"Well then, have a good weekend."
"You too. Contact me if you need anything."
At the fork by the dormitory entrance.
Evan waved and turned his wheelchair around.
At that moment, a dull vibration traveled up through the ground.
"......What was that sound?"
My gaze, Yustia's, and Evan's all turned at once toward where the noise had come from.
The training grounds behind the dormitory.
A thick cloud of dust was rising there.
"Is that... Elvis?"
Yustia narrowed her eyes.
Through the dust, a familiar silhouette came into view.
Elvis, who had suffered a crushing defeat at Professor Raven's hands during class.
He stood with his arms crossed, his posture arrogant.
Opposite him, a male student who looked like an upperclassman was gritting his teeth.
Before him lay a toad summon as large as a house, breathing raggedly.
Poisonous fumes were still seeping from the warts all over its body, but its momentum already seemed broken.
"Gruuugh......"
The toad summon let out a pained groan.
A massive shadow fell over it.
It was Elvis's rock golem.
"Crush it."
Elvis gave the order in a low voice.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the rock golem raised its enormous fist high.
The heavy mass of stone seemed to blot out the sun.
Kwaaang—!
With a roar that shook the earth, the fist slammed into the toad's back.
The toad summon was driven into the ground without even being able to scream.
Poison-laden dust burst up in all directions.
"Hah......!"
The upperclassman who owned the toad collapsed to the ground.
As if his summon's pain had transferred to him, his face had gone deathly pale.
An overwhelming difference in power.
It was simple and crude, but precisely because of that, its destructive force was undeniable.
The clumsy figure who had been trampled by Professor Raven was nowhere to be seen.
"Well? Do you still think I'm not qualified to enter the Imperial Guardian?"
"Tch."
Yustia clicked her tongue briefly and snapped her head away.
Irritation lingered around her eyes, as though that simple, brainless display of strength was unbearable to watch.
"They were going on about being the academy's best battle club or whatever. And isn't he in the same special admissions class as you? The one who couldn't even put up a fight against Professor Raven and got wiped out."
I gave a wry smile as I pushed Evan's wheelchair.
Yustia's gaze pulled away from Elvis.
There, Elvis still looked down triumphantly at the upperclassman, while the shadow of the golem standing tall behind him stretched long across the ground.
Elvis's intoxication with himself clearly didn't sit well with Evan either.
"That's right. Trying to enter the greatest elite group with skills like that? What a waste of time, and a waste of talent."
Yustia replied cynically and started walking.
Click, click. The sound of her heels receded.
"Let's go, Mr. Taesan. He's not even worth watching anymore."
"Uh, sure."
I followed after her, glancing back at Elvis.
His shoulders were puffed up, drunk on victory.
But behind that sense of triumph, an unstable shadow seemed to flicker.
The helplessness of being toyed with by the corpse hands in Professor Raven's void.
He looked precarious, as though he were struggling to cover up that trauma.
"Well, they'll handle it themselves."
I shrugged and withdrew my gaze.
We began climbing the hill road where the dormitory stood.
The burning red sunset was slowly turning ashen gray.
One by one, the windows of the dormitory building lit up, giving off a warm orange glow.
"Make sure you rest well over the weekend. Starting next week, it's going to get even tougher."
Evan waved at the dormitory entrance.
"You take care of yourself too."
"Of course."
He turned his wheelchair and headed toward his room.
"Should I go into the dorm with you?"
When I asked in front of the dormitory entrance, Yurika cut in with a wink.
"Of course! While I'm working, you should spend some cozy time catching up with the young lady. She must be the first among the freshmen to win a badge."
Yurika playfully pushed me on the back.
Yustia also nodded, her face flushed red.
"Yes. Come in, Mr. Taesan. We can plan our next strategy together, and......"
Her words trailed off as she smiled shyly.
We opened the dorm room door and went inside.
"Kyaah! A badge!"
The moment the door closed, Yustia's composure vanished without a trace.
She kicked off her shoes and threw herself onto the bed.
Lying facedown on the soft blanket, she brought the red badge in her hand up before her eyes.
"Is this really mine?"
The badge glittered under the fluorescent light.
As if handling a jewel, she carefully stroked the surface of the badge and marveled at it.
"Oh my goodness, I can't believe it. I went up against a professor."
She rolled around on the bed, savoring her joy.
The usually cold and haughty Lady Rosenhart was gone; only a girl who seemed to have gained the entire world from a single badge remained.
As if used to it, Yurika began humming while tidying the messy room.
She hung the discarded jacket on a hanger and lightly shook out the rumpled edge of the blanket.
"You're over the moon, absolutely over the moon."
I watched her with a pleased smile, arms crossed.
"To be honest, I wasn't planning to challenge the professor at that timing today."
Yustia sat on the edge of the bed and began speaking while rolling the badge in her hand.
There was a hint of embarrassment in her voice now that her excitement had settled.
"But when I saw Evan fight so hard... I got worked up without realizing it. With the Rosenhart name on my shoulders, I couldn't lose."
"I'm glad. I was pretty flustered when I suddenly had to go up and battle too. Forget warming up, I almost got so nervous I tripped over my own feet."
When I deliberately shrugged in an exaggerated manner, Yustia opened her eyes wide and waved her hands.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Next time, I'll definitely give you a warning in advance."
"I'm kidding. Thanks to you, it was thrilling."
I chuckled and sat down on the chair beside the bed.
Just then, Yurika, who had been humming while folding a shirt, suddenly cut in.
"By the way, those obnoxious upperclassmen from earlier. Imperial? What kind of place is that?"
Yurika asked with a frown.
"I hated it from the name alone. It sounds like they're pretending to be some kind of royal guard."
"Ah, that?"
Yustia carefully set the badge down on the bedside table and took a thick leather notebook out from the desk drawer.
"It's like a social club for elites with their noses in the air. A closed-off group you can only enter through family background or recommendations from professors rather than skill."
She opened the notebook and pointed to a page with her finger.
"Let's see... I definitely remember seeing it when I was analyzing Eternoah Academy. Here it is. Imperial."
Where her finger stopped, there was a drawing of the same golden badge they had been wearing on their chests earlier.
"A venerable gathering that has existed since the academy's founding, and at the same time, an autonomous organization that wields power beyond even the student council. A prestigious group that has produced, among its graduates, commanders of the Imperial Mage Corps and captains of the Imperial Guard... or so it's packaged."
Yustia closed the notebook and smiled cynically.
"But in reality, it's just their own little league. They share information among themselves, monopolize good resources, and look down on other students. I understand why Elvis is so desperate to get in. Once you enter, it's like gaining proof that you're part of a privileged class. Especially since he's supposed to be the prince of Gordin, he'd be even more willing to stake his life on something like that."
"Hmph, in the end they're nothing but empty shells. They're no match for you, my lady!"
Yurika snorted and shoved the neatly folded clothes into the wardrobe.
"Right. We'll go our own way."
Yustia's eyes shone with determination.
She picked up the badge again and gripped it tightly, as if firming her resolve.
"Imperial or whatever else, we just have to crush them all with skill."
***
"Every year, there are always one or two lunatics who win a badge in the first week."
The highest place in the academy.
The Crown Lounge.
This place, reserved exclusively for Imperial students, was filled with students lounging lazily on luxurious leather sofas.
From here, where the red-tinged campus outside the window could be seen at a glance, they looked down arrogantly and conversed.
"But still, Rosenhart's human summon......"
"Does that even make sense? You're telling me some mere human beat Professor Rachel's Hell Hound to death with his bare hands?"
Disbelief and contempt dripped from his voice.
As if mocking common sense itself, the rumor that a human summon had trampled a professor-level summon had spread far and wide.
"There must have been some trick. Maybe she used some secret art unique to the Rosenhart family."
A female student sitting beside him replied indifferently while filing her nails.
"Right. A human endured a Hell Hound's flames? Impossible. Rosenhart must have cast some powerful protection magic on him."
"There’s no other way to explain it. There’s no way that could be possible with a human body."
They joined together in belittling Yustia and Taesan.
As though they could never acknowledge a human's pure martial strength, they struggled to find a rational explanation, even if they had to force one.
In their minds, the formula that humans were weak beings incapable of fighting was engraved like an immutable truth.
"Well, he's only human anyway."
The male student sitting at the seat of honor set down his glass and spoke in a low voice.
On his chest was a golden emblem indicating that he held one of the highest ranks even among the Imperial students.
"I don't know how he did it, but in the end, it means he was relying on the summoner's buffs. If we use debuff magic to cancel out the buffs that arrogant freshman puts on him, all that's left is an ordinary human, isn't it?"
At his words, the others nodded.
"Exactly. Strip away the buffs, and he's no different from a punching bag."
"Then let's show that arrogant Rosenhart freshman her place. We need to make her thoroughly understand the price of daring to reject our Imperial."
They cackled and clinked their glasses together.
"I'm looking forward to it. Just thinking about watching that human get trampled is already exciting."
Cruel anticipation gleamed in their eyes.
A pastime for arrogant elites.
To them, Yustia and Taesan were nothing more and nothing less than interesting toys that would briefly pass through their hands.