1 Not for long

The unsaid hierarchy of the world goes as follows.

Popularity? Wealth? All based on your abilities.

Your abilities are split into three categories, which are class, type and specialisation.

Class is the role you play in the world.

Farmer or construction worker? Bottom of the chain.

Swordsman or healer? Highly respected.

Type is exactly how it sounds, what type of class are you?

Maybe you're a mage that practices necromancy, or a divine healer.

Specialisation is just a further breakdown of type or miscellaneous information that doesn't fit in either.

Your elemental affinity, contracted beast, weapon etc.

No matter what, those without sufficient strength will remain at the bottom, this will never change without the intervention of status or money.

"H-hey… y-you guys- won't-"

The boy let out a gulp.

"-k-kill me right?"

A boy nervously backed away from a group of boys looming over him, stuttering.

"Haha, r-right?"

"Tch. You peasants annoy me so much."

An entitled voice snarled out.

SLAM- THWACK.

"Argh-"

The boy clutched his stomach as he doubled over in agony.

The perpetrator's foot hovering over his kneeling position kicked out again.

CRASH.

The unfortunate victim of the attack was flung onto the lockers behind him.

Ptooey!

"Trash, don't give me that look.", the voice spat venomously

SMASH- Another kick was aimed at his stomach.

"Now Gerald, please stop, we wouldn't want Elijah to be injured would we? He's got to keep a leg or two to be able to do our errands." Another voice rang out, demanding.

As if frightened, the thug named Gerald instantly stopped like magic, his foot hovering mid air. He barked, "You hear that? Boss is being lenient on you today because you did cleaning duty for him without an order. Go get some snacks or something you ungrateful little brat."

The boy sprawled on the ground, slowly got up and nodded silently.

He exited the room, not without hearing the sneers of, "He truly is the trash of Xira."

That boy, that so-called trash of Xira, was in fact me, Elijah Horton.

"Huuuu."

I exhaled in relief after walking a safe distance away.

"That was a close one."

And here I was, thinking I would have gotten used to it by now.

So bothersome…

To other people, I was a healer with no elemental affinity nor temple affiliation.

Trash.

The top mercenary guilds captain? My father.

I was essentially just another lowly nobody who had relied on his father's recommendation to enter a prestigious academy, unlike the other students here who had abilities to back up their big talk.

I was in a class full of one year trialers.

There were three ways you could get into Xira. One was the normal way, by passing tests and exams, second was donating a ridiculously large sum of money every few months and finally if you can't do either, you could get a one-year trial period through a recommendation letter and a scholarship.

Out of the three, the last was the rarest as the professors had to be interested in you but nonetheless it meant you could attend the academy officially.

It was no wonder everyone liked to take their anger out on me.

A rare once in a lifetime opportunity? Stolen by me which could've been filled with a potentially good future connection.

I couldn't really blame them for their resentment.

It didn't help that I was only able to heal minor wounds either.

I was weak.

Or so everyone thought.

In reality, I wasn't that weak.

Not to the point of being called trash, at the very least.

Why, even though my talent was evaluated at C rank? Because I contracted with the extinct species that mages spent centuries trying to revive with the DNA of their relatives, a dragon.

Dragons, considered mythological, are one of the strongest races that existed in the past.

The keywords being 'in the past'. The last survivor of the race died a long time ago.

Or so I thought.

In a nutshell, a few months prior, I visited an unexplored dungeon with my parents and discovered a strange pulsating orb. Deemed useless besides its looks, my parents let me keep it.

It turned out to be an egg. One which hatched a few days later to reveal a baby dragon.

Knowing the consequences of being found out, I decided to keep this relegation a secret. The longer, the better.

Due to my unstable control over my newfound power I decided to completely abandon the thing I actually was proficient in. Hand to hand combat.

After all, to go beyond the boundaries of human skill, I had to accumulate mana in my body. And I couldn't risk imbuing my body with unstable mana.

Instead, I had to instead take advantage of my secondary skill, healing. Although limited, just the fact that I had it allowed me to attend Xira.

And at Xira, I could potentially learn to control my powers or further develop my healing abilities.

Or so I had hoped. Although I had advanced a little, that was due to the textbooks provided. For the most part, I'm just being looked down on here.

…and that was basically the story of my anticlimactic life. With such a prominent background yet miserable fate.

"Haaaah."

Why must life treat someone like me so cruelly?

I let out an exaggerated self pitying sigh and continued walking to the convenience stores located around the corner of the academy.

"Haizz…" I crouched down as soon as I exited the campus and ruffled my hair in frustration.

A figure materialised at my side and sat on my back with her hands hugging my neck for support.

"EEKKK-"

The girl on my back tumbled off when I shrugged her off.

Rubbing the back of her neck irritably she grumbled, "What was that for, old man?!"

I rolled my eyes and answered, "You brought this on yourself, this is punishment for using your power in public."

The girl protested, "But no one is even watching!"

She seemed so sure about herself yet her eyes, imbued with dragonic mana quickly scanned the perimetre before grinning triumphantly.

"…"

I speechlessly stared at her.

Did she really use her magic without even checking the surroundings?

"Kaida, I'm being serious, you never know."

"Humph." Kaida turned her back to me for a few seconds before seemingly having gotten tired of throwing a tantrum.

"I'm going to the convenience store, do you want to tag along?"

"Only if we stop by the bakery!"

"Nah. I'm good." I spun around and kept walking down the path, ignoring a dumbstruck Kaida.

"W-Waittttt- Gee, I'm cominggggg-"

I grinned inwardly, Pfft- she got on a high horse after letting her eat all the cakes she wanted yesterday.

Ahhh my lovely wallet~ this is my sweet revenge for you.

No one will get in between me and my money, especially not a certain dragon.

The end. Elijah and his wallet lived happily ever after.

…or did they…

What will disturb their peaceful recovery?