Otherworld Adventure

The rankers from 8th to 4th were announced in quick succession. 8th was surprisingly another production faction, the Ironforge Faction. 7th place was the World Tree Faction, 6th was the Dark Moon Faction, 5th was a tie-breaker between the Warrior Faction and Mage Faction and 4th was also a tie breaker between the Royal Fox Faction and the Draco Faction.

The factions of each rank sent their leaders and 9 other people to go stand on the podium as their representatives. After a short intermission where the headmaster displayed short footages of each ranking's most memorable adventurer achievements during the past month, god-knows-where he got it from, the headmaster finally began announcing the top 3 rankings.

By this time, the Little Kings were beginning to grow anxious. After the two production factions displayed their total points, ranging around 9000-10000, the subsequent factions had a large jump in points.

The discrepancy of points from 8th to 7th place was a total of 5000. 7th place's World Tree Faction had 15500 points and the increment for the next rankings were around 500-1000 points each.

The 4th place's Royal Fox Faction had over 18000 points. From what Lucia and Eli had calculated, their party's points were just a little over 18000. This means that the Little Kings most likely ranked 3rd or 2nd... they had no chance ranking at 1st during this segment.

Lucia and Eli were a little dispirited since they had confidence that they'd take 1st place, but the power of numbers from the factions were hard to beat and only now did they realize this. They only had 6 members. Even the Disaster Queen's party had 10 or maybe more in total, yet even they, lagged far behind the rest.

Ainz, Velicia, and Fina were still a little more enthusiastic since they hadn't done any calculations. They were eager to hear their party called out since it was such a great honor for them to stand side by side with the other top students of the academy up on the podium.

"Third Rank!"

Word's began to form next to the third rank, Phantom. The singular word caused everyone in the stadium to fall into discussion. Even the faction leaders on top of the podium began to frown at the word.

"Phantom?"

"A party?"

"Holy crap! Guys! It's the infamous and elusive Ghost King! He actually got 3rd place! Is Phantom his party?!"

"Wait... I heard he worked solo..."

"Woah!"

The Ghost King working solo was common knowledge within the academy. The Ghost King was also very elusive to the point where no one knew the actual identity of the person. They only knew that it existed and maybe it was actually a man.

The headmaster raised an hand and immediately calmed the commotion within the stadium, then he opened his mouth and said,

"Robert Stein!"

"Robert?"

"The Sword King!"

"!"

"The Ghost King is actually in a party!"

The headmaster then announced another name, one that no one knew. "Alice Mayden!"

"Who?"

"A girl?"

From an inconspicuous corner of the stadium, the Sword King jumped out of his seat and landed lightly onto the podium.

He was a big and buffed gray furred rabbit-eared man. His facial features indicated that he was still in his youth, but it could be seen that he was almost in his late teens. The Sword King was obviously in his last year in the academy. There was also a long, thin, centipede-like scar on his face. It ran diagonally from the top right of his forehead to the left of his cheek, almost touching the corner of his mouth.

He looked sharp and handsome, but the fierce scar on his face made him look very intimidating. Although he was a rabbit-kin, he stood at a height of almost 2 meters tall. He had a large dark colored great sword on his back and he was wearing a large robe over his body, but the buffed arms and legs of the young man showed that he wasn't shyly hiding away his body.

The headmaster smiled at him and looked around, "And Alice?"

"...she's right here."

The large rabbit-kin teenager pulled away his cloak and underneath was a petite, pink colored rabbit-kin girl snuggling on him. The girl had her arms wrapped around the intimidating Sword King's thick waist.

The Sword King's face twitched a little seeing the clingy thing on his waist, then he called out, "...oi."

"Hmmm???"

The girl only responded with a long m.o.a.n which caused the headmaster to let out a small chuckle.

"Alice, you're in front of a large crowd right now." The headmaster whispered.

The small rabbit-kin opened her eyes and looked around. The whole stadium was silent and only small murmurs of discussion echoed around. The girl saw this and shrieked in horror.

"UHKYAAAHH~!!"

She immediately separated from the Sword King and out of nowhere a black cloak with a large hoodie immediately covered her body.

One could see the raised and surprised pink rabbit ears poking out from under the hood. The 'Ghost King' noticed this and raised her hands to quickly tuck in the ears under the hood.

"...umu..." The 'Ghost King' nodded and stood there silently right behind the large Sword King.

"..."

By this time the entire stadium was only staring back at the comical 'Ghost King'. Everyone began to laugh a little, but the Ghost King kept silent, not giving any response to the light laughter that was directed at...her.

"Well, the Ghost King was actually a girl!"

"A cute girl at that!"

"Ahahaha~"

The next instant however, the entire stadium became dead drop silent. A short footage of Phantom's adventure was currently being played on the monitor. It was footage of the Sword King and Ghost King destroying a large flock of Wyverns and the most ghastly part of the footage was the multiple wyverns suddenly plummeting down from the sky for no reason whatsoever.

What was common from all the fallen wyverns were that they all had a missing appendage or an unsightly wound on their bodies. They were dead, but no one in the stadium saw how they died.

It was only when the Ghost King reappeared again next to the Sword King, near the end of the footage that they saw the petite figure. She was raising one of her blades to her hood and a cute, small red tongue began licking the blood off of it. There was also the faint pair of red glaring eyes from behind the dark hood which caused many of the laughing students to shiver in silence.

After the footage, the headmaster then continued on to announce the 2nd ranker.

"Rank 2!"

When the students noticed that no other people were being called by the headmaster, another uproar ensued.

"Wait! Rank 3 only consists of 2 people?!"

"Phantom...only has the Sword and Ghost King in it?"

"The two have almost 19000 points! That's crazy!"

On the monitor the space next to Rank 2 began to light up and words began to form slowly, except this time, the points were the ones that formed first.

"22000!"

"Woah! Which party could have done this?!"

"Party? More like faction!"

"The only factions remaining are the Researchers and Student Council!"

"Don't tell me... the Researchers did this?!"

Everyone of course thought that it was the Research Faction, there was no way that the unannounced Student Council didn't get 1st place.

The Little King's however, thought otherwise.

"Well... I guess that's us right?" Ainz said.

"Yeah... but... how come it's more than what we had counted?" Eli asked, turning her head over to Lucia.

"Hmmm... Cel?"

The girl's only conclusion was that Cecil had kept some quests a secret from them.

"Huh? Oh... it's not what you think. If you're thinking that I did some more quests behind your backs then that's wrong."

"Anyway, let's go down. 2nd place isn't so bad~" Velicia said smilingly.

The people around them began eyeing the group weirdly. Did these kids just say that they're the ones who got 2nd place? Just them 6? What a joke!

"Oi, kiddo, don't get ahead of yourself. What do you mean it's your turn? 2nd place isn't so bad? Sit down and wait for the name to actually come up before you start spouting nonsense." An upper class man said.

Class S was sitting just next to the area where the 2nd year students were so some of them had heard the nonsense Cecil's group was spouting.

"Huh?"

"What? Got a problem kid? Just so you know, you're only 1st years. Don't be so delusional and think that you'd be able to make it up into those rankings."

"..." Everyone else began looking at each other in awkward silence. Their fellow classmates were also eyeing them strangely. Only Lucia flared up at the insult.

"What's that?!" Lucia said raising her voice in protest.

"Hmph. Naive!"

"Lulu, that's enough. Just sit back down and wait. It's only second place why are you guys even getting up for that?"

"Eh?"

"Huh?"

Cecil's friends were looking back at him, puzzled at his words. It's only second place? Why get up for that? Wasn't that their rank?

"Besides... our upper classman it right. We should obviously wait for the name to come out~"

"Heh, at least one of you is sensible."

Cecil smiled slightly and eyed the upper classman playfully. He could see that the dude was part of the Draco Faction and he wasn't so happy seeing his faction only being 4th, not to mention their placing was actually being shared together with another faction.

Cecil laid back into his seat and began meditating. His arms were still hurting and cycling his family's mana technique helped alleviate the pain a little.

He could also feel that the pathways in his arms were somehow transforming and mending itself with each circulation. Cecil didn't know if this was a good or bad thing, but at least the pain was lightening albeit awfully slowly.

After the points fully formed on the monitor, the name began forming. To everyone's astonishment however, was that there were only 2 letters in the ranker's name.

"Ah... I knew it..." Eli said dejectedly.

"Tsk...Damn," Ainz faintly cursed.

Everyone else was silent and a little dejected. Only Cecil stayed calm with his eyes closed. While their party was down in the dumps, everyone else in the stadium began to exclaim in surprise at the name of the ranker.

"What?!"

"How could it be?"

Up at the 4th years' seating area, the main members of the student council were sitting together and they too were eyeing the name displayed on the monitor with surprise and disbelief.

"How..."

"But... there must be something wrong!"

"..."

Zephyr was glaring fiercely onto the name etched next to the Rank 2. He scowled in annoyance and stood up.

"Let's go."

The core members could only follow after their president.

Up on the monitor, the 2 large golden words of the ranker was finally displayed.

Student Council.

Yes, it was the Student Council to everyone's disbelief. Everyone began discussing and they were all now wondering who it was that got 1st place in this year's first segment of the tournament.

It had to be known that the Student Council had one 1st place 2 years in a row and this was supposed to be their 4th year of being the undisputed top ranking faction.

"C-could the Research Faction really have beaten everyone else this year?!"

"Oh my gosh... look the president and his members are coming down..."

"They don't look like they're happy."

"Who would? They've been first place ever since the new members joined the Student Council... this was supposed to be the 3rd year of their uncontested winning-streak..."

Everyone in Little Kings was now looking hopeful and they turned to look at Cecil in astonishment. They only saw that the boy currently had his eyes closed, paying no mind to the commotion that was ongoing inside the stadium.

Cecil felt the gazes on him and opened his eyes slightly, "...what? Didn't I tell you? We're taking first place."

Every member of Little Kings smiled back at him and they stared back up onto the monitor, precisely at the 1st Rank's empty spot.