“Miss Yustia. I truly cannot understand what you’re saying right now… I told you to bring your summoned creature. Not a bodyguard.”
The professor roughly adjusted his glasses in frustration and furrowed his brow.
“Yes. He is my summoned creature.”
Yustia answered without the slightest hesitation.
Her voice was so calm that it almost sounded unreal.
“Miss Yustia, this joke has gone too far. The Academy entrance examination is not a game. For the sake of your family’s honor, at least…”
Just as the professor’s scolding seemed about to drag on, Yustia silently extended the back of her hand toward me.
Fwoosh—
The nape of my neck grew hot, burning sharply.
Along with the searing sensation, a red pattern began to glow vividly.
Proof of the summoning contract. A brand.
“No…!”
The professor’s eyes widened as if they would pop out.
With his jaw hanging open, he looked back and forth between the red light pouring from the nape of my neck and the pattern engraved on the back of Yustia’s hand.
“M-Miss Yustia! What in the world is this…!”
He stammered in a voice filled with horror.
“I don’t know how you did it, but… a contract of obedience with a human! This is a serious issue both ethically and legally! If this becomes known to the academic world, not only will your family’s honor be tarnished, you may even face expulsion! Why would you do something so reckless…!”
The professor’s face had gone deathly pale.
He seemed to be looking at me as though I were the victim of some illegal slave trade or a sacrifice of forbidden black magic.
“No. I’m telling you, he’s the summoned creature that came out during the summoning ritual.”
Yustia replied calmly, not even blinking at the professor’s fuss.
“That’s impossible…! How does it make any sense for a human to come out of a summoning circle?”
The professor shook his head violently in disbelief and fixed his gaze on me.
His eyes held suspicion, bewilderment, and a faint trace of fear.
“You… did you truly come out of a summoning circle?”
“Yes. I did.”
At my answer, the professor clutched the back of his neck and staggered as if he had been struck.
As though trying to deny the reality before him, he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.
“H-Hah… Good heavens. Are you truly admitting that with your own mouth?”
I barely managed to nod my stiff neck.
“Yes. I popped out of a summoning circle.”
The professor looked me up and down, his face pale as if he had seen a ghost.
With trembling hands, he adjusted his glasses again.
“This is… a matter of great importance that must be reported to the academic community. No, before that, how should this be handled…”
He muttered in confusion as he rummaged through the pile of documents on his desk.
But his hands were shaking so badly that only the loud rustling of papers echoed around us.
“Wait… wait here a moment.”
The professor sprang up from his seat as if fleeing.
“I must report this to the higher-ups… no, I must ask the dean. This is beyond my authority.”
He backed away, never taking his wary eyes off us.
“Stay right there! Do not move under any circumstances!”
“Hmm… I thought he would be startled, but I didn’t expect him to panic so much that he’d forget even his dignity as a professor.”
Yustia scratched her cheek with an awkward smile, as if faintly embarrassed.
I watched the professor’s retreating back and twitched an eyebrow.
That man had almost tripped over the pile of documents earlier, and now he was floundering at the end of the hallway, unable to find the door.
“This is going to be all right, isn’t it?”
“Hm? Well… it’s not as if I lied.”
“No, I’m not talking about whether it’s a lie. Wouldn’t it have been easier to explain if your father had come with us?”
At my question, Yustia stuck out her lips in a pout.
There was a subtle pride and stubbornness in her eyes.
“That certainly would have been the case. With Father’s authority, one word from him would have ended this without any need for explanation.”
She paused to choose her words, then let out a low sigh.
“But Lord Taesan. Do you know how old I am now? If I hide behind my father every time a problem arises even after reaching the age to enter the Academy, how much do you think people will whisper behind my back? ‘The young lady of Rosenhart is a greenhouse flower who can’t do anything on her own,’ ‘Without her father, she can’t even manage her summoned creature’… I don’t want to hear things like that.”
Her voice was firm.
But I still couldn’t shake my unease.
The professor’s reaction just now had been far beyond simple surprise.
“Even so, judging by his reaction, this doesn’t seem like a simple problem. If things go wrong, it looks like it could become a legal issue before we even talk about admission.”
“Oh, come on…! I said it’ll be fine, didn’t I?”
Yustia nudged my side with her elbow.
“Are you worried? I’m more worried that Lord Taesan will fall flat on his face during the speed measurement and get disqualified. So relax. I’ll handle it.”
She curved her eyes in a smile, pretending to be perfectly composed, but I did not miss the fact that the tips of her clasped hands had turned white.
For all her words, she was anxious too.
From the reception desk to the side, the cheerful sound of stamps being pressed down rang out without pause.
I could see students receiving their registration certificates and heading inside with delighted smiles.
The line grew shorter and shorter, and even the crowd standing behind us had thinned out by the time I murmured,
“They’re taking a while…”
I anxiously tapped the floor with the tip of my foot.
“Can’t they just come, take one look, say, ‘Oh, I see,’ and move on?”
I wrapped my words in grumbling, but inside, I was burning with nerves.
Surely they weren’t going to drag me off somewhere and preserve me as the first recorded case of a human summoned creature, right?
Or maybe I’d end up strapped to a laboratory bed and dissected by professors like mad scientists.
Just imagining it sent a chill down my spine.
Then, from the far end of the corridor, footsteps approached.
“Professor Brand. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Surely you can handle a simple registration procedure on your own? If it violates the regulations, then send them away.”
Two people were walking toward us.
One was the professor who had vanished as if fleeing earlier, and beside him was a potbellied middle-aged man shaking his head as though annoyed.
“No, the dean must see this for himself! This is not a matter I can handle at my level.”
Professor Brand looked almost ready to cry.
At that desperation, the man called the dean reluctantly moved his feet.
The two of them stopped in front of us.
“Ah, yes. So you’re Miss Yustia. A pleasure to meet you. I am Cocrack, dean of Eternoa.”
Dean Cocrack offered a perfunctory greeting in a tone dripping with boredom.
“Hello, Dean. It is an honor to meet you.”
Yustia bowed with flawless posture.
She was the very image of a perfectly courteous young lady from a distinguished family.
“And…”
Professor Brand swallowed hard, then pointed a trembling finger at me.
“They say the person standing behind her is her summoned creature.”
Dean Cocrack’s indifferent gaze drifted toward me, then stopped.
“…Pardon?”
He blinked several times as though trying to understand the situation, then looked back and forth between Professor Brand and Yustia.
In the cold, sunken silence, Yustia watched their reactions, then held out the back of her hand.
Once again, red light flashed, and the nape of my neck burned hot.
The brand of the summoning contract rose clearly into view.
Only then did Dean Cocrack’s eyes slowly, very slowly, widen.
“Huh…?”
His mouth fell open in disbelief, and he could not tear his gaze away from the red pattern carved into my neck.
“No… why is this real…?”
A sound that was neither a sigh nor a groan escaped his mouth.
Professor Brand stamped his feet as if wronged.
“Why won’t you believe me! I told you exactly what I saw. There was a contract engraved on a person’s body!”
But the professor’s desperate cry did not seem to reach the dean’s ears.
Rather than solving the problem, he was captivated by the bizarre phenomenon unfolding before his eyes.
He looked us over with eyes full of curiosity and wonder, like a child gazing at a rare animal.
“Um… so, will I be able to register?”
Yustia spoke cautiously, but the dean gave no answer.
His gaze persistently moved between the brand on the nape of my neck and the back of Yustia’s hand.
“…So… you are saying you summoned that person? Miss Yustia?”
“Yes. One week ago, from a highest-grade summoning circle.”
At Yustia’s answer, the dean staggered and braced a hand against the desk.
“Hah…”
He rubbed his face dryly and collapsed into a chair.
His eyes, staring blankly into the air, had lost focus.
He looked like a man listening to the laws of the world crumble around him.
“For now… register them, Professor.”
The dean’s heavy words cut through the air.
“Y-You’re allowing the registration?”
Professor Brand asked back in shock.
His eyes shook violently in disbelief.
“Yes. Why is it that we have been able to maintain our position as the greatest academy in the Empire?”
Dean Cocrack slowly rose to his feet.
“We reached this position because we recognized diversity and embraced all those with ability, regardless of a summoner’s origins or a summoned creature’s species. Even if it is an unprecedented heresy, if that human is truly a summoned creature, we have no grounds to refuse.”
He cast another sticky, persistent gaze in my direction.
“For now, I must inform His Majesty the Emperor of this.”
The dean hurried off, then stopped.
Then he turned back and added,
“Wait… if he is human anyway, he will not be able to pass the practical exam. But even after the exam ends, please remain at the Academy and wait. There is research value… no, there are things we must confirm.”
“No. He can pass.”
Yustia answered boldly with a smile.
But the dean had already turned his back and was scurrying out of the corridor.
Yustia’s voice, full of certainty, did not seem to reach his ears.
Left standing there alone, Professor Brand tore at his own hair with a troubled expression.
“Haa… I’ve lived long enough to see everything.”
With a deep sigh, he finally picked up the stamp.
Thud—!
The heavy stamp struck the document.