Passing through the entrance, we found ourselves in a massive circular hall.
Whoosh.
The hall of the main building we reached after walking inside was open all the way from the lower floor to the very ceiling, like a department store from my previous life, giving anyone who entered a sense of vast openness.
With no students there yet, the scene looked rather desolate, but imagining this hall packed full of students in just a few hours made it feel somehow grand.
It felt less like a school and more like a well-decorated cultural facility.
“...Over there, there’s the door to the auditorium.”
“Where?”
“Over there.”
I craned my neck in the direction Isil pointed, and there I saw the entrance to the auditorium, blocked by a huge door.
We moved to where the red solid-wood doors were tightly shut, then reached out for a moment and touched the sign hanging on them that read Auditorium.
“We probably shouldn’t go in yet, right?”
“Hmm, it seems there is no one inside yet. I could open this door by force, but if I did, it might invite an unwanted misunderstanding. For instance, that we were plotting in order to carry out an assassination.”
“...”
No matter what, I doubted we’d be misunderstood that badly, but as Hwayeong said, arriving early in an empty auditorium did seem like it might cause a misunderstanding.
If I were a professor and saw students like us, I’d wonder what the hell we were doing too.
“Then, now that we know where the auditorium is, shall we start exploring the building in earnest?”
“...”
“Hmm, is there somewhere you wish to go?”
When I tore my gaze away from the red doors and enthusiastically suggested to the two of them that we explore, Isil fell silent, while Hwayeong tilted her head and asked me.
“Yeah.”
“...Do we really have to explore? I just want to rest quietly.”
“That’s exactly why I’m saying we should explore—to find a place to rest.”
“...?”
With the mindset of a veteran kindly explaining things to a newbie who seemed to be attending school for the first time, I gave a considerate explanation.
“I still don’t know what classes at Academia will be like, but there’ll be breaks between lessons, right? And during every break, we can’t cross the training grounds, go through the garden, and enter the Twilight Hall just to rest. Even getting there is work. So we need to find a place in this main building where we can rest without being seen by others. In a building this old, don’t you think there should be somewhere like that?”
“...”
“Excellent. If we find a safe place where we can hide ourselves even in the event of an attack, our survival rate will increase. I approve.”
“Okay.”
I led Hwayeong, who readily nodded at my proposal, and Isil, who gave a silent sign of agreement—maybe?—back toward the hall of the main building.
“First, it’d be nice to know how many floors this building has...”
“Hmm. Judging roughly from the height between here and the ceiling, I would say about seven floors. Buildings like this tend to use each floor on a grand scale, after all.”
“Oh.”
Standing in the central hall, Hwayeong muttered while looking up at the ceiling.
We hadn’t even found the stairs or any signs indicating the layout yet, but she figured that out right on the spot?
As expected, the senses of the beastfolk were on another level!
“...There’s an information board over there. It says the main building goes up to the sixth floor.”
“...”
“...”
“...?”
Clap!
“Now then, shall we take a look at the information board Isil found?”
“Ahem! Let us.”
“...??”
With a single clap, I forcibly dispelled the awkward air, and we moved over to the information board Isil had discovered.
The information board was large, but because it was written in white letters on a panel close to black, it was hard to see in the hall where the lights had yet to come on.
“What’s with this Academia and its love of black? Even the summons letter was on black stationery. They could’ve just made it white so it wouldn’t hurt the reader’s eyes.”
“Is that so? Since the letters are white on a black background, doesn’t that make it less painful to look at?”
“Huh?”
At Hwayeong’s puzzled reply, I turned my head and met her faintly glowing eyes.
“Your eyes are glowing.”
“We beastfolk can see clearly in dark places with only a small amount of light. On the contrary, if there is too much white, we are sensitive enough to light that we have to close our eyes.”
“...Amazing.”
For our sake, as we stared in wonder with our mouths open, Hwayeong met our eyes a few more times, then turned her head back toward the information board.
“But even I, a beastfolk, would not have noticed there was an information board in such a dark place unless I looked closely. Isil. How did you notice it?”
“...I’m used to darkness.”
“Hmm. That sounds rather like something an assassin would say.”
Used to darkness, huh.
I thought that was incredibly cringe.
“...According to this information board, the main building has six floors in total, and each floor is divided into areas students may enter and areas they may not.”
Isil pointed to one corner of the information board with her slender finger.
Just as she said, in one corner of the board, something like precautions had been written in ornate cursive.
“Let’s see... Students may freely move through all areas of the first and second floors. On the third and fourth floors, students may freely move through all areas except those they are prohibited from entering. On the fifth floor, entry is forbidden except for designated areas, and on the sixth floor, student entry is strictly prohibited...?”
“It is strangely restrictive. This place is a school for students, so why do regulations exist that block student access to such an extent?”
“That’s because this main building is actually a space created by expanding a mystical space.”
Whip!
At the unfamiliar male voice that shouldn’t have been there, all of us turned our heads to look toward the source of the voice.
There stood a brown-haired man with a frail-looking impression, smiling at us.
I hadn’t even heard footsteps. Since when was he there?
“...Who are you?”
“‘You’? Is that any way to speak to your senior?”
“Senior?”
“That’s right. Nice to meet you, juniors. From the looks of it, you’re all first-years.”
Despite the man greeting us warmly, Hwayeong’s fur stood on end as she swiftly moved away from him.
Then she blocked the way in front of Isil and me, taking a posture almost like a ready stance before an attack.
“...If you stay that wary, I’ll feel terribly embarrassed for having greeted you.”
“Are you human?”
“That’s right. I’m a frail human who’d fall over at once if a beastfolk like you so much as tapped me.”
As Hwayeong watched him with a tense expression, the man waved his hand as if telling her to calm down.
“So don’t be so tense. I didn’t suddenly appear because I was trying to harm you.”
“...For someone saying that, you appeared far too abruptly.”
“Ahaha, well, you see, when I see someone who looks troubled, I want to help them. But if you’re going to be that cautious, maybe I shouldn’t have spoken up?”
With an awkward laugh, the man rubbed his neck, wearing an expression that seemed to say, What should I do now?
Even as he remained so calm, Hwayeong and I did not lower our guard and were just about to inch backward when—
Step.
“...What’s your name?”
“Hm?”
Isil, who had been quietly observing the situation until now, took one step forward and spoke to the man.
“If you’re our senior, then you can at least tell us your name, can’t you?”
“Oh, I thought you were a quiet child, but it seems you’re the easiest to talk to. I’m Jude. Jude of Pishaden. Do you happen to know where Pishaden is?”
The man who introduced himself as Jude looked at us with a face full of hopeful expectation.
Hwayeong, a beastfolk who had only just arrived here, naturally shook her head at his question and said she didn’t know, and Isil also shook her head.
That left only me, and I felt all three gazes turn toward my face.
Pishaden? Where was Pishaden?
For starters, it wasn’t near our territory, and I didn’t think that name had been among the fifty territories my butler had taught me to remember...
I couldn’t think of it.
However, I had a strong intuition that this wasn’t the first time I’d ever heard the name Pishaden.
It felt like a name I’d heard in passing somewhere, but I couldn’t remember.
“...I’m sorry. I don’t really know.”
“...Is that so? You looked like the child of a noble family, so I wondered, but it seems you don’t know either.”
“How did you know I was a noble?”
“Hm? How did I know? Just looking at you, you have an appearance that exudes refinement.”
“?”
Jude looked straight at me, who was puzzled, and opened his mouth.
“You. Your hair and complexion look healthy. You’ve never starved in your childhood, have you?”
“...That’s true.”
“And those hands of yours. Your palms have wounds and rough calluses, but those aren’t calluses formed from using farming tools or doing labor. They’re from training with a sword. But it seems quite some time has passed since you last trained with a sword, hasn’t it? More than a year, I’d say.”
“...”
“And most decisively, it would be hard to say you’re not a noble when every gesture you make is steeped in manners. For manners to become ingrained in the body, one has to be educated from childhood. The only people who receive that kind of education are nobles. Well? Was my guess right?”
Jude looked at me as if asking whether his thoughts were correct, and I nodded as though bewitched by his question.
What the hell is with this Sherlock Holmes of a person?