Chapter 107: Entering Orrey Cross Academy

Orrey Cross, not to be misunderstood with Orrey Cross Academy, was a small town located in the upper-tier area of Britain, specifically in the county of Buckinghamshire. It was created after renovating an entire town called Alysebury.

Besides a few historical statues that were kept behind after the renovation, there wasn’t much about the town that was of interest, except for the academy, of course, which was large enough to take up between a quarter and half of the town’s land.

Like a university, it had its own campus. It had its main building and several other buildings for different departments, a large park that looked like a forest, a fitness facility, a sparring range, and more; all enclosed inside tall stone walls wrapped around its perimeter, with only one entrance.

The gate.

[8:55 AM]

The gate was tall, towering over everyone, and made of concrete. And mounted right above the metal gate was the academy’s insignia — a gold heart with a silver cross over it.

Upon reaching the entrance and seeing it still closed, the five stopped and looked around before returning to talking with one another, with Nadia being an exception.

’It’s so tall...’ Nadia gazed at the gate with wide eyes before taking a look around.

Standing near the gate, she found dozens of other students like them, getting to know one another. From her estimation, there were more than a hundred students here, at the very least.

She then noticed something odd about a portion of the people.

Some of the people she saw had a white rectangular badge on the left side of their blazer, proudly showing it off to students without any badges.

This caused her eyes to narrow. ’Are those... their Stripe?’

After coming to that conclusion, she noticed other people with similar badges arriving, even spotting blue badges amongst the crowd, and even a red badge, albeit only one.

This proved her suspicion was right.

’Now that I’m looking carefully... these people look a bit older than me... maybe around one year.’

Could it be they were the Second Years?

Nadia twirled a lock of her hair nonchalantly as she deduced all of this, then stopped.

Placing a hand over the left side of her chest, she wondered, ’I wonder when I’m going to get my Stripe...’

As she was thinking this...

Creak~...

The imposing metal gates of the academy began to open.

A staff member, who was in charge of activating the mechanism to open the doors, stood at the front and called out to everyone:

"Alright, if you’re in your second year, please ignore what I’m about to say and head on in first!"

After he said that, the people Nadia had expected to be in their second year walked straight on in.

Once they were all gone, the staff member turned to them.

"Seeing as you’re still standing here, I assume you all are the first years. Alright, listen carefully. After you walk past this gate, go all the way straight down until you reach a scoreboard.

"The score for the people who have gone through the Combat exam will be displayed on the scoreboard, while those who went through the logistics exam will be taken somewhere else by one of the staff to get their results.

"Remember, go all the way down until you find a scoreboard. It’s out in the open and surrounded with staff, you can’t miss it."

After saying all that, he stepped out of the way for everyone to walk through.

...

The path was made of grey stone-brick and had two lanes of trees on either side, with benches occasionally placed between the trees, along with tall, black streetlights every now and then.

Eventually, they reached the scoreboard the man was talking about, and just like he said, it was surrounded by staff.

Their expressions were cold and professional even before they arrived. Soon, just as quickly as they came, students who completed their logistics exam were abducted away.

"Well, then, we better head off." Reuben bid them farewell, then turned to Cory. "Would you like to join me on my walk over, Miss Woods?"

"S-sure!" The timid girl nodded hastily and bid them farewell before walking alongside Reuben.

The three watched as the two walked away and glanced at a group of four people swiftly approaching them from the side, not even a moment after they left.

A tanned man with shoulder-length brunette hair and brown eyes made his way over to them. He had a scar on his cheek and had a rat-like air about him.

It was Elias, who was followed closely by Ross, Roxy, and Beatrice.

"Well, if it isn’t the rest of our frontline!" He shouted, wrapping an arm around Callum’s neck. "How’s it been ’free-spirited’ kid?"

Callum, feeling slightly embarrassed, chuckled. "Not too bad. How about you?"

"Besides the arm, really good! I haven’t lived in a place so nice before!" Elias laughed, then pointed at Ross with his thumb. "Sure, I gotta room with this guy, but that’s not a prob—"

Ross grabbed Elias by the scalp menacingly. "You make it sound like you don’t want to be roommates, I’m hurt, dear friend."

"ARGH—! O-ow! I didn’t mean it! It was a joke, damnit! Now let go!" Elias squealed.

While Elias struggled to free himself from Ross’ clutch, a tall, muscular woman with long, bushy orange hair walked over to Nadia and Seraphine, closely followed by a petite woman with black pigtails and velvet-coloured eyes.

It was Roxy and Beatrice.

"It’s nice to see you two again," Roxy greeted with a smile.

Beatrice popped out from behind her. "Yeesh! You two look really good in your uniforms."

Nadia nodded curtly to both of them, while Seraphine spoke up in a bubbly tone.

"It has been a while, and you look pretty too, Beatrice!"

"Hmph, obviously." Beatrice flicked her hair and turned away pompously, but made sure to keep one eye out to gauge Seraphine’s reaction.

Nadia watched as everyone conversed with one another and eyed their injuries.

Similar to her, Roxy and Elias had a cast around their arm, with Ross having one only around his fist. She then sighed, ’All of us were hurt pretty bad, it seems...’

After a while, all of them finally decided to make their way over to the scoreboard.

And when they did...

"O-our points...!"

... They were met with a shocking discovery.