“Another rejection is it?” Luon muttered as he lazily laid on his bed. After applying for the space command elective, he found that he was unable to obtain the position. Since there were only three slots available for the class Luon found it to be understandable when he discovered that they have been occupied.
Instead of being first come, first serve, Luon found out that the class seats were already preoccupied with Zythos, Arisa and Shizuka since they were from the major families. He had only found this out when he coincidently met Arisa and voiced out the rejection message.
It made sense for Arisa to take it, and a little bit of knowledge for Zythos to do so as well, but even Shizuka had taken it which was quite the surprise for him as he thought she would go for a more engineering-oriented field. According to Arisa, due to the unstable position she was in at Novera Corporation, she decided to learn space command to distinguish herself on the battlefield. The more merits one had, the fewer people cared about the wrongdoing of a person or their company. Strength was the law, and if one of these major powers in the Nexus was stronger than the others, their government system might have become a dictatorship rather than a democracy.
After being rejected from the space command class he noticed something in peculiar, he was unable to apply to any combat-related courses as well as the engineering ones.
‘This is quite odd. Is the system broken?’ Luon tried to apply to a multitude of electives but has failed to yield a result. Immediately he contacted the technical support division only to find that he needed to talk to the headmaster in regards to the matter.
Being one of the participants that had helped the Nexus solar system win the Alliance Tournament he had the headmaster’s contact information. After a few moments, he was connected to the headmaster only to hear a series of disappointing news.
“Sorry Luon, but due to some restrictions from the governing powers I am unable to allow you to take electives that have to do with engineering and combat,” said the headmaster in a disappointed tone.
“What do you mean restrictions? Don’t you believe I have the right to know that at least? What do you mean by governing powers?” Luon questioned him as he found the concept to be ridiculous. Wasn’t the Nexus solar system a democracy?
The headmaster gave a sigh as he said, “ As you know in our government system we rely on the people to inform us of their opinions, and we get a general consensus on how to operate, but that’s what it appears to be on the surface. In reality, the government system is only there to police and manage the citizens while the real rulers are the family heads of the Novera Corporation, Nightwalker Family, and Mythos clan.”
“The government tries to have a mutual relationship with them, so when they commit crimes and acts of evil, we tend to look away at these incidents, and when they request things we try our best to answer them,” said the headmaster.
“It’s the Mythos clan right? But why now?” Luon’s expression distorted as he said so. They could have made a move much earlier, and yet they only did it now. Luon was curious what else they had in store for him.
“It isn’t just The Mythos Clan, they only said not to allow you to take any courses related to the military courses and threatened us to do so. Otherwise, they would create a troublesome situation for us. As for the engineering classes, we have a notice stating that an apprentice of the criminal Zekar shouldn’t be allowed to learn higher levels of technology, and this is from Novera Corporation,” said the Headmaster.
“What?” Luon couldn’t believe what he was hearing, not only did the Mythos Clan have something against him, but Novera Corporation as well? Could the excuse of being related to Zekar be actually real or is it because they have something against him and their only using his name for show? Luon couldn’t comprehend the logic behind all of this.
“What crime did Zekar commit?” Luon asked as he was quite curious about why his teacher would be depicted that way.
The headmaster shook his head, he then said, “I can’t tell you myself, this is rather a personal thing to say. If you want to know more, you should just ask him yourself.”
Luon recollected his thoughts, the Mythos Clan started to make a move on him to stop him from developing more strength, it was more than likely because of the Nexus Tournament in ended up this way. As for the Novera Corporation, Luon didn’t believe that Shizuka had a hand in this, he had heard from Arisa that the Ichihara family was currently going under investigations and the leadership was temporarily assigned to a different household.
There was still a point he felt off about this though, even if they remove him from combat-related courses he would still be able to join the military after training by himself. He found this action pointless and out of curiosity asked, “What’s the difference does banning me from combat-related electives make if I were to join the army?”
The headmaster gave another sight as he said, “If you don’t take an additional elective for combat when you join the military you could only apply for the role of a standard soldier regardless of how powerful you are. This position is opened up to even normal citizens, but if you took the extra classes, you would have been immediately promoted to higher tier positions which will help establish yourself easier. From what I hear it’s hard to be a soldier, and there are nearly no promotions whatsoever. An example of this is that if you took the space command class, you would immediately be hired as a junior commander on the battlefield. Compared to a soldier, you practically end up as cannon fodder to make up the numbers.”
“What do common soldiers do?” Luon asked as he was sad to hear his options in the military had been limited.
“Clean, cook, train, and when they battle they use the standard starship model we use to teach the generic space combat class,” said the headmaster.
‘Ah, crud, that’s totally the work of the average henchmen,’ thought Luon as his face went blank from the simple, generic description of a common soldier.
Ousted from becoming an engineer, and a commander due to lack of proper courses, the only path left for him was being a common foot soldier. Luon considered getting a regular job like everyone else, doing office documents, retail and sales, and even delivery services. But no matter how much he thought about it, he wasn’t well suited for those kinds of jobs, and if hired, Luon didn’t know whether or not he would be happy with it. The scenes he saw from Thanatos’s life experiences made him feel that those kinds of occupations, although necessary, wouldn’t allow him to make a difference or impact in the war with the Inzektors.
Luon didn’t like the Inzektor race, for the entire first simulation he had spent half of his life fighting them rather than read books which he would enjoy doing. Although in reality he still liked to read books, it wasn’t the same anymore. After the combination of several lifetimes of experiences, he started becoming numb to reading. It was like eating cake every day only to find out that you gained some weight, he needed to cool it off for a bit, and when he was cooling off he realized that life isn’t just about books.
“So, what are my choices left for my electives? Any recommendations?” Luon asked since he didn’t know what options he had at a combat and technical school.
The headmaster smiled as if he was waiting for this moment and proudly said, “Well although you aren’t able to pick most of the available electives, you can still pick the more in general electives like culture, languages, science, and social studies. I would highly recommend cooking, the one in charge of that class is me. If you take cooking, I can ensure yo-”
“Rejected,” Luon quickly said as he ended the call. In the end, he chose Inzektor Biology.
…
‘Thanatos what do you think about this situation,’ asked Luon.
“To be honest, it’s better not doing the combat-related classes. From what I have seen so far the school teaches you based on the normal method of manipulation of mana. With your cultivation technique and skills, it would be better to train by yourself. As for the engineering classes, I can’t say since I am not knowledgeable about those topics,” Thanatos said.
‘Hmm, that’s quite the perspective, but if I don’t take those classes then I would end up being a foot soldier, is it not better to take them to start off as a higher rank?’ asked Luon.
“I disagree, the position doesn’t matter, merits do. As long as you can distinguish yourself in combat nobody can complain about your methods,” Thanatos said.
Luon gave a sigh as thought, ‘Seriously, wouldn’t everything be easier just to be a commander?’
“It would be, but I believe you aren’t ready for it. You’re underestimating the responsibility of being a commander. A few words can send your soldiers who entrust their lives to you to their death. Real life isn’t a game, nobody can come back to life after the day. I believe the best thing for you is to become a foot soldier,” said Thanatos.
Luon gave his words some thought but shook it off as he thought, ‘Nevermind, let’s talk about the future later for now let’s deal with this.’
Luon who was walking the entire time arrived at Zekar’s door and opened it up. There stood Zekar who sat around the reception desk like usual and was reading some kind of document with his feet on the table. Zekar looked up from behind the desk before he went back to reading as he said, “Welcome Luon, the same as usual today? Your friend Thomas is already in the back.”
Luon closed the door behind and stood in front of Zekar while evaluating him inwardly. His appearance although slightly aged, appeared to be like a father who could have a child that was that was around his age, his untidy appearance dashed away the hopes that he could possibly have with women.
Zekar noticed something different about Luon as he noticed him gazing at his body.
‘Did the brat turned weird?’ Zekar’s body shuddered from the possibility as he inched away from Luon.
At this moment Luon called his name which Zekar responded with a yelp. Although Luon found his reaction odd, he continued to explain about the circumstances he heard earlier from the headmaster.
Zekar who realized that Luon just had a question felt relieved that he wasn’t into men, but when he heard Luon’s experience today his hand smashed the desk as yelled, “B*******!”
The impact causes shockwaves to shoot out knocking Luong a few steps back. The table despite its ability to resist most forces due to safety concerns has a massive dent in the middle of it.
Although Luon was surprised by his reaction, he still managed to have an expressionless face and waited for Zekar to calm himself down. At this moment, Thomas who heard the noise came in and said, “Whoa! Where’s the fire! Are we under attack!? Defensive weapons, security devices we burn the documents!”
“Hold it there kid, there’s no attack, so put down the fire and don’t think about burning any documents,” Zekar quickly said.
“Oh,” Thomas said as he turned off the lighter he had quickly pulled out.
Relieved to see that his store isn’t on fire Zekar gave a quick sigh of relief, he then said to Thomas, “You stay here as well. I got a little story to tell.”
“Ehhh? A story? I would rather keep working on thi-,” Thomas said as he displays his disinterest, but his words were silenced by his stare. Seeing how they were both willing to listen to him Zekar began to talk, “It all started and ended because of one person, his name is… Daimon Werebringer.”
