Chapter 33 - Briefing

As time passes by, students start arriving one after another, and by the time it's already around 7:50 – which I knew thanks to the wall clock in the classroom – all the seats in the class have already been occupied. Even on my row, there's already 1 other student sitting on my left. Then not too long after that, a teacher finally arrived.

It was a male teacher who seems to be around the age of 30. He has black hair and grey eyes. Based on the huge eye bags below his eyes and his almost blank expression, he seems to be the type of person who's always tired.

He's also wearing an eyeglass which honestly makes him look more... tired.

"Greetings, students." He said with a... tired voice. He sounds like he has no energy to spend at all, and the way he stands – his posture, with his back slumping, made him look like he could drop dead at any moment.

"You have no lesson for History of the Lansera Kingdom this week because we will have a briefing first. Well, I don't really know what to call it. You can also call it a Welcoming Class if you want." He shrugged, and even though I can't read minds, I can already guess what's going on in the minds of the other students; Is this man really a teacher?

"Oh right, my name is Zen Arden. You can just call me Teacher Zen or... whatever you want," He stopped, yawning, before continuing again, "As I said, I'm here for the briefing. I'll be the Class 1-A consulting this year, you could also consider me as your adviser although we probably won't see each other that much unless you have some troubles as well as during rare occasions."

Looking at how much he's saying, Teacher Zen seems to be the talkative type. However, if one would pay enough attention, they would notice that, that's definitely not the case. Rather than being a talkative person, he's probably just talking in a rushing manner right now.

Which only means that he wants to get this done quickly and leave.

"Do you understand? So don't do troublesome things because that will bother me too. But if you ever need me even if I don't want to, then you can find me at the 1st Teachers Office."

Again, even though I can't read minds, just base on the expression of the other students and their silence, they're probably thinking something along the line of 'is this man really a teacher?'.

Teacher Zen Arden seems to be a unique person. When I played the game, I didn't encounter his character at all, his name wasn't even mentioned. As for this briefing or welcoming class... it wasn't mentioned as well because right after chapter 1, the focus of chapter 2 was already the heroine – Anastasia's encounter with the Crown Prince Deor in the Academy's garden.

It makes sense since the main focus of the otome game is romance, and it wasn't that necessary to go into great detail about how the lessons and such went. It just showed to the players what kind of classes and lessons are there, then occasionally, some chapters would revolve around those.

Well... I don't really have anything to say as long as he fulfills his responsibility and job of being our consultant or adviser well.

"Anyway, the first thing is... what is it again?" Despite not having the same ability as Anakin, I can feel the great urge of the others to say something.

"Right, I should be informing you guys of your groups as well." Zen said, and that got my interest. I was aware that there was a grouping in the game, but as usual, the game didn't go into great detail about how the groups were formed, when, and why or what for.

There would just be some parts of A Magical Romance wherein Anastasia would have interaction with the capture targets due to the groupings.

As for who are the people who have been grouped with Anastasia in the game... of course, it's the 4 capture targets and Aksia.

"A group will consist of 5 members, and I already have the list. No changing of groups allowed." Teacher Zen snapped his fingers, summoning a folder out of thin air – an Advance Magic. It was probably the list that contains the planned groupings.

He said 5 members but... Anastasia's group will be consisting of 6 members.

Anastasia, Deor, Anakin, Franco, Percival, and Aksia – myself. There were supposed to be 40 students in total in Class 1-A. It was an equal number, and they can form a total of 8 groups. At least that's how it's supposed to be, but by chance, one of the students dropped out of RA early with reasons untold.

Thus, the number of students become odd.

"This group will stick with you guys until the end of your 1st year, so do get along because when it comes to group activities, you'll have to work together. This can affect your grades."

He paused, "But of course, group members can change as well... if one of you dropped out of Class A. So do take care of your grades."

Teacher Zen then opened the folder, "I'll now be announcing the groupings, so listen carefully. If you don't pay attention... then do whatever you want, I won't repeat it."

"For the 1st group, we have..." He began calling the students name one by one.

By the time Teacher Zen reached group 4, that's when I heard Anastasia's name, "Group 4, Anastasia Clovis, Deor Lansera, Anakin, Lansera, Percival Roques, Franco Loius, and... Aksia Euridice." at the mention of all of those names including the mind, a few of the students start whispering among themselves. And when Teacher Zen was about to call the members of group 5, someone stood up from their sit with their one hand raised.

"Teacher Zen, I have a question!" It was a female student with pink hair and purple eyes. She has her right hand raised as if she's about to recite.

Teacher Zen looked in her direction with bored eyes, "Yes, what is it, lady Francis?". Other than noticing how Teacher Zen called the student's name without hesitation which kind of indicates the possibility that he has already memorized all of the students names here, that female student...

She must be Eula Francis. Hearing Teacher Zen call her by her last name just made me remember – she's an extra character in the game who became Aksia's self-proclaimed follower later on. Since she's an extra character, she's not that significant in the game's plot and was only mentioned twice or thrice whenever someone would talk about Anastasia's harassers.

The original Aksia know her... but she didn't really pay any attention to Eula. Additionally, she just finds it amusing and confusing how someone is claiming to be her follower.

Well, if I would describe Eula Francis in one world... it would be an attention seeker. She's not claiming to be Aksia's follower because she admires or likes her, she's just using that cover-up to blame everything she's doing to Aksia as well as to get attention. I guess one could say that she kind of has this twisted obsession with Aksia for an unknown reason.

Not obsession out of love, but out of wanting to have and live the life of Aksia Euridice – it's foolish, really, because Eula isn't even aware of what Aksia's life is like.

That obsession probably originated from the fact that she's a daughter of a Viscount. It's a noble rank higher than that of Anastasia's parents but... Eula's family is probably in a situation that doesn't seem suitable for that of a Viscount. The Francis family is apparently on the verge of breaking down because Eula's father has been addicted to gambling.

It was also probably the reason Eula kind of hated Anastasia because despite being a daughter of a mere Baron, she's in a much better situation.

In Anastasia's defense, despite their noble rank, the House of Clovis owns a mine that mines Mana Stones which gives them a lot of profits.

If you think about it, it actually kind of doesn't make sense that Eula wants to have the life that Aksia has. Is she not aware of Aksia's reputation and the way other nobles would often badmouth and fear her at the same time? Or maybe... she didn't know, she was blinded by the fact that Aksia seems to have everything, coming from a Ducal House and all.

Well... this time, If Eula becomes a problem, then I'll have to make sure that she won't be 'my' problem, one way or another. Worst case scenario, I'll get rid of her by removing her from RA or by another means.

Blinking away the glint that flashes by and disappeared as well as quickly as it came, I continued to listen.

"Those who are in group 4 are all part of the top 10 Pre-Examination rankings, if it's like this... then wouldn't it be unfair to other students?" Eula asked, frowning.

Another thing I'm also curious about. Is there another reason why all the top-ranked students are grouped together or were it simply for the sake of the plot?

"That's true, but unfortunately I can't answer that question. It's not me who ȧssigned which students belong to which group, it's the decision of Headmaster Roderic and other school staff." Teacher Zen shrugged. Eula couldn't do anything but sit back down with a frown.

The other students seem to be curious as well about the reason why top-ranked students were grouped in one group.

I could only think of two possibilities, the obvious one being the 'plot', and the second is that the school wants to improve their students further, thus they planned to group top-ranked students to let them tear and help each other at the same time – allowing them to become much better.

But somehow, I still couldn't help but think that it's really just for the plot...

"... And that's it, a total of 8 groups. Now you can go ahead and change seats! Go to your groupmates and have a talk, get to know each other or something." My head raised a little in attention at that, I couldn't help but glance in the direction of Deor, Anakin, and Franco first as other students started standing up from their seats.

Then I couldn't help but want to look at Anastasia as well to see her reaction – so I did, and we met eyes. I paused, unsure of what to say. I was never really a team person. Without much choice, I looked away.

And when I did, I saw all Deor, Anakin, Franco, and Percival heading towards our seats.

"It's been a while, Lady Aksia. May I sit beside you?" Anakin approaches me first along with his usual playful smirk. As I look at him coldly, I can also feel the gaze of the others on me.

"Of course, Your Highness." I answered, voice monotone.

Anakin raised his eyebrows at my response, "You shouldn't call me by that title now, 'Aksia'." He said, and he seems... to be emphasizing my name quite a bit. Then he happily sat beside me and next to him were Deor and Franco. With all 5 of us sitting in one row, Percival had no choice but to sit on the row in front of us.

I paused.

If all of us are here together, then doesn't this count as all of the capture targets' official first meeting with Anastasia? In the game, there wasn't a time or 'when' factor that was told when Anastasia supposedly encounter Deor – the capture target that she met first. After chapter 1, what was shown in chapter 2 was merely Anastasia stumbling upon Deor who was looking for his necklace in the RA's garden, an event.

The chapter was titled 'An Encounter With The Prince', and many players of course ȧssume that it was the heroine and the Crown Prince's first meeting.

It turns out that it wasn't their first meeting.