Zero to Hero (Prequel/prototype)

Chapter 24. New strategy

"Ken! Time to get up!" Shouted Emma as the girls waited outside of Ken's dorm on a Tuesday morning about a month into the second semester.

Shortly after, Ken opened his dorm door and greeted the girls before walking up to Lovetta and pressed her into his chest.

"Happy Birthday Lovetta! I will buy you food today! Whatever you want to eat." Ken offered while hugging the wolf girl tightly.

With her ears perked and tail wagging, Lovetta happily accepted the hug while the other girls watched in jealousy.

"Ken, do you even remember when my birthday is?" Alice asked as the group headed to the dining hall to group some breakfast.

"Of course, I remember the birthday of every single one of you. Emma is on 2/2, Alice your birthday is on 2/14, Clare is on 7/7, Lovetta is today 8/15 and Genesis is on 12/31." Ken answered confidently.

"I can't believe Genesis is even younger than you are. How did they even figure your birthday is on 12/25?" Alice asked curiously.

"According to my adoptive mother, someone find me in the middle of the road early morning of the 26th and from the way I looked, they were pretty sure I am a newborn no older than a day and so when my mother took me in, she decided that my birthday was on the 25th"

"What about Emma?" Clare asked this time as the group got interested in how the orphans knew about the day they were born.

"Supposedly, from the story old man John told me. Emma's parents were from wealthy families that fell in love and had to elope because obviously one was an elf, and one was human. Not sure where they were from or how they met but they lived in the village until they ran out of money shortly after Emma was born and decided to just abandon her and just left one night.

They left a note on my mother's door since they knew she took in abandoned kids and since Emma was born in the village, we knew exactly the day her mother delivered. Terrible people for sure, when I was growing up, I hated how her parents could just abandon her." Ken answered while remembering how much he hated Emma's parents when he was growing up even though he had never met them.

When the group arrived at the dining hall, Lovetta went with her normal free breakfast and extra free servings from Alice and Clare and told Ken that they would go to town for dinner, and he could treat her then. Emma, Ken and Genesis also got the free breakfast since staff members like Emma are also provided with the same daily free meals as the students.

After about a month at the academy, Emma is now pretty used to her daily life. Growing up having to take care of her family at a young age, doing the chores as a housekeeper including cleaning the garden and general areas, cleaning the private rooms and dorms and cooking and cleaning the dishes when on dining hall duty provided Emma with no challenge and she had no trouble with her daily duties. While not working, Emma of course, spent all of her time with Ken and the girls.

For Ken, with Alice providing him with private tutoring on every subject, the beginner classes were no longer able to keep pace. To use his time as wisely as possible, Ken stopped attending all of the beginner courses and is currently only going to his physical training, martial arts and weapon techniques classes.

Since he already passed the beginner portions on both the physical and elemental practical exams, Ken had no more reasons to attend those classes and decided to train and learn from Alice, Lovetta and Clare instead and hoped that he could pass the intermediate level on the finals and start next year joining the advanced courses.

Lovetta on the other hand, struggled greatly with the written courses that she simply couldn't keep up with and when Ken decided to stop attending, she lost all of her reason to attend as well. To help and prevent her from having to drop out, Ken was doing his best to tutor Lovetta with Emma tagging along on the basics in hopes that she would be able to retain some of that knowledge, but things are not looking great for Lovetta.