Lemorth Hero Academy, Celtic Sea

I was standing at the back of a large mass of people that was slowly moving towards a large auditorium where the entrance ceremony was to be held. The island which Lemorth Hero Academy was built on was constructed almost twenty years ago just for the sake of this academy. Lemorth was some kind of famous hero that died, and the academy was founded in his honor. The island itself was huge — especially considering that it was man-made. From what I'd read it was the size of a small city, but I saw no signs of its unnaturalness. Who knows how they built this place.

Getting here, however, was incredibly simple. All I had to do was use the ticket I got with the acceptance letter to fly to London. The flight had been nerve-wracking — how those people were fine with helplessly being stuck in a flying piece of metal when there were monsters that could easily destroy it was incomprehensible to me — but when I arrived a few of the people responsible led me and other people that had been accepted to a "Portal Centre", where we then waited for a while to get into portals that sent us straight to the academy.

Because this world had portals. I don't get surprised too often, but even I wasn't expecting that.

As the crowd kept moving forward, I kept looking around me. There were a lot of trees, parks, and just nature in general. I didn't see any signs of monsters, despite the large mass of people. We were close to the ocean too, where I'd heard that a lot of monsters lived even before the citadels appeared and communications fell apart in my world. Either this world had a lot fewer monsters in it than I originally thought, or something was keeping them away. There were no visible defenses, however, and not a single person was carrying a weapon.

Whispering "Stats" under my breath, I looked over my growth again.

[Kim Hooper]

[Strength: 1.93]

[Stamina: 2.06]

[Speed: 2.18]

[Endurance: 1.92]

[Perception: 3.26]

[Magic Force: 0.39]

[Talent: The Watching Eye

Amongst all of the gods, Heimdall’s sight and hearing were unrivaled. Often referred to as “The One Who Watches,” he could hear as the grass sprouted and see past the horizon. Stern and resolute as he stood watch over the nine worlds, he was one whose gaze you did not want aimed at you. A part of his power now resides within you, enhancing your senses.

-Senses related to the perception attribute are slightly enhanced.

-For a short duration every day, you can focus your senses and pierce through the world with your sight. Overuse will cause backlash.]

There wasn’t much difference from one week ago. My perception had increased by 0.07, which I guess was decent progress, but the rest of my stats had only increased by 0.03 or 0.04 during this past week. And that was despite me having exercised quite a bit every day. My muscles were still aching slightly. If it continued in this manner it would take me over a year only to reach the point where the other students were supposed to be right now. And that’s assuming that I keep progressing like this, which I doubt I will. Frankly, having just one of these stats at 4 or above is probably superhuman, so I doubt achieving that’ll be as easy as just exercising hard for a year. There’s probably some other trick to it, no doubt involving magic, but for now, I had to make do with what I had. The Authority of Hope wasn't too transparent when it came to giving me answers, but hopefully, it would be able to help me with catching up with the others. Otherwise, my impending future here at the academy wouldn't be too comfortable.

I had considered declining the acceptance and spending time by myself to grow, but that came with a bunch of other problems. I'm still not entirely clear on how Hope dealt with things like money, food, living. Living at the academy lets me avoid most of that. And with the resources here, I'm bound to both grow and learn faster than I would on my own. Wasting this chance wasn't a good idea. And if it really turns out that I'm not cut out for this place, well — I could always just leave. Besides, it won't be worse than what I've been through before.

When the group of people ahead of me finally reached the auditorium and made it inside I found the first seat that I could find near the entrance and sat down. Consciously, I knew this place was safe. But that didn't matter.

Scanning the room, I observed the people, the entrances, and exits, even the support beams close to the ceiling. From a quick headcount, there were at least five hundred people here, but only four major ways to leave. The seats were placed tightly together so I had to scrunch up to avoid being too close to the persons next to me. If something were to happen I'd have to climb over them if I wanted to get out of here fast, and even then I'd quickly turn into a mess because of how many there were here. Even without the traps from the citadel that I'd grown used to, this place was a giant deathtrap. None of the people seemed bothered by it. They were all smiling and talking happily, wholly unprepared for anything bad to happen.

I guess that's the privilege of the people of this world. Naive, in a way, considering where we were. Was it really that unbelievable to expect this place to be attacked? Some monsters were intelligent, after all. And this place was a major hub for future heroes.

And what if, instead of a monster, one the people here were to go on a rampage? A threat wasn't always conspicuous enough to show it off to the world with large teeth.

Did people just put that much trust in the people responsible? Or was simply that they didn't care enough?

I shook my head as I kept looking around. Always have an escape route. That was one of my mottos. I wasn't planning to abandon it even if I could. I'd seen enough people die because they failed to consider that.

But the auditorium really was large. Over five hundred people filled it right now, but I'm sure it could fit up to a thousand. From what I'd read, that was about how many students the academy had, of which over three hundred were first years. The elites of their age group. The finest of specimens.

Honestly, even though I wasn't that special compared to some of the people I'd known, I'd still managed to survive where most people would have died. While luck did play a large part of it — you don't fight the kind of monsters that hunted us, you just run — one doesn't go through all that without developing a few skillsets and learning to adapt. I don't know how much use I was going to have out of most of that now, but I had seen some shit and long since grown used to seeing friends and family die. While Ken's death hit harder than most others, even the grief I'd felt from that had mostly passed by now. Say of that what you will.

I wasn't under any illusions. I knew that the fact that I was the only survivor of the citadel didn't mean that I was some kind of saint. In fact, it meant the exact opposite. I'd killed people to get here. Although I do think I was justified in doing it, that doesn't mean that all of them were bad people. It was simply a matter of survival. I didn't like it, but it was a must for my friends and me to survive.

Not that any of them did, in the end.

Seeing the smiling, unconcerned, faces of all the people here, all these people who haven't had to live through all the death and suffering, the hell, that I did, made me clench my fists. Thinking about it, they really hadn't done anything to deserve it. Not me and everyone from my world — or these people. Despite that, these people got to sit here and be glad about being accepted to this place while everyone I knew was dead. What was I to feel except envy and anger?

But the world's unfair like that. And it's unfair of me to be mad at everyone in this world because of it. I knew that, but it still annoyed me.

“Greetings, students. Welcome to the Lemorth Institute of Monster Subjugation.”

A deep voice resounded throughout the auditorium, pulling me out of my melancholy. The chattering inside stopped immediately and everybody focused their attention on a stage on the other side of the auditorium. On the stage stood a podium with a large, wide-shouldered man was. He had short grey hair, looking to be somewhere in his fifties, and sported a warm smile.

“I am the headmaster of this academy, Lloyd Massey. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

I could hear whispers all across the room at his introduction.

"It's really him!"

"He's seventy years old?!"

"A real champion-ranked hero. Amazing!"

He’s someone famous, then? The champion-ranked heroes were amongst the most powerful heroes in the world, that much I knew. My research had told me that there had only existed 109 champion-ranked heroes altogether, and only 81 of those were still alive. Considering that there were a couple million or so heroes in this world, being amongst the 81 strongest was impressive.

"I'd like to begin this speech by congratulating all of you, the pride and hope of our future heroes. Congratulations, and thank you, for being accepted and joining us here at the Lemort Institute of Monster Subjugation. Words cannot describe the warmth I feel from watching your bright eyes here today, knowing that each one of you will grow into becoming a pillar of our society."

After his introduction, the headmaster began about the academy and its history, the duty of us as the students, and the future of us as heroes. He kept on talking about all kinds of things for almost thirty minutes before he finished. Before continuing, the headmaster briefly left the stage to allow the first year with the highest exam scores to take the stage and introduce himself.

He was tall, with spiky black hair, and a handsomely bright face. Introducing himself as Jean Bradford, he began some speech about the unity and righteousness that was needed from us as heroes. While I did listen, I didn't pay much attention to the contents of what he said. He seemed like a decent enough fellow. At first glance at least. You never know what hides beneath though.

For the record, I’d cut my hair now. Hope must have tried to be as exact with my body’s appearance as possible because when I first got here, my hair went all the way down to my shoulders, just like it had in my world. In the citadel, I often lacked anything to efficiently cut it and had mostly given up on it. However, right now I kept my hair short.

Jean kept on talking for a while, and when he was done the headmaster once again took the stage to finish his speech. He then announced the different classes and their teachers. I was in class 1. Coincidently, it was the same class as Jean Bradford.

Not long after that, the ceremony was done and all of the students rose from their seats to leave the auditorium. I was amongst the first to make it out of the building. From there, we were supposed to find our different homerooms. There were posters placed all around the campus showing the way, so I didn't have any trouble finding it. I was also the first student to arrive in class 1's homeroom.

They hadn't mentioned anything about specific seats so I sat down at a desk right next to the entrance, which was at the front of the room. Most other students weren't too far behind, but while I was waiting I started fidgeting with the student-issued smartwatch. I wanted to look up more about this Lloyd Massey.