Lilia's Tale: Freyja's Endeavor

Chapter 3: Experiment

Everyone was confused with some even shouting 'Huh!?'. I was unsure why there was such a reaction, so I tried thinking of possible reasons. My first thought was that maybe the system was old enough that people found it unbelievable to have to remove it. I wasn't capable of thinking much further, however, as my head started hurting from overuse.

"Is everyone settled down so I can explain?" Tanaka-san asked. "Good. So, I'm sure every one of you is familiar with the rank system that is in use throughout the world. It was decided to remove that system for this year's students. As such, any information about you first years' ranks has been hidden from the teachers and made irrelevant in studies."

There still wasn't much understanding coming from the students. One of them asked to explain again as she didn't understand.

"Basically, it won't matter if you're D rank or S rank in, say, water magic, you will be taught all the same and will be graded based on your results alone rather than both your results and rank. Your teachers were made aware and were told to change their curriculum to match a more generic one rather than rank-based."

"So... We can learn anything we want in any magic we want no matter our rank?" a random student asked.

"That is more or less the idea, yes. You will be allowed to try and learn any of the magics at any moment. If you wish to learn Light magic in the middle of the year, even if you are incapable of learning it as an F rank, you will be taught Light magic as they would teach an S rank, and graded based on your results."

"But isn't that bad for lower ranks?"

"Improvement will be a big part of your grade rather than raw ability. A student that is strong but learns nothing might have worse grades than a student who is objectively weaker but has significantly improved."

This was both a blessing and a curse to me. This meant I wouldn't end up being an outcast due to my inherent abilities, but also that obtaining high-enough grades would be more problematic as it would be difficult for me to improve considering said heightened powers. Whether it were to be one way or the other for me, this was a change I was happy about.

Tanaka-san followed by explaining to us the rank-less system we were expected to follow and how to conduct ourselves on that regard. The notable change was that we were to consider everyone the same regardless of their rank. We should not, in any way and for anyone, look down on them for being a lower rank or look up to them for being a higher rank. I knew this wouldn't have much of an effect for me considering my unfortunate reputation as "the full S-ranker", but it was about to make both my and Sayuri's school lives easier which I appreciated nonetheless.

"Now that everyone understands, let's go back to adventuring jobs and general out-of-school permissions. Putting it briefly, you are allowed anything legal within the capital. However, you are not allowed to leave the premises of the city without being accompanied, including for undertaking quests. In regards to those, similar rules apply. You are to follow through with the guild's rules and are additionally forbidden from taking any sort of hunting or extermination request without sufficient support regardless of whether it be within the bounds of allowed quests or not. You are also forbidden from taking any kind of quest that would lead you to another town, or one which duration exceeds your allocated time within the weekend. That means no escort missions no matter what."

It didn't seem too far-fetched to me. Even as adventurers, we primarily had to worry about our student life. Those simply ensured we wouldn't end up absent due to other dutues. While quite restrictive to hear, I figured there would be sufficient quests within the bounds of the city for it to be such a large system. Additionally, it was obvious this was all done to tend to students' safety, so I simply had no complaints.