relationship with none other than our boy Aaron Leonhart.
With Aaron, the easily frightened and distrustful Lila had finally felt truly safe. Aaron himself had taken a liking to having the ability to protect someone dear to him. It was, however, a feeling that he wouldn't know for long.
During the same mission Alice was killed in battle, Lila was brutally slain in battle against the Sword Saintess, Eres Gabby. Eres was also one of the last three surviving members of Aaron's harem, also being one of my least favorite female characters in the novel.
Eres was portrayed as fierce, cynical, and damn near devoid of her sanity. She enjoyed murdering both regular non-humans and demons in the most gruesome and painful ways possible.
Eres starts off as a reluctant ally to Aaron after he is betrayed by the Knightford Kingdom, but later develops feelings for him as they begin working together more. Her character was pretty well flushed out and written, but her personality was easily one of the worst in the novel.
Eres is very violent and possessive by nature, sometimes murdering new love interests to Aaron in secret. She was abusive to Aaron and denied feelings for him almost all the time, even though it was clear she was in love with him.
However, despite my distaste of Eres' character, I simply can't bring myself to judge another based on their actions or my bias against them. Although her actions and reasoning are horrible, I can understand her hate towards non-humans. Although she has a hatred of the demon race, she does seem to have a shred of morality, as she would never bring harm upon a child regardless of race.
The target of the multiple disgusted Azuran and Azuran-affiliated stares shifts from Samantha to Lila. Lila flinches in response and quickly looks away in embarrassment. I sigh in disappointment as I look around at the different students eying Lila.
Don't you guys understand that Lila had no choice in the matter? Why are you still staring at her with such disgust?
As hard as I tried to wrap my head around it, I simply can't understand the concept of hating an entire species based on a single group's actions. But unfortunately, discrimination against a group of people is the same in all worlds.
"Ahem!" Samantha clears her throat and the attention falls upon her once more, "Although I understand that you all have different rules from where you come from, in my class, you will treat everyone equally and with respect! If you fail to do that, I have no problem with disciplining you myself!"
She exudes an unfathomably bloodlust when she says "disciplining" causing everyone to straighten up, including the Azurans. Samantha looks around at the class once more and nods to herself, "Thank you, now, let us begin our first lesson of the day."