The remnants of the festival that had been hanging from the ceiling were settling to the floor one by one.
The magic lamps that, until yesterday, must have poured out brilliant light and embroidered the plaza were now nothing but faded lumps of metal, piled haphazardly on a cart.
The early morning sunlight streaming in through the window felt strangely cold.
The dull hammering from the direction of the plaza and the shouts of students moving heavy loads felt far away.
I lay spread-eagled on the bed without moving an inch.
I didn’t even have the strength left to twitch a finger.
When I closed my eyes, the commotion of last night rang in my ears like auditory hallucinations.
People’s screams, the low growls of monsters, and the afterimages of golden mana slicing through the air.
The only comfort was the fact that all that hellish work was over.
“Senior, are you dead? Or are you pretending to sleep?”
A familiar voice cut through the air in the room.
I knew who it was without opening my eyes.
It was Mia.
She had approached all the way to my bedside without making a sound.
The sound of her sniffing came close to my ear.
“……I’m alive. So please stop smelling me.”
My answer came out flat, but inside, I was slightly flustered.
Wait.
How did she get in?
Trying to sound as casual as possible, I asked without even properly opening my eyes.
“……How did you get in?”
“The door was open?”
Mia tilted her head as if it were obvious.
Ah.
It seemed that after coming back yesterday and collapsing immediately, I had even forgotten to lock the door.
Next time, no matter what happened, I would lock the door first.
The moment I made that firm vow to myself, Mia’s ear brushed against my cheek.
The sound of her tail tapping against the floor rang out rhythmically.
“You smell even worse than yesterday. Like charcoal that’s been burned all the way through.
Senior, aren’t you hollow on the inside?”
“I am. Even my soul’s been wrung dry.”
I groaned and raised myself up.
The creak of the bed sounded unusually loud.
Every joint in my body felt like it was creaking.
Pain wrapped around my entire body, as if someone had spent the whole night beating me with a hammer.
My reflection in the mirror was miserable.
The area under my eyes was deeply sunken, and my complexion was the color of dirt.
“Rine is waiting in the dining hall. She said if you don’t come, she’ll storm the dormitory herself. Judging by her smell, I think she’s really angry.”
A chill ran down my spine at Mia’s words.
It seemed she had heard about what happened yesterday.
Rine coming in person was practically a declaration that she would force a recovery meal down my throat.
With no time to wash, I forced strength into my staggering legs and got dressed.
The scheduled date for my withdrawal had passed, but the Academy’s morning still began without mercy.
As I walked down the dormitory corridor, the students’ chatter surged toward me like waves.
Normally, they would not have spared a glance for a failing student like me.
But today, the air in the corridor felt strangely sticky.
The sensation of someone’s gaze clinging to the back of my neck followed me constantly.
They were not mocking gazes.
But they were not openly friendly either.
Just eyes that seemed to be looking at me again.
Eyes that seemed surprised, as if asking, Was he that kind of guy?
……No, why are they looking at me like that?
I pointlessly hunched my shoulders and quickened my pace a little.
“Did you see Kyle Lucen yesterday? That golden mana was seriously unbelievable.”
“Serena was incredible too. Every time she swung her sword, monsters were sliced apart. I got chills.”
“Didn’t you see Erka reinforcing the barrier? The magic circle covered the entire plaza. I thought it was a work of art.”
All I heard on the way to the dining hall were tales of the main characters’ exploits.
Kyle’s bravery, Serena’s disciplined swordsmanship, Erka’s intricate magic.
Yes, this was normal.
The protagonists received attention and were praised as heroes.
I only needed to quietly blend into the background behind them.
I had thought this festival had ended that way too, in the end.
As soon as I opened the dining hall door, a strong medicinal smell stabbed my nose.
Rine had already secured a seat by the window in the corner of the dining hall.
In front of her sat a bowl with steam rising from it.
“Sit down, Yurian.”
Rine’s voice was calm, but within it was a firmness that allowed no refusal.
Like a criminal, I lowered my head and sat across from her.
Inside the bowl was a green porridge of unknown identity.
Just looking at it made my stomach tighten.
“I know you overdid it yesterday. The record says indirect contribution, but the body doesn’t lie.”
“……I’m just a little tired.”
“When the word ‘little’ comes out of Cadet Yurian’s mouth, that’s a warning sign. I know that now too.
Eat all of it. Don’t leave a single spoonful.
If you don’t, I’ll follow you around all day and feed you.”
At Rine’s smiling threat, I had no choice but to pick up the spoon.
A bitter, strangely nauseating taste pricked the tip of my tongue.
While I was forcing the porridge down, voices from the next table set my nerves on edge.
“By the way, did you hear? About that suspicious man.”
My spoon stopped.
Suspicious man.
They were definitely talking about that tail who had been stirring up the plaza throughout the festival.
“Yeah, I heard he was going crazy trying to run away.”
“But you know what’s funny? Wherever he stepped, the path was already blocked.”
“The path was blocked?”
“The safety line from the Swordsmanship Department was right across his escape route, and the maze from the Reconnaissance Department had its exits completely twisted around.
And the line at the treatment booth stretched so long he didn’t even dare try to break through it.”
The porridge lingering in my mouth went down roughly.
My throat went dry.
An ominous feeling squeezed my stomach.
“Wasn’t it just a coincidence?”
“It was too precise to call it coincidence. Every possible escape route was blocked. But that’s not the important part. Do you know who changed the location of the safety line? It was Yurian Balter.”
The air in the dining hall seemed to cool in an instant.
I lowered my head even further.
Please, don’t say any more.
“Yurian? That bottom-ranking failure?”
The male student who had brought up the story tapped the edge of his plate with his fork and lowered his voice.
“He must have been pretending to be a failure. Hey, think about it. They say Yurian also ordered the maze routes to be adjusted, and Yurian was the one who changed the stake locations at the treatment booth.
People from the student council are saying he must have read every route that guy would use to escape and set the board in advance.”
The friend sitting across from him widened his eyes, spoon in hand.
“Wow…… Then he lured him in to catch him from the start? Then don’t tell me even knocking over the box by falling on purpose was an act?!”
My fingertips trembled.
The spoon struck the edge of the bowl with a clatter.
I felt Rine’s gaze turn toward my hand.
A light of suspicion was slowly spreading in her eyes.
“There’s no way. How would he even……”
The third friend, who had been quietly eating soup beside them, cut in as if dumbfounded.
His words were soaked with blatant disbelief.
“It’s Yurian Balter. That frail, bottom-ranking failure. His swordsmanship is rock bottom, his mana is rock bottom, his stamina is rock bottom. How would a guy like that design the Academy festival?”
“That’s what makes it scary.”
The student who had brought up the rumor leaned forward as if he had been waiting for that.
“On the outside, he looks like the weakest weakling in the world. He can’t use a sword, his mana’s at the bottom, and he’s a failing student who rolls around half-dead in every practical class.
But behind the scenes, they say he was manipulating the entire Academy festival like a chessboard.”
“……What?”
“I heard it from a friend too. Apparently, he even knew in advance that monsters would appear.”
At those words, the gazes of the students secretly listening nearby wavered all at once.
“That’s why Kyle and Serena were already over there. They didn’t happen to arrive by chance. Yurian made all of them move that way.”
“Does that make any sense?”
“That’s why I can’t believe it either. But everyone’s saying it.”
The student swallowed once, then added carefully, like someone speaking of something taboo.
“They’re calling him the Academy’s Architect.”
“……Yurian Balter?”
“Yeah. A guy who pretends to be weak while seeing the whole board. He hides in the back as if he didn’t do anything, then pushes people into place at the necessary moment.”
“That’s ridiculous. That guy’s just a frail failure.”
“That’s what makes it even scarier. They say a truly strong person doesn’t reveal their strength.”
The word “Architect” stabbed into me like a dagger.
I wanted to deny it like mad.
No, I wanted to shout that I’d only done it because I didn’t want to die, because I was scared that if an accident happened later, I would be the one to die.
I wanted to shout that I hadn’t set the board to catch him, but cleared things away so I wouldn’t step on them myself.
But no words came out of my mouth.
Instinctively, I knew that even if I denied it here, it would only sound like an excuse.
Just then, Dylan and the Swordsmanship Department students entered the dining hall with a burst of noisy chatter.
Dylan was talking loudly, his shoulders puffed up more than usual.
“Hey, don’t even get me started! At first, I thought he was just spouting nonsense because he was scared too, you know?”
I dropped my spoon.
The metallic sound rang out, breaking the silence.
“But when we moved the safety line back just like Yurian said, the culprit got caught on that line and started fumbling! That’s when Serena appeared and blocked his path.
I seriously got chills. That bastard Yurian really had seen everything, you know? The day before, he calculated where that guy would run and told me to move the safety line!”
Dylan looked genuinely impressed.
To him, this was probably the highest praise he could give a friend, but to me, it was no different from a hand shoving me from behind at the edge of a cliff.
Please.
Please stop there, Dylan.
I lowered my head, trying to erase my presence as much as possible.
But the world always moved in the opposite direction from what I wanted.
“Huh?”
Dylan’s gaze suddenly stopped on me.
And the next moment, his face lit up brightly.
“Hey! Yurian!”
……I’m screwed.
Dylan waved his hand broadly in my direction.
“That’s him! He’s Yurian!”
The noise in the dining hall cut off as if it were a lie.
The sound of plates clinking, the students’ chatter, the scraping of chairs.
Every sound receded in an instant.
And dozens of pairs of eyes fixed on me all at once.
Curiosity.
Shock.
Suspicion.
And a strange sense of awe.
Gazes mixed with all those emotions poured over my body.
I remained frozen in the exact posture I had been in when I dropped the spoon.
No.
That’s not it.
It was just a coincidence that things lined up.
“No, Dylan. I just……”
As if he had no way of knowing what I felt inside, Dylan continued to smile brightly and said,
“Come on, don’t be modest! Thanks to you, my name made it into the report this time too. You’re seriously amazing, Yurian. Who knew an Architect like this was hiding in the Academy!”
The whispering inside the dining hall exploded.
The students’ gazes had now changed from curiosity into a strange light mixed with awe and fear.
Rine stared at me silently, then slowly opened her mouth.
“……Yurian, did you really know all of it?”
“Rine, please……”
Instead of answering, I rose from my seat.
I could not stay here any longer.
Avoiding the gazes stabbing hotly into the back of my head, I fled the dining hall as if running away.
My heart pounded like it would burst the entire time I ran down the corridor.
The Crisis Response Award, the Trap Evasion Rate Award. Those ominous records from the midterm practical exam had now gained the wings of rumor and were closing in around my throat.
It was when I stopped near the bulletin board, gasping for breath.
In front of the bulletin board, along with a brief report on yesterday’s incident, students’ scribbles had been posted.
A line someone had written in large letters with a pen entered my view.
[The terrifying Architect of the central plaza, Yurian Balter.]
The moment I saw those words, goosebumps rose all over my body.
The scheduled date for my withdrawal had passed.
But beneath that mocking nickname, I was painfully realizing it to the bone.
The ordinary life of a useless nobody I had longed for so desperately had now become impossible forever.