End of The 1st Month

(Third Person Pov)

Laid on her bed Julianna thought about the things that happened today.

As far as she had heard and seen, Aqua has the highest rank among first-years, well still not stronger than Noah.

She rolled over her bed thinking about the various things that had happened since coming to this academy.

She had met amazing kids her age. Far more incredible than she had thought in the beginning.

[Those kids are amazing.]

"They are," Julianna said as she looked at her system screen.

[I can feel their great potential, it's such a waste that they might die. I hope they would at least entertain me enough]

Julianna didn't utter a single word, she just closed her eyes trying to forget all her bad memories.

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Drip Drip

Sweat rolled down his cheeks and then fell to the ground, mixing along with the blood of goblins and his.

The palm of his hand has callouses formed on it, blood dripping from them yet he didn't dare loosen the grip on the hilt of his sword.

The monsters surrounding him were ferocious, cunning, and dangerous, if he gave them a single opportunity he would die.

It wasn't that they were strong but their quantity was overwhelmingly huge.

The boy tightened the grip on his sword a little more as he used his mouth to exhale and breathe in.

He was exhausted, more so than before.

Goblins with shields on them stood in the front while the ones with spears and lances stood a bit behind them, goblin mages, accompanied by the archers, and goblins with swords and daggers had the main job of attacking the boy.

That was the formation.

The number of goblins that surrounded the young boy was around 850 goblins and yet the goblins remained wary of the boy, not making a move, they could instinctively feel it, the boy was strong.

Goblins would have in most normal situations fled away, never fighting a strong individual but that wasn't the option available to them, a transparent wall had been cast around them, making it impossible for them to flee.

Their only choice was to either kill or be killed.

Adjusting their grip on their weapons, the goblins moved to attack the boy as if they were all but one unit.

The boy too moved, preparing to end the battle.

"Crimson Moon"

He uttered, activating one of his skills that resulted in his sword glowing with a shade of crimson hue as he started swinging his sword in a complete 360 circular motion in different directions, circular rings with 8 layers of crimson hue surrounded the boy at its center and when his hands stopped moving, those circular rings shot forward.

The strikes cut through goblins' shields, weapons, and their bodies without any trouble.

Killing almost all of them.

Many who managed to dodge the projectile met their end at the hands of the boy's followed up attacks.

Without losing any time, he had moved to kill the remaining goblins.

And once he killed them all, he struck his sword on the ground, using it as a support to keep himself standing, huffing and puffing.

His hands were trembling, and the stench of the blood and corpses felt nauseating to him. He was tired, utterly so, yet he didn't fall.

He can still fight.

His dark aqua eyes gleamed with determination and just then a sound resounded in his ears.

"The Goblin's stock has been exhausted, we ask the user to understand and change the monster to be up against for their practice."

It was a mechanical voice and after understanding the meaning behind those words the boy let himself fall to the ground.

So, the goblins are all dead.

He thought. He had gotten a similar message when the slimes had all died. There was no more supply of goblins for the academy to provide.

The boy looked in another direction, towards the direction of a section filled with around a hundred harpies, in the middle of them stood a girl with a sword, she sprung into action.

A lone girl was fighting against hundreds of E-ranked monsters.

It was baffling to the boy, he hadn't noticed the presence of the girl before but now that he had, he couldn't believe his eyes.

He was interested in knowing which year she belonged to. Is she a senior of his or a first-year student like him?

Wondering so, he turned his eyes towards another section filled with giant worms, a boy was fighting clutching onto his scythe, and every move he made felt captivating. There was a beauty with which he moved his scythe.

And then he looked around, there were no students but a few instructors.

They were the only last three remaining students on the training grounds. All other first-years have gone back to dormitories and the seniors have gone back to their sectors, some to train there and some to simply to rest.

The boy pulled another healing potion and mana recovery potion and gulped them down.

After minutes passed, he felt physically rejuvenated but mentally he still felt exhausted. The constant act of fighting and killing the monsters had taken a toll on him, the nauseating stench of blood surrounding him as well felt tiring.

But even then he stood up, ready to keep fighting.

He might not be stronger like them but he didn't want to fall behind when it came to mentality.

He was prepared to push himself to extremes if that's what he needed to do.

And with that, the boy, the original protagonist, Aqua, stood up, ready to face an army of G+ ranked monsters.

Now that I look back on it all, that was the day when our story and fates significantly began to change their intended course, one could even say we managed to secure an ending without paying any hefty prices like we were supposed to but even so...

 I will never forget the ugly truth on which our world is built upon.

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Aqua began to attend the classes and once the classes ended, he directly made his way towards the training centers and began training till late at night or maybe it shouldn't be called a night at all since he made his way to the dormitory at 6 am. Then he slept for 2 hours and quickly woke up, he used cleansing magic on himself, dressed up and so the schedule goes.

He ate during the training time, taking the food out of his dimensional storage, it was something both the girl and he had learned watching Noah.

It was simply a more efficient method.

His friends, Emma and Aleister were worried about their friend's reckless schedule.

He was pushing himself, it was clear to see with his dark circles growing on him

"Hey, you have noticed, haven't you?" Julianna posed a question to Noah who was drinking a cola.

"My intelligence is worldwide highest, I notice various things every day. What I am trying to say is you need to be a bit more specific" Noah said.

Julianna rolled over her eyes at the dramatic reply he just gave "I am talking about him ...and her. They are both watching you, pushing themselves because of you. The girl is able to keep up... no, she is taking a toll on her just less than him. I am sure, if you were to take a break, they both probably.. well they would still train in hopes of leaving you behind but I am sure they will take it a bit easy."

"I am not asking anyone to train or push themselves. Other people's choices are their own, what they do has nothing to do with me. I see no reason to not train." Noah replied.

"Sheesh, should I call you stingy or heartless?" Julianna asked

"...Heartless, I guess," Noah replied.

Julianna found herself a bit startled, she couldn't tell if Noah was joking with her or was serious because of his indifferent expression but if she were to decide on the basis of the look in his eyes, that empty look he always had then ...Noah in all seriousness might not be joking.

"You know, sometimes you are just straight-up creepy" She replied.

Noah shrugged and took out his burger from his dimensional storage, ready to eat it but before he could he was stopped by Julianna.

"Eating stuff like that all the time is not good for the health!" She shouted, a bit angrily unable to understand why he would always only eat this stuff. That made no sense to her and then she continued "Eat something healthy for once"

"...You want me to use my AP to buy food in the cafeteria?"

"Just buy the ingredients and make it. It will be cheap."

"I don't know how to cook."

"...Haa" Julianna sighed and shook her head.

"Fine, I will cook your food when I am cooking mine, we will split the cost of ingredients later down the line"

"...Why am I being ordered around?" Noah asked as he took a bite of the burger.

But he didn't find the proposition to be bad. Homemade cooked food would certainly be better. Besides, Noah wanted to learn cooking and for that reason, he bought a lot of food ingredients and stored them all in his dimensional storage as such he wouldn't need to use his AP for them since the dimensional storage keeps the things stored in them in the same state, the ingredients won't deteriorate.

Truth is, Noah has a whole supermarket inside his dimensional storage. After all, what else use does he have for dimensional storage? His main stuff was already stored in his soul-bound dimensional necklace.

The dude's a walking supermarket.

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Inevitably, Aqua's mental exhaustion that he accumulated over the days caught up to him and he lost consciousness in the middle of the training. 

One of the instructors who was watching, Emma and Aleister rushed to his side and took him to the infirmary.

The medical staff did a few tests and by the end of the day, he was simply told to rest for 2 days at the least.

Emma and Aleistar breathed a sigh of relief to know he was fine but then got angry at him.

"Just how stupid are you!?" Emma shouted angrily.

"Dude, that's not cool! Not cool at all! What are you trying to do? Trying to become a living zombie!? I get it, that girl's hot and you don't want to embarrass yourself by being left behind but seriously there's a way for things, take it slow and steady! " Aleister said and Emma looked at him dumbfounded.

"Which girl are you talking about? And how is a girl related to his stupid schedule if that can even be called a schedule, has anything to do with it?" Emma asked.

"Oh, you know the third-crazy student we have got this year, the one who is doing the same thing as Aqua and Noah" Aleister replied 

"You mean, Alyssa?" Emma asked

"Yeah! Her!"

Aqua didn't fail to notice the info.

So, her name is Alyssa and she is a first-year like us.

Aqua noted.

"What does she have to do with anything?" Emma asked still confused.

"You don't get it. She is hot. I am sure Aqua doesn't want to get left behind in their training together but Aqua you need to be careful, Noah is more handsome. You gotta take more direct approach." Aleistar said.

"Aqua isn't like that! That's just you!" Emma said stomping on Aleistar's foot.

Watching the scene, Aqua simply laughed a little as he remembered the starting days of the academy, he wasn't neglecting his training but he definitely wasn't neglecting his social life either but now he was solely focused on his training, not even listening to his friends who had warned him so many times.

He had forgotten about so many things in the pursuit of his training. He felt stupid about it.

Well, he had gotten his sermon earlier by one of the instructors.

Watching him laugh, made Emma and Aleister relieved.

They had a bit more light-hearted talk and then Aqua told them he was fine.

By the end, Aqua asked, "Are they both still going?"

Emma and Aleister nodded, albeit a bit hesitantly.

Aqua closed his eyes.

He had lost.

He couldn't keep up with their strength or with their mentality.

"Noah and Alyssa are both monsters! Don't think about them!" Emma said trying to encourage him

"Well, Aqua is kind of a monster too" Aleister replied immediately and Emma stepped onto his foot once again

"Hahaha" Aqua simply laughed it off and then he asked

"By the way, how did you learn about her name? I don't think she is in our class" Aqua asked.

"Well, currently you guys are trending a lot, so everyone knows about you three since you three are topic of discussion, any information related to you guys is being spread all around on school forums, shared among the students," Aleister replied and tried to show him his phone but Emma stopped Aleister

"He needs to rest not waste his time on school forum"

That was when Allen and Elinalise came through the door.

"Oh, the party's all here" Allen replied.

"Hey, dude, what's up?" Aleister asked.

Allen, Elinalise, Emma, and Aleister had become quite good friends over the days

"I just thought I should pay your friend a visit," Allen said pointing toward Aqua.

Aqua wasn't acquainted with both of them, of course, he remembered them and the first thing he did was apologize to them for the behavior he showed during their first meeting.

Allen simply shrugged about it while Elinalise was playing around with Emma's bird.

They talked for quite a while and then left.

Now, Aqua was left alone.

With nothing to do, he simply decided to open the school forums.

He became curious after listening to Emma and Aleistar's talk.

After opening the school forums, Aqua found himself speechless.

He saw the images that were posted along with the captions, one of the pictures was of his, and the other one's of Noah and Alyssa covered in the blood of the monsters they had slain as they swung their weapons with a caption 'We have psychopaths this year! Everyone be careful!!!'

And when he read the conversation that had taken place below it, he was left horrified.

'Actually, that black-haired boy is handsome enough for me to let him fuck me even if he is a psychopath'

'Do you think you are in his league or what?'

'Well, I am okay with the aqua-colored guy too'

'He too is above your level'

'Gosh! Why are psychopaths mostly handsome!?'

'I am not interested in dying but if it's by her hands, oh man, I don't mind. I won't have any regrets.'

'For real!'

He shut the phone away and shook his head.

Aqua found the conversation far more horrifying than the hordes of monsters he had been fighting.

He remained laid on the infirmary bed. Today he was told to spend the night here, he will be discharged tomorrow but he is advised to take it easy.

Aqua spends the remaining time, thinking of a plan that would suit him in the training.

The next day when he woke up, it was the afternoon.

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From then on, Aqua first began to observe the two. Since he was asked to rest for 2 days, Aqua decided to not fight but to observe, Emma and Aleister had protested but Aqua managed to calm them down.

His objective was to observe them both.

Noah was a scythe, sword, short sword, and dagger user. He used whichever weapon he felt like, but whenever he used a sword Aqua made sure to note every moment of Noah and he did the same for Alyssa.

He observed their way of attacking, and how they moved.

After 3 days of observing, Aqua instead of fighting hordes of monsters tried to imitate the movements of Noah and Alyssa, mixing them with his own style.

Aqua didn't notice the stare of Alyssa as she found the change in Aqua's practice.

I thought we were doing monster hunting. Are we breaking the chain?

She had thought innocently, looking over to Noah and then Aqua unable to know what do to next.

It took her some time but she decided maybe it wouldn't be bad to go over the basics, to begin with fighting with a horde of monsters wasn't an easy task.

Although it did help her improve greatly but mentally it took a lot of toll, it would have been better if she could prepare herself a bit more before fighting.

Besides, it's not like I have any friends nor I am competing with anyone. I have the world's time in my hands.

Alyssa concluded and decided to stop her monster hunting training and started to plan and visualize her combat form against the monster and adapt it. She had fought many and now was the time to create changes in her form of combat.

Noah, on the other hand, was fine, adapting and improvising was something like breathing to him. Besides, the person he learned swinging his weapon from was someone who killed people not just in a number of a hundred or a thousand but in millions, all at once.

What Noah had learned from Enyo was the way to kill as many as possible, hordes of monsters, beasts, and people.

Over the days, Aqua and Alyssa both improved significantly and started their monster hunting once again with far more efficiency than before.

And so, the days passed by without much happening and their first month of the academy came to an end.