“Mr Carlile, I think you have already been warned not to cause any troubles on campus.” Suddenly Rose’s voice interrupted them, “Or should I remind you of the consequences?”

“Professor Rose! I’m so glad to see you’re doing well. How was your vacation?” Carlile’s tone did a complete 180 as soon as he saw a professor in front of him. 

“I was away from brats as yourself. Obviously, it’s good. Now you should be off, Professor Meena wouldn’t be pleased if she got to know you’re flunking her class again.”

“Right…” Carlile gave Ashton one last look then rushed outside. 

“I hope you, first years don’t mind the seniors.” Rose waved her hand around, “They can be a handful sometimes.”

She was simply pretending to talk with them as if she didn’t know them. But at the same time, she and Ashton were having a different conversation altogether, thanks to her mastery of telepathy. 

‘I never knew it was possible to have two different conversations at the same time.’ Ashton praised her, ‘Feels kind of weird, to be honest.’

‘I have had a decade’s worth of practice, boya. You’ll get a hang of it soon enough.’ 

‘Who was he? If I had to guess, he’s after the bounty. Isn’t he?’

Much to Ashton’s dismay Rose nodded in agreement. His first day had just started and so had the troubles. While Carlile was retreating, Ashton took a quick peek at his stats, and he was no joke. In fact, he was one of the strongest even among the seniors Ashton had seen so far. 

__

Name: Carlile Jaeger

Species: Werewolf (Active).

Status: Werewolf

Class: Brawler

Title: [Powerhouse]

Age: 18 years

Gender: Male

Grade: E-tier (Evolution is possible)

Affiliation: Werewolves.

Level:

> Werewolf Level: 22

Stats:

HP: 9000/9000

Damage: 50

Armour: 35

Stealth: 20

Stamina: 70

Agility: 45

Intelligence: 21

Nature:

• Rowdy

<User’s level is too low to view extended information.>

__

Apart from stealth, there was not a single field in which Ashton had an upper hand on Carlile. On top of that, Carlile already had a class and his skills were hidden. So Ashton wasn’t sure if he could take Carlile down even if he tried to pull a surprise attack on him. 

All in all, without Rose’s help, Ashton was pretty much fcked, now that Carlile had accepted the bounty hanging over his head. 

‘Don’t worry.’ Rose reassured him, ‘He will not dare to do anything against you. At least on campus. Still, it wouldn’t hurt you to be vigilant. Now I should probably leave before anyone sees me chatting so merrily with two students I have never met before.’

‘Understood.’ Ashton gave her a curt nod as she left. 

After Rose left, nothing much happened. Apart from all the hostile gazes, he was getting every now and then. But even those stopped once the orientation started. 

The orientation lasted for about three hours. During this time all of the rules and regulations of the academy were once again told to the students to make sure none of them ‘accidentally’ broke any rules. 

Still, the rules were also fed into their watches so if they wanted to check on anything they could do so at any time. Apart from that, there was a new rule in place which prohibited students from even sparring against each other without a professor’s supervision and permission. 

For some reason, this rule seemed to upset a lot of the students. They probably wanted an excuse to be hostile towards a certain someone, but now they might need to worry about getting a professor in on their schemes. 

Ashton couldn’t decide whether the director had placed this rule in effect to protect him or the ones who would inevitably try to attack him. Either way, the rule could have made his life a bit easier. Just a teen weeny bit. 

“Now that we have discussed the boring things, shall we skip to the good part?” The Director said with a broad smile on her face, which was quickly reciprocated with loud cheers from the students.

The director did not seem to be stoic like most of them had expected her to be. She was quite… nice. At least for now. 

“Just like every year, in three months time, you will get the first chance to experience a dungeon. I know, some of you have already been on an exploration trip. But this trip would not be one meant for exploration, but subjugation.” The director continued before explaining the difference between the two. 

Exploration and Subjugation. These were two types of dungeon trips one could be a part of, as long as they met a certain criterion. 

The Exploration trip was for scientific and knowledge purposes to know more about the night creatures and ways to counter them.

These trips were held in dungeons that had been cleared recently and usually, scholars are accompanied by a few ‘adventurers’ just in case some night creatures had survived after the Subjugation squad had cleared the dungeon.

That being said these trips were usually the safest and hence the adventurers participating in Exploration received less monetary compensation for their services in comparison to the adventures who take part in subjugation. 

As for the Subjugation trip, it was just as the name suggested. The subjugation squads were strictly made of professional adventurers with an exception of some porters and other supporting members. Whenever a dungeon appeared, these teams were contracted by an organisation known as ‘The Guild’.

After being contracted, it was the job of the squads to get rid of the monsters and if they were successful they were awarded rewards as mentioned in the contract. However, not all of the dungeons were operated in this way. 

Only the high tier dungeons were sold off to squads on a contractual basis. Meanwhile, the rest of the adventurers were allowed to head into lower-tier dungeons by themselves and were rewarded in terms of how many monsters they hunted down, the levels of the monsters, etc. 

A lot of money could be earned by doing this. But the adventurers could always lose their lives in the dungeons. It was a lucrative job, but one with lethal occupational hazards. 

“That being said, I hope you all will be prepared for your first subjugation trip in three months. Till then work hard, or you might not get the chance to participate. That’s all for today, and do not forget to collect your uniforms and badges!”

With that, the orientation ceremony came to an end.. Leaving the students both worried and excited about their new journey.