“That’s because he failed in the test of equality!!”

The old headmaster said hurriedly, the fear about losing his dear life completely apparent in his tear-moist eyes.

How pathetic... how did he even become a headmaster? Aren't bigshots in this world supposed to be strong? I never thought I would see such a wuss here.

Coming back to the topic,

Test of equality, before explaining that I guess I should explain about what the word ‘equality’ means to the government… no, before that I guess I should explain the situation of the Galandora continent first.

You see, if someone were to divide the entire population of the Galandora continent on the basis of class (commoners, nobility, royalty, and clergy) then it would come out as something like this,

Commoners- 70%

Nobility- 20%

Royals- 6%

Clergy- 4%

And if someone were to do the same thing with the entire population of Magnolia then it would come out like this,

Commoners- 90%

Nobles- 9%

Clergy and Royals- ~1%

Because of Magnolia being an aristocratic country in the past the number of royals and clergy was almost nil.

As for the number of nobles, well, during the last 30 years many of the nobles married their daughters to commoners in order to safeguard their lineage and culture from the democratic government in power. This practice led to a sharp decline in the noble population throughout the country.

I know it's pathetic but this was the best thing those noble families could have done to save themselves.

There's also one more reason for the low number of nobles; in the past when the nation of Magnolia was still known as the Aristocracy of Magnolia, it was run by a ruling body called the 'Council of High' which consisted of prominent nobles from all over the nation.

Each of these nobles, though they might appear to be friends on the surface, considered each other as enemies. That's why wars between noble families weren't an extraordinary thing back then.

Most of the time the big noble families instead of fighting directly used smaller noble families to fight for themselves. Just like pawns in a game of chess.

That's why, as a consequence of this inner enmity and the reckless usage of smaller noble families as pawns, the number of noble families dwindled drastically around the nation. Most of them fell out of grace and simply got reduced to the status of commoners, as for the rest of them, they eventually died out due to the conflict.

Either way, all of this caused the nobles to eventually get weaker over time and thus, helped the democrats to cease power from the 'Council of High' and finally establish a democratic government.

Well, not straying away from the point of conversation,

As anyone could see, the majority population of Magnolia or the continent of Galandora consists mostly of the commoners, but despite this, the distribution of wealth couldn’t be any more different.

The high classes like nobility, clergy, and royalty still own more than 60% of the entire continent’s wealth despite being only around 30% of the total population.

This created a lot of disparity among the populace and thus caused a big uproar throughout the entire continent so, in order to combat this problem the governments of all the three nations held a meeting and decided to make a law to grant equality to everyone, this law was named the ‘Law of Equality’.

The law of equality, just as its name might suggest, was made to ensure equality for each and every person throughout the continent irrespective of their race, class, or sex when it comes to educational and job opportunities.

On the surface, something like the ‘law of equality’ might sound like a great law that was there to ensure justice for everyone, but in reality, this law was nothing short of the biggest mistake in the history of humanity, as in the end, the only thing this ridiculous law did was to make the disparity between the different classes even larger.

Using this law as the base, the government further divided the population into two parts, one was the Enlightened Classes (EC) which included nobles, royals, and clergy, and the other was the Benighted Classes (BC) which included the commoners.

The government, as it said, started working for the ‘uplifting’ of the Benighted Classes (BC) which seemed more like the ‘down-pushing’ of Enlightened Classes (EC) to me. It added many clauses to this stupid law that made the lives of everyone from the EC category a literal hell, one of those cursed clauses went like this,

“True equality can never be achieved unless and until we bring both the EC and the BC at the same starting point. Nobles, royals, and clergymen are born with superior talents, wealth, and power as compared to the commoners, so in order to bring about true equality, we have decided that 80% of the seats in educational and job facilities each will be solely 'reserved' for the people who belong to the Benighted Classes (BC), meaning, that no one apart from them can apply for those seats or posts. As for the remaining 20% seats, they will be 'free' for all”

In simpler terms,

If there are 100 available seats in any particular educational institution that I wish to get admitted to, then out of those 100 seats, 80 of them are solely reserved for the commoners, meaning that someone like me who’s a noble will only get to compete for the remaining 20 seats. As for those 80 seats, I can say tata goodbye to them and just hope that the government doesn't decide to increase the reservation rate anymore.

But the story doesn’t end here, those 20 seats that I am allowed to compete for, have ‘free’ status which means not just I or anyone from the EC category but also the candidates belonging to the BC category can compete for those 20 seats!!!

So this was the so-called ‘Law of Equality’ that was made to ‘ensure equality’ for all.

I have never seen a law more biased than this in my life.

I mean, wasn’t the main aim of the democratic government to ensure that any form of discrimination would end? That there would be no inequality on the basis of birth? Then why are people like me made to live like this? Was it my fault that I was born into a noble family? Why am I being stripped of my civil rights when I haven’t even done anything wrong!?

Although I didn't want to admit this at first but after living in this world for so long, no matter how hard I try, I can't deny this conclusion that had formed in my head just a couple of seconds ago,

'It's as if the government is purposefully targeting people like me'

Tch… no use thinking about it now!

***

And that brings me here to this present situation,

Standing in front of the school gates, almost everyone present there was looking at me and my parents with different gazes, some looked at us pitifully and some looked at us gloatingly, but none of these gazes seemed to have any effect on my parents, as my father yet again raised his hand and said,

“That’s not possible. I watched my son during the entire examination period and I never saw him discriminating against any of the children. So I cannot accept this as a valid reason, sir headmaster. Do you have anything else to say? Because I am nowhere near convinced of this pathetic excuse. If need be, I'll talk to the mayor about this as well”

My father said, his words implying an open threat to the headmaster.

The headmaster, although looking pale and nervous at first, stood straight and said,

“That’s because Mr. Patrick your son Peter is just... too talented! Just his presence here is enough to scare all the students, both EC and BC alike. That’s why I said he failed the test of equality. He has the ability and potential to induce discrimination and inequality in our school that’s why he has been designated as a 'potentially dangerous element' by all of the staff here and therefore has been barred from taking admission. As for informing the mayor, you might do so if you would like to but I doubt even he would go against the law”

Potentially dangerous element? Me? What the hell is even he talking about!?

You can’t be serious about this, right?

“What the hell!!!? What…”

It was my mother, she was about to say something but my father stopped her.

The headmaster looked at my parents again and said,

"If you don't mind, then Mr. Patrick if I were to be completely honest, it would be almost impossible for your son to get admission anywhere, well, apart from the Presidency Institute of Eminence (PIE) in the capital, anyway. So it would be better for you to train him as an adventurer. That would be the best career option for him"

This piece of shit!

There was a faint smirk on his face and I really wanted to beat this guy up.

I was about to jump at him alongside my mother who was blatantly releasing a dangerous aura all around us but my father stopped the two of us.

“I see” that’s the only thing he said and then the three of us left the place.

***