The next few days were taken up entirely by rigorous morning and afternoon classes, exhausting Student Council work after school, and solo training after returning to the dorm. It was hectic to say the least, and the New Student Recruiting Period—called “Recruiting” for short—arrived in a flash.
Students at the Elite Five Academies went all out for Recruiting every year, and Thousand Blade was no exception.
“Congratulations on getting into Thousand Blade, first years! Since you’re so good at overcoming challenges, why not join the Mountaineering Club?”
“Join the Swordcraft Club! We offer a trial membership! Come to the gym after school if you’re interested!”
“The Tea Ceremony Club’s tea is the best in the world! You won’t know what you’re missing until you try it!”
The clubs worked hard to promote themselves at every opportunity throughout the day, from the morning as students walked to school to the time between classes and during the lunch break. It was now after school, and all the Student Council members except Claude were gathered in our club room.
Claude had been summoned home by King Gris and would be in Vesteria for about ten days.
“Man, this year’s as crazy as ever,” Shii said with a sigh. She was looking out the window watching the clubs aggressively try to attract new students.
“Recruiting is like a festival, after all!” remarked Lilim. “It’s only a matter of time before some loser gets carried away and causes trouble!”
“Good thing the Heroes of Justice will punish those who step out of line!” said Tirith.
They both put on sashes reading, HERO OF JUSTICE. It was the Student Council’s job to crack down on those who went overboard with their recruiting efforts.
“As you all know, overly aggressive Recruiting activity has been an issue at this academy. That’s why we’re going to patrol the campus and detain any villains who use underhanded tactics to pressure new students!” Shii said, putting on her own sash that read EXECUTIONER OF JUSTICE.
There was never a dull day with my upperclassmen.
“We’re about to start patrolling the campus, but doing so together would be very inefficient. That said, acting alone could be dangerous if anything goes wrong, so I made this ladder lottery to decide groups!”
With a “Ta-da!” Shii held up a ladder lottery she’d drawn on a piece of paper.
“We’re going to split up into a group of two and a group of three, leaving one person to stay behind in the Student Council room. Write your name above one of the lines at the top, and we’ll leave our groups up to fate!” she said, writing her name above one of the lines on the end. Shii always loved playing games of chance.
Once the rest of us had written our names, we each added one more line to the ladders on the paper to make sure it was fair.
“Hmm-hmm, I’m gonna open it. Three, two, one… Now!” Shii said, unfolding the piece of paper with childlike joy to reveal the results.
We followed the lines of the ladder to reveal the groupings: Lilim and Tirith as the team of two; me, Lia, and Rose as the team of three; and Shii by herself, meaning she would remain in the club room.
“Wh-why did I end up being the one who has to stay behind…?” Shii complained.
“Don’t let it get you down, Shii! Lady Luck is a cruel mistress!” Lilim said.
“I’m sure you’ll have better luck with the teams tomorrow,” Tirith said.
Having tried to cheer Shii up, we left the Student Council room to start our patrol duty. My team went to the right, while Lilim and Tirith went to the left.
“We ended up with our usual group,” I said.
“Ha-ha, we sure did,” agreed Lia.
“That’ll make this nice and easy,” said Rose.
We continued to make small talk until we left the school building.
“Okay… Where should we start?” I asked.
“Good question,” Lia responded. “I think starting with the closest club would make sense.”
“That would be the Cheerleading Club,” Rose said.
We hadn’t mapped out patrol routes for our two teams. According to Shii, this was to increase randomness, as patrolling the campus in obvious clockwise or counterclockwise directions would make it easy for sly students to get up to no good while they knew we weren’t around.
“Wow, they’re going all out,” I said when we arrived at the Cheerleading Club’s spot right in front of the main building.
“Let’s fight, fight, get it done! TBA is number one!”
The cheerleaders were performing for the new members. Their dance was perfectly coordinated.