First of All, I’m Drinking - Chapter 71

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 71

 

I walked around the campus with Max.

 

After leaving the Swordsmanship Department grounds, we came upon a commercial district filled with numerous shops and bustling people.

 

I could see students drinking tea on the outdoor terraces of cafes.

 

“This is the Centrum. Since we can’t go out on weekdays, we usually hang out here when we want to have fun. There are cafes and restaurants, of course, but also cultural facilities like theaters and swimming pools.”

 

There’s a theater and swimming pool inside the school?

 

Since the Empire runs it directly, they must have money rotting away.

 

Max, who had finished explaining, looked at me.

 

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

 

“…No, I don’t.”

 

“When you get a girlfriend later, come here often. The scenery is pretty, so it’s good for dates too.”

 

I suddenly became curious.

 

Does this guy actually have a lover?

 

His face seems decent enough to look at.

 

“Do you have one?”

 

At my words, Max’s eyes widened in surprise, then he chuckled.

 

“You’re pretty bold, aren’t you? You’re asking a member of the imperial family if he has a lover?”

 

Come to think of it, was this a question I shouldn’t have asked?

 

If this weren’t Millennium Academy, could I have been arrested for blasphemy?

 

“I’ll leave it to your imagination.”

 

Max said that, then turned around and walked forward.

 

I realized at that moment.

 

This bastard doesn’t have a girlfriend either.

 

We left the commercial district and entered an area densely packed with buildings.

 

Stone-built structures with sharply rising pillars.

 

If this weren’t a school, I would have thought it was a cathedral or palace – such beautiful buildings.

 

“This is where we take liberal arts classes. You submitted your class schedule before enrollment, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Are you taking any liberal arts classes?”

 

“Understanding Demon Lords, History of the Holy Kingdom, Understanding Sex and Love…”

 

“Pfft!”

 

Max grabbed my shoulder and burst into laughter.

 

“Understanding Sex and Love? You’re a man after all!”

 

“It’s not like that. I just applied because it had the most students enrolled. I wanted to make lots of friends.”

 

“Sure, sure.”

 

Max patted my shoulder as if he understood everything.

 

I genuinely applied for that lecture looking only at enrollment numbers.

 

Well, you see what you want to see – Max seemed convinced I had impure motives.

 

I could clearly see what he was thinking right now.

 

‘You’re going to be disappointed, Max.’

 

All humans this age are like that.

 

I honestly didn’t want to take Understanding Demon Lords, but it was a required subject so I had no choice, and History of the Holy Kingdom was because of Esnia.

 

The wall crossing the Void Tundra.

 

Esnia, who was dividing the Intermediate Realm and Demon Realm with just a portion of the holy power contained in that wall.

 

I know almost nothing about Esnia either.

 

I don’t expect to gain tremendous insight from just one lecture, but it’s still better than not taking it at all.

 

After touring the Liberal Arts Building, we returned to the Swordsmanship Department grounds.

 

Next, we headed to the outdoor training grounds.

 

“There are both indoor and outdoor training grounds, but competitions are usually held in the indoor training ground. You’ll be going in and out of here until you’re sick of it during school life.”

 

“Competitions?”

 

“The Swordsmanship Department has many classes where you duel by class or individually. So there are rankings by grade too. From 1st to 200th place… now it’ll be up to 206th place.”

 

With the existing 200 students plus 6 new students who passed the transfer exam.

 

“Anyway, rankings change in real-time based on competition results, and maintaining a high rank for a long time has benefits. Of course, low ranks have disadvantages too.”

 

A truly extreme competitive system.

 

If rankings are assigned daily based on results, can the children live with normal mental states?

 

To shine yourself, you must step on others to climb up.

 

They’ll realize this when they enter society eventually, but these children who aren’t even adults yet must already learn this cruel truth through their skin.

 

I felt sorry for them.

 

“What rank are you?”

 

When I asked casually, Max answered quietly.

 

“9th place.”

 

9th place out of 200 first-year students.

 

That was quite a high ranking.

 

Blood really can’t be fooled, can it?

 

“What about Seria and Carno? They’re both first-years too, right?”

 

Max silently stared at me intently.

 

What? Why are you looking at me like that?

 

Max stayed still like that for a few seconds, then spoke.

 

“Carno is 11th place. Seria is 5th place.”

 

“All three of you are amazing.”

 

Doesn’t this mean they’re consistently maintaining top ranks among the outstanding talents gathered from not just the Empire but the entire world?

 

I felt proud for no reason.

 

“Amazing, my ass. We’re actually not that great. If that guy had been here…”

 

Max realized he had made a mistake while speaking and covered his mouth with an “oops.”

 

I furrowed my brow.

 

That guy?

 

‘Could this be.’

 

Is he talking about me?

 

‘…Probably not.’

 

That day, I had to flee because I could no longer stay in the Imperial Capital.

 

Because the fact that I possessed magi had been discovered.

 

Max, Seria, and Carno would naturally know the truth too.

 

A human who possesses magi.

 

Considering what that means in the human world, there was no possibility that those guys still had good feelings toward me.

 

I had abandoned such hope long ago.

 

“Asel.”

 

Max lowered his voice.

 

“I heard you’re a commoner and an orphan. Is that right?”

 

Orphan, you bastard.

 

Even though being an orphan was correct according to the setting, hearing such words from family felt strange.

 

“…That’s right.”

 

I nodded for now.

 

“Let me give you one piece of advice.”

 

Max stepped closer to me.

 

“I’ve been feeling this throughout our conversation, but for a commoner, you have strangely no fear of the upper classes.”

 

“What do you mean by that?”

 

“While this school operates on the principle of equality among classmates, I’m still a member of the imperial family, you know? And you just enrolled today. In this situation, a normal person would fear me or at least find me intimidating, but you showed no such signs at all.”

 

Max added that other commoner friends in the class were all initially intimidated by the nobles.

 

“You should be careful. This isn’t me throwing my weight around because I’m imperial family, but genuine advice because I’m worried about you.”

 

I caught on to what Max was trying to say.

 

“Our class is relatively harmonious between nobles and commoners since I mediate between them, but if you expand the scope to the entire school, discrimination is still rampant.”

 

From how kindly he was advising me despite meeting me for the first time today, I could gauge Max’s character.

 

It was fortunate.

 

That this guy hadn’t grown up to be a complete bastard like Killian from the past.

 

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

I answered with a slight smile.

 

“Good that you understand.”

 

Max turned his body toward the dormitory direction.

 

Then, as if remembering something to say, he only turned his head slightly toward me.

 

“Lastly, there’s a guy named Lessor de Balkaud in our class. You know him?”

 

“Well. It’s still my first day, so I don’t really know the kids’ names yet.”

 

I actually knew, but pretended not to.

 

“Never get involved with that guy. Don’t even go near him. Avoid him at all costs. Got it?”

 

Seeing Max earnestly warn me like this, that bastard must be quite the piece of work too.

 

“Got it.”

 

I didn’t want to cause trouble either.

 

In a situation where I needed to stay as inconspicuous as possible, there was no reason to get close to such a troublemaker.

 

Unless he approached me first.

 

“Good.”

 

Having said everything he needed to, Max walked toward the dormitory with his back to me, raising his hand.

 

“See you tomorrow.”

 

“Yeah, see you tomorrow. But I was also heading to the dormitory?”

 

I walked with big strides to follow Max.

 

“….”

 

We returned to the dormitory together.

 

* * *

 

The next day.

 

From today, school life would begin in earnest.

 

Though I was confident that I had no equal with the sword, there might be something more to learn, even if just a speck, from attending lectures.

 

I sat in the classroom with subtle excitement, waiting for the day to begin.

 

Thud thud.

 

Professor Amelia, who stood in front of the podium, bluntly said one thing.

 

“1st Year Class B. Everyone to Training Ground 1 right now.”

 

Fail added from beside me.

 

“Training Ground 1 is the largest among the indoor training grounds.”

 

I had a feeling something big was coming right from the start.

 

Murmur murmur.

 

We arrived at the training ground.

 

It was structured with seats surrounding a central oval arena.

 

Not just our class, but about 200 students were sitting orderly in the seats.

 

It was all the 1st year Swordsmanship Department students.

 

“Seeing everyone gathered like this, I totally get the feeling, you know?”

 

Fail dramatically pressed his finger to his forehead.

 

“What is it, what is it?”

 

Cathy asked with sparkling eyes.

 

“The semester just changed, right? There must be many guys who improved during the break.”

 

“Ah, don’t tell me….”

 

A sleepy-eyed male student groaned in disgust.

 

“No, please. Let’s start peacefully.”

 

I think I heard his name was Bernard.

 

I looked at them and asked.

 

“Do you know what we’re doing?”

 

Fail snorted.

 

“Hah. I’ve been at this school for a whole six months! I can see what these guys are up to without even looking. This is definitely a ranking reassessment.”

 

“Ranking reassessment?”

 

“The Swordsmanship Department constantly ranks students in real-time. Of course, you wouldn’t have one yet.”

 

This was something I already knew from what Max told me yesterday.

 

“There are kids who improved during the break, and transfer students like you have newly entered, so reassessing rankings is natural.”

 

“How do they do it?”

 

“The way the Swordsmanship Department ranks students is obvious, isn’t it?”

 

Fail grinned.

 

“Duels.”

 

Then the characteristic noise of amplification magic rang from the platform.

 

[Ah, ahem. Everyone worked hard gathering from early morning.]

 

The one speaking was Amelia Percival, our class’s supervising professor.

 

Behind her, 9 professors in charge of 1st years stood in a line.

 

I could also see Garcia Greyven, the new Class 6 supervising professor.

 

[It might be confusing from the first day, but since the 2nd semester has started, we need to do what needs to be done, right? Today we’ll have time to rank classes through inter-class competitions.]

 

“Wooooooh-!”

 

“We’re all screwed, you bastards!”

 

Some classes were overflowing with enthusiasm, while others looked gloomy.

 

In our class’s case, it was half and half.

 

More like an indifferent feeling.

 

“Ugh! Damn! Class rankings are a bit sudden.”

 

Fail anxiously bit his nails.

 

“Are class rankings related to individual rankings?”

 

“Of course. One of the most important indicators reflected when assigning individual rankings is class ranking.”

 

“What place was our class in the 1st semester?”

 

The one who answered my question wasn’t Fail, but a blonde female student with heavy makeup.

 

“5th place.”

 

Her name was Veronica de Islane.

 

She was among the considerably strong ones within the class.

 

‘5th out of 10 classes is exactly middle.’

 

Just as I was thinking it wasn’t a bad ranking.

 

Rumble rumble-

 

Suddenly the training ground shook and structures rose from the arena.

 

It was quite impressive technology, but the students were calm as if accustomed to it.

 

I sat in my seat observing the structure’s appearance.

 

There were bases at both ends of the oval, with various obstacles blocking the space between the two bases.

 

Red and blue flags were planted in each base respectively.

 

[The event is capture the flag. You all did this in the 1st semester, right?]

 

Amelia wickedly curled up the corners of her mouth.

 

[No need to drag this out. Come out, whichever class is ready.]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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