When a conclusion like that is reached, there are usually two choices.
Dig deeper, or pull out.
I chose the former.
“Let’s go.”
As soon as I spoke quietly, Mia nodded immediately.
We moved as low as possible along the wall by the back gate.
I deliberately didn’t look toward where the smoke bomb had gone off earlier.
If you cling to regret, your feet slow.
If your feet slow, you get caught.
If you get caught, it’s over.
When we had made it back near the dorms, Mia suddenly grabbed my arm.
“Stop.”
I stopped right away.
A lantern light brushed past the corridor window on the inside and passed by.
Whether it was a proctor, a patrolling student, or just some sleepless bastard, I had no intention of finding out.
Curiosity may advance humanity, but more often than not, it kills.
Only after the light moved away did we start moving again.
The moment I barely made it back to the room and closed the door, the breath that had been trapped in my lungs finally burst out.
“Ha.”
Mia leaned back against my desk as if sitting on it and asked.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Go to sleep now.”
“You can sleep right now?”
It was a good question.
I’d received a threatening note, been tailed in the middle of the night and lost them, and there had even been traps laid at the back gate.
On top of that, the one who’d done it knew the school’s internal routes exactly.
If you could fall asleep in this state, that wasn’t being a magnanimous person—it meant your nerves were dead.
“No.”
“Then?”
I opened the desk drawer and wrapped the glass shards in a piece of cloth.
I took out the threatening note again and folded it.
It was too wasteful to burn, and too dangerous to carry around.
Ambiguous evidence is always the nastiest kind.
“Still, I have to lie down. If I want to move like a human being tomorrow.”
Mia looked at me for a while and then spoke quietly.
“That smell from earlier.”
“Yeah.”
“It wasn’t only at the back gate.”
My hands stopped at those words.
“What do you mean?”
“It was faint… but it was mixed in near the dorms too. Along with the smell of paper.”
My heart sank unpleasantly once more.
Great.
This was just great.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
My head grew even louder.
They’re inside.
Likely mixed in among the bastards walking the corridors, sitting in the auditorium, probably chowing down on meals right alongside us.
“You remember tomorrow morning’s schedule?”
When I asked, Mia slowly wagged her tail once.
“Department orientation.”
“That’s right.”
“What department are you in?”
I thought for a moment before answering.
“The place where I can spend the least money and survive the longest.”
Mia blinked.
“There’s a department like that?”
“Strategy and Administration Department.”
In the end, I sighed a few more times and lay down.
And the next morning, predictably, I was utterly exhausted.
I don’t know when I fell asleep.
My eyes had opened before the morning bell, but my body felt anything but refreshed.
The price of sneaking around at night.
I’d only enrolled in this school recently, yet it already felt like my lifespan was decreasing.
Truly educational.
The path to the auditorium was unusually noisy.
The freshmen’s faces were an adequate mix of anticipation and tension.
I thought I was the only one walking around with dark circles under my eyes, but surprisingly, there were quite a few others like me.
It seemed everyone was struggling to adapt to a new environment.
Humans are exhausted no matter where they go.
The professors for each department took turns giving explanations from the podium.
The Swordsmanship Department was predictably loud.
It was half advertisement rather than explanation.
Strong, honorable, advancement to the knights’ order, preferential treatment for outstanding combat performers.
It sounded cool.
Instead, it was obvious both money and body would be worn out together.
A department with terrifying maintenance costs.
The Sacred Arts Department looked the most normal on the outside.
Healing, purification, barrier support, recovery assistance. It sounded like a good department that saved lives.
In this world, that side was actually scarier.
Because those who save lives always stick close to those who classify people.
The Alchemy and Engineering Department was practical.
Equipment, medicine, supplies, repairs.
Without them, the world doesn’t turn.
The problem was that the cost of materials seemed to make itself heard every time they spoke.
I’m the type of person who calculates the price of medicine first. I respected them, but I needed to keep my distance.
And then, Strategy and Administration.
The professor standing at the podium spoke in the most boring way, and because of that, it actually reached my ears.
Logistics, records, analysis, operations, deployment, administration, regulations. Let others swing the sword; this is the side that decides where that sword should strike.
The flashy ones catch the eye first.
I had to be the opposite.
The Magic Department was even worse.
Half the words were already incomprehensible.
Spell formulas, arrays, resonance, calculations, structural stability.
The professor giving the explanation had a face of someone so confident in what they were saying that they weren’t even aware others couldn’t keep up.
That was when it happened.
While the Magic Department explanation was continuing again, a female student sitting around the middle interrupted without even raising her hand.
“That explanation is wrong.”
The auditorium fell silent in an instant.
Nice. A refreshing start to the morning.
All eyes snapped toward her at once.
I looked too.
Hair so close to black that it faintly reflected a purplish hue in the light.
Her gold-tinged eyes were strangely clear despite looking tired, and her expression was that of a face that had trained long and hard in being despised by others.
She was pretty, but not the kind of pretty that suggested a good personality.
The type where you’d probably end up fighting after just a little conversation.
The professor narrowed his brow.
“What did you say?”
“The auto-correction of the resonance formula.
It’s not automatic; it’s forcibly adjusted to the standard formula.
The expression that it reduces error accumulation is wrong too.”
Wow.
If you start talking like that, it’s normal to have no friends.
The female student showed no sign of stopping whatsoever.
“It might be more stable for basic aptitude holders, but for those with sensitive reactions, the initial loss actually increases.
If you explain it like that, it’ll be misunderstood.”
The professor’s face soured. The students’ expressions were similar.
However, the female student herself didn’t waver in the slightest.
Rather than showing off, it was the face of someone who simply couldn’t let something that didn’t match what was in her head slide.
Ah.
That’s a bit dangerous.
Not a simple problem child, but the type who can’t overlook what she’s seen.
The type whose mouth moves first when she sees something wrong.
A person perfectly suited to turning everyone around her into enemies.
The professor asked in a low voice.
“Your name.”
“Erka von Lumen.”
And then, a beat late and with absolutely no sincerity, she added.
“It was a correction rather than a question.”
Gasping sounds came from here and there in the auditorium.
I pressed my lips together.
She’s insane.
But her brains are real.
For better or for worse.
The professor didn’t retort further.
Instead, he continued the explanation, and Erka sat with her arms crossed, not changing her expression once.
The student next to her was openly leaning away slightly.
I understand.
I would’ve too.
After the explanations ended, the freshmen began moving out in droves.
Then one side of the corridor became a bit chaotic.
Wondering if someone had fallen, I looked to see a student half-collapsed, leaning against the wall.
Whether from nervousness, their face was pale and their breathing was rapid.
The surrounding kids stood at a loss, keeping their distance.
In the middle of that, one girl crouched down first.
“It’s all right. Try breathing slowly.”
Her voice was soft.
Not forcibly bright, but a voice that made the listener relax first.
Her hair was as light as honey under sunlight, and the corners of her eyes seemed relaxed even before she smiled.
Anyone could tell she was a good kid.
Kids like that usually don’t last long in the world.
Because the world wears down the good ones the fastest.
She held the student’s wrist and slowly stroked their back with her other hand.
A small light briefly gathered at her fingertips before fading.
The surrounding students breathed sighs of relief.
“You’re feeling a bit better now, right?”
When she asked with a smile, the collapsed student barely nodded.
The kids around them finally exhaled in relief.
Everyone only saw that smiling face.
I didn’t.
I saw her hands.
Her fingertips were trembling faintly.
Her breathing was also slightly short.
She was hiding it, but she couldn’t hide it completely.
Exhaustion was seeping out beneath that smiling face.
Ah.
Her condition is very different from how she looks on the outside.
She lightly patted the collapsed student’s shoulder one more time before slowly rising.
That movement was smooth too.
So smooth that it actually stood out more.
The feeling of covering drained strength with familiar movements.
Others probably didn’t notice.
I did.
Great.
To see someone like this on the first day
She smiled as if to reassure the surrounding students.
“It’s all right now. As long as you don’t get too startled.”
She said that, but her own voice was a bit dry.
And then, the moment she stepped back to the side.
For just an instant, I saw the strength leave her knees.
Her body tilted slightly.
I reflexively reached out.
Tak.
The moment I grasped her just above the elbow, her body stopped from falling further.
She looked up at me with surprised eyes.
Seen up close, her face was even softer.
A face specialized in putting people at ease.
Which made it all the more pitiful.
“Ah…”
She swallowed her breath very quietly.
“Thank you.”
“You all right?”
When I asked, she smiled right away.
An extremely practiced smile, unbefitting of someone who had just swayed.
“Yes. I must have gotten dizzy for a moment.”
That’s a lie.
No, maybe not a complete lie.
By her own standards, this level might be something that happened all the time.
I let go of her hand and said.
“You should probably rest a bit too.”
At those words, her eyes paused for a very brief moment.
Really briefly.
She smiled again right away, but this time, the texture was subtly different from before.
“…I’m fine.”
That’s a lie.
But I didn’t bother to voice it.
My social skills weren’t so ruined that I’d say that aloud to someone I’d just met.
I’d already been suspected enough by Serena.
Repeating the same mistake isn’t a character trait; it’s an illness.
I nodded weakly.
“Sure.”
She looked at me for a moment and added.
“I’m Rine Bellar.”
Hearing her name made my head even more complicated.
Great.
I’d already seen one genius problem child earlier, and now I’d seen another one burning through her own stamina with a smiling face.
The possibility of my school life proceeding normally was gradually disappearing.
After watching Rine help the other student away, I belatedly turned my body.
In that moment, my sleeve was tugged.
It was Mia.
Her ears were pinned back.
“What.”
When I asked, Mia spoke very quietly.
“That smell.”
My heart dropped once with a thud.
“What smell.”
Mia slowly turned her head.
Not toward where Rine had been standing.
But toward the end of the auditorium corridor where the department orientation had been held, where a door with a faculty-only sign was.
“The one from last night.”
Mia whispered low.
“It’s here too.”
I stared at the door in silence.
And almost simultaneously, I saw a very thin black line spread out from the shadowy gap beneath the door.
Ah.
So much for sleep today.