Chapter 26. Aftermath 

“Ken. It's 8:30, we have to hurry, or the free breakfast will be over.” Indra said softly as the girls gathered outside Ken’s dorm room.

“KEN! GET UP!” Clare shouted while telling Indra that she needed to work on her voice.

Not long after, Ken opened his dorm room and greeted the six girls and the group headed down to the dining hall for breakfast on a typical Sunday morning.

As the group got down to the common room and headed out, they were greeted warmly by multiple groups of people along the way and the same happened when they reached the dining hall.

Two months had passed since the encounter with Luke and things had changed greatly for Ken and the girls. The very next day after they discussed Ken’s plan, the group started spreading the message, and it didn’t take long for the message to reach most of the commoners and nobles alike that the princess of Yelwraek was looking for servants.

On the surface, the story that was spread was that Clare was looking for servants but in reality, Ken and the girls were gathering information on which of the commoners were getting targeted, abused and who needed a helping hand.

Once most of those that needed help were identified, Ken got Clare to put on a dramatic show. Over the next few days, they gathered and interviewed most of the commoners in the first year in the dining hall right in front of the whole academy like it was a selection process but in secrecy, offered any and all that wanted the help, especially those that had already been taken advantage of and abused the opportunity to be affiliated with Clare.

Within a single week, almost all of the first-year low-class commoners that weren’t already connected with someone of status that protected them from Luke’s tyranny are now part of Clare’s newly established servant group where according to rumors that was spread around, she would use the servants however she pleased and whenever she wanted.

To the older students who aren’t in the know of what was going on between the first years, Clare’s behavior was dismissed as eccentric behavior of a powerful royal and since those with money and power are often known to behave sporadically due to boredom or for whatever else reason, no one really questioned why the princess of Yelwraek suddenly wanted a hundred servants and for what purpose she was utilizing those servants..

For Luke, Ken’s pray for peaceful resolution was answered, and he seemed to have hit the nail on the head that as long as Clare did not confront Luke directly and challenge his status, Luke made no effort of retaliation or wanting to escalate this issue any further over the commoners that are now no longer getting severely bullied or abused.

As Ken suggested, bullying the commoners served Luke no actual purpose and with Clare’s grand display, everyone is now aware of her claim to those commoners. For Luke to want and dispute that now, it would have led to a very public escalation and thankfully, Luke wasn’t about to do anything that pointless for no gain and Ken was finally able to breathe easy after more than a week of endless stress.

Turns out, Luke was the actual idiot after Ken and the girls dug around for more information. It would seem, during his break home, Luke happened to fall in love with a commoner girl but since she already had a lover, he got swiftly rejected and that rejection led to his sudden fury against the commoners in the academy and many people ended up getting hurt.

Unfortunately, because of his status, a simple foolish temper tantrum by him ruined the life of many students and those scars will remain no matter how much time passes. Thankfully, with Ken’s quick and decisive plan and Clare’s position, they were able to rescue the majority of the commoners before the situation got fully out of control.

For those that got saved before they had to drop out or getting taken advantage of, they became extremely grateful to Clare and even those that had to go through the most terrible ordeal are thankful that the worst is now behind them, and they can begin the journey of healing.

With the mess now behind them, Clare is now the savior for most of the commoners in the first year and they have all formed an alliance to support her. Every day, whenever Clare arrives at the dining hall, a few of the commoners would be on standby and when she gets her food, they would come and carry it to their desk just so the excuse of her needing the servants remained valid.

Other than adding Indra to their group, day to day life at the academy returned to pretty normal for Ken shortly after the execution of the plan. While he was the one that came up with the idea, nothing would have come out of it if it wasn’t for Clare.

While Ken wanted to make a bunch of friends when he first got selected to attend the academy. The amount of studying and training he needed to do to reach the goals he has set is taking up so much of his free time that he is glad those commoners had formed their own small groups of friends and while they interacted with Ken in a warm manner, it was not to a level where he would call any of them a friend.

As Ken got to know himself better, he realized just how selfish he can be sometimes. Not only was he more worried about his own growth more and did not want to be too attached to the now liberated commoners, the main reason why he did not want to get too close and interact with them on a personal level, is because of what they had to go through and he was simply too selfish to want to carry that burden.

Since he decided he would always be real and honest with his girls, he sat down with them one day and explained his feelings and his desires to stay ignorant of the details so he could forget about the ordeal as soon as possible and move on so he could continue enjoying his school life as much as he could instead of getting sidetracked by emotions like anger and pity.

Now that two months have passed by, they are now deep into the second semester with less than two months remaining before the end of year exam to determine if anyone would fail the beginner section and be forced to drop out.

For Ken’s group, with his focus back to studying the materials and a great private tutor in Alice, Ken is confident that he will pass all of the beginner written exams and have no issue moving on to year two. Obviously, Clare and Alice are both already way above this level of education, but their approach is still as opposite as can be.

Alice, on one hand, will be skipping the finals since she’s got no desire to improve and with her not studying at all and spending all her time tutoring him, Ken had serious doubts if Alice improved on any of her scores at all if she were to take the finals.

Clare, on the other hand, has returned to focusing most of her energy on studying and training and will continue her attempt at passing expert level courses as a first-year student.

Emma had kept up her studying with Ken on the basic subjects during her free time and even though she isn’t a student, she is quite a fast learner and while her practical abilities are still very elementary, she would no doubt get higher scores then Lovetta if both of them would sign up for the finals.

Speaking of Lovetta, after completely giving up on the written exams on Ken’s suggestion, she has been focusing on attending all of the expert level physical enhancement classes while training with Clare and sometimes Alice on Sundays like today where after breakfast, the group spends most of their time training and discussing topics related to their studies. Putting all her efforts into trying to pass something on the expert level, Lovetta is for sure the one at the highest risk of failing out of the group.

For Genesis, she happened to be Alice’s best friend for a reason. Neither of them cared about school at all, especially after getting together with Ken, but unlike Alice who’s already beyond advanced level and is guaranteed enrollment for five years, Genesis still had to pass the advanced exams by the end of year three so she could remain a student for as long as possible. But currently, she has made zero effort into studying at all and doesn’t seem like she would start trying any time soon.

After spending the past two months with Ken, or rather with his girls. Indra had become very good friends with the girls. But with her timid personality and the number of dominant girls around Ken, while Ken for sure finds her to be very attractive, the two never really got to spend much time together and after two months are still just casual friends.

“Oh yea! Will you be alright for the finals Indra? Aren’t you the lowest ranked student right now?” Ken asked after suddenly realizing that he really had just been focusing on his own studies and training and even after two months, he barely knew anything about the merman girl.

“I will be fine. I only did terribly during the entrance exam due to the language barrier and I didn’t take the midterm because I wasn’t confident enough then but with the help from Clare and everyone, I won’t have any issues passing the finals.” Indra replied softly but confidently.

“What language barrier? This is the first time I heard of such things.” Ken asked curiously.

Since it’s Sunday and two months since the group went into town and had any good food. Ken made the executive decision that they should do some studying after breakfast, have an early light lunch, go to the training facility after lunch and head to town early for a nice dinner since he wants to learn more about Indra and the merman race in general.

“Ken? Why are you suddenly interested in Indra? Focus on your own studies and leave her alone so she can go find herself a nice boyfriend.” Clare interjected, not happy at Ken’s sudden interest in Indra.

“I am just impulsive like that! I suddenly remembered her finishing last on the ranking and now I'm curious why she is so confident she will pass while Lovetta here might be forced to drop out if we don’t do something to push her over the hump and get her into expert level on something soon! And why do you have to make it sound like I will just randomly fall in love with a girl if I get a little curious.” Ken answered defensively.

“Ken! Last time you got a little curious about vampires, and the next morning you showed up with a vampire sticking to you and she hasn’t left ever since! The last thing you need is to get curious!” Clare snapped back while Alice took that as a sign to snuggle more tightly with Ken.

After a day of studying and training, the group left the academy grounds midafternoon in high spirits and strolled leisurely along the stone paved road into the city to find a nice restaurant to enjoy some delicious food.

When the group sat down at a rustic restaurant that was already packed with customers, Clare went on ordering duty while Ken sat down eagerly curious to know more about Indra and merman in general.

“The reason why I failed the entrance exam was because I couldn’t understand the language. Us merman speaks a completely different language and has a totally different writing system. I have been learning the surface language since I was a young child because my kingdom had the idea of wanting to open up for decades and most of the schools would teach the surface language.

However, since we haven’t really had contact until recent years, what we were taught was not up to date. I was learning the language that you surface dwellers spoke thousands of years ago and during the entrance exam, I did so poorly because I literally had no idea what most of the questions said or what the instructor asked me to do.

But your language hasn’t changed too drastically so once I started attending classes and hearing the language spoken on a daily basis, it wasn’t hard for me to start picking up things and getting a better understanding. And now that I have friends to ask for help, I am mostly fluent in your language and will be able to pass the exam without a doubt.” While Indra’s voice was soft and barely audible because of the noises from other customers, she spoke with confidence.

“Wow, so you all speak something else in your kingdom? That's so interesting! You should teach me sometimes! So, I know from history class that there are around 3 billion humans and elf, 2 billion lizardman and beastman in the world and our total population is around 10 billion.

But no one seems to know the population of merman, do you have any idea how many mermen are out there? And why have your race been so secluded from the rest of us?” Ken asked, getting more interested in the conversation as dishes of food got brought to their table.

“Well, even amongst different merman kingdoms, interactions only happen between kingdoms that are near one another. Unlike you land dwellers that have spread and settled the majority of the land mass. There are a lot of areas in the ocean that we simply couldn’t settle so settlements are often far from one another and there are also isolated kingdoms inside landlocked giant lakes. But since the world is 60% ocean, my best guess is that there are at least a few billion mermen all together.

As for why most of us merman do not want to interact with you land dwellers, when I told you all I was the first from my kingdom to be selected for this academy, it wasn’t the full truth. I was the first to be selected that had the ability to attend.

About half of merman are born without legs and with only a tail, even if they get selected, they won’t be able to come here because they don’t have the ability to move on land. Being amphibious like me is even rarer than having legs, only about one in ten mermen can breathe air without water.

Everyone selected before me either couldn’t breathe air on land or did not have legs or it was both and that applies to most of my race. Since we are so different from you land dwellers, most of my race have always had the mentality of minimum contact and co-exist without interaction or interference.”

With his interest fully perked, Ken spent the entirety of the night chatting with Indra, asking her all the questions he suddenly had about merman while the rest of the girls stared on in envy and jealousy.

After a full meal and a lot of informative chatting, Ken was able to see a different side of the petite timid merman girl that he hadn’t seen before. While she is quite shy like Lovetta, Lovetta’s trigger for instant bravery was Ken’s wellbeing while Indra gets rather confident when she is able to converse in a subject she is knowledgeable in.

“You know Clare, I think you might be right. my interest in Indra is definitely much higher now after having that interesting conversation.” Ken said candidly as the group walked out of the restaurant.

With Ken’s sudden declaration, Indra turned bright red and hid behind Clare while the rest of the girls simultaneously voiced their complaints to the laughing Ken. With the drama weeks behind them and academy life back to normal, the group strolled along the dimly illuminated street and headed back to the academy to begin another week of mundane school life.