Something Familiar
Most people thought an entrance ceremony would be a stiff, formal kind of welcome party.
A time for congratulations, for making new acquaintances, for getting to know a new place.
But Sielm Academy’s welcome party had been made deliberately light and casual, purely so the new students could feel welcome.
A welcome party where everyone chatted with one another and naturally built connections.
Those who knew that were all struggling to make new ties.
Some wandered from table to table looking for people at their own level, while others boldly greeted complete strangers they had never met before.
And at Sielm, that sort of networking would become absolutely essential for the life ahead.
The more connections you made, the more information you gathered, and the better your chances of earning good scores in the various evaluations.
Of course, it wasn’t just about information.
If you found the right partner, you might even build a family later on, and if you became close with someone far stronger than yourself, you could look forward to a good score in team evaluations, too.
In that sense...
- Blue hair... are you Lim Paran? I heard you were admitted by special exception. Do you happen to be good at anything?
"U-um..."
It was only natural that so many people came to speak to me.
Special admission, rather than scores or recommendations, was an obvious hot topic among the cadets, so of course it drew attention.
And since I was the only one with blue hair, that only made me stand out more.
Everyone here was talented and promising, but the special-admission student chosen by the will of the former headmaster—who had become a star—would naturally be expected to be far more impressive than the rest.
Even among identical dishes, the one topped with gold would always catch the eye.
They were all gifted prospects, yes, but when they thought about the future of a special-admission student, they had to figure that making connections with me would be a major advantage.
If I had entered by recommendation and the very first special-admission student had joined in the same year as me, and if I hadn’t had this illness, then I would have been interested in that special-admission student, too.
So I couldn’t exactly bring myself to hate or blame them.
They had each come to me with their own strategy for making connections.
Of course, I was leaving out the part where I feared human beings.
"U-uh... n-no..."
I suppressed the trembling in my body as people kept coming to me and sent them away.
I just didn’t want to play with anyone right now.
I only wanted to be alone.
Most of them, especially those who knew my background, nodded as if they understood and returned to their tables.
But among them, some clearly thought I was lying; they pressed close, raised their voices at me, and then mocked me behind my back.
I couldn’t see it, but my pure, high-density mana precisely caught the vibrations in their words and delivered them to me.
I felt sad inside, but I could understand it.
They had bled to get into Sielm, while that special-admission student had gotten in without even trying a quarter as hard as they had.
Anyone would be angry if someone came in with less effort than they had spent.
They called it jealousy and resentment, but I couldn’t bring myself to blame those who cursed me.
Everyone had their own hardships.
Still, I was human too, and in the end I couldn’t bear it anymore, so I escaped to the restroom for a while.
It might have been difficult, since people kept going in and out of the bathroom, but once I tucked myself into a corner and shut the door, I could feel myself slowly calming down as time passed.
Earlier, when people had crowded around me, I could barely endure five minutes, but now that I was calming down, life felt a little more bearable.
Escaping to the restroom had definitely been the right choice.
Outside, the entrance ceremony was probably in full swing by now.
Honestly, I wanted to go back to the dormitory.
And there was no longer any reason for me to stay at the entrance ceremony, either.
The vice principal’s address was over, and from here on out it was just time for the freshmen to mingle and wish each other a happy life at Sielm.
On the way to Sielm, I’d been surrounded by people and had a panic attack, and then on the road to the dormitory I’d collapsed twice.
The guilt that had been building up inside me had burst out along with it, and I’d spiraled into a panic, crying bitterly while I had the attack.
How could a day possibly get any more spectacular than that?
If Han Riae hadn’t existed on the way here, I probably wouldn’t have made it to the entrance ceremony at all, let alone to Sielm’s front gate.
The more I thought about it, the more grateful I felt toward her.
Still, I wanted to return to the dormitory first.
I wanted to stretch out in that huge bathtub and just sit there in peace, blankly zoning out.
By the time I arrived at Sielm, fatigue had piled up so heavily that my body was already limp and spent.
But...
I should probably go thank her before I leave...
I needed to tell Han Riae how grateful I was for helping me earlier, so I forced down the panic and headed back toward the banquet hall.
When no one was in the restroom, I opened the door and went to the sink to wash my hands.
A purifying mana stone was embedded here and there to keep the air fresh.
As I washed my hands, I stared quietly at the mirror.
Deep blue, spiky hair. Clear blue eyes. And...
My height...
Yeah, I was small.
No, but why wasn’t I growing at all when I was already in a mana-erosion state?
Shouldn’t I be getting bigger if I had pure, high-density mana?
Han Riae and Yoon Hwayeon, both from families of gifted superhumans, were taller than average.
By contrast, I fell far, far short of average height.
As I was feeling disappointed about that, a large male cadet came into the restroom.
The moment I sensed him entering, my whole body started to tremble, and I quietly kept washing my hands.
He kept approaching me.
Thud.
He bumped my shoulder with his own.
The instant he did, twisted pain rang through my whole body and washed over me.
I stopped washing my hands, clutched my chest, and made small, choking sounds.
"Ah, sorry. You were so tiny I didn’t even notice you there."
With those words, he quietly mocked me and left the restroom.
The trembling that had been shaking through me vanished quickly once the male cadet was gone, but...
It felt like a wound had been carved into my heart with a knife.
Even though I was trying to hold it in, tears kept spilling out in tiny drops.
It wasn’t as if I’d been in that much pain, and it wasn’t as if he’d even sworn at me.
It had just been pure mana, but if he’d charged his mana into his shoulder and slammed into me, I probably would’ve ended up plastered against that wall.
Still, compared to the time I’d been surrounded by people and had a panic attack, this was better, so I told myself I was fine somehow.
I finished washing my hands, left the restroom, and shuffled back toward the banquet hall.
- Hey... move... I can’t see!
- Waaaahhhhhh!
- Looks like that one’s gonna win?
Noisy chaos kept reaching my ears.
The closer I got to the banquet hall, the more cheers I could hear.
And all that shouting was aimed at the stage in the center of the hall.
What was going on? I hurried my steps and walked toward the sound.
- Koo-goo-goong...!
"Ghh..."
"At that speed? Are you even trying? You look slower than before."
In the center of the banquet hall, the flower of the entrance ceremony—the thing everyone dreamed of seeing—was taking place: a friendly match between cadets.
And the people fighting there were voices I knew well, clear and gentle and soft.
"Han Riae... what on earth have you been doing?"
"Haha, says you—didn’t you pass the test and then do absolutely nothing?"
Han Riae and Miel Norison were holding a friendly match.
Miel Norison was the son of a fairly famous hunter family in the northeast.
His main weapon was a light one-handed sword, and he was a cadet specialized in quick movement and precise thrusts.
Of course, because this was a friendly match for confirming each other’s skill and learning from one another, Han Riae and Miel Norison were both using short wooden swords.
It was called sparring, but since they were both flooding their techniques with mana, the area around them had turned into a complete mess.
That was only because it was a stage built for friendly matches; if this had been near the banquet tables, the damage would have been unimaginable.
Because they were infusing mana into their wooden swords as they fought, the blades had little chance of breaking.
- Ting! Ting!
Their swords tangled and crossed again and again.
- Chizzzzzzt!
The angles of the blades changed with every instant, more than enough to delight the eye.
The swords flashing at each other in the blink of an eye were giving off thick waves of mana. Clear, piercing sounds battered my ears, and the sword aura they unleashed through mana was so dense and heavy it left afterimages in the air.
The male cadet, sweating as he barely managed to deflect an attack aimed at Han Riae’s opening, staggered backward.
But as though he had no intention of losing, he quickly straightened his stance again, gripped his sword, and charged at Han Riae once more.
Yet Han Riae met that assault with a heavy, unwavering defense, as if to say such an attack wasn’t nearly enough.
- Clang!
- Kka-kang!
- Ting!
A storm of mana wrapped around the stage in brilliant colors, and the sword dance flaunted its power at full force. Below the stage, gasps and cheers kept rippling through the crowd.
Miel Norison was a famous talent from the northeast, specializing in fast thrusts with a rapier.
He was skilled enough to have entered through the exam-based admission system at Sielm.
The first time I saw them, I’d nearly choked in alarm and wondered what kind of brawl this was, but looking more closely, I realized the mana leaking out was only reinforcing the wooden swords so they wouldn’t break, while both of them were using their mana solely to enhance their bodies.
It would have been a lie to say the training wooden swords could survive such a ferocious exchange.
And more than anything else, neither of them was using the unique abilities tied to their own special mana.
Whoa... that surprised me.
Even if I only looked away for a second, three or four exchanges of sword dancing would fly by, and the moment an attack failed and was withdrawn, they would flow naturally into the next stance.
Watching such ever-changing swordsmanship could only inspire awe.
I’ll have to become like that too...
What had started as admiration became despair at the thought that this was what I would have to do, and I could already feel myself getting sick of the idea that I might never be able to.
No, no. I need to etch this into my eyes.
I shook my head lightly and watched their friendly match from afar again.
Come to think of it, I had better conditions than they did.
I didn’t know anything at all, which meant I could build every foundation from the ground up and grow steadily, and I could learn things more easily through pure mana.
As their swords briefly separated, then clashed again, they rang out with a frightening noise, and the repeated, violent vibrations shook the air around them.
As I watched the exchanges shift back and forth, something slowly began reaching me.
The traces of mana they created through their fierce movements were being etched into my own mana.
My mana was still pure, but as if I had acquired a new direction for it, it was busily collecting those sword dances.
Seeing swordsmanship that I had only watched with my eyes in the healing center now strike my skin directly made it burn itself into my mind through vivid experience.
And then, little by little...
I can read it...?
Their sword dance began to make sense to me.
Why did they switch their grip so lightly, only to change all at once?
Why did they deliberately leave such obvious openings?
Why did they counter and defend from there, of all places?
The more I watched, the clearer it became in my mind, until their momentum could be read almost at a glance.
They deliberately created an opening, then counterattacked with even greater force in that instant.
They held the sword lightly, then the moment they saw an opening, they drove in deep and tightened their grip so the blade wouldn’t waver.
What had first seemed like nothing more than a sword dance performed on stage was gradually organized in my mind, until I could infer the reason behind every direction each technique took.
Why was that?
Was it simply because mana erosion produced such a good effect?
Something felt strange.
Mana erosion only created pure mana, so I could understand why I’d be able to recognize mana well and absorb those sword dances so easily.
But even so, wasn’t I taking in that information a little too well?
Something about the fight felt familiar, and my body kept twitching in response.
What is this...?
One by one, I was generating the answers to every movement.
It didn’t feel like something I was consciously figuring out, but like my unconscious mind was telling me the solution to a problem.
Could this be... a trace of my lost memories?
Fragments of memories I had lost.
If my theory was right, then why in the world did this feel so familiar?
The weight of the thought made my head ache.
Just then, while I was holding my head, my mana-sensing ability sent me a warning.
The mana that had been gradually calming down was signaling the end of their sparring match.
- Kang!
The male cadet, who had been defending nonstop, was driven all the way to the edge of the stage by Han Riae’s relentless strikes.
The moment he faltered, Han Riae seized the opening and smashed him upward with a sudden burst of speed.
Miel’s body floated up into the air, and Han Riae wasted no time, kicking off the ground and leaping after him.
She put all the force in her hands into the sword and raised both arms high.
It was a smash attack clearly meant to finish the opponent.
Normally it would be easy to see and dodge, but in midair, with his stance broken, there was no way he could avoid it.
Miel tried to receive Han Riae’s smash with a motion meant to block the attack by any means necessary.
And then, as she arched back in a great swing, she declared with fierce finality:
"This'll end it—!"
- Taaaanng!
Her roaring cry of spirit, and with it, a massive strike.
The thunderous impact, like a mortar shell being fired, stabbed at my ears.
Miel’s body, unable to endure the shock at all, was launched away like a baseball.
Wow...
What kind of hit had been that powerful? I stared with my mouth hanging open, stunned.
At that moment, Miel’s body slammed into the stage’s safety barrier.
The wall made of mana crackled and sparked.
I quietly closed my eyes and savored the aftershock, but then I sensed something packed with violent mana hurtling straight toward me.
"There! This... is, uh, wha, what? H-hey, wait! Shit, wait a sec...!"
Han Riae’s voice rang out in panic and surprise, mixed with the noise from below the stage, and that huge mass of mana kept closing in on me.
A massive mass of mana, silver in color, falling slowly toward me...
Come to think of it, I could feel the lights in the banquet hall growing a little dimmer.
The silver chandelier that had been providing that light was falling straight toward me.
Wait—the stage safety barrier?
I finally realized the safety barrier surrounding the stage had been completely shattered.
Because of the barrier, I hadn’t expected this at all.
So Han Riae’s mana output had been that strong...
Maybe because the mana of Han Riae and Miel, both famous for their strength, had collided at once, the safety barrier protecting the area had been smashed to pieces.
Thinking that, I reflexively tried to move my body, but it was as if I had frozen solid and couldn’t move at all.
Ah—
The chandelier, filled with luminous magic, fell in front of me...
- Kwaaaaaaaang!!!
The magic overloaded, and with the backlash it erupted into a violent explosion that shoved me hard backward.
- Kwaang!
"Cough...!"
The explosion was stronger than I’d expected... and it slammed me hard into the banquet hall wall...
As I was driven into it, my consciousness began to fade...
Slowly, I closed my eyes...
And in front of me, I saw something blurred by tears, running toward me at full speed.
A set of pale yellow hair streaming behind them, and bright red eyes...