In this Second Chance at Life, where I can see skills as clear as day, everything feels like a breeze. And to make it even better, I’m spending my days joyfully with my First Love. - Chapter 39

Our first day at the National Vocational Training School Tokyo branch was fairly straightforward. We were introduced to the faculty, toured our classrooms, and participated in simple activities like self-introductions and assigning basic class roles. That marked the end of the day.

Our class, called the “Special Class,” had only 20 students, a relatively small number. This was apparently an elite group, made up of individuals with particularly useful or promising professions.

But I couldn’t help but wonder—when did they assess our professions?

Was there someone with an Appraisal skill involved, or was I just left in the dark?

Our homeroom teacher explained, “This class consists of students with exceptionally valuable professions or skills.” I half-expected the atmosphere to devolve into people boasting or competing over their abilities. However, that didn’t happen.

Was this due to the students’ personalities, a reflection of Japanese culture, or simply because no one had figured out how to measure their abilities against others yet?

After the weekend, our first regular weekday arrived.

The timetable was standard: the five core academic subjects were taught four times a week, with each session lasting 50 minutes. The pace was similar to the rigorous middle school I attended before summer break. In my previous life, by the end of the first semester of the third year, we had covered all the required content and spent the rest of the year preparing for entrance exams. This school seemed to follow a similar approach.

However, while some students kept up just fine, others were clearly struggling.

It made me wonder—was the school intentionally letting some students fall behind, perhaps planning to exploit their abilities later at a lower cost?

This wasn’t an issue for me, though. With my memories from my previous life and consistent study habits in this one, I had no trouble keeping up.

Beyond the main subjects, classes like music, art, and crafts had been completely removed. Those periods were replaced with Physical Education and Vocational and Skill Exploration, which seemed to be unique to this school.

Physical Education

PE focused on basic fitness-building exercises like running and stretching, as well as sports like dodgeball, soccer, judo, and kendo.

The key difference here was that students were encouraged to use their skills during these activities, with one critical rule: no injuring others.

Vocational and Skill Exploration

This class, held twice a week, involved forming groups to discuss what each person’s profession could do, brainstorming practical applications for their skills, and writing reports on potential uses. We also used the training grounds to demonstrate and test our abilities.

As students began to understand each other’s professions and skills, a hierarchy naturally started to form.

Despite being the first person in the world to receive a profession and having the rare Tamer class, I wasn’t at the top of this hierarchy.

My stats, even with magical enhancement, only reached around 100 for strength and agility—pretty average compared to combat-oriented students whose stats often exceeded 100 with class bonuses.

I didn’t participate in ball games or martial arts because of the risk of losing control over my Intimidation skill. As for my profession, Tamer, I currently only had Kanahebi, a demi-dragon, as my companion. And since the class bonuses applied only to my summoned creature and not to me, my position in the hierarchy quickly dropped to the bottom.

Not that I minded—it wasn’t causing me any real harm.

From my observations, three individuals seemed to dominate the class hierarchy.

1. 1. Ryo Morofuji, a.k.a. “Koumei”

Morofuji’s profession, Tactician Strategist, was so fitting that I started calling him “Koumei” after Zhuge Liang.

His class halved his agility but boosted all his other stats by 1.5 times. On top of that, he started with a powerful skill set, including Four Element Magic and Swordsmanship.

He also had skills that enhanced his analytical abilities and buffed his allies, making him incredibly versatile and overpowered.

Morofuji wasn’t just reliant on his profession, though. At his previous school—Nada Middle School—he was a genius who consistently scored perfect marks on all his tests. Despite not being a reincarnator like me, he had that level of intelligence.

What’s more, he was surprisingly friendly. Even though I was at the bottom of the hierarchy, he approached me casually, saying, “You’re the easiest person to talk to in this class.”

And as if that wasn’t enough, he was about five times better-looking than me.

With his charm, intelligence, and an incredibly powerful profession, Koumei was naturally admired by most of the class.

In my opinion, Koumei was the strongest candidate for the top spot in the hierarchy.

2. 2. Ichika Kobayashi, my girlfriend

The second standout individual was none other than my girlfriend, Ichika-chan.

Ichika-chan is incredibly cute, has a kind and nurturing personality, and has been handling things on my behalf since we were kids. Naturally, she’s also excellent at communicating with others.

…Or so I thought. Apparently, I’m the only one who sees her that way. To the rest of the class, she’s known as the “Ice Witch.”

The nickname originated during one of our Vocational and Skill Exploration classes when the task was to showcase a magician’s abilities. Ichika-chan demonstrated her ice magic, which is an advanced combination of fire and water elements. Ice magic is notoriously inefficient in terms of mana usage, but Ichika-chan has an astronomical 1700 quintillion mana.

To put this into perspective: when her mana was only 30 billion and she lacked most of her profession-related skills, she was still able to incinerate an entire first floor of a dungeon the size of Tokyo Dome, wiping out a swarm of level 100 Golden Fairy Papillons.

This time, she deliberately held back—removing all impurities to make the magic as inefficient as possible while focusing on durability, hardness, and minimizing the area of effect. Even so, she still managed to freeze an entire plaza.

Since then, the class started referring to her as the “Ice Witch,” a nickname given with equal parts awe and respect.

While I’m confident that no one in the world loves Ichika-chan more than I do, she has strong support within the class, particularly from the other girls.

Apparently, whenever some of the more arrogant students—those with powerful professions or skills—start showing off, they immediately become as docile as kittens when Ichika-chan is around.

And then there’s the final figure worth mentioning:

“Hey, Sajima! Skipping out again today? Just because you’re a weakling with that pathetic excuse for a lizard doesn’t mean you get to sit this one out! Get in there—I’ll beat the crap out of you!”

This lovely invitation was directed at me by some guy whose name I can’t quite recall. He seems to be the leader of a group struggling to keep up with the curriculum.

For the past few days, despite my unfortunate rise in visibility followed by my complete tumble to the bottom of the class hierarchy, this guy has made it his personal mission to hassle me.

“I mean, I…” I began to protest.

“Hey, teacher! Don’t you think it’s unfair that this guy keeps skipping everything?”

The guy turned to our teacher, who looked thoughtful for a moment before replying:

“Well, you do have a point. Alright, Sajima-kun, why don’t you join in today? It’s our first mock battle, and I’d like to see what you’re capable of.”

…Wait, what? This definitely feels like one of those situations where saying no isn’t an option, right?

And so, as part of the Vocational and Skill Exploration class unique to this school, I found myself preparing to face off against that guy in a mock battle.