Hopefully a double release today? We'll see.

In a classroom only containing ten students, three more stood in the front of the room next to a familiar teacher.

The students were none other than Erebus, Tear, and Vyne while the teacher, much to Erebus’ surprise, was Dissolve!

One elf seated in the back spoke with surprise in her voice, “Three transfer students and suddenly a new teacher? Is something going on?” She turned to the brunette next to her. “Do you know?”

“It’s happened multiple times before, actually,” the brunette said. “It’s rare in the Myth class, but our school has sudden staff changes a lot because all of them are famous and still get commissioned while many students from around the world come at all times of the year.”

The elf leaned back. “Oh...”

“Introduce yourselves,” Dissolve said in a quiet voice that no one was able to hear except for those closest to him. His eyes looked like they were ready to slam shut any moment and he looked ready to collapse, so many of the people in the room were worried for his safety.

Tear stepped forward first. “My name is Tear, uh,” Tear stammered as she had forgotten the last name she had been given. “Just call me Tear, that’s fine. I... yeah, call me Tear.” She stepped back, a heat coming onto her face. How embarrassing! She had shown such a disgraceful sight to Lord Erebus. She couldn’t help but spare a glance at him to see if he was giving her a disgusted stare.

Instead, he had stepped up to address the class. “My name is Erebus Atheajtoea.” Likewise to Tear, he had forgotten his last name, so he spewed out something that sounded remotely close to it, but he had spoken too fast, so the letters were jumbled together. “Pleased to meet you all!”

The last member of the three stepped up, and he did not disappoint, “My name is Vyne Ryur, I’m humbled to have been accepted into this school, even more so, this class.” He offered a dazzling smile that captured the hearts of those that viewed it.

“That’s,” Dissolve paused, his eyes snapped shut before opening again, “good. I mean, find an empty seat.”

Dissolve raised his arm to point at the multiple empty desks before his arm came falling back down as if it had been broken. It thumped uselessly at his side and his head started to tilt back along with his body as if he was going to fall. There were a few minutes of complete silence as everyone watched him struggle to regain his balance.

Erebus restrained himself from sighing heavily at his fellow dragon. As per usual, Dissolve was incredibly lethargic enough to even rival a certain someone (Massath).

Even I can’t compete with that... Erebus thought such a thing as he watched Dissolve from the corner of his eye.

The three found empty seats, of course, right next to each other. Tear started to move her desk closer to Erebus’ but was glared at by Vyne, so she stopped.

“Teacher,” the black-haired young man in front of Tear spoke up. “Are you not going to introduce yourself? You’re new, too.”

“Ah...” Dissolve looked frightened, he stared straight at Erebus, a helpless expression in his eyes. “Erebus, you do it.”

“I don’t know you,” Erebus said tightly.

Dissolve remembered that the two weren’t supposed to be acquainted, meaning he’d have to deal with this on his own. Dissolve readied himself, this was it!“I’m the Myth class’ new homeroom teacher, my name is...”

Everyone was waiting for him to continue speaking, but he didn’t.

“I forgot.”

An unanimous face-palm occurred. Someone even muttered under their breath, “Are you serious?”

“You can just call me Mr. V, I guess. Anyway, today there was supposed to be a school-wide live combat simulation, but apparently it was postponed, instead, today will be a training day,” Dissolve explained, his words at the end began to slur so it was hard to understand what he was saying.

“Teacher, what are we supposed to do about the three transfers?” a beastman with the head of a grey wolf and the body of a hairy human asked, he had an imposing presence, and Erebus was able to see that he had an excellent mana flow, he might even prove to be a challenge for some of the low-ranked members of his castle. Someone like Dark Mist...

Erebus restrained himself from smirking, everyone in this classroom seemed to be extraordinary, actually, even though the qualifying tests were easy, they managed to get students of this quality. He was interested in seeing what the senior Myth class looked like.

“What about them?” Dissolve tilted his head.

The wolfman frowned. “We’ve already set up our formations for the simulation that was supposed to occur today, changing it so suddenly after we’ve been practicing for weeks will lead to problems. I propose that the transfer students sit out for this round and watch so that they can get a basic grasp of what this school is like. I think it’s a little bit too much to ask of them to participate in something they had practically no time at all to prep for.” The wolfman turned out to be a good guy. He was looking out for the transfer students.

“That...” Dissolve looked at Erebus directly in the eye. “That shouldn’t be a problem. Don’t worry about the transfer students, they’re good enough to be put into Myth class, so they should have the skill set to adapt to a situation like this.”

The wolfman exhaled. “If they’re okay with it, then I do not mind. Mr. V is correct, the caliber of Myth class students is something to take into consideration.”

“We’re fine with it,” Erebus said. “Thank you for your concern. What’s your name?”

“Wolf.”

Erebus’ smile twitched. “I hope we can become friends, Wolf.”

Wolf nodded his head firmly. “Then, let’s go over our battle plans once again, now factoring in Erebus, Vyne, and Tear.” He stood up to his full height which was nearly as tall as Magnus and made his way to the front of the room.

Dissolve sat down in his seat and rested his head on his desk, watching the students get to work.

Apparently, Wolf had been chosen as the team captain as he was considered to be the strongest in the freshman Myth class and among the strongest in the entire school. Not only that, he was a genuinely good person with a keen battle sense.

“I kind of want him to be my subordinate,” Erebus murmured, his greed to monopolize the strong to work under him flared up. Wolf was sure to be well-liked within Erebus’ castle, perhaps later Erebus could recruit him.

Wolf’s onyx eyes turned to the three who had been silently observing them as they went over their previous plan. “Pardon my rudeness, but to put it bluntly, what use are you three in battle? Even though there’s a no-kill rule, anything that can be fixed with healing magic is allowed, so it gets rather bloody on the battlefield. I’ve heard that there have been times where the King class was able to overwhelm the Myth class and nearly bring them to their knees.

“Even if we’re individually strong, most of us have never been in an actual fight before, so a lot of times, the newbies will freeze up and end up costing the match for the team.”

Tear ground her teeth together. “Just put us in a team together like you’ve done the others, we will not fail you.”

“We were split into teams of five, so a team of three is a little bit lacking. Like I said, the other classes are not to be underestimated.”

“Please do not worry,” Vyne said. “We don’t plan on fighting on the frontlines that much, but rather, we want to gain some experience from watching you guys.”

“So you plan on staying back?” Wolf folded his arms. “I suppose you can just observe from up-close... Is everyone else fine with them forming a group of three?” He looked around the room as everyone raised their hand in agreement. “Then, let’s move to the practice field.”

...

While the students were practicing out in their own private sect, Erebus stood next to Dissolve who was sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating bread he had whipped out from nowhere.

“So, why are you here?” Erebus asked Dissolve. “I wasn’t told that you’d be coming.”

“I decided this on my own,” Dissolve said. “I get to see a lot of students because of my job as a teacher, I arrived here a few days before you did, but I didn’t get assigned a class until now. From what I’ve seen, there are a few possible candidates.”

“Oh? Who are they?”

Dissolve shook his head. “I don’t know their names, I’ve been trying to get some information, but if I poke around too much, I might get noticed. The ones I felt were strange from the Myth and King classes for juniors and seniors.”

“This may prove to be more difficult than I thought, I will not have many opportunities to speak to upperclassmen.” Erebus scratched his head. "I'll try my best..."

Dissolve responded, “If you managed to get on the student council...”

“Declined. I have no intention of staying here that long. My only job is to find those who are strange, I don’t actually have to get to know them. Hopefully, we’ll be able to procure specimen to bring back to my castle to investigate, then I’ll send the information,” Erebus said the last part in Dissolve’s head in case Wolf heard them. The chances of that were low since the students were talking loudly amongst themselves, but he definitely didn’t want the word “specimen” to reach Wolf’s ears.

Dissolve chewed on his food and nodded his head, he had lost the motivation to speak now.

“Anyway, these kids are interesting, I wasn’t expecting there to be so much talent in this place. I suppose their arrogance isn’t for baseless.”

Dissolve turned his gaze to Wolf.

“Mmm, especially that one, I want to see what his skill can amount to. They’re just play fighting so I can’t tell anything.”

As Erebus said, they weren’t even trying to hit each other, at the current moment, they were just going through battle formations.

Wolf was the head of one of the squads while the black-haired man who had spoken out earlier in class named Rune was the head of the other squad.

Tear and Vyne were standing off to a distance watching Erebus and Dissolve rather than the mock battle. The two of them only knew Frize, so they were wondering who Dissolve was. Neither of them had the gall to go up and question Erebus’ acquaintance, so they speculated among themselves. It was a rare occasion to see them getting along.

“Another old friend? That wouldn’t be surprising. Lord Erebus actually knows a lot of influential people, I’m sure this is just another one of them,” Tear concluded. “He seemed kind of annoyed when he saw Mr. V, so that must be it.”

“I don’t think his name is Mr. V,” Vyne said. “I’m really curious to who he really is.”

Tear straightened out her back. “I’m going to find out!” Trying to seem as casual as possible, Tear made her way over to Dissolve and Erebus, Vyne following close behind her.

“Ah, it’s Tear and Vyne,” Erebus remarked. Dissolve looked up at the two newcomers, his bread remained in his mouth as he bit off sections and chewed, making him resemble a rodent eating.

Tear cleared her throat. “Lo-... Erebus, you and Mr. V seem to be very close. Have you two possibly met before?”

The sounds from the training going on behind them filled the gap of silence between them. Dissolve and Erebus just looked at Tear and Vyne.

“I just thought he seemed like a fun person,” Erebus said. “So I wanted to talk to him.”

The reason Erebus was lying to his subordinates is because apparently Rolut didn’t even want them to know. The Dragon Council’s identity had always been shrouded in mystery, barely anyone knew what they looked like and what their names were, and Rolut wanted to keep it that way. Also, if it was overheard that Dissolve and Erebus were dragons, there was no way it would end well, so they were prohibited from speaking about it directly.

Still, Erebus didn’t mind misleading his servants because it was rather amusing to see them squirm since they knew he was lying, but they couldn’t call him out on it. Even Vyne twitched a little, his eyes darting back in forth. It was such a blatant lie, but neither of them could do anything about it!

If Tear knew that Erebus had been enjoying her discomfort, she would have exploded with pleasure and excitement.