After the huge event of establishing the Foundation Workshop Battle and the Goblin World branch campus, an inconvenient truth that the Class 981 students had long ignored began to wiggle its way to the surface like spring sprouts.
Academic schedule normalization.
We are back to regular business!
It was the announcement signaling the start of lectures at the Academy.
“Seriously? We just… uh, caught the Foundation’s soldiers in the Allied Forces, and caught the naval spy ships from Various Nations for the sake of the country, and now we have to go back to being regular students?”
“Honestly, at this point, just give me an honorary graduation.”
“I don’t want to study, I don’t want to gather grades!”
“I’m not going to school!”
“I really don’t want to go…”
Students sighed in unison, regardless of their department and hometown, all wearing the same look of frustration.
Honestly, it was justifiable.
I was a part of the massive fight for humanity as a member of the Allied Forces.
I, who had once protected the world as part of the Allied Forces, now had to suddenly return to being a student at the Gift Academy, struggling with graduation and grades and suffocating under daily assignments.
The crash between my excitement and reality felt as intense as a rollercoaster ride or skydiving.
“Geez, Tito! Academic schedules are starting up again, and you’re just lounging around in your room?!”
Titosso was one of those students suffering from classroom depression.
Seeing my character, which I had painstakingly developed, frozen by laziness and lecture nausea was absolutely infuriating!
I smacked Titosso’s back just like a mom trying to get her daughter out of bed.
“Ugh! I’ll get up, so stop hitting me!”
On the way to the auditorium, students with sleepy, glazed, and gloomy eyes filled the halls.
It wasn’t just Class 981; even the seniors from Class 980 taking classes with me and upperclassmen who returned from their leaves were all the same.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen the principal, I’m a bit nervous!”
“Yeah, but I just lack motivation… don’t you feel the same, Jiang?”
“Not really. My hands are actually itching.”
Jiang said, pressing down on their fox mask to avoid catching the attention of the other students.
“I don’t want the gap to widen any further.”
“Heh. Jiang is full of energy!”
“Why is Oknodie so happy though?”
Well, I guess it was strange that I was the only one bouncing with excitement while my classmates looked at me like I was weird.
“Starting this year, I can join the ‘Student Council’!”
“… that student council that Senior Velvet recommended?”
Jiang replied with a dissatisfied tone.
“Isn’t the student council just a bubble? This year’s Allied Forces had Class 981 at its core, and the student council hasn’t really done anything.”
“Gasp! You didn’t know anything, did you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you think all of those Knights from Various Nations and Magical Troops cooperated so easily? It was all the result of Gift Academy graduates making their voices heard and pressuring each nation’s military through the student council.”
“… Seriously?”
“Yep. Seriously.”
The influence of the student council is much larger in unseen areas than in visible ones.
The various materials and human resources that come from all over the world don’t just come from administrative instructors’ cooperation documents and forced requests.
The student council provides resources and knowledge from the academy to graduates and students on leave, and they push the results up as requested.
Like a cooperative government, the student council’s duty was to draft and realize policies through international think tanks and specialized teams in each field.
“But why didn’t we know anything? We only heard about electing a student council president, but we never even voted!”
“That’s because an incident happened before the voting could take place! Everyone was busy because of Chairman of the Foundation!”
Of course, I still vividly remember how they treated me like a fake Oknodie and had their little performances.
Someday, I will take my revenge!
“Oknodie, you just looked like you were vowing revenge.”
“Gasp! Did I show it?”
Regardless, we gathered in the grand auditorium for the first time since the entrance ceremony.
Thanks to this Foundation Workshop Battle, Jezel, who had exponentially increased in stature, and students belonging to the Dark Trading Company had risen as significant players in Class 981.
“Look over there. That tall Monkey Humanoid. That’s Revolutionary Army General Son Ohchun, right?”
“They said that in the last Foundation Workshop Battle, he took the timing of the master’s attack and knocked him down with massive artillery fire.”
“Without even wielding a spear?”
Son Ohchun looked serious, staring straight ahead, but you could tell he was sweating bullets.
“Then that woman in the apron holding the frying pan is also famous?”
“She’s Revolutionary Army’s crazy chef Isabel. What did she do?”
“Dunno. But she must have done something.”
Similarly, though she hadn’t done much, Isabel began to gain fame as a high-ranking figure in the Dark Trading Company.
“Look over there. It’s the Secret Guard Fox Mask Jiang.”
“Is it really a secret guard? Their name is all over the place!”
“They say if you get on their bad side, you’ll be knocked out before you know what hit you.”
“Indeed, so that’s why it’s a secret guard.”
“If you can deliver confusing punches even after getting hit in front of someone, could they be considered the ultimate martial artist!?”
“…”
The Secret Guard Jiang, who unexpectedly transitioned from a top assassin to a supreme martial artist.
“Jiang, how does it feel to be a secret guard?”
“Shut up, Light Bearer.”
“Ugh, stop it!”
“Light Saintess. Revolutionary Army Saintess. Avatar of the One and Only God.”
“Ugh, I’m sorry!”
Having jokingly prodded Jiang led Titosso to be mercilessly beaten up by the more humiliating titles.
The other students couldn’t keep whispering for long, as the principal’s enormous dragon head suddenly appeared on stage.
[Hey, little squirmers.]
“…”
[Did you think you could casually gain an entire semester without doing anything due to the messed-up academic schedule?]
Even without listening intently, it was clear.
The Dragon Principal was up to no good!
[Thinking you could just lazily skip the student council elections, the sports festival, and the final exam? You thought wrong!]
Wait, we can’t just skip it?!
Titosso, paralyzed by shock like when the light stand’s brightness malfunctioned and denied him entry to the classroom, was frozen in place.
[There will be no slacking off, you little squirmers!]
[No matter what!]
[Absolutely!!]
[No lazy indulgence is allowed!!!]
Like a wicked dragon from a fairy tale declaring he’d burn down the castle if they didn’t deliver ten tons of gold today, a senior from the fourth year mustered incredible courage and shouted.
“Why are you being so unreasonable?! We could at least slack off a bit! It would be better for the professors and the principal too!”
[The reason is simple. Just because you’re having a hard time doesn’t mean I’m suffering.]
“…”
Such a refreshingly trashy response left even the fourth-year senior speechless after trying to be brave.
“I already know the lecture schedule is a mess. How do you plan to normalize the curriculum?”
Next to ask was Senior Velvet.
Sitting comfortably on a chair from who-knows-where made me envy her, so I fished a personal chair out of my backpack to sit down.
[In the time of the Middle Realm, no matter how many additional classes I cram in, I can’t fit it all into the remaining days. So, we’ll hold classes outside the Middle Realm.]
“?!”
[That means, starting today, you’ll all be attending lectures in the Spirit Realm until you fill in all the missed classes.]
The shock was even greater among the upperclassmen.
They knew too well how unpleasantly unpredictable spirits could be.
When people think of spirits, they often imagine cute little water sprite-like things, but our one-hundred-dimensional spirits required exorbitant mana costs.
To cover the lack of mana, you had to either offer tears or contribute your frustrated rage to appease them daily.
No doubt, roaming around making others miserable would definitely lead to a social personality disorder and would just make life progressively tougher.
“So, are the professors all spirit contractors? You make students angry enough to cry!”
As Titosso wondered, it was true that the professors at the Gift Academy were the best at making people cry or lose their cool.
“Actually, there are some professors who have signed a spirit contract!”
“Who?”
“Professor Weird?”
Everyone who had been eavesdropping on my conversation with Titosso couldn’t help but gasp.
Honestly, you could hardly find a student as unfortunate as those in Professor Weird’s class at the Gift Academy.
You’d think someone would shout that our professor wasn’t like that, but the fact that everyone nodded in agreement showed Professor Weird’s reputation.
“Have a good time then!”
“Huh? Why isn’t Oknodie going?”
As I waved goodbye to my friends lined up to enter the dimensional gate, Titosso looked bewildered.
“I’m staying at the academy to attend all the lectures!”
“Ah?! But I’m still at the academy too! Why can I not attend lectures?!”
“Because you didn’t ask the professors to let you attend?”
“!!”
Extra classes are for newbies who have no foresight!
“What about the lectures that are canceled?”
“I’m gonna buy attendance days using points.”
Jiang looked between the dimensional gate and me, then pulled out their magic watch to pay.
Beep.
– Payment completed.
“Jiang?!”
“The Spirit Realm special lecture isn’t right for me.”
With the points Jiang collected diligently under Jezel’s guidance, they casually canceled the special lecture in a legal manner!
Titosso almost left alone to attend Professor Sadako’s special lecture but was saved when Jiang came through and made the payment for him at the last moment.
“Jiang, you’re so sweet! Paying for me like that.”
“I was scared you’d start developing a level-4 crying pattern.”
“… What a ridiculous pattern!”
But there was a more ridiculous pattern in store.
Titosso, who had a ton of extra lectures aside from Professor Sadako’s, ultimately had to go off to attend another make-up class…
It seemed Jiang wouldn’t consider lending points for any other courses aside from Professor Sadako’s, coolly turning a blind eye.
