The cadet uniform I’d been issued felt a little stifling.
As I said before, Bethesda Academy was a school of opportunity and a dreamlike institution that excluded rank and economic circumstances, all to raise heroes of war.
“Of all things, a lowborn.”
And as I also said before, dreams were usually illusions. You couldn’t say the utopia the academy pursued and the direction its members pursued were one and the same.
For example.
The lines for enrollment procedures themselves were divided by class. There were three departments, but they weren’t divided by department. They were divided by class.
At least there were quite a lot of commoners.
In the setting of Titan Core, merchants were just as powerful as nobles. There were plenty of cases where children of influential merchant families entered Bethesda Academy as sponsors.
Or they might have passed the lower-class examination somewhere else. Either way, it wasn’t rare for commoners to enter the academy.
The problem was this side.
There were only three people in the line for lowborn enrollment procedures.
Out of an incoming class of 600, only 3. Literally the bottom one percent—less than that.
One of them was loitering around without doing anything, and the other was sitting in a corner by the road, staring blankly up at the sky.
“Do lowborn not even know how to stand in line properly?”
Why the hell do we even need a line? There are only three people anyway, you stupid bastards.
I kept the retort strictly inside my head. The nobles and commoners were still watching the lowborn like a spectacle. I felt like an animal in a zoo. I didn’t have the energy to say a single word with confidence.
It wasn’t because of the restriction. I was simply the kind of person who didn’t step forward in front of others to begin with.
My forehead started throbbing again. It was because I’d slammed my head into the wall as soon as I woke up that morning. This time, I’d intended to solve it physically before any suicidal impulse could even arise.
The result was failure. There was only one way to stop the flood of self-loathing and suicidal urges.
Being exposed to enough overwhelming information to satisfy the otaku restriction.
“You think flipping through pages means you’re reading a book?”
My hand stopped as I was about to turn the page.
The speed at which I read books was absurdly unnatural. I’d only just realized it, but just as the restrictions synergized with one another, my traits were also synergizing with one another.
Speed reading that let me read and understand books quickly, spatial perception that let me grasp my surroundings, and on top of that, natural-born pilot.
The moment I started reading text related to piloting methods, it felt less like reading and more like the contents were being crammed directly into my head. No, I was reading far faster than my mind could understand.
Ever since I woke up, I’d been forcing myself to read in order to regulate my emotions. The aching in my forehead that had started earlier suddenly began to burn hot.
“Ah.”
The bridge of my nose stung, and I smelled something fishy. When I wiped my philtrum, bright red blood came away on my hand. The moment I pinched my nose and tilted my head back, someone grabbed me from behind.
“If you do that, the blood will flow backward.”
One hand pressed a handkerchief against my nose, while the other pushed my head forward. At the sudden touch, I turned my eyes.
It was the girl who had been looking up at the sky earlier. Her hair and eyes were both black, and she had no particular distinguishing features.
“You’re lowborn too, right? I’m Ran. Of course, I don’t have a surname.”
“I’m D-Deep.”
I already stuttered as it was, and with my nose blocked, my voice came out muffled. Ran blinked a few times as she looked at me.
“Your name is Ddeep?”
As if.
“Deep.”
“Aha.” Ran nodded, then shut her mouth just like that. We weren’t acquaintances to begin with, and there was nothing to say. After the silence continued for quite a while, the man who had been loitering in front came over.
“Ran. Time’s up.”
“Just a moment. This person suddenly got sick.”
“I said it’s really time.”
Weeeeeeeeeeng!
At the same time the siren blared, Ran removed her hand from my face. The handkerchief and a little bit of nosebleed plopped down onto the ground.
“Enrollment procedures will now begin. Please proceed according to your designated line.”
Ran flinched a few times, then stepped back and stood beside the man.
“Ah, I’m sorry. We’ll go first. Sorry, but please return the handkerchief next time.”
“B-Blood got on it, though.”
“I’ll wash it myself later. I feel like we’ll meet again someday. I’m Ran from the Operator Department, and he’s Ian from the Engineer Department. You should finish as soon as you can too!”
The two of them went off to handle their enrollment procedures first.
There are only three people in our line, and I just got left behind by two of them?
I entered the processing booth where there was no line, but there were no staff members in sight. All there was was a large screen and a speaker. The moment I was about to touch the screen, it flashed on.
“Please refrain from contact.”
A face like an emoticon stared straight at me. Fortunately, once I thought of the other party as an AI or someone beyond a screen, I didn’t particularly tremble.
Ah, so this is how hikikomori keyboard warriors are born.
“Name, Deep. Pilot Department. Lower-class admission track. Is that correct?”
“That is correct.”
“After scanning your speech, you are judged to have a speech disorder. Is that correct?”
That’s kind of rude.
“No.”
“Confirmed. If you require related support, please inquire directly with the academic affairs office. We will provide you with a portable device for use within the academy.”
Clank.
A panel beneath the monitor opened, and a watch rolled out. The moment I put the watch on my wrist, the monitor turned off and the watch emitted a hologram.
“This smartwatch serves as an academy student’s identification card and provides various functions. Please wear it as much as possible while inside the academy, and avoid contact with moisture.”
It’s not waterproof?
The hologram shut off, and the door on the other side opened. I hesitated for a moment, but that was the only exit anyway.
The moment I stepped outside the processing booth, there was only one thing I felt.
Noise.
Along with a massive, raw clamor, countless gazes turned toward me. I realized it belatedly. The reason the two people ahead of me had passed through the processing booth faster than anyone else.
Here, lowborn were a spectacle.
It wasn’t simply because they were treated as lowly due to their low class. It was the oddity of someone from that low class, someone who had never been exposed to Titans at all, having been admitted to the academy.
For a lowborn to enter the academy, they needed talent more overwhelming than anyone else’s.
In an academy so vast it was impossible to take in at a glance, it felt like every person in my field of vision was looking at me all at once.
At the same time, my body froze.
I’d thought this before, but this body definitely had social anxiety disorder. If I focused on just one stranger, it was a little better, but I couldn’t handle this many gazes gathering at once.
My body grew itchy, hot and cold at the same time. Cold sweat soaked my clothes. My eyes naturally dropped downward, and my hands trembled.
Where should I go? Where do I need to go to avoid their gazes? The person in the suit last time said we’d go straight to the dormitory, so is there no one to guide us? Where the hell am I supposed to—
“New students of the Pilot Department, this way.”
My body fled after the voice. It was an androgynous voice that felt somehow familiar. The moment I lifted my head slightly, the owner of the voice looked this way at the same time.
Only after seeing her from a distance did I realize. It wasn’t a man in a suit, but a woman in a suit.
“Deep, is it.”
The person in the suit.
It was the same this time as well. She was still wearing a suit. Her outfit hadn’t changed much, but this time she had something like a name tag around her neck. Belatedly, my eyes read the name tag.
“Z-Zeke.”
“Professor.”
“P-Professor Zeke.”
Professor Zeke nodded.
“If you go straight this way, you’ll reach the hangar. As I told you last time, you’ll receive a personal machine.”
“B-By what standard?”
Professor Zeke twisted her expression slightly. She looked surprised that I had asked a question first.
“Basically, it’s first-come, first-served. Afterward, if there are students who want the same machine, it’s decided by agreement. If there are three or more people, they either buy it with money or draw lots at random.”
Ah, first-come, first-served.
Maybe the Operator Department or Engineer Department had that kind of first-come, first-served system too. Since I was making a strange expression, Professor Zeke spoke as if she had misunderstood something.
“You don’t need to worry about being pushed aside because of class or having your chosen machine overlap. Most nobles have personal machines, and among commoners, children of influential merchants have personal machines as well.”
“Then,”
“There aren’t as many people receiving personal machines as you’d think. About thirty. If you include reserve Titans, there should be around fifty prepared.”
Thirty people.
In other words, this academy had enough tremendous supplies flowing through it to issue Titans to as many as thirty people.
When I stood there looking dazed for a moment, Professor Zeke pushed my back.
“Now go to the hangar. If you’re unlucky, your machine may overlap with someone else’s.”
“Ah, earlier—”
“Go.”
I had no choice but to go in the direction I was shoved. Before long, a massive hangar appeared. As I approached it, I sensed a commotion entirely different from the area around the processing booths.
The sound of metal clashing and machinery moving.
For some reason, my heart felt at ease. No, I was excited instead.
My body moved on its own. I wove through the crowd, followed the arrows, got on an elevator, and went up. It was a place for viewing the Titans in detail.
“Students receiving personal machines, this way!”
Following the guide staff stationed along the way, I turned a corner—and my steps came to a complete stop.
“Wow.”
Fifty Titans.
Before those countless war machines, my body shuddered. Sweat dripped down. It wasn’t because I was nervous. My whole body heated up, unable to hide its excitement.
“Wow.”
The smell of oil. The smell of iron.
Only the bare minimum of exterior armor painting had been done, so all the Titans still retained the color of metal. However, each of them looked slightly different.
They weren’t standardized. Some parts seemed to have been reused, and some secondhand goods seemed to have been used as they were. The fact that they looked touched by human hands actually made them even better to look at.
As I walked among them, my feet stopped in front of one Titan.
The chest core where the cockpit was located was filled out with thick, voluptuous armor. In contrast, the waist drive joints had been lightened until only the frame remained.
Perhaps its center of gravity had been set low, because its thighs were thick and looked as if they might press in on me. On the other hand, both arms were light to leave room for customization, thin and faithful to the basics.
A full chest, a slender waist, and a streamlined body.
Was this what they called love at first sight?
I couldn’t leave its front. Even though there were still many Titans I hadn’t seen, I was certain I didn’t need to look at any other Titans.
“No, but still, I should at least look at the other Titans—”
Clank.
The armor of the chest core lifted upward. With a thunderous sound, the cockpit inside the core revealed itself. A few people looked this way, then turned their gazes away as if it was nothing special.
Then, am I allowed to get in?
Lights began blinking inside the Titan. No matter how I thought about it, it was clearly a signal urging me on. Separate from my mind’s hesitation, my body moved forward.
The moment I sat down on the seat, the chest core clanked shut again. As darkness surrounded me on all sides, lights came on and a voice rang out.
“The look in your eyes is way too perverted! You must be a total Titan otaku, huh? If I were any other Titan, I’d have reported you for sexual harassment, you know?”
What the hell.
That gyaru-like tone and voice.