I have to say, the Aegis Academy routine is pretty repetitive,

  But if you ask me, it’s a good thing, having some predictability and certainty from time to time is nice

  For a whole week, we kept having lessons with only instructor Thalmyr and instructor Ignivar, the first one would teach us theory about monsters such us their behaviors and eventual weaknesses, while the latter would teach us barehanded combat’s basics

  But the best part of it was that after the first week, the rumors and gossip about me and Unknown started to cease down,

  Now I was labeled as ‘oh yeah, the guy with the roulette armor, anyways…’ or something like that from what I heard

  Nobody stared at my back whenever I walked in and out of the classroom, nobody tried to talk to me, somebody even forgot my name

  “I couldn’t ask for more than this” I muttered as I laid down on my bed

  Oh boy why did I say it?

  The day after that, instructor Thalmyr told us that we would have our first test this weekend, both theoretical and practical, it would only cover the morning, after which we would be allowed to leave the academy for the day, so no afternoon lessons, but a complete test in the morning

  Most of my classmates had mixed feelings about it, they were either glad to skip the afternoon or anxious about the upcoming test being both theoretical and practical

  Personally, I felt pretty neutral about it, I just had to get the average score and everything would’ve been good

  At least, that’s what I thought

  When the day of the aforementioned test came, I noticed that it was not only my classmates to be nervous, some other first years were behaving nervously, revising their material at the last second, that made me guess that we weren’t the only class having our first test

  It’s not like I really care about it anyway… I thought as I headed to my own class

  But as I was walking, a few whispers caught my attention

  “Hey, did you see that girl? It’s her, right? The bearer of Zeruresu”

  “Yeah, I think that’s her, did you see those elegant silver hairs? It’s definitely her”

  As I heard those whispers, I also noticed the girl they were whispering about walking in the corridor,

  Those silver hairs… where did I see them? I had the feeling I already saw those hairs, but I mean, I could’ve seen them on a random day when I was walking around the academy, silver hairs like that tend to stand out quite a bit, as I thought about it, I was glad my own looks were plain and unremarkable which helped me to remain unnoticed most of the time

  I’m wasting my time here, I’d better not be late on my first test I thought as I accelerated my pace, heading for the classroom,

  When I entered in my classroom, most of my classmates were trying to do a quick review of everything that instructor Thalmyr explained so far, it seems like they weren’t expecting a test so soon

  Whatever, none of my business, I just wanted to get my average score and get this over with

  “Quiet down students, take your seats, we have a test today” instructor Thalmyr reminded us as he stepped in the classroom

  When each one of us sat down, instructor Thalmyr handed us the test sheets, four sheets to be precise and all of them turned face down,

  “You have two hours to complete the test, after which you’ll have a small break, and then we’ll move to the practical part” instructor Thalmyr explained in a serious tone, it was clear that he didn’t intend on repeating himself

  “Of course, cheating and copying is strictly forbidden, trust me, you don’t want to go through all the troubles it will cause you as much as I don’t want to. If you have any question, raise your hand, and now, begin the test” as the signal was given, we quickly turned over the sheets we were previously given and began our first test

  And I have to say, the first half was kind of easy, the questions on the first two sheets were plain and simple theory, instructor Thalmyr carefully explained them to us during the first week point by point

  But as soon as I passed to the third sheet, I immediately noticed that the test now asked us to use our head

  The first question of the third sheet consisted in completing a phrase, which stated:

  ‘As a proof of completion of an assignment that requested to slay _____ goblins, you need to consign their ____’

  The options in the first blank space were ‘14’, ‘standard’, ‘royal’ and the classic ‘none of this options’

  For the second one the options were ‘ears’, ‘nose’, ‘arm’ and again ‘none of this options’

  The second blank space was easy, the tricky one was the first blank space, in my case, I fortunately remembered when instructor Thalmyr specified ‘standard goblins’ at our first lesson, but it was most likely that the average student wouldn’t remember it

  Which made me ponder whether to deliberately give the wrong answer or not, because as I said before, an average student wouldn’t remember an apparently unimportant detail like this, on the other hand I gave a quick glance to the following questions and I didn’t know how to answer most of them and of course they were the ones that gave the most points

  According to my calculations, getting all the right answers in the first two sheets didn’t guarantee a high enough score to be safe

  And if you also consider that I might have miscalculated and/or didn’t get all the correct answers in the first two sheets, then the situation gets worse and I also didn’t have much time left if I wanted to complete the test so I had to take a decision quickly

  In the end I decided to answer that question correctly, it was the safest option and it’s not like other students would see my test’s answer

  I then proceeded to answer the following questions but…

  How should I calculate the time a wounded standard goblin takes to close a 20 meters gap?

  This were the kind of things they asked you, the Aegis Academy is known for its high level of instruction, but I didn’t think they’d ask us such difficult questions at our first test

  As soon as I answered the last question, the time ran out so I had to consign my test,

  “Now we’ll move to the practical part, follow me students” instructor Thalmyr said to us after he sorted out all the tests and put them on his desk, he said to follow him but he actually stayed behind to check that each one of us left the classroom, when the last student was out, he guided us to the academy’s arena

  As we entered in the arena, we noticed that instructor Ignivar was already here and that wasn’t surprising,

  What was surprising was finding another instructor standing at his side: she was a woman in probably her early thirties or so and I noticed that her symbol was made of three swords crossed together, that meant she specialized in, you guess it, mainly combat with swords but with also other weapons

  “Good morning students! Today we have our first test! Don’t be nervous and do what we practiced during the week!”

  It was nice to see that instructor Ignivar was the same energetic idiot as always, if only he weren’t so damn loud,

  “Oh, and I’m sure you’ve already noticed but we have a new instructor with us today” he said pointing to the woman beside him

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Hello students, I’m Eleanor Inugami and I’ll observe and valuate you along with instructor Ignivar” she politely introduced herself

  I could already hear some students whistling and whispering on her looks, don’t they know that relationships between students and instructors are strictly prohibited?

  And why do I have the feeling they aren’t the first ones who didn’t care about it?

  Then again, not my business, as long as they don’t magically pull me in this crap they can do whatever they want

  As I was thinking this, a student raised his hand,

  “Yes, what is it?” instructor Inugami asked prompting the student to speak his concern

  “Why do we need to be valuated by two instructors? Isn’t instructor Ignivar sufficient?” he asked, to which other students agreed, I was curious about it too, but I had my own theory

  “Simple. Instructor Inugami is here to valuate you as an outsider perspective, I’ve been with you for over one week, my opinions about you inevitably got altered, even if I’m not conscious about it, instructor Inugami is here to give a strictly professional evaluation” instructor Ignivar explained, which earned a lot of “Oh” by my classmates

  Just like I thought not to brag but it’s exactly what I was thinking, I wasn’t expecting nothing less from the Aegis Academy

  “Okay guys! With that out of the way, let’s start the practical part of the test” instructor Ignivar clapped his hands and then motioned to the left side of the arena

  Out of nowhere, three goblins appeared, or rather, three holograms of them, another miracle of technology,

  “I think some of you already guessed it, the test consist in taking down the goblin holograms, they won’t truly hurt you but they’ll behave as real goblins, of course, it’s not a 1:1 simulation, these are still programmed and scripted holograms, but it’s the closest we can get to reality without sacrificing safety” instructor Ignivar explained

  “Instructor Ignivar, you forgot a crucial point, you will also have to use your armor, to be more precise, you’ll summon it before the beginning of the test and you won’t be allowed to deactivate it until the end of your test” instructor Inugami added, it made sense, using an Armor actually chips away at your stamina, so they want to test whether we can withstand a non-stop use of our Armor in a fight

  For me though, that was the worst case scenario,

  It would’ve been fine if I could've deactivated or not use Unknown, but the rules are rules, and if Unknown decides to give me a bad-match-up-form for solo fighting, then my test would become a handicap match, on the other hand, if Unknown took a powerful form, it’d made me stand out, just after I finally got my peace back,

  Maybe I should secretly summon Unknown while the others have their test… no, all the darkness and black smoke wouldn’t pass unnoticed by the instructors… It seemed like I had no choice but to actually gamble here… Ugh, annoying

  Seriously Unknown… I hate you I silently cursed my Armor as the first student of my class began his test

  If my assumptions were correct, the instructors would evaluate our test basing on our efficiency in slaying the goblin holograms without getting too much hurt, and most of Unknown’s form could allow me to do that, there were just a handful that would’ve been more of a hindrance than an upgrade

  If I’d have to put it in probabilities, I’d say there are 5/10 chances that everything will go calmly and I’ll be labeled as ‘normal’ 3/10 chances that I’ll be labeled as ‘remarkable’ and 2/10 chances that I’ll be labeled as ‘kinda-disappointing’ of course, even ‘kinda-disappointing’ would be a problem, students and instructors would still remember me even if it’ll be for a bad reason, but statistically speaking, the odds were at my advantage… right?

  As I was making all this reasoning, the student in front of me went ahead and started his own exam, that meant I was the next one, obviously,

  There we go… please Unknown, cooperate for once! I silently prayed as the student from before finished the test

  “Aren Valen, please step forward!” instructor Inugami ordered and I obliged

  “Summon your Armor, please”

  “Come forth, Unknown” I quietly muttered as darkness enveloped me

  And the form that came out was…

  Are you kidding me Unknown? No weapons, no tools for fighting, no significant strength boost…

  That meant I got the worst possible form: the support form

  As the name I gave it suggests, this form specializes in boosting others and supporting allies… but it didn’t give me any benefit to myself

  Great… the worst case scenario happened…

  “Let’s begin the test” instructor Inugami announced, meanwhile, I noticed that instructor Thalmyr was already writing, something that he never did for the previous tests, was he writing down Unknown's form?

  I wonder if he noticed that this is a different form since aesthetically speaking, there was no difference between this form and what I called the ‘base form’ of Unknown except for the presence of a small hole in the palms of the Armor, those holes created orbs from the magic that Armors were able to absorb from the air, and the orbs are what I use to buff others by throwing them to my allies, but they have no effect on me,

  I don’t need to tell you why this was a problem in this situation

  The goblins frantically ran toward me, I had to think fast or else this test would end up with a failure

  Think, what are your options? Fight back? Too dangerous. What else can I… no, this is beyond reckless but… I don’t think I can do anything else to kill these goblins

  An idea formed in my mind, and I didn’t really like it honestly, on the other hand it was better than fighting them with my bare hands

  But I needed a bit of set up to do my gamble, so the first thing I did was dodging and only dodging which was still difficult since the support form didn’t boost my own physical abilities that much

  Luckily enough, goblins are straightforward thinking monsters and these were holograms so they were even more easy to predict thanks to the fact that I observed the previous students’ tests and found a some kind of pattern:

  The goblin on the right and the goblin on the left, were usually the ones who charged forward and put pressure on the student, the one on the center was the one that supported them, meaning, it usually stayed behind them but it attacked if approached

  So I simply played their game for a little bit until I found the opening to run past the first two goblins, charging forward the third one which was already swinging its weapon at me

  Here we go… now it’s do or die as they say

  “Strength boost and speed boost, full power,” I ordered to Unknown, which immediately popped out the two requested orbs, and I proceeded to throw them…

  At the goblin that was running towards me, everyone around me was shocked to say the least, and who could blame them, I was literally buffing my enemy, but

  The orbs hit the goblin and his running accelerated a lot… so much so that he ran past me and reached the other two goblins behind me

  And his random swings enhanced by Unknown's strength boost became actually dangerous

  Even for its companions

  In fact, they got wiped out by its random swings, they were so fast and strong that they couldn’t be dodged and they were absolutely deadly

  A wave of surprised “Wow!”s and “What the-”s filled the silence, some students were so surprised that their jaw hit the floor, even the instructors were speechless

  They couldn’t know that Unknown's boosts at full power weren’t small boosts, they could even triplicate the initial capabilities of the target, the goblin hologram couldn’t get used to this abrupt change and well, you saw what happened,

  However, now I had another problem:

  I had to take down this buffed goblin

  To do that, I took advantage of its moment of confusion to attack it from behind, I quickly swoop its legs away from the ground and slammed its face on the very same ground were its legs were standing a moment ago

  I know this did nothing to it, but I needed it to be in this position, I then proceeded to pin it down with my hands holding its arms, and my left leg pinning its legs

  My right leg stomped the goblin hologram’s throat, which made it gasp for air,

  Yes, my plan was to choke it to death, but I couldn’t hold it pinned to the ground for too long, even with me putting all my weight on the goblin, it could still overpower me

  But the lack of air in your lungs make moving a lot more difficult, and since this was supposed to be a reality-accurate simulation, the hologram goblin was no exception

  I’m losing my grip… c’mon die already…! I thought in almost desperation, but finally, after what felt like an eternity for me, the goblin stopped moving and disappeared, meaning, it has been considered as dead

  “Phew…” I drew a breath of relief and as I did, the arena erupted with cheers

  “That was some great stuff, a bit too risky for my tastes, though”

  “Don’t scare me like that!”

  “You’ve got nerves of steel man!”

  “Are you fearless or what?!”

  And here I thought they wouldn’t think much of me with this form of Unknown… looks like I’ll be the center of attention again for a bit… or maybe not because the next whispers weren’t as gentle

  “They are calling it amazing but… if he made even one small mistake he could’ve been seriously injured”

  “Yeah, besides, doesn’t he have enough strength to take down goblins?”

  “No, I think this is a different form of his roulette-Armor than the one from the exhibition match of the entrance ceremony”

  Yeah, that’s the harsh truth, all I did here was nothing but a gamble, but I didn’t have much choices either, although I do agree that this was beyond reckless

  “Quiet down students!” instructor Inugami loudly ordered in a serious tone, that polite woman was gone, and it got replaced by a serious, cold and realistic instructor

  “Aren Valen, what you did may look like amazing, but in truth, that was the definition of recklessness, I’m afraid we can’t evaluate your test with a high grade” instructor Inugami coldly stated, and honestly I kind of agreed with her, I noticed that instructor Ignivar nodded in approval with his colleague, his face was more worried than serious though

  It was pointless to argue or add anything else so I just bowed down and left the ring

  “The next student please step forward, Kalen Arai!” instructor Inugami’s polite tone and manners returned as if that scolding never happened

  All in all, I believe instructor Ignivar took my side, as he was trying to talk to instructor Inugami during the other students tests but she didn’t listen to him so he gave up with a long sigh

  Thank you instructor Ignivar, but I don’t think it was necessary, even if my methods were reckless incarnated, I didn’t get injured at all and eliminated the goblins pretty quickly so I think instructor Inugami already decided to give me the minimum sufficient grade

  The next day, during lunch break, I heard students shouting and running to the academy’s bulletin board, yelling things like: “The tests results are out!” or something like that

  I followed the crowd to the bulletin board exposed in the academy’s entrance, and the tests results were indeed displayed there

  They were divided by year and class, ordered by grade from the lowest to the highest,

  Let’s see… class D… oh, there it is, what grades did I get? I looked for my name in my class’s list and apparently I wasn’t in the top 10…

  Well that was fine actually

  But I wasn’t even in the top 20 and we were 35 in class…

  Now I was getting a bit worried, but fortunately I found myself in the 26th position, not great but acceptable

  I had a 70/100 on the theoretical score and a 53/100 on the practical score

  I suppose I should’ve seen that coming I thought looking at the scores

  “Wow, did you see Arclight’s score?” I heard a student whisper to the guy next to him

  “Yeah, she got a perfect score on the practical test and 90/100 on the theoretical test… Zeruresu must be an amazing Armor” he replied

  Zeruresu… where did I hear that name?

  “Truly disappointing” someone behind me loudly stated, probably complaining about their scores, but it earned them a lot of surprised gasps for some reasons

  “Hey! I’m talking to you, Aren Valen”

  That caught me off-guard, I turned around and found a girl with long and beautiful silver hairs glaring at me, her looks were as beautiful as her hairs, but she seemed to be mad at me

  “Uuh… do I know you?” I quietly asked her

  “That doesn’t matter right now! You deeply disappointed me, you know”

  Honestly, I had no idea how I disappointed her,

  “I saw your performance at the exhibition match of the entrance ceremony and decided to keep an eye on you since you seemed like someone interesting but it appears I was wrong. The truth is, you’re nothing more than a gambler, and that Armor of yours, Unknown, is your favorite roulette”

  Her statement made a lot of whispers run wild between the students that were watching us, and the crowd only kept growing

  Great, just after students were starting to talk about me again I got involved in another gossip-fuel event

  However, there was something else bothering me at the moment,

  A gambler, huh… Those words stuck in my mind, if there was something that I hate the most, that was unpredictability, which extends to gambling as well

  “I suppose I understand your point, however, do not call me a gambler, I hate uncertainty” I replied to her in my usual monotone tone, keeping my cold and dead-fish look in my eyes,

  “Tsk, well then, can you prove me that you aren’t a gambler? I don’t think so. You know what, I’ll prove to you that you’re nothing more than a gambler that bets his life at each fight” she then pointed her finger at me with a fiery glare on her eyes

  “I challenge you to a duel”

  That made the crowd go wild, but I could hear most of them agreeing with everything that this girl stated,

  “And if I don’t want to?” I questioned, hoping to withdraw, I didn’t want more attention than this

  “Then you’ll be a gambler and a coward, the rumors will torment you until graduation” she answered as if stating a matter of fact

  Great, just what I want to avoid at all costs… guess I don’t have much choice then, people will forget about this… I hope

  “Fine, fine, I accept the challenge” I ended up answering to her challenge, which earned me another round of surprised gasps and a smile from this cheeky girl,

  “Very well then, I’ll see you in the academy’s arena after the lessons are over, you’d better not chicken out” she said before turning to leave

  “Wait” I called out to her, because I just realized that she omitted two important things,

  “First, what about the rules?”

  “Oh, I suppose you’re right, let’s have a normal Armor user vs Armor user duel: Armors are allowed, all kinds of attacks are allowed except cheap shots of course”

  The rules were now settled, but there was a second thing bothering me,

  “Okay I’m good with this rule set, but I wanted to ask another thing: what’s your name?”

  For some reasons, the entire crowd and the silver-haired girl fell silent for a few seconds, she shook her head and then sighed before answering

  “I’m Rhea Arclight, you’d better remember it, and while I’m at it, my Armor’s name is Zeruresu”

  Yeah, thought so I already had a feeling that she could’ve been Arclight, the so called ‘bearer of Zeruresu’, from her silver hairs and now I also remembered that I already caught a glimpse of her after the exhibition match of the entrance cerimony

  “If that’s all, I’ll be leaving now, see you after the lessons, gambler” she said that and walked away elegantly

  I too took my leave and started to head for my class, skillfully avoiding all the questions and conversations from the other students,

  Because I already knew that for at least this trimester, my peaceful school life was as good as gone,

  And once again, damn you Unknown