Chapter 5 – The Academy Wasn’t Easy (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The office of Hoakin Academy’s headmaster.

Siegfried and Media sat with a table between them, thinking about a certain boy.

“Ha, I’ve been headmaster for nearly twenty years, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a case like this.”

“…”

After letting out a long sigh, Media pressed at her temples.

I refuse.

That had been Kang Geom-ma’s answer the very instant she proposed placing him in the top-tier Star Class.

It was such a heavenly class that people said it was called Star because getting assigned to it was as difficult as plucking a star from the sky.

Even more unprecedented was the fact that a special advancement student was being offered a place there. On top of that, Kang Geom-ma had flatly refused the valedictorian oath ceremony as well.

Media recalled the expression she had seen in the hospital room. A black-haired boy with a brazen way of speaking. An attitude that showed no tension even in front of them, the Seven Sacred Heroes.

When Kang Geom-ma had been judged the top student, the academy elders who had been shouting in outrage had all gone silent the moment they saw the gleaming sashimi knife in the footage.

The swordplay he had displayed had dealt even her, one of the Seven Sacred Heroes, a stinging shock she had not felt in half a century.

Shaking off those thoughts, Media turned her head toward the Sword Emperor.

“Hey, Zeke.”

“…”

“Be honest. Isn’t our Geom-ma just ridiculously cool?”

“Our Geom-ma?”

“Those academy old men were shrieking at first too, but once they saw the exam footage, they admitted it in the end. Are you that unhappy that Geom-ma took top place instead of your granddaughter?”

The Sword Emperor narrowed his brow, displeased.

“There is no act more foolish than objecting to the scoring of the subspace imbued with the will of the Hero of Origin. The academy named him the top student, and we simply follow that. It’s just that…”

Sword Emperor Siegfried trailed off and let out a low hum.

Kang Geom-ma.

If his technique had been exceptional, he could have understood it.

If his body had been exceptional, he could have accepted it.

If his experience had been exceptional, he could have nodded and moved on.

But the sword shown by a boy who had not yet even fully left youth behind had been movement as if it embodied the very concept of cutting.

It was the very state of enlightenment through the sword that Siegfried himself had pursued all his life.

And yet, there had been that sense of incongruity he felt when he opened the boy’s blocked meridians.

The soft body, one that had all but thrown physical training to the dogs, had been left utterly wrecked, as if it had contained something that should never have been contained.

Had it been a coincidence? The desire to deny it rose in him, but he forced it down.

To think that at his age he would feel a competitive spirit.

And toward a boy the same age as his granddaughter, at that.

The thought that would not fully come together in his mind clogged his throat like a fish bone.

What woke him from his thoughts was Media’s voice, dragging as she muttered to herself.

“That face is nice too… and the way he cut down enemies to save a girl in danger was just… If I were ten years younger… no, could I still make it work even now? Hey, fossil, what do you think!?”

Media squeezed her thighs together and swallowed audibly. The Sword Emperor made a face and shook his head.

“Do you know what people call women like you among college students these days?”

“Do you use Sungstagram or something these days? Why do you keep going on and on about college students?”

Only then did Media sit up straight and square her shoulders.

“Fine. Go on and open that wonderful mouth of yours. What do they call someone like me?”

“Bitch.”

That day, humanity’s strongest man, Siegfried, received scratches on his face from a bitch for the first time in half a century.

* * *

Thanks to Headmaster Media’s influence, I was able to rest for about two more days. Something about how taking care of your body should start while you’re still young.

Anyway, she was a woman with an awfully loose sort of atmosphere, but as an educator her attitude was solid. It felt like a proper mix of concern for students and practicality.

Wolf Class.

The plaque on the classroom door stood before my eyes.

I had rejected Media’s alluring proposal to send me to Star Class and insisted to the very end on Ordinary Class, but we eventually settled on a compromise and I was assigned to Wolf Class.

In exchange, she agreed as a condition to keep the fact that I had placed first in the grade, as well as what had happened during the test, strictly confidential. Since avoiding pointless controversy was exactly what I wanted, I only thought about it for a moment before agreeing right away.

The whole point had been to avoid the upper classes where people would be forced to claw and tear at one another, and instead finish school safely in a lower class. This much was still within the range I’d anticipated.

“Sss…”

I gently opened the door. I even held my breath so it wouldn’t make a sound.

Unlike the Gothic-style atmosphere of the exterior, the classroom interior was clean and modern. Starting with the green chalkboard, long desks stretched out in neat rows.

Students chatting with one another in a familiar way.

The moment I stepped timidly into the classroom, condescending gazes fixed on me. They flicked once toward the color of my name tag, then naturally went back to talking as if I had never existed to begin with.

I was being ignored outright. But I didn’t panic. You answer indifference with indifference. Even loners had their own way of life.

As I wondered where to sit, I noticed an empty seat in the corner of the very last row.

Oh, should I sit there?

I imagined myself sitting at the back, staring moodily out the window while basking in the spring sunlight.

…

Quit acting like that and just sit somewhere.

I sat around the middle of the third row from the front. After relaxing the tension in my shoulders, which had been drawn tight, I looked out the window.

Two canaries perched on a branch, whispering love to each other. I was blankly watching the scene of birds mating when

Tap tap.

A cautious knocking sound came from my desk.

When I turned my head, there was a female student awkwardly watching my reaction.

“Um, um…”

A tiny girl with reddish-brown semi-curly hair and the look of a puppy. She still hadn’t entirely shed the softness of childhood, and gave off a fluffy, cute impression.

The moment our eyes met, she let out a small eek, flushed red, and quickly turned her head away.

“…”

“…”

After several minutes of sinking silence, I decided to speak first.

“What is it?”

In a voice so quiet it was hard to tell whether I was hearing it at all, she said.

“About the test… thank you…”

The moment she mentioned the test, I remembered. The girl who had nearly been turned into meat paste by those psycho twins.

“Ah, right. That time.”

“…Yes.”

But why was she using honorific speech with someone her own age?

When I widened my eyes and looked at her, she darted glances at me before turning her head away to stare at the wall. She must be extremely shy.

“No need to thank me. Anyone would’ve done the same.”

Back then, I had drawn my weapon almost unconsciously. I couldn’t say there had been absolutely no trace of wanting to help the girl in front of me, but in the end what I did had been for my own survival.

In the end, it had made me look as though I had saved her, but the words I had spoken back then had definitely been laced with hypocrisy. Thinking that way left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“N-no! I really am grateful!”

At my bitter smile, the girl shook her head and said that. The sight was so cute that, before I knew it, a warm fatherly smile had settled on my face.

“Come to think of it, we haven’t introduced ourselves. I’m Kang Geom-ma.”

“My name is Chloe…”

“Nice to meet you, Chloe. I didn’t expect we’d be in the same class.”

“Ah, I’m glad to meet you too…!”

The girl also told me her name in a tiny voice that seemed to sink into itself.

It wasn’t a name I recognized. Since I had played through the story to around the middle of the game and still didn’t know her name, that meant one of two things. Either she was an extra like me, or she was a character who appeared later in the story.

After thinking for a moment, I discarded the second possibility.

The latter half of Miracle’s Blessing M mainly dealt with battles against the demon race. The sudden appearance of a small, fragile-looking girl like this at that point would be too random. On top of that, she even had the polite-speech character trait that you got one of in every class.

She was an extra like me.

Feeling oddly happy, I broke into a grin.

“Oh, right. Could you keep what happened during the test a secret, by any chance?”

“Ah? Ah, yes. Of course.”

Without asking why, Chloe gave a small nod of agreement.

“…Um, if it isn’t too rude of me.”

Just as Chloe was fumbling and trying to say something.

Shrrrk-

The classroom door opened.

“Everyone, take your seats!”

The ringing shout that announced the start of class echoed through the walls of the classroom.

We’ll talk later.

I moved my lips soundlessly toward Chloe.

She gave a small nod and went back to her seat.

“First of all, congratulations on your admission. You were chosen to stand here as those who will carry on the will of the noble Hero of Origin, Balor Hoakin. Be proud.”

A muscular, buzz-cut instructor looked over us as if trying to memorize our faces. In the middle of that, his gaze stopped on me for a moment, and after the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, he turned sharply and took up a piece of chalk.

“My introduction is late. I am Lee Won-bin, the homeroom instructor of Wolf Class, and I will be in charge of you for the next year.”

An instructor with that face proudly introducing himself as Won-bin, then wearing a satisfied little grin afterward.

“Since it’s the first day, there will be no class today. Instead, there will be some simple physical training, so change your clothes and gather at the training grounds in thirty minutes. If anyone has questions, you may ask them now.”

A male student with a piercing shot his hand up.

“What kind of physical training are we doing, Instructor?”

“Simple enough. One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and ten laps around the training grounds.”

At that, my chin nearly slipped off the hand propping it up.

Among the students, small murmurs of, Wasn’t that easy as hell? broke out.

No, more importantly, wasn’t that training menu making the instructor’s yellowed inner desire to turn all the cadets bald far too obvious? He was bald himself, so clearly he wanted to make all these bright young students bald too.

“If there are no further questions, then change and gather at the location. That is all.”

While the tightly packed students streamed toward the locker room, I quietly sidled up to the instructor and spoke.

“…Um, Instructor.”

“What is it, Kang Geom-ma?”

How did he know my name?

But that wasn’t the important thing right now.

“My body is a little…”

“Hmm.”

The instructor’s eyes narrowed, and then a sinister smile rose to his lips.

“Ah, of course. A student who ranked first probably wouldn’t even warm up with a menu like this. Isn’t that right!? In that case, how about training with Star Class on the first day? Headmaster Media specifically instructed that Cadet Kang Geom-ma is permitted to attend the classes of every class.”

That succubus of a headmaster.

“No, Instructor. Come to think of it, I believe I was simply in urgent need of the restroom for a moment. My body had happened to feel stiff just now, but how remarkable that you put together the perfect plan for that exact state. All I can do is admire your insight, hahaha.”

Apparently pleased with my response, the instructor let out a hearty laugh and slapped me on the back.

“As expected of the top student, nice and straightforward! Good, then hurry and change, and I’ll see you at the training grounds.”

I answered with a strong “Yes, sir!” and then walked off with limp steps.

* * *

“F-fu- hu- ah, ahl.”

Curses rolled around inside my mouth.

“One, two, three, four. Oh? I can see your legs. Move, move, move. Go!”

“Go!”

The cadets ran around the horribly wide training grounds after the instructor.

For some reason, the male students were running around as if they were having the time of their lived, and the girls were chasing after them with bright laughter. Some of them were even chatting while they ran.

“Please…”

I seriously felt like I was dying. No, I was in the process of dying.

The inertia of the running kept shaking my stomach, and sour gastric acid stung at the back of my throat.

I think I finally understood what people meant when they said the sky was turning yellow. It was the moment I realized that because the inside of me was turning yellow, the sky looked yellow too.

When I started falling behind, Chloe ran up beside me.

“Haa, haa-”

“…Are you all right? You don’t look well.”

I barely managed to steady my breath, which had climbed all the way to the tip of my throat, and turned my head.

“Ha, ha, I’m fine.”

“How many laps have you done, Geom-ma?”

“Probably around five? What about you, Chloe? It looked like you were way farther back…”

“…I’m on my ninth.”

“Huh?”

“Please hang in there just a little longer!”

Holding her hands together at her chest as she cheered me on, Chloe ran back toward the front again.

“…”

For someone so tiny, her feet were quick and agile like a flying squirrel’s.