Wanna Learn?
The karaoke room was decked out with expensive liquor and fruit platters spread across the tables. The students puffed away on cigarettes like it was the most natural thing in the world, belting out songs and dancing the night away. Those who weren’t singing were glued to their phones, fingers flying across the screens with rapid little taps.
“Hey, you over there, girl.”
“Huh? What? Me?”
“Yeah. What’re you tapping away at so furiously? Mind showing me?”
“No way. Ever heard of privacy?”
“Privacy?”
“Stuff you don’t show other people.”
Dayman had been curious about what she was so focused on, but apparently the information on her phone was quite personal. He nodded with the expression of someone who had just learned something new.
“Hey. Did something happen to you?”
Seria asked while watching him scarf down snacks and fruit, chain-smoke like a chimney, and constantly glance around like he was trying to absorb everything. They hadn’t met often, but this wasn’t the usual image of the delinquent Dayman she knew.
Dayman lit another cigarette and smirked. “Got into a motorcycle accident. Been like this ever since.”
“Ah… so, like, brain damage or something?”
“Something like that, apparently.”
“You okay?”
“Haha!!! I’m perfectly fine!!! Thanks for worrying, girl!!!”
Seria wondered what kind of accident could change a person so drastically, but decided to let it go. They weren’t close enough to pry, and he seemed fine with it anyway.
“Yo, yo!! How’s the boss’s singing?!”
“Fucking trash.”
“Whoa, damn, that’s harsh!! Everyone’s had a turn, right? Hey!!! Dayman!!! Your turn, go sing one.”
“What? Me?”
“Yeah. You gonna just stand there spacing out? Get up and sing, you bastard!!”
Following the gesturing guy, Dayman stepped forward awkwardly. He couldn’t exactly kill the mood, so he requested a song he knew.
“Got a song called ‘The Woman Beyond the Pass’?”
“……What?”
“The Woman Beyond the Pass.”
They searched, but it wasn’t there. “Then how about ‘Going to Fuck the Demon King’s Mom’? We used to sing that all the time in the army.”
“……What the hell is that?”
Even after listing several more titles he knew, almost none of them were in the karaoke machine’s database. A few were, but…
“You’re seriously gonna sing these ancient songs?”
“Holy shit…… how old even are these?”
The atmosphere wasn’t exactly welcoming. With no other choice, Dayman set the mic down awkwardly.
“……I’ll go grab some snacks.”
“Oh, uh!! Yeah, go ahead!”
“We’re out of drinks!! Grab some while you’re at it!!”
In the end, he was more or less kicked out.
“Guess I really do need someone to teach me.”
Living with memories that were far too outdated could cause problems in daily life. If he wanted to blend in with people from this era, he needed to learn their speech and behavior. He needed someone to teach him, and fast.
“I gotta get close to these guys and find at least one person willing to teach me…… Anyway, how the hell does this thing work?”
Dayman stood in front of the drink machine, grumbling and poking at it for a while.
“Search. Let’s try searching.”
He pecked at the keys with his index fingers, but the results were just a flood of incomprehensible words.
“Kio……sk? Today. Let’s learn about kiosks? What is this? These white lumps with those ridiculously exaggerated expressions?”
After searching for a long time without figuring it out, Dayman let out a heavy sigh.
“There’s plenty of information on the internet, but not all of it’s useful. Learned another thing today.”
Nothing he could do. If he couldn’t handle it with his own abilities, asking for help was only natural. He turned back toward the karaoke room to ask the young people for assistance.
Just as he was about to step forward—
Crash!
A loud noise rang out, followed by chaotic shouting.
“Kyaaaaah!!”
“What the— what the hell are these bastards?!”
“They’ve lost it!!!!”
The noise grew louder, and soon people came pouring out in a panic. They were the same guys who had been singing inside just moments ago.
“Huh? Where’re you going? Perfect timing! Teach me how to use that kiosk thing!!”
“You fucking—!!”
“The Knight Faculty’s here!! Run!!!”
But none of them stopped. Frowning at the fleeing students, Dayman’s expression darkened further when a thunderous crash erupted from the karaoke room. He turned his head.
“What’s going on?”
It wasn’t hard to identify the source of the noise. Fighting. He could feel attack magic being cast.
“What now? Seriously, can’t get a single quiet day around here.”
He pulled out his wand, gripped it, and began walking back toward the karaoke room at a leisurely pace, as if out for a stroll.
While everyone had been enjoying themselves singing, the door suddenly burst open and a group of men and women stormed in. One of them drew the longsword at his waist and cleaved a table clean in half. The girls screamed.
“What the hell do you want?!”
“Leave everyone except Seria de Xavier.”
“T-this is illegal!!!”
“We know, you fucking bitch. You leaving or not?”
As aura began to frost the drawn blade, the group instinctively realized things had gone to shit and started scrambling out. Seria’s eyes widened.
“Hey!! Where are you going!!! You guys!!”
“S-sorry!! Seria!!!!!”
They fled in a hurry, leaving Seria alone in the wide space. After smashing the karaoke machine—still playing its backing track—with a single sword strike, seven Knight Faculty students approached her with menacing expressions.
“I was gonna let it slide. Lady Octavia even told me to leave it alone. But fuck…… it wasn’t enough that you did it somewhere else—you had to scar her face?”
All the Knight Faculty students looked seriously pissed. Hearing their words, Seria finally understood who they were.
“Ah. You’re that bitch Octavia’s lackeys from the other house?”
“Watch your mouth.”
A blade wreathed in aura was thrust toward Seria’s throat. Cold sweat ran down her back. A cramped space. Close-quarters combat under one meter. The worst possible situation for a mage. The only saving grace was that these bastards were underestimating her. Believing knights held an overwhelming advantage over mages in close range, they showed no tension at all.
“What exactly are you planning to do to me? You’re gonna swing swords in a place with CCTV running?”
“Yeah. We can clean it up with our family’s influence. We always have. This place was originally off-limits to minors, but we got it opened with family pull. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. And besides…… none of us want to get expelled either. We’re not gonna kill you. Instead—”
The blade crept closer to Seria’s body.
“We’re gonna carve up your face the same way you did to Lady Octavia. Got it?”
“I think…… I’ll have to pass on that!!!!”
Just as the guy holding the sword grinned and glanced at his friends, Seria snatched up her staff from where it had been leaning against the wall. She cast a spell without chanting. Boom! A shockwave slammed into the Knight Faculty students, sending them flying backward.
“You fucking bitch!!!”
“Blink!”
While they were still down, Seria used short-range teleportation to escape outside the karaoke room and ran desperately. The Knight Faculty students quickly gave chase. She tried to cast magic to push them back again, but they closed the distance far faster than she expected.
“Die, you fucking bitch!!!!”
A blade blazing with aura came crashing down toward her face. Gritting her teeth, Seria grabbed her wand with her left hand instead of the staff in her right and swung it. In an instant, a magic sword materialized from the wand and blocked the aura-clad blade. Caught off guard that a mage would wield a sword, the Knight Faculty student hesitated. Seria followed up by casting a spell with her staff, violently shoving the swordsman backward. She tried to run again, but—
“Where do you think you’re going!!!”
“Kyaaaaah!!”
A Knight Faculty student who had been hiding nearby ambushed her with a brutal kick to the torso, slamming her into the wall. The impact was so violent that she dropped both her staff and wand, and she lay there gasping, unable to breathe properly.
“Ah, this fucking bitch. So annoying.”
The Knight Faculty student she had knocked down earlier approached, aura flaring along his blade. Seria tried to crawl away, but the shock to her lungs made breathing impossible. Naturally, her body wouldn’t move either.
“You scarred Lady Octavia’s face. Live the rest of your life regretting it. Got it?”
With a crazed grin, the student raised his aura-wrapped sword. Seria squeezed her eyes shut, tears streaming down her face. She had no intention of screaming. She didn’t want to give these bastards the satisfaction of reporting back to that bitch about how loudly she had screamed. She clenched her teeth and trembled, bracing for the pain.
Perhaps her pitiful state only fueled his sadism.
“This bitch…… kinda hot, actually.”
With a snickering voice, the blade fell.
Or rather, it tried to.
“What do you think you’re doing, you bastards.”
“Guh!!”
Bang! The falling blade snapped in half mid-swing and flew off. The student holding the hilt staggered back, blood dripping from his torn hand. Seria slowly opened her eyes.
Everyone else had abandoned her and run, but the golden sun bastard in the hospital gown hadn’t fled. Holding a wand that crackled with sparks in one hand, he stood casually in the hallway like he was out for a walk.
“……Who the fuck are you?”
“Hah. Calling someone you’ve never met a fucking bastard right off the bat. Your mother must’ve died early and left your upbringing in the gutter.”
“What?”
“Ganging up on one girl like this—what exactly are you trying to accomplish? It’s an ugly sight.”
As Dayman muttered leisurely, Seria screamed at him.
“You idiot!! Run!!!”
“Nah, no need to run. You’re…… Dayman Calidos from the Knight Faculty, right? Huh? The one who got held back twice?”
The Knight Faculty students suddenly burst into laughter.
“Hey. What the hell are you doing here? Sticking up for your delinquent girlfriend?”
“You brain-dead bastard. You could’ve latched onto anyone, but you’re hanging around this magic faculty bitch? Do you even know how much she’s tormented Lady Octavia?”
“Who the hell is Octavia.”
Dayman scratched his ear with a bored expression, then pointed his staff at the Knight Faculty students.
“Give the girl back. She might become my friend.”
“Not happening.”
“You all agree with this guy?”
All seven Knight Faculty students drew their swords instead of answering. Dayman grinned at the sight.
“Guess there’s no helping it, then.”
His staff swayed. In the next instant, before anyone could even register what happened, all seven students collapsed with a sharp crack. After effortlessly subduing all seven, Dayman walked over to Seria.
“You alright, girl?”
Seria looked back and forth between the fallen students and Dayman. After staring blankly for a long moment, she finally managed to speak.
“H-how did you do that?”
Dayman smiled faintly at her words.
“I saw you fighting just now. You hang around delinquents and dress like a mess, so I figured you were a nasty piece of work. But you actually fight pretty well.”
He had discovered a raw gem in an unexpected place. And Dayman was someone who had plenty of experience polishing raw gems in his previous life. This gem, too—
“How about it? What I just did. Wanna learn?”
He intended to give it a polish.