I Am Instructor Lee Han
The Royal Academy took in young talents between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.
More often than not, people simply called it Pendragon Academy, and in more ways than one it resembled a military school. Social standing counted for nothing inside its walls. You were a student there, and a cadet, and nothing else. Whatever you had done before you arrived was no one's concern.
Criminals, of course, were the exception.
That peculiar rule drew every sort of human being through the gates, and among them no small number who had enrolled for the express purpose of smashing through the ceiling of their birth. The entrance examinations, however, were viciously difficult, and even those who managed to pass found that graduating was another matter entirely. Earning one's credits was only the beginning. Fail to hold an average in certain specialty subjects, or simply fall short of the standard, and expulsion was common enough.
The average graduation rate was ten percent. A thousand might enter. When the time came to leave, a hundred walked out. It was a rare sight, and everyone knew it.
Still, graduation opened a road that ran all the way to the kingdom's highest offices, and so even nobles did not quit the Academy lightly.
Difficult as it all was, the incoming students were not afraid. Confidence poured off them instead. They trusted themselves: the belief that they, of all people, were certain to graduate. And why shouldn't they? These were the ones whose talent had already been recognized. To be admitted at all meant that most of them had been called prodigies and prize pupils since childhood. They were arrogant enough to spare not a single thought for the possibility of being thrown out.
What they conspicuously lacked was any confidence that they would be the best.
This term, after all, had arrived packed with geniuses people were already calling the greatest in living memory.
For instance.
"Is that woman the mage?"
"They say she opened a spell-world entirely on her own?"
"A genius."
She was beautiful, and the gold of her hair made her hard to forget. The loveliness of her called to mind a fairy of the mystery races, and yet something stood out even more than that beauty: the faint ripple of water-light glowing softly from her body.
Mana. The gift of a mage, born to only a handful of human beings. Rare enough merely to come into the world with it. No exaggeration, really, to call it nature's blessing.
Irene Windler. Lowborn, and one of only ten mages among the year's entrants. Her talent, however, stood alone even among those ten, and every eye had found her. If yesterday's papers were to be believed, Duke Galahad himself had taken her as his adopted daughter. That gazes should gather on her was only natural.
"...Nn."
She was not, it seemed, the sort of person who enjoyed being looked at. Irene Windler flushed under the weight of it and turned her head a fraction aside, and at once the eyes slid on toward other figures.
The mercenary king's disciple. The eldest son of the Sword Duke's house. The chancellor's second daughter. A great merchant's son. Heirs of the mystery races. These, without any question, were the greatest catches of the term.
"I hate to say it of the classes that came before, but this cohort isn't merely well stocked. It's absurd."
"Who's arguing?"
"Even the royal house is already watching a few of them."
"Mm."
"Even so, among all those formidable names, I'd wager this term's first seat belongs to that one."
"Certainly..."
"Agreed."
Even in a crowd that left nothing to be desired, one figure shone with particular force. The air about him was lofty to the point of coldness, and his face was strikingly fine. Armored in an overwhelming presence, the man put one in mind of a statue merely by standing there to be looked at.
Roen Dmitri de Lionel. A bastard son of the grand ducal house, and a genius who rendered even that bastardy colorless. His skill was already said to match an ordinary knight's, and he was known as the man who had opened a new horizon in the Fighting Art.
If the looks turned on Irene Windler held mystery and surprise, the looks turned on Roen held faint envy and open admiration in equal measure. Plenty wore their baser wish without shame: to beat him somehow, bastard that he was. Even so, his face did not shift by a hair. A face without human warmth looked cold at a glance, as if his whole body were declaring that he was not like them. That, more than anything, was probably what made him difficult to like, and yet ordinary people were busy admiring him all the same. Noble blood, and talent that overwhelmed. A record already built, and the feat of entering at the head of the class. From commoners to nobles, a considerable number sent him looks full of longing.
The entrance ceremony will now commence. Cadets, please take your seats. Guardians and honored guests, we ask that you be seated as well. Once more: the entrance ceremony begins now. Guardians and honored guests, if you would kindly—!
Leaving behind a crop of cadets whose brilliance promised no end of storms, the entrance ceremony began at last.
...I-I'm shaking.
Irene Windler was enduring it, but her whole body shivered in fine, helpless tremors. She was someone who found this kind of attention deeply uncomfortable. In her heart of hearts she wanted nothing to do with the Academy or with any of it. All she wanted was to loaf and eat in some cozy little nest, a woman with the soul of a pet squirrel. That was Irene Windler.
But Irene Windler had to attend this Academy. For no other reason than this.
Don't shout. I'm so nervous I might throw up.
Do I look like some in-crowd socialite to you?
Someone exactly like you.
A noisy voice rang through Irene Windler's mind. It belonged to a woman who had shared seven years with her, and at the same time it belonged to this body: the owner of the original, the true self of the flesh Irene now occupied. Anyone watching might have suspected schizophrenia. Irene was not schizophrenic. She still possessed her memories of the world where she had originally lived, and so she had to go back. She was also obliged to return this body to its rightful owner.
That damned angel. I'll find you, and I'll pluck every last feather.
She ground her teeth, thinking of the one who had dragged her into this world.
Yes. Absolutely. She shows up near the end of the original to help the heroine.
That's the one.
...Must be nice, having such a simple head.
Hers was splitting.
So far it's been following the original. So the heroine is definitely going to show up.
She had been checking all along. The story was proceeding faithfully. Which meant that at the last moment she had to seize the angel, overpower her, or blackmail the method out of her if that was what it took. Some way to end this impossibly complicated cohabitation and send both of them toward a happy ending.
There was, however, one thing.
...Why is the male lead here?
One thing Irene Windler could not understand, and it was the man off to one side, loftily giving off his presence. Roen. The male lead of the original story, who by rights should not have been at the Academy at all. He should have raised a rebellion in the grand duchy and seized the house while still young, the Iron-Blooded Grand Duke. Instead, unlike the original, Roen had not raised a rebellion of blood. He had come to the capital, and he had enrolled in the Academy besides. Watching him, Irene felt her thoughts tangle. She had no way of knowing what kind of butterfly effect a current this far from the original might bring.
A glance slid her way.
She flinched. Roen had noticed her looking, or so it seemed in that instant, and his eyes turned toward her. Irene ducked her head at once, as if to flee the look. The blade of his gaze seemed to go on, prickling at the crown of her head, but she must not look back.
Shut up.
Honestly, what an irritating girl. Five whole years younger, and she still made Irene want to just—!
...I'm not a boomer.
Seven years of dealing with a brat who had no manners, and she could feel her personality being steadily ruined. If only so she could return, as soon as possible, to the kind person she had originally been, she prayed for the day she would catch that angel. If only so she could pluck every damned feather and pay the grudge in full.
My CSAT, I swear...!
She had no intention of giving up, not if it meant taking revenge on the angel who had dragged a high-school senior into this world the day before the college entrance exam. The fury of a student on the eve of that exam was bottomless, and it burned.
Not teachers. Professors. Watch how you— huh?
Irene Windler blinked. Up on the platform ahead, the professors were introducing themselves in turn, and among them was someone whose air was, for reasons she couldn't immediately name, entirely different from the rest.
How was she supposed to put it?
It was like...
Why is Tom Hardy standing in a romance comic...?
More precisely, what came to mind was a certain mafioso Tom Hardy had played on screen. And as if to prove the impression was not hers alone, the people around her had gone silent.
For an instant, it was as if the genre had changed.
...Did I wear the wrong thing?
He had put on the most presentable clothes he could manage, a tailcoat, because it had seemed like the proper choice. It wasn't even a party. He had dithered over what to wear and settled, more or less, on something vaguely suit-like. It was clean enough, and tidy, and once he had worked oil through his hair and swept it back he had been privately proud of the result. Hardly slovenly. The first impression ought not to be a bad one.
It was a little tight, though. Not because he had put on fat. His muscle had grown again lately, and the cloth clung from forearm to chest. Fortunately the tailor had been skilled enough to leave some give in the cloth. It probably wouldn't split.
Even so, something felt off.
No, seriously, I had no idea this wasn't what people wear when they want to be comfortable...
Everyone else was simply dressed, clean and plain. Gowns and tailcoats were rare. Most had come in light clothes. He couldn't shake the sense that he had overdone it, and the moment he stepped onto the platform the proof arrived in the form of silence.
The instant he got home, this thing was going in the trash.
Let's get it over with.
Lee Han looked straight ahead. Of all the faces there, he settled his gaze on Roen alone. He had one reason. He needed to leave a strong impression on the bastard, and fixing on a single person steadied the eyes better than letting them scatter all over the hall. With that decided, he unfolded the rough script he had scribbled and meant to give a simple introduction of himself—
"Hah. A demoted knight, and still shameless enough to shove your face in here."
A brittle crack ran through the air.
For a moment the hall went silent in an entirely different sense. The cadet, realizing far too late how loud he had been, clapped a hand over his own mouth. Watching that, Lee Han smiled, wide and bright.
...Right. Since when do I use a script?
Do it his way. His way.
Crunch.
The lectern broke.