The statement, although announced in a cheerful tone, put a damper on the assembly of students. An icy chill ran along everyone’s chin as they looked again at each other, this time to gauge the competition.

“To reflect this, the school itself is organized around this topic. Each one of you will be given an artificial rank, mirror of the rank you could have if the school ended now. After the first courses and lessons, you will be able to fight to earn a better rank. As the available ranks are set, it means you will fight for someone else’s rank and switch with them if you win.”

Rym took a quick break to catch her breath, more to sound dramatic rather than for necessity and continued.

“One’s rank affects what one can do inside the school. In the army, a higher ranked officer enjoys greater benefits than a lower one. Here, a higher rank grants you access to more specialized trainings, better resources and individual lessons. Whereas a lower rank only has access to the basic courses.”

She let the information sink into everyone’s head before pursuing her talk.

“For now, there will be no competition, as we wish to give you time to adapt to your new environment. You will not have to fight today for your rank. And nobody can steal it from you tomorrow. You have a few weeks of training before that can happen.”

A sigh of relief rang along the students. Alas, professor Rym was not done.

“As you still need a rank to start with, for now and until the beginning of the competition you will be ranked according to your nobility.”

Some complaints arose within the tables but were silenced the next instant with a single glare from the professor.

“Relying on one’s nobleness should never be abused. In fact, you must never bet on it. However, it’s undeniable that a greater noble has more connections and influence. And he can use them to enhance his own conditions and opportunities. That’s why, as I said, a head start will be given according to your nobleness.”

She scanned the crowd, but no one dared to speak this time, so she continued.

“In this place, your rank is displayed by where you seat. The closer you sit to the building behind me,” she pointed behind her with her thumb, “the higher your rank.”

At this moment, Mahon realized the tables were not parallel to the platform. In fact, they were tilted to the side and positioned so that not one seat was the same distance away from the building. The second thing he noticed was that he had the farthest seat of all.

“From lowest to highest, here are the ranks available for your group.” She took a paper out of her pocket, unfolded it, and read aloud. “10 First Red.” She raised her head and gestured to men waiting at the side.

With quick steps, the men approached Mahon’s table and gave each of the students a red badge with “First Red” written in silver letters. It was the lowest rank one could graduate with from an officer school. First Red was just above First Blue, the lowest rank ever. The best warrior graduating from a warrior school would probably be First Red, while others would start at First Blue. It was the huge difference between an officer school and a warrior school: the best rank for one was the worst for the other.

Rym continued to list the available ranks while the men were distributing the corresponding badges.

“96 First White.”

“72 First Green.”

“20 First Yellow.”

“3 First Black.”

There was a small silence after the last announcement, but it was soon broken by multiple gasping sounds. The young man closest to the building had not been given a badge yet. That meant…

“It’s a rare event to have a commander badge available from graduating school. But as there are many talented people among you, we sought to reward the best among the best with an amazing opportunity. That’s why we made an exception today, for your group, and we have a Last Green badge available.”

Rym herself approached the badgeless young man and gave him a green badge. On it, the words “Last Green” were written with golden letters. Then she returned behind the lectern and clapped her hands once to get everyone’s attention back to her.

“Now that the distribution has been completed, you will be led to your accommodations for the night. Inside, you will find all the information about what to expect tomorrow for your first day among us. Follow me.”

After walking for half an hour while the group shrank with every new house they passed, Mahon and the nine other students with a First Red badge were led to a dual residence with two separate buildings. The left had been assigned to the four women, while the right one belonged to Mahon and the five other men. They exchanged a quick look and each group went to his own facility.

The men’s house was large enough to host twenty Nightmare soldiers and it would still be pretty comfortable. Yet, it was a long shot from the individual lodgings and bigger mansions they had seen on the way.

It was cruel to have them pass every other's housing before reaching their own. And they would have to walk past them twice every day. Once to go to the training fields or the classrooms and then another on the way back to their house. Maybe it was supposed to encourage them to surpass themselves and reach a higher rank, but all in all, Mahon found this harsher than it needed to be.

Inside the house there was a spacious living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and... a dormitory. It meant Mahon would have to share his bedroom with the other guys as long as he stayed here. He chose a bed at random and unpacked his stuff, mostly clothes. He hadn’t needed anything while in Nightmare, so he was rather frugal concerning his physical owning.

Mahon stared at the other young men with whom he shared the room. After Rym’s talk, he was confused whether he should consider them his friends or his enemies.

Comrades not friends. I just need them to go back to my Nightmare’s strength… Anyway, introductions are required.

“Hello, my name’s Mahon. Nice to mee…”

“Of course! Even the commoner is in my room...” One of them interrupted.

It was the man who had been the leader of their table, with the seat closest to the building. He was slim with a strong musculature and short haircut in the usual military style. His face was sharp and thin and his electric blue eyes intensified the icy tone with which he continued.

“Don’t talk to me, don’t slow me down and everything will be fine until I move out of this farce.”

In the stunned silence that followed his fast tirade, he left the room without another word. The weird moment continued for a few seconds after his departure until another one spoke.

“What an introduction! Nice to meet you, Mahon. I’m Zac Cranelis. I don’t care if you are a commoner, since it seems my nobility means shit in this place anyway. Besides, we are all stuck in the same boat.” He said, looking at all of them. “If we fight among ourselves we stand no chance of ranking up.”

Mahon nodded as an invisible weight he hadn’t felt before disappeared from his shoulders.

There is at least one reasonable person here. Thank you Fada.

And somehow, with his speech, Zac had defused the tension. The three other boys presented themselves as Allen, Kali and Wyrran. Soon, they chitchatted about their dreams of being a renowned officer and the unjust situation they started school with.

All of them had straight forward personalities, and it had been their goal to enter the Pine Hill Officer Institute for years. As they were lesser nobles, they had to work harder than the others to get there. Mahon understood that the school being the best in Ratho there were lots of fights to be admitted. There were two ways of getting inside. The first one was through hardship and sheer determination, while the other required a simple letter of recommendation.

Needless to say that with their low nobility, the First Red badges had to prove their worth on multiple occasions to enter the school. On the other hand, most of the high nobles only needed to say their names to be allowed in. Now that Mahon’s roommates had succeeded to enter the institute, they were super excited and talked non-stop about it.

“There is even a commander badge available for us! We need to work even harder for this opportunity!”

“By the way, how come they gave a Last Green badge? It’s quite the position among commander badges! I thought they would only offer a Last Blue badge. But they skipped blue, red and white and went straight to Last Green! It’s incredible!”

“But that’s not how the rank works, Allen.” Zac voiced for everyone as they were all eyeing the man with surprise.

“Really? I didn’t know!”

“You trained for years to enter this institute and you don’t know about the rank order? But everyone knows that!” Wyrran exclaimed.

“But it’s just ranks, right? No need to know until I’m here myself!” Allen retorted.

“Ah… Well, let me explain.” Zac intervened. “The first six ranks go blue, red, white, green, yellow and black. But the last six ranks actually go green, yellow, black, white, red and blue. So Last Green is the lowest rank among commander ranks.”

“How come the order of the ranks change? It’s nonsense!”

“I don’t know, it’s just like that.”

“Military ranks are quite a mess but there is an explanation behind it.” Mahon interfered. “I heard it has to do with the Council and the idea of a perfect meeting. When you first start an important discussion, you go Blue, Red and White. Blue first means order to set the scope of the meeting. Then Red to get rid of unnecessary emotions that may cloud your judgment. Finally, White, to provide the neutral information that everyone needs to know before starting the actual discussion.”

“Oh, right! I’ve heard of this before. Then you start solving your problem with Green to generate new ideas and Yellow and Black to weigh the good and the bad, isn’t it?”

“Precisely, Zac. Green, Yellow and Black form a cycle you use multiple times to evaluate your different solutions. And when you reach the last cycle of discussion, you need to decide and close the discussion. So you use the first Colors but in reverse. White to resume what had been said, Red to say what you feel about the solutions and Blue to conclude the meeting.”

“Ah, I see…, it makes sense. Well, how come you know all that, Mahon? Have you used it before?”

“Uh…” Mahon hesitated as he didn’t want to explain too much of his life. Just being a commoner had already pissed off a noble and he didn’t want to add his Nightmare past to that. Zac seemed to take the hint and gestured for Mahon not to speak, but Allen interrupted.

“You assisted a Council? You were in the military?! You fought Amentiae before??!”

“Don’t bother him, Allen.” Zac intervened, “If he doesn’t want to tell, let him be. Everyone has his secrets.”

“Oh, sorry, Mahon. I got over excited again… But I want to know about Amentiae!”

Mahon gestured to him that it was alright and Allen continued on how Amentiae were super interesting with the same enthusiasm. Mahon had dodged personal inquiries regarding his past before, letting them know that he would rather not talk about it.

Most of the time, he listened to their excited exchanges except for some words here and there or when they asked him a direct question. The situation was weird with him being with young nobles. His body was much older than theirs as they looked to be in their fifties or sixties, whereas he was closer to two hundred.

But Mahon’s memory was only twenty years old, while they remembered much more than him. Nobles being nobles, they probably used no-dream pills since its apparition and they were at least thirty memory old. And, of course, they had spent all their time in Ratho while he had only been in Nightmare.

Altogether, despite being the physically oldest, he was in fact the youngest and the least experienced regarding the world they lived in. It would change once they dived into war topics, but for now, while listening to them, Mahon felt like a little boy trying to follow the conversation between his big brother’s friends.

The small talk went on for a big part of the evening, only stopping when they all agreed to go to bed as they needed to be ready for tomorrow and their first day of training. Wishing a good dreamless night to each other, they took their no-dream pill and went to bed. At the scene, Mahon found himself frowning and could not resist asking.

“You realize the Nightmare war is over, do you? Why take a no-dream pill then?”

The four men looked at Mahon with big round eyes, astonished.

“You don’t use no-dream pills?” Zac voiced for all of them.

Mahon shrugged, but before he could say something, Zac seemed to realize something.

“Ah, sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude. I forgot you were a commoner.” He coughed. “I can give you a no-dream pill if you want. I have plenty to spare. Tomorrow, the training begins and you should get a good night of sleep. My father always says you can’t have a proper rest in Nightmare. Here, take this one. No need to thank me, we are roommates after all.” Zac concluded.

Mahon took the pill and went back to his bed, thinking. Should he try it? He had not got the opportunity before but, deep inside, he knew he had just postponed the day he would have to leave Nightmare. And now that he was faced with the choice it felt harder than he thought.

I should stop going to Nightmare, anyway. I live in Ratho now.

It much sounded like a weak attempt to convince himself and Mahon hesitated, looking at the small pill in his hand. After long minutes, he finally took a deep breath, gulped the pill and waited for sleep to come.