My first impression upon seeing Serena Arsein was simpler than I’d expected.
Pretty. No, more than that, dangerous.
Of the two, the latter came first.
That was something of a problem.
When people see a noble young lady for the first time, don’t they usually look at her face first? But I looked first at the black line drawn beneath the decorative statue above the main gate, and then at the thin crack caught at the end of the stair railing.
The spot that woman would step through, the paths of the two knights standing beside her, and even the gazes surrounding it all.
There was only one conclusion.
Something was there.
The problem was, “So what are you going to do about it?”
I was the son of a fallen noble house who had only just arrived in the capital.
My money was questionable, I had no connections,
and within the academy, I was still Student Candidate 1, without even a name to my credit.
If someone like me walked up to a duke’s daughter and said,
“Excuse me, but the area around you looks rather dangerous,”
what would happen?
At best, I’d be a madman.
If things went well, I’d be a suspicious bastard.
At worst, her guards would twist my arm behind my back right then and there, and that would be the end of it.
So the answer was obvious.
Pretend not to know.
As quietly as possible.
Do not stand out any more than necessary.
The problem was that, up until today, this world had never once respected such modest plans of mine.
I tore my gaze away and picked up my luggage.
Then I moved along with the crowd heading toward the main gate.
The student registration desk had been set up separately in an annex beside the main building.
The children who got down from noble family carriages were guided separately, accompanied by servants or attendants, while ambiguous bastards like me got in line first.
It was a fine sight.
More precisely, discrimination had been arranged to look fine.
On the surface, it was fair.
Anyone could stand in line.
Anyone could submit their documents.
But the waiting time, the tone of the reception, the looks, and the corridors we were guided through were already different.
The academy claimed to be meritocratic, but life itself was different from the start.
I’d known that when I played the game, but seeing it in reality was even worse.
A young nobleman standing in front of me grumbled.
“Why on earth do we have to stand in a line like this?”
The attendant beside him soothed him in a low voice.
“It is the regulation, young master.”
“Aren’t regulations made to be shoved in the faces of commoners?”
He said it so naturally that I was almost impressed.
People without a conscience usually don’t even know they don’t have one.
That must be the easiest way to live.
I wasn’t envious.
Bastards like that get smashed hard later on.
This world isn’t the type to tolerate that sort for long.
The line moved disgustingly slowly.
There were six reception windows, but only three were actually moving quickly.
The other three were busy handling kids called aside separately, like nobles, Sanctuary recommendations, and military special admissions.
Whether commoner or fallen noble, the regular line just crawled along.
Good.
This much texture was needed for it to feel real.
It was realistic to start piling up irritation before even entering school.
When my turn came, the receptionist first skimmed my documents.
“Name.”
“Yulian Valter.”
“Origin.”
“The Valter baronet family.”
The woman briefly raised her eyes.
Ah. I knew that reaction.
“Your desired department is Strategy and Administration?”
“Yes.”
“Supplementary courses in Basic Magic Studies and parts of Alchemy and Engineering.”
“Yes.”
She flipped through the documents again.
Her hands moved quickly, but her expression was stiff.
To this person, I was probably just one of thirty-eight students she had to process today.
That actually made me more comfortable.
“You are scheduled to be assigned to the general dormitory.
No separate patron registered, and no personal servant either.”
None.
Of course not.
If Valter were in a position to attach a servant to support my student life, I wouldn’t have counted my coin purse three times over.
“Please pay the entrance deposit.”
I held out the pouch containing silver coins.
Every time I heard money leaving my hands, it made me feel truly miserable.
The moment of losing something is always more vivid than the moment of gaining something.
Right now, my admission didn’t feel like the first step toward dreams and the future. It felt closer to the process of my precious silver coins passing into someone else’s hands.
The receptionist said stiffly,
“Identity plaques will be distributed tomorrow morning. For today, use only this temporary entry pass.
You must complete dormitory check-in before sunset.
New student orientation will be held in the central auditorium after the evening bell rings three times.”
I received the temporary pass.
It was a cold metal plate.
A simple pattern and temporary identification number were stamped onto the surface. It strongly gave the impression that I wasn’t a real student yet, only someone provisionally registered.
It felt like holding a classification tag.
“Any questions?”
I had plenty.
How rotten this school was, when I was scheduled to die, why things around the duke’s daughter already seemed unstable, and just how bad the dormitory food was.
But I couldn’t ask things like that.
“No.”
“Next.”
Clean. Good. At least this much was less damaging to the soul.
I left the registration desk.
First, I had to find the general dormitory.
If I was going to get to the auditorium before sunset while carrying my luggage, I needed to learn the routes first.
Getting lost in an unfamiliar place is not my hobby.
The plaza in front of the main building was wide.
It was wide, but because of all the people, it felt even more chaotic.
Signs for each department had been set up, and students who looked like upperclassmen were herding new candidates around while explaining things.
The Sword Dance Department side was the noisiest.
Burly guys looked ready to strip off their shirts and give demonstrations, and noble children were especially gathered there in droves.
The saying that it was popular because it was a department that made bodies flashy, visible, and immediately useful fit perfectly.
By contrast, the signboard for Strategy and Administration was relatively quiet.
A place that learned how to manage people rather than how to be flashy.
Honestly, that side suited my tastes better.
Anyone can swing a sword from the front and die.
The hard part is seeing the board without dying.
I followed the sign pointing toward the general dormitory.
At that moment, another commotion rose in the distance.
It was near the main gate stairs.
I thought it was probably nothing, but my eyes found the black line first.
The crack I’d seen earlier beneath the statue had grown just slightly darker.
Another faint line continued along the edge of the red carpet laid below the stairs.
My heart beat fast once.
“…Ha.”
Why did it have to be over there?
When I raised my head, I saw Serena.
This time, she was closer.
Together with two knights, she was exchanging greetings with some old professor-like people, perhaps the acting dean or something.
Her posture had no disorder.
Her words were brief and composed.
Even from afar, she gave the impression of a “perfect apex predator.”
But in my eyes, it looked different.
Too upright.
And therefore all the more precarious.
Behind her on the right stood several children from other noble families, and behind them, one student was holding a clipboard with an indifferent face.
I thought they were an administrative assistant, but every time that kid turned a sheet of paper, my gaze was strangely caught.
Because at the corner of that clipboard too, an extremely thin black line flickered past.
I stopped walking.
No way.
The instant that thought came to me, a tiny metallic scraping sound came from one side of the decorative statue above the main gate.
Creeeak.
Others may not have heard it.
But I did.
“Over there—”
The moment I unconsciously took a step forward, someone slammed hard into my shoulder from behind.
“Ah.”
My body swayed to the side.
My bag slipped and fell to the ground.
I swallowed a curse on reflex and turned around.
Silver-white hair. A small frame. Amber eyes.
And white wolf ears standing perked atop her head.
Ah.
Mia.
The problem was, this was not a situation where I could be pleased to see her.
The beastkin girl sniffed without even realizing she had bumped into me. No, to be precise, she seemed to be smelling the surroundings.
Her face stiffened in an instant.
Her ears lay back ever so slightly, and her gaze snapped toward the main gate.
Good.
She sensed it too.
It was just a different method from mine.
I saw lines, while she caught it through her senses.
Beastkin types were strong in senses, field adaptation, and tracking, and Mia specialized in resonance and scouting.
In that brief moment as I was thinking that,
one side of the statue’s pedestal above the main gate dropped with a thud.
I shouted immediately.
“Move!”
I didn’t even know whom I was saying it to.
My body just moved first.
When people are in danger, the first thing that comes out isn’t a cool line.
It’s a scream.
It’s profanity.
Or it’s the reflex to move before anything else.
I did all three.
“Fuck, move!”
I shouted and ran forward.
There was some distance to the main gate stairs, but now, vague calculations would only get in the way.
Moving fast came first.
Behind me, Mia looked at me with wide eyes.
Serena seemed not to have noticed the situation yet.
No, perhaps she had half noticed.
Her motion of looking upward was ever so slightly slow.
But sometimes, that one beat is fatal.
Especially in a world like this.
Creeeeeak.
The metal ornament beside the statue’s pedestal twisted.
The tip of the decorative spear hanging beneath it came down.
It wasn’t large.
Not on the level of crushing a whole person flat.
The problem was its direction.
If it fell as it was, it wouldn’t hit her head-on, but would graze the line from Serena’s right shoulder to her neck and cover her together with her knight.
She could die. Even if she didn’t, it would be a major incident.
At the main gate, on the first day of admission, the duke’s daughter.
This would look like an accident.
But from my position, knowing the original story, variables of this kind occurring around Serena were usually not accidents, but assassination attempts.
So this sort of sign could never be ignored.
I threw myself from the bottom of the stairs.
Of course, I didn’t fly in gracefully.
If a person doesn’t normally exercise, even in moments like this, their form doesn’t come out.
I simply rushed in hastily, truly pathetically, like I was throwing myself forward.
Even so, the timing was right.
One knight standing just behind Serena moved a beat too late, and I grabbed Serena by the elbow half a beat before him and pulled.
“Pardon me!”
Her body tilted toward me for an instant.
And in the very next moment—
Bang!
The tip of the decorative spear and fragments of stone slammed into the stairs.
Stone dust scattered.
One knight spat out a curse and grabbed his sword hilt.
Screams burst from the surroundings.
I hadn’t fully embraced Serena, nor had I properly supported her.
I had simply pulled her and shifted her axis.
Thanks to that, I lost my balance as well and staggered toward the bottom of the stairs.
My arm twisted painfully, and my knee struck the stone floor too.
“Ghk—”
It hurt. Really. It hurt in a fucking uncool way.
In the meantime, Serena corrected her posture almost instinctively.
As expected of a high-ranking noble young lady from the Sword Dance Department.
Even as she stumbled, the degree to which she lost composure was small.
Even if I hadn’t held on to her, she probably wouldn’t have sprawled completely.
Though a lump of metal would have nearly pierced her above the neck.
The knights immediately stepped forward.
“My lady!”
“Secure the area!”
Good.
Now this was exactly the picture I hated most.
Everyone had reacted to the danger, and at the center of it all was me, an unidentified fallen noble who had suspiciously pulled Serena away.
Really great.
“Uh, well—”
Before I could even make an excuse, the end of a scabbard blocked the underside of my chin.
One knight glared at me.
“Who are you?”
It was a natural question.
But it still felt unfair.
I saved her, and the first thing you say is who are you?
“I’m a new student.”
“Name.”
“Yulian Valter.”
“Why did you approach her?”
I’d like to know that myself.
Why was I crashing into a duke’s daughter on the very first day?
I said I’d live quietly.
I said I wouldn’t die.
And yet I was already in this state.
Only then did Serena open her mouth.
“Lower your sword.”
Her voice was calm.
Far too calm for someone who had nearly suffered something terrible just now.
The knights hesitated for a moment.
Even so, they didn’t lower it right away.
At least they had a sense of duty.
Serena looked down at me.
Seeing her up close, her eyes were colder than I’d expected.
Gray-blue.
Rather than icy cold, they were the eyes of someone who had endured too much and kept herself standing straight.
“You pulled me away.”
“Yes.”
“How did you know?”
The exchange was extremely brief and clean.
Good. It was exactly to my taste, but right now, it was a bit terrifying.
I wanted to be honest.
Because black lines appeared on the statue above the gate and on the support of the decorative spear.
Because they looked like places that would soon collapse.
But if I said that, I’d be confirmed as a madman on the spot.
So I said it in the least suspicious way possible.
“I heard a sound from above.”
“A sound?”
“Yes. The sound of metal twisting.”
Serena looked upward for a very brief moment.
One of the knights looked as well.
The broken support, fragments of stone, and the bent tip of the decorative spear were there.
It wasn’t a perfect excuse.
But it wasn’t complete nonsense either.
She looked at me again.
“Did you hear that sound and decide that I would be right?”
“…Yes.”
Good.
Keep it as short as possible.
The longer it gets, the more the bullshit falls apart.
Serena was silent for a while.
In that brief stillness, every gaze around us gathered.
Noble children, upperclassmen, administrative assistants, knights. People who hadn’t cared until just a moment ago were now all looking our way.
I really hate this kind of thing.
I instinctively scanned the area.
And looked for the student who’d looked like an administrative assistant, the one holding the clipboard earlier.
I couldn’t see him.
He’d been there just a moment ago.
My heart went cold.
He ran.
It could be a coincidence.
But the guy who believes in coincidences at a moment like this is the first to die.
Serena spoke quietly.
“There’s no need to hand him over to the knights.”
The knight called to her in a low voice.
“My lady.”
“It’s true that he pushed me out of the way and saved me just now.
Whatever his intention was, the result is the same.”
Accurate.
Accurate, but damn burdensome.
Keeping her eyes fixed on me, she asked,
“Are you injured?”
“It’s nothing serious.”
My knee hurt like hell and I felt like I’d sprained my arm too, but I didn’t want to whine about it here.
If I did, I’d really look pathetic.
I already looked pathetic enough, but there was a line.
At my answer, Serena’s eyebrows moved ever so slightly.
She didn’t seem to believe me.
But she didn’t bother pointing it out.
“Your name, again.”
“…Yurian Valter.”
This time, she listened to my name like someone making sure to remember it.
Great.
Really.
On the first day, my name got engraved in the memory of a duke’s daughter.
Serena gave a short nod.
“I will remember this matter.”
It was unclear whether that was gratitude or a warning.
Probably neither. Just the truth as it was.
She seemed like the type who didn’t say meaningless things.
Only after the knights withdrew could I breathe a little easier.
Then, from beside me, a familiar presence drew near.
The silver-white-haired beastkin girl, Mia, crouched down next to me. Her amber eyes moved back and forth between my knee and my arm.
Her ears were still slightly flattened.
“Senior.”
That was the first thing she said.
Dumbfounded, I turned my head.
“I haven’t even enrolled yet. What senior?”
“Anyway.”
She sniffed once, then said in a low voice,
“I smelled something weird earlier.”
I immediately met her eyes.
“…What kind of smell?”
“The smell of metal. And… a bad smell.”
I wanted to ask more right away, but there were too many eyes around us.
The knights on Serena’s side still hadn’t fully dropped their guard, and people who looked like faculty were bustling around, checking the broken decoration over the front gate.
Serena looked at me one last time.
There was more judgment than gratitude in that gaze.
The person who saved her.
But also someone who had stepped in at a strangely perfect moment.
That seemed to be about how she had marked me.
What an exhausting start.
Serena entered the main building with her knights.
Once she grew distant, Mia lightly tugged at my sleeve.
“Senior.”
“What?”
“That wasn’t an accident.”
“…I think so too.”
As soon as I said that, her ears perked up a little again.
Insane how fast we’re bonding.
Of course, not in a welcome way at all.
I looked up at the entrance of the main building.
Stone dust was still falling from beneath the broken decoration.
The first day of enrollment.
A duke’s daughter.
A collapse that looked like an accident.
Anyone would call it an unlucky incident.
But I know.
In this world, things like that usually aren’t real accidents.
And the even shittier part is that I’ve already twisted one of those lines.
I don’t know yet whether it was the original story’s first death flag, an assassination route, or some smaller warning than that.
But one thing was certain.
Living quietly was already out of the question.