The bell rang throughout the campus of the Academy, signalling the start of another day of school. It has been five years since his first day here. However, like he had expected, the first five years were filled with boring lectures, which were of no appeal to him.

However, this year, he will be given the opportunity to venture out of the city and partake in quests and explorations. In fact, he was in dire need of an opportunity to make money. Even though Laurina and Redgilus has been able to accept quests and hunt monsters, the money they had earned still was only enough for them to do maintenance on their gear, stock up on curatives, and barely support the three of them and Juliana. The first day of his Fifth Grade at the Royal Academy, Loganel only has ten Silver left now, which will have to last if they were to survive. Therefore, Loganel was still somewhat excited about heading to school despite his hatred of waking up early.

Last week, which was the first week of school, his homeroom teacher had informed of them of the new curriculum in which their schooling shall be based on, which consisted of one week of school, and another week of free time, which was designed so that students could partake on quests or head into the wilderness and hunt monsters, starting the the third week of school. From this year on, the amount of monsters a student hunts and quests completed will be used to determine whether or not they could move up to the next grade. Therefore, the school made sure that students will have enough time to partake on some of the more complicated and dangerous quests that are worth more points or just hunt monsters for points.

"Loganel," Loganel's homeroom teacher sighed as she lit a pipe and took a puff from it. She then blew out the smoke, creating a thin cloud of smoke in front of Loganel as he stood by her desk in the faculty office. "I thought that you would've been more like your sister. I didn't expect you to turn out like Redgilus."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Beras," Loganel apologized by blankly nodding his head.

"God," she sighed, "your brother just has sleepy looking eyes and that's bad enough. But yours?" she shook her head, tired from her scolding session, "why does it look dead?"

"I think it's natural," Loganel jokingly answered.

"You think this is time for you to be joking?" Ms. Beras slammed her hand down on the wooden desk, making Loganel wince.

That must've hurt, he thought. Man, I feel bad for you, desk.

"I've told you all on the first day of school to find people to form a party of at least three people," she continued, crossing her arms and legs. "But still to now, you've only got your maid who's willing to join, no excuse me, who's obligated to join you and form a party with you..."

"I'm sorry," Loganel apologized once again.

"Don't apologize to me," Ms. Beras brought one hand to her head as if she's in pain from a headache of some sort. "Until you get that third person, I can't let you head out."

"What?" Loganel suddenly started panicking, "then I wouldn't be able to make money and graduate. Don't you think it would suck if I starve?"

"No," Ms. Beras answered quickly, looking away from Loganel so as to not show any pity for the boy.

"Come on," Loganel begged.

"Don't you have any friends to join?"

"I ugh...Let me put it this way," Loganel said, "friends are for the weak."

"I guess that mean's no," Ms. Beras sighed once again, leaving her pretty face tired with fatigue. "How bout this," she suggested suddenly, "I pair you up with another student that wasn't able to form a party."

"Do I have a choice?" Loganel asked.

"Nope."

"I knew it," Loganel chuckled, feeling extremely tired deep within himself. "So who is it?"

"You'll see," Ms. Beras stood up from her chair and walked past the other work desks, which were used by the other teachers, and walked straight over to the door which she slid open. She stood there by the door, and with the pipe held in her mouth by her lips, gestured with her hands for Loganel to come with her.

With no options, Loganel reluctantly went over to her and followed her down the hall. The hallways were empty now since school was over about fifteen minutes ago already. Most people were either at their dorms doing homework, participating in school activities like their interested clubs, socializing with friends in Astalan, or just out the city and hunting monsters. Loganel wanted to be like them, but not be like them at the same time. He wanted to leave the city and hunt as well. However as for the socializing aspects, he wasn't the best at that.

"Here we are," she said, stopping in front of a classroom.

She then proceeded to slide open the door, revealing an empty classroom except for one desk which was occupied by a girl with long, flowing white hair that occasionally waved in the air as the soft wind entered through the opened windows.

The girl carefully used her left hand to gently fix her hair while staring at the piece of paper in front of her and using her right hand to write something. She gave Loganel a sense of chill. She was pretty, but her pretty face wasn't the most inviting of the bunch, giving off a feeling of being unapproachable by others. As if a queen of the frozen snow, she was cold.

"Ms. Beras," she said, sighing and placing her pencil on the paper to keep it from being blown off the desk by the wind.

"Hey Azura," Ms. Beras greeted her energetically. "I found you a party member."

"Oh?" the girl glanced around. "And where may that person be?"

"He's right here," Ms. Beras pointed at me.

"Oh I know," Azura nodded, "this must be a joke." she then pretended to smile. "But it's not the most funny one."

"This girl..." Loganel felt a rising fire of anger brewing up within him. The pretty girl before him was treating him as a joke, which irritated him to a large extent.

"All jokes aside," Ms. Beras sighed, "you will be in a party with him and his maid."

"His maid?" the girl tilted her head and started at Loganel with a judgmental and observant look. "He's a noble? Doesn't look like one."

"Yes," Ms. Beras appeared to be on the verge of breaking, sighing once more at the constant uncooperative behavior of her students. "He is a noble. But nothing like you." She then looked at Loganel with a tired look on her face, but the next second, it was gone. "I'll leave the details up to you guys then. I'll register the three of you as a party and that's that." After leaving those words, she immediately exited out of the room in order to maintain her sanity so that it would last until the winter break, leaving just Loganel and Azura in the classroom alone.

Loganel stood there awkwardly as the girl before him resumed her task of writing on the piece of paper, probably the day's homework. With nothing to do, Loganel stood there, staring at the girl, eyes fixed on the girl's hands as she wrote. His eyes then drifted up, past the thin, red ribbon bow tie that rested on top of her white school uniform, and on her face.

If she doesn't speak, she's quite pretty, Logan thought, blushing a little as he was entranced by her beauty.

"Are you done staring, Mr. Loganel Ainzloft?" the girl's words suddenly caught him off guard.

"How do you know my name?" Loganel asked, surprised at the sudden mentioning of his full name.

Azura sighed, but didn't take her eyes off of her paper nor stopping her writing. "If you haven't noticed one week into the school year already, I am your classmate."

"For real?" Loganel stared at her, shocked by the news that she had just informed him of. However, now that she's mentioned it, Loganel does remember seeing her in the classroom before.

"Maybe if you would've actually listened in class and socialize with people, you wouldn't be so isolated."

"I don't remember seeing you with many friends or any during break time."

"That is because I'm pretty."

"Wow," Loganel said in a sarcastically calm voice, "didn't know that being good-looking pushes people away."

"Of course you don't," the girl said, still keeping her eyes on the paper before her and continuing her writing. "You're not even good looking."

"I'd say that I'm above average."

"Are you trying to hit on me by making jokes?" she said in a cold voice. "I'm sorry but it doesn't seem to be working very well."

"Are you implying that my appearance is a joke?"

"Of course."

Loganel sighed as he tried to contain his agitation from showing. He laughed despairingly as he stared out the opened window at the blue sky outside that was once filled with so much promises. However now, he was wondering whether or not he would even be able to graduate.