The Homeroom Teacher and Class Subjects

We returned to the classroom and took our respective seats. Each desk had a paper with a name written on it, so I immediately knew which seat was mine.

My seat was at the very back of the second row from the hallway. Ronnie was to my right, and that unpleasant guy was to my left. Sitting next to someone like him was the worst.

There was a basket-like container attached to the side of the desk, so I put my bag in it.

After killing time by talking with Ronnie for a while, a teacher entered the classroom.

He was a well-built man who looked to be in his forties. His skin was tanned, and he clearly had the air of an athlete.

"Everyone's here! I'm Steve Aubrey, and I've been assigned as your homeroom teacher. Call me Steve-sensei. I teach swordsmanship. I look forward to working with you."

He seemed like a rather overbearing person. It made sense that he was a swordsmanship teacher. Since he had a family name, he was probably a noble, but he didn't seem noble at all. His clothes were made of high-quality fabric, but they were simple and easy to move in.

"At this school, teachers are considered higher in status than students, so you should use polite speech with your teachers regardless of their social status. Teachers generally aren't expected to humble themselves before students. Well, that's often just a formality, though."

Was it really all right for a teacher to say that it was only a formality? Still, I liked his honesty. Maybe I had gotten lucky with this teacher.

"There's quite a bit I need to explain, but let's start with introductions. When I call your name, introduce yourself."

We began introducing ourselves in order of social status. The children of knight-ranked nobles introduced themselves one after another.

They freely mentioned their names and things they were good at, but there was no way I could remember all of that. I had thought the same thing in Japan, but self-introductions were not very meaningful. I gave up trying to remember them after the third person.

Instead, as I observed the children, I noticed that many of them had sturdy, well-trained physiques. Were knightly titles usually awarded for martial prowess? If so, it made sense that they would teach their children swordsmanship. Every now and then, there was a thin, pale-skinned child, so perhaps that child's parent had received a knightly title for research or something other than martial prowess.

There was also a difference between the sexes. As expected, more of the girls seemed not to train their bodies. However, several of them looked obviously strong, so they were probably aiming to become female knights.

Of course, this was all just speculation on my part.

While I was making these speculations, it was finally the turn of the guy sitting to my left. At last, I would learn his name.

"Next, Salim."

"Yes. My name is Salim. I am the eldest son of Vauclair Merchant House. I am good at arithmetic. If you need anything, please consider patronizing our merchant house. I look forward to working with you."

So his name was Salim. And was he really advertising his family's business here? He certainly never changed. His smile was so different from the disdainful expression he had shown me earlier that I almost wondered if it was the same person. Maybe he was talented as a merchant.

"Next, Leon."

It was finally my turn. I wasn't very good at this sort of thing.

"Yes. My name is Leon. I'm good at arithmetic and magic. I look forward to working with you."

Good. I had gotten through it without standing out. With this sort of thing, it was best to finish as inconspicuously as possible.

"You're the last one, Ronnie."

"Y-yes!"

Ronnie was so nervous that he rushed everything. The moment he stood up, he bumped into his chair, then the desk, making a loud noise and panicking even more. Sigh... He was standing out like crazy.

"Hey, calm down. All you have to do is introduce yourself."

At Steve-sensei's words, Ronnie seemed to regain a little of his composure.

"Y-yes... I'm sorry... My name is Ronnie. I look forward to working with you."

He said only that in a small voice before sitting down. Would he really be able to manage from here on with a personality like that?

"All right, that concludes our introductions for now. You're all classmates, so get along from here on out."

I had no idea how we were supposed to get along. This class only had children of knight-ranked nobles, so I thought it might be better than the others, but there was still a huge difference between having a title and not having one.

Since knight-ranked nobles were at the bottom of the nobility, some of them might think they could lord it over commoners and take out their everyday frustrations by bullying them. Maybe this class wasn't any better at all...

Even the commoners didn't seem likely to get along, so the road ahead looked incredibly difficult.

"For today, we'll finish after I explain the classes and hand out the textbooks. First, you'll generally take your classes here with your own class. You'll have two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon, for a total of four classes a day. The last of those four classes will be a joint class attended by all the first-year classes. Recovery Day is a day off, so you'll have classes four days a week. Two of those days will be swordsmanship, with one day each for magic and dance. Swordsmanship and dance are mandatory, but magic is mandatory only for those with a magic capacity of four or higher. Anyone who doesn't have magic class will have free time."

So Recovery Day was a day off. That meant the schedule followed a cycle of four days of school and one day off.

There were quite a lot of joint classes, too. Those would be the times I had to be most careful. Still, I was a little excited about swordsmanship class.

"All right, I'll hand out the weekly schedule. It would have made things easier if I had handed this out first."

They had a schedule? If he had handed it out at the beginning, his explanation would have been much easier to understand.

The schedule listed the days of the week, times, and class subjects. According to it, each class lasted an hour and a half, with twenty-minute breaks between classes and a ninety-minute lunch break.

The lunch break was pretty long.

The joint classes were apparently swordsmanship, magic, swordsmanship, and dance, in that order. The other regular classes included subjects that didn't sound too difficult, such as arithmetic, reading and writing, history, and etiquette, as well as subjects like economics and politics that would be taught at a university in Japan. There was even a magic item class. I thought magic items couldn't be made without a large magic capacity, so was everyone taking that class?

Also, these subjects had probably been automatically translated as economics and politics, but I wondered how difficult they really were. Wouldn't it be difficult to graduate in one year without taking the studies extremely seriously? I had to work hard...

"You'll generally have classes according to this schedule for the entire year, so don't lose it. If there are any changes, you'll be notified by the day before. Also, I'll come to the classroom every morning about twenty minutes before the first class to take attendance and make announcements, so be here by then."

It was like the morning homeroom period we had in Japan. I felt a little excited, as if I had become a student again! Well, I really was a student again, just in another world.

"Does anyone have any questions?"

"Yes. If we need to change for classes such as swordsmanship, where should we change?"

"Oh, right. I forgot to explain that. The Training Grounds have a large changing room. There are also individual lockers with locks, so you can change there and put your belongings in your locker."

"I understand. Thank you very much."

A serious-looking, rather stiff girl sitting in the very front seat had asked the question. It was nice that there were lockers with locks. If I left my belongings lying around, they would surely be stolen or tampered with immediately.

"Any other questions?"

No one asked anything. Well, questions tended to arise once you actually started living here.

"Well, ask me if you have any questions later. I'll come to the classroom every morning. Now, wait here while I go get the textbooks and locker keys."

With that, Steve-sensei left the classroom. I was actually looking forward to getting the textbooks.

As I waited for the teacher with growing anticipation, Ronnie spoke to me in a quiet voice.

"Leon, do you think I've been singled out?"

"Hmm? You mean because of your introduction?"

"Yes."

"You did stand out, but I think you'll be fine. It wasn't that bad. Still, you should act a little more confidently. You passed the exam and earned your place here."

"That's true. I want to do that too, but I can't help getting nervous... I'd never even met a noble before now."

He had a point. Meeting nobles for the first time at the Royal Academy would be incredibly nerve-racking. There were nobles everywhere, and thinking about living among them like this for a long time would make anyone nervous.

I had gotten used to it somehow, since I had met the people of the Townsend ducal family and members of the royal family.

How could I help him relax? In Japan, people said to imagine everyone as potatoes, didn't they? And there was also something about writing the character for 'person' on your hand and swallowing it.

"I've heard that imagining everyone around you as potatoes will keep you from getting nervous."

"Potatoes...? Why potatoes?"

"I don't know."

"Anyway, I'll give it a try."

"Yeah. Also, apparently you can write the character for 'person' on your hand and swallow it."

"Write the character for 'person' on my hand?"

"Yes. You write it like this, then pretend to swallow it. I don't know whether it actually works, though."

"I'll try it for now."

"Good luck."

Ronnie wrote the character for 'person' on his hand and pretended to swallow it over and over. He was muttering 'potatoes' under his breath, too. I might have made him look even more suspicious...

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, Ronnie.

A little while later, the teacher returned. He was carrying a ring of keys, and several staff members carrying textbooks were behind him.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. I'll hand these out now, so come up to the front when I call your name."

We received our locker keys and textbooks. The textbooks weren't very thick, but there was one for every subject. This was the first time since coming to this world that I had held so many books at once.

"The textbooks will be collected when you graduate, so take good care of them. If you lose one or damage it so badly that it can no longer be used, you'll have to pay one silver coin per book, so be careful."

We had to return the textbooks? That made sense. Since there was no printing technology, preparing this many books every year must be difficult.

They probably replaced several damaged books each year. And those new textbooks were probably handed out to the students in Class A. The textbooks I had received were already fairly worn.

"That's all for today. School starts tomorrow, so don't be late. All right, you're dismissed."