A few days had passed and, it was time for the Academy to begin in its earnest. I woke up early to get some exercise in before it all began. Then I made my way towards the elevator after I had my breakfast, leaving behind the other three goons who called out to me.
I ignored them because I didn't wish to be dragged into the incident that would happen within the next two hours. Though, I'd surely spectate it to get some daily dose of entertainment in.
Leaving early, I made my way towards the A-7 class. Looking at the map in the days before, I already knew where it was so it wouldn't take me much time to get to it.
I decided to take a slight detour, wanting to look at the scenery while on the way. Whilst traversing through the path, I came across the alley I had tortured that nameless fellow in, the other day.
That was the first time I had in fact ever beaten a person to the amounts that could be called insane torture. Surprisingly, I never felt a single thing. This was weird because other than having Asher's memories, the dominant side of me was in fact the one from Earth.
Neither had Asher ever involved him in such things, nor I as a being from Earth had witnessed such "violence", yet I was never discomforted. I wonder if this was because of my passive skill [Unbreakable Will] which counted me getting unnerved as a mental attack.
"Huh, what's someone doing there?"
While I was immersed in my thoughts, I found a person standing in the alley. Wondering what someone was doing in a shady alley like this on the first day, I made my way over. It's not like there was anything that could threaten my life here other than instructors who would obviously not take action against a student.
'It seems to be a guy', muttering to myself, I walked back into the dark alley.
Hearing my footsteps, he turned around, giving me a glimpse at his face. He was a young man, probably in the same year as me. With Purple hair, obsidian-black eyes, and a height of approximately 180 cm, the man had a slightly lean body and a quite handsome lady-killer look.
Recognizing him from the illustrations of my novel, he was none other than the Rank-3 of the first years in the Academy, Brian Adams.
From what I knew about him, he was a total enigma. I displayed him as a major antagonist in the novel who only ever went after Alex, but in reality, was quite a decent guy who even saved tons of people.
The only reason he went after Alex was that he and Alex had a crush on the same woman. Yet she chose Alex over Brian in the end. Brian was stronger, more handsome, wealthier, and basically better than pretty much everything than Alex. Not only that, but unlike a certain someone, he was faithful to only a single person whereas Alex openly indulged in multiple relationships, speedrunning to make a harem.
So why did "she" choose Alex when she met them both at the same time and Alex hadn't done anything special either? Well, the answer to your question is Plot Armor and the fact that Brian wasn't a main character.
Even though Brian was a "good person", he was not someone I would ever like to associate with. One of the "minor reasons" for this was that this man standing in front of me at this very instant was in fact the Demon Prince.
What was the Demon Prince doing in the Academy? I had absolutely no clue as I never wrote his backstory. But what I did know was that he was an enigma who helped Humans rather than the Demons.
Still, nothing good would come out of associating with a Future Demon King.
"Hello there, you're in the same year as me, right? I'm a bit lost as I'm not good with directions. Could you please point me out or lead me to the A-7 class?" He asked in a polite manner, not befitting someone who was supposed to rule over an entire race.
"Oh it's no problem, I'm in the same class as well so you could come with me." Being a demon, he wasn't much acquainted with the technology used by the Humans. Thus he might have trouble navigating his way through this city-like Academy.
"I'm Brian Adams by the way. And you are..?" He shook out his hand towards me, in an attempt to befriend me.
"Well, I'm Asher Gradivus, nice to meet you. By the way, I wanted to ask but aren't you the third rank?" Not much was known about Brian, given the fact that almost every time he was shown in the novel was when, he tried to beat up Alex. Thus, it was natural for me to try to get to know more about him.
"Nah, I'm not that strong. I just got a bit lucky during the exam and scored a bit more points than the others."
His excessive modesty now seemed a bit annoying. This was the type of line Orion would say but it seemed that he was genuinely trying to seem nice. Looks like he didn't have any friends.
With Brian by my side, I once again started journeying on the detour, to waste some time until the first incident began. How could the first day of one's Academy life begin without multiple scenarios popping up? As an author, I might have intentionally spiced up the plot at several points. Spiced up more than what was needed.
As we approached our destination, I spotted a crowd gathering from a distance.
'It seems it's finally starting. I was a bit worried that it might not happen because the plot changed a bit but I guess they're not "main characters" for nothing after all.'
As most of the people already knew, the professors would only be enforcing the rules themselves only until before the Academy started. Now that it had begun, they'd only intervene if the damage was extremely serious or in case of murder.
This meant that the Academy would now become a place where only the fittest would survive. Strength would reign over everything else. Things like bullying or suppressing the weak would be taking place everywhere.
(Author: Minor change, I updated Anthony's rank from 34 to 54)
"Look here, if it isn't Rank 480, the last rank out there!"
"He looks so ugly and weak, I wonder how he even got into this Academy Hahahaha."
"Look, the other guy hanging out with him is Rank 372. I guess all losers stay together as it's meant to be HAAHAHAHA!"
Making my way through the crowd and I spotted Alex and Orion surrounded by several guys who were probably in the Top 100. I maneuvered through the gaps, finally finding a good spot where I could sit and watch the show.
I took out the popcorn I made in the morning from the storage ring in my soul. My preparations for this were truly impeccable. One might think that I'd intervene to save my dormmates but there was no need for that as they truly needed a beating for some character development.
They had gotten too overconfident in their cheats, thinking they were superior to literally everyone else. Especially that slave to the system who probably imagined himself being the king of the world.
"Um, don't we need to like help them? Also, where did you get the popcorn from? Do you always carry that in your storage ring?"
Brian asked me some things, some of which I chose to selectively ignore.
"Always carry popcorn and, you shall never be bored while watching a war. This was a saying by a famous person", Spouting some random bullsh*t, which I was already very adept at doing, I continued to watch the situation unfold.
Alex and Orion were ganged up and outranked by several of your cliche bullies that could be found in a fantasy world. These people had no lives, they existed only to randomly gang up and beat low-ranked people (the protagonists) for no absolute reason.
Brian was about to go ahead to help them out when I clamped my hand on his shoulder, stopping him from moving. His eyebrows shot up for a split second before he posed me with a quizzical look.
Already having an excuse ready, I said:
"If you help them, then the bullies will start hating them even more as they'll think that those two are simply leeching off of you. Once you're not nearby anymore, the bullying would begin once again.
Not only that, but they might even suffer more than they were originally going to, because of you. In this place, the only way to survive is by getting stronger.
This should be a lesson for them to start working harder to get stronger. Let them be."
Brian immediately calmed down after hearing my words. Honestly, my words did make sense and Brian wasn't the brightest in these matters regarding the norms of the Human Race. Being someone of the Demon race, he was used to their brutal ways and nature of simply getting your way through fights. A sharp tongue was not something most of them had.
By this point, I had been wondering if I was some kind of sadist. Saving them from getting bullied wouldn't really land me in much trouble, judging from what I had investigated earlier about those third-rate bullies. Yet, here I was enjoying my dormmates getting beaten up.
Was this all worth it? A definite yes!
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