There were tiers to the seating arrangements. The and levels had the most amount of people in them and the lowest rows whereas the highest seats, just like the arena had box seating with the fewest.

  "Are they sitting by some arrangement?"

  Cass shook his head. "Their families pay extra for preferential seating. If there is no one, you are welcome to sit at a higher tier. That is, in practice. In reality just sit with your friends."

  There was a clear divide between classes at play here. It was a familiar dynamic. This he could reliably figure out blindfolded. The empire demanded a certain type of man.

  The men were all wearing grey tunics. Their togas had different colored stripes but instead of house colors, each pattern was some yellow, green or grey on the white of the toga. It was the same for the women save that their togas were blue. Fully half of the men in the lower levels had a stripe or one of those three colors. Most of the rest did not. Of the smaller amount of women, most didn't have a stripe.

  "You can pledge before your time is up. Green stripes have pledged military. Grey have pledged government. Yellow are on the religious track."

  Ludere nodded. "Should I have brought my own robes?"

  "Goodness no. We've left seven sets in your trunk. There's a student we've asked to be your helper.. she's in the sixth class but... Ah, Mila there you are."

  The woman who approached them didn't have a stripe. She looked like she had been rushing down there. Her blue tunic was slightly off colored.

  "Ah. Regnicus. Pardon. Mila Limone."

  "Ludere."

  "She's undecided between the multitude of options. I should urge you to talk to her about what she could do long term even as you decide. What happens here will echo through your life."

  The cat might not have said the same thing. The cat would have told him about some higher purpose that he was out here for. Something that he needed to dedicate his life to. He didn't want to just lie down and do what the cat wanted.

  "Well it's a pleasure to meet you. Headmaster Cass?"

  The headmaster was already moving the opposite direction. That brief encounters seem to be enough to give him the impetus to leave them. It was just like a preferetiity to assume that no one had any questions. But that was kind of what happened. You just did what they said and then you tried to do a call out if you couldn't get it all done. It wasn't always the best idea to get them the wrong side of one of them. And he wasn't exactly sure how headmaster cast being a into some sort of problematic area.

  The way that that sharpenance deferred to religion on so many of matters made him think that this was some sort of institutional thing that he couldn't shake. And indeed so many things that were institutional for beyond him, but the girl in front of him? She looked like she was not happy to be there. And I think that there was anything that he knew how to do. It was customer service.

  He walked right up to her and smiled. "Cire has Toby Benny's choice things about how everything runs here. I assume that you are aware."

  A grin flashed across her face. " Well if you know her then you'll know when I'm about to tell you. She has a lot of Goodwill with ladies so I would hope that you want to follow her example. If not, I can end this discussion right here and right now."

  "I always want to be respectful. Honestly being here is kind of a shock to my system. A few weeks at the arena and now? This is just a strange dream that I'm having everyday. Or at least that's what it feels like."

  It was an unspoken bomb between people that understood that they'd all been through the same thing together, perhaps at different times, but he recognized it in her. She'd been through some shit.

  He could respect that.

  "Now, I have to ask you a question. Are we the only Ludos here? This is getting kind of ridiculous."

  This time, her smile stuck around. He was pleased to see that he'd gotten it correct. They were on the same side.

  "Don't let anybody know this but my parents would kill me if I let anybody know their profession here. They work their tails off to make sure that I was the one that got here."

  Ludere nodded. "Well on the interest of Ingram class discussion, could we head to the food line? I seem to be hungry. I don't know if you are because I'm guessing you're waiting for me. And for that I apologize."

  "You don't have to apologize for headmaster casts. Just understand that he's trying to test you. Everyone is being tasked to hear all the time."

  Her soul looked whole. It also looked inviting. He searched it for cracks briefly before letting it go. The fact that she was nice and went along with him immediately meant that they didn't have to put us a special front. He could learn to enjoy having a woman on the inside. Hell he had not even thought about having whatever the Oracle had with him until all this began.

  He called it a relationship but he knew that she was using him for his abilities. At the same time, he was using her for hers and that was fine.

  "Am I expected to spy on everyone while I'm here and report in suspicious activity? If so I want a little bit extra."

  "I don't know that you're going to get paid, per se, but there are other things on the table for an enterprising lad." She eyed his muscles. "How did you...?"

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "Not really any trick to it."

  "Physical fitness skill? That makes sense."

  They found the food Lion and unsurprisingly. It was a freshest food he'd ever experienced in his entire life. The sons and the scions of the prefereti would not eat worse than this. Whatever his ceiling was for the best food of his life? It was their floor. He had to steal himself to not really get into it. If he got used to this kind of luxury then it would be very difficult to return back to the way things were.

  He wanted to go back to the way things were. Life was so simple. All he had to do was go to the arena and work.

  "Here it's going to be go to class and then study. A lot of us are doing physical fitness stuff in the morning and I suggest you join us for that."

  "I've got on our unarmed combat as well. So we could do that."

  "Well, that's not a surprise. I guess you're kind of an open book, aren't you. You're supposed to hold back your skills. They don't tell you this." She placed her tray down on an empty table at the lowest ring on the seating.

  "I figured. However, you seem trustworthy so I think that I can just level with you. I don't really care."

  She held up a fork and knife and paused mid-air as if he just said that he wanted to marry her. "What?"

  "Look this might be the best food I've ever eaten but I don't really. I'm not here just because they invited me. I need everything this academy is going to give me because that demon invasion? That was no joke."

  She narrowed her eyes. "The records are sealed. Blink once if you can tell me anything about it. Blink twice if there's a fly in your food."

  He looked down, aghast. Of course she was right. Of course it was a ing or flying his food and not hers. It was just fitting.

  "I can always only so much. I'm under a writ of silence. But if you ask specific leading questions about things that I didn't give in my official report then we can..."

  She smirked, finishing her potatoes. He chewed on the meat that they had provided. It was the most unusual looking of the items that had been artfully prepared for the upper crust. It was a cross between a pie and a steak. The crusting gave it enough flavor that he wanted another. Well that and his general state of hunger given the current situation.

  " I'm sure every girl wants to know what's inside of that head. But look you could not pay me to know anything about a demons and demonic incursions. I think that we might be too much into this. I just want to live a nice quiet life someplace where there are less demons and I don't have to worry about anything. Is that so much to ask?"

  "There are no other kingdoms for the Empire to expand to. So unless we find another Kingdom on the other side of the facility then it's unlikely that we need to move anywhere or do anything."

  Two men began arguing loudly across the way. Ludere tuned them out. He stole a quick glance in case they were going to let their posturing come towards his direction. That wasn't what he wanted at all.

  "This is common. Keep eating your food. Don't give them the time of day and they'll just... Oh that's a punch. Yeah we should probably be faster. Do you want to have a tour of the women's dormitory?"

  He shoved the food down his gullet as fast he could. "That's very forward of you. I appreciate the notion. In fact, I would love to have a very robust tour with a woman's dormitory right now. Far away from whatever's going on over here."

  The punching continued as both drank their entire mugs of water in one gulp before departing. Of course they were going to have a food fight and a fist fight. One of the ones with a yellow stripe was actually demonstrating that he was in charge of two others. It wasn't clear why they were fighting. It was just clear that this one, one of the more muscular ones that Ludere had seen since arriving wasn't total control. This of this situation.

  That meant that it was time for them to exit. Ludere scratched his chin. He could come back later and have a dick waving contest when he wasn't on probation.

  There were enough doors out of the tiered seating that they could go out several ways. At least four of them led the way they wanted to go. They picked the closest one and moved with a purpose.

  Outside the white marble buildings accented by stonework were almost uniformly designed to make him slow down. He wanted to check them all out. What he really would have loved to do would take. It would be to take an accounting of how much each one cost and then see if he could get that replicated on the mainland. They had to have a substantial deposit here of the raw materials or this wouldn't have worked.

  "So look I understand the boys have some weird setup where you have to be on the level of your class. And in the class things are arbitrary based off of whatever you get in your first week here. Every time we come back from a break they update it. Again."

  "But there are no more breaks left in this session."

  "So all these people are going to be here stuck with me for the next five months. That's really terrible for them."

  "Won't anyone think of the poor Rich kid who just want to lick on the sandals of oppressive Masters," he moaned. "They're people too. Somewhere underneath their facade ."

  Ludere knew that this was the start of something weird.