Meal
Ever since I woke up with my memory gone, there hadn’t been many days when I’d had much of an appetite.
So I mostly ate things I could swallow quickly, or porridge and the like that were packed with nutrients.
It was only after tasting the desserts at the entrance ceremony that I realized I even liked sweet things.
But sweet food wasn’t something I could have with most meals, so I still preferred porridge, something simple I could eat without much trouble.
And there were plenty of days when I didn’t eat at all.
Today, too, I had been planning to do that.
“Paran, want to get lunch with me?”
“Huh?”
I was just making up my mind and packing my things when I found Han Riae standing there, her own bag already packed, waiting for my answer.
“But aren’t you eating with Yoon Hwayeon?”
One question came to mind after her invitation.
They were usually glued together, so why wasn’t she eating with Yoon Hwayeon and instead asking me to go with her…?
“Yoon Hwayeon? She’ll… manage on her own, I guess…”
Maybe she felt my stare full of suspicion, because Han Riae averted her eyes and muttered the words as if trying to play it off.
Honestly, I wasn’t especially hungry right now.
Even though I’d gotten through breakfast in a rather poor way, I didn’t really feel hunger.
Still…
“Yes, I’ll eat.”
It would’ve stung my conscience to refuse someone who was being kind enough to offer me help just because I wasn’t hungry.
And I did need to eat something, anyway…
“Anything’s fine, as long as it isn’t spicy.”
I didn’t really care much about the taste of food.
I’d always been the sort to have little appetite, and apart from sweets, nothing I ate really left much of an impression on me.
But spicy food was different. Didn’t they say spiciness wasn’t a flavor, but pain?
Every time I ate it, heat rushed through me, sweat broke out, and my tongue hurt.
People said spicy food helped relieve stress, so I tried it once, but all it did was give me more stress.
Who on earth could feel relaxed after going through that kind of pain?
“Oh? Anything, as long as it’s not spicy? Anything except spicy, huh…”
Han Riae seemed completely caught off guard by my answer and tapped at the hologram of her bracelet with a baffled expression.
“Hmm…”
After stepping away and groaning to herself for a while, Han Riae carefully spoke again.
“How about tonkatsu…? Is that okay?”
At last, she had a suggestion.
“Yes, that sounds good.”
I agreed at once, naturally.
.
.
.
Once you left Sielm Academy’s classrooms and headed toward the lobby, there were spaces set aside for the students.
For example, a cafeteria…
And around the academic buildings, there were also restaurants that provided free meals for students.
The menus were high quality despite not charging a single coin, and they changed every day, so these places were famous for being especially popular with the students.
Still, there were plenty of students who had to eat outside for one reason or another, so restaurants from beyond the academy grounds were also scattered throughout the campus.
The place we’d just found was one of those.
Since Han Riae had said she wanted tonkatsu, we headed to a place nearby that was known for doing tonkatsu dishes well.
It was close to the classrooms, so we got there without much trouble.
Han Riae and I each ordered a regular tonkatsu set.
We sat side by side and waited for the food to come out.
While we waited…
- pat, pat
“Really, why are you so soft, hm?”
Han Riae was stroking my hair, wearing an enchanted expression.
Am I really that soft…?
It was my own hair, and apart from when I washed it, I didn’t really have many chances to touch it.
I couldn’t tell whether it was actually that soft even if I felt it now, but…
Still, every time she patted my head, it felt like the weight in my chest eased a little, so I decided to just let her do it without saying anything.
Han Riae and I kept talking until the food arrived.
She asked simple things: what I usually did, whether I watched animation, what I thought of sour things if I liked sweets, and so on…
She didn’t bring up anything heavy at all, only light questions, and I answered each one earnestly.
Slowly, our conversation went on until finally the food came.
“I’m the one paying, so eat comfortably.”
Fresh, piping-hot tonkatsu had been brought out, and Han Riae seemed so delighted by the sight that the mana spilling from her danced merrily in the air.
With practiced movements, she cut the tonkatsu apart and immediately—
“Paran, here, aahh~”
—held it out to me?
...Aahh?
Oh no.
My body must have already grown used to this sort of thing, because before I even had time to think, my mouth opened on its own.
The tonkatsu’s coating glistened as though it had just come out of the fryer, and its savory aroma stirred my nose.
The piece she’d speared on the fork went into my mouth and I bit down with a crisp crunch.
“.....”
Han Riae watched me with shining eyes, as if checking my reaction.
And my response was…
“I-it’s good… really…”
I gave my verdict with a dazed expression.
“Really? Whew, I’m glad. It’s good, right?”
“Yes… it’s delicious… yum.”
After chewing and swallowing the piece in my mouth, I popped another piece I’d cut myself in after it.
The sweet-and-savory sauce and the crisp fried coating danced freely on my tongue.
Only then did the memory of the meager breakfast I’d eaten come crawling back, and my appetite suddenly surged while hunger sharpened into a keen edge.
Maybe because my mouth was small and my stomach wasn’t that big either, I ended up finishing only the tonkatsu.
“Hehe… you eat so well.”
Watching me eat, Han Riae wore a satisfied look and finished the rest of her own meal.
“Are you full?”
After the meal, Han Riae, sipping her coffee, asked me that question.
“Yes, I’m full. Hehe.”
Maybe because it had been so long since I’d had such a satisfying meal, I found myself smiling for no reason.
“That’s good,”
The mana radiating from Han Riae’s body made it obvious that she was in a good mood.
The corners of her mouth twitched as she sipped her coffee, and the small movement was unmistakably visible.
Maybe the reason I hadn’t had much of an appetite was because I’d been eating only bland hospital food and porridge all this time.
* * *
After finishing the meal, Han Riae and I parted ways to head to our respective major classes.
Han Riae went to attend the advanced Mana Circulation lecture.
As for me…
I’d even received an apology for what happened that morning.
It wasn’t as if Professor Han Seohwa had done anything wrong… I was only a special case and had just fainted for a moment…
Even after I replied awkwardly that I wasn’t hurt and I was fine, she sent me a flood of teary emoticons almost immediately.
“Haa…”
I let out a long sigh and thought about the special lecture I’d been assigned.
It probably was more effective for one professor to focus on one student than for one professor to teach several at once.
I’d thought special admissions wouldn’t come with much in the way of benefits, but if this counted as one, then it was one well enough that I didn’t particularly mind.
In any case, who in their right mind would refuse one-on-one instruction from a top-ranked Sielm Academy professor?
I decided to walk there and use the chance to digest my food.
The place I’d been directed to wasn’t all that far from the first-year classrooms.
All the facilities used by first-years were clustered in the first-year district, so there was no need to take any vehicle like a bus.
It wasn’t that far anyway, so I chose to walk at an easy pace.
In general, advanced technology was widely distributed across this continent.
And yet, apart from various appliances and transportation facilities that many people used, most buildings were still ordinary structures.
Sielm, on the other hand, was dominated by state-of-the-art facilities that incorporated advanced technology.
Just look at the dormitory buildings—most of them were automated, and the classrooms were also covered wall to wall in the latest tech.
The training facilities were no different.
Though overshadowed by the Tower of Growth, Sielm’s individual training rooms and gymnasiums, built with holographic technology, still left plenty of room for students to develop.
Even a brief description would reveal a wildly varied range of sparring bots, each with different difficulty levels and functions, as well as special rooms that manipulated gravity at will to slow a student’s movements.
These were the kinds of facilities at Sielm—packed with technology you’d never see anywhere else.
“Is this it…?”
But the place I arrived at on foot was far removed from the high-tech facilities I’d been seeing earlier.
Compared to the rich mana I’d felt elsewhere, the mana here was faint to the point of being almost nonexistent.
The rough feel beneath my feet, the ground made entirely of dry, barren soil where it was hard to find even a hint of green.
It didn’t feel like a training ground or a practice field so much as… an empty lot.
Still, I could see small traces of mana rising here and there, so it was clear the place was still being used.
“You’re not late.”
“Hyaa?!“
As I crouched quietly and reached out to touch the mana rising from the ground, a voice from behind me made my skin crawl.
I jumped back with a strange yelp, putting some distance between us.
The woman standing where I had just sensed the mana was watching me with one hand on her hip.
W-when did she…?
When I’d been sensing the mana around me through Mana Erosion, there had definitely been no one there.
I’d confirmed it with my own eyes while observing the many colors of mana, so I was even more certain.
“Hmph.”
As I stood there flustered by the incomprehensible situation, the woman walked toward me with deliberate, heavy steps.
Even from far away, I’d sensed how big she was, but now that she was close, her height felt truly immense.
She looked taller than Han Riae…
With my own small stature, I had to tilt my head almost all the way back to see her face.
“You’re quicker at reading presence than I expected. So you’d already noticed, had you?”
“Uh… yes…”
To be honest, I had felt her powerful mana before she even spoke.
I’d just been startled the instant her voice came from right there after she appeared.
“You haven’t been awake very long, and yet your mana sensing is fairly impressive… enough to catch my presence, even.”
The woman muttered to herself as though assessing me on her own, then nodded, the short gray hair at her ears swaying lightly.
“My name is Seres Erasian. I will be the professor conducting your combat-related classes from now on. Make sure you remember that clearly.”
“...I’m Lim Paran, from the special admissions track. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She must have been a newly appointed professor, one I’d never seen among the ones posted online.
From the way she spoke, it seemed she had no intention of revealing her hunter rank.
Since she was a stranger, I greeted her with a slight tremor in my voice.
The moment she heard the words special admissions, I saw Professor Seres’s eyes narrow just a fraction.
D-did I mess up…?
What if she wasn’t a professor favorable toward special admissions students…?
That thought made my trembling worse.
“...Before we begin class, there is something I should say.”
At least to hear what Professor Seres had to say, I raised my head.
With a sigh that suggested some irritation, Professor Seres continued the story she’d been about to tell.
“First of all, I hold no particular feelings toward special admissions. You can relax. I neither intend to reject it nor blindly approve of it.”
Narrowing her eyes, Professor Seres kept looking at me as she went on.
“You were selected by the principal’s will, so I’ll teach you all the same. But there’s not a single recorded detail about your past, and nothing has been proven yet. It’s only natural to have doubts.”
She looked straight at me and continued.
“Do you understand? You are not an ordinary student. You’re a special admissions student. And since you came in through an exceptional method, people will expect something from you.”
Expect something from me…
“That isn’t just my opinion. The public likely sees you that way too. Setting aside what kind of person you are, you are the first and only individual chosen by the Tower of Growth’s tower master.”
The one chosen by the tower master.
The first and only special admissions student.
The person selected by the tower master’s will—someone who had never appeared before in all this time.
Since I was class 273 now, that meant no one had been chosen by the principal for 273 years.
As the first student of a special admissions system that had only ever existed as a single sentence, it was only natural that I’d draw a strong reaction.
“I’ve talked too much about unnecessary things. The time has come. Training starts now.”
Professor Seres’s feet stopped at one spot as she continued walking.
There was something like a white line drawn there…
“Run.”
Ah.
A running track.
“How long am I supposed to run…?”
“Until I say stop, or until you faint.”
Professor Seres answered with a rigid expression.
“This is nothing more than a simple physical test. You have no recorded documents to speak of, so I intend to measure you this way. Now—”
Start.
Seeing Professor Seres finish her sentence like that, I tried to think of something to say.
But it occurred to me that there was nothing to gain from arguing.
It didn’t really seem like what I’d imagined when I thought of a Sielm class, but then again, what did that matter? There were probably classes like this too.
With that thought, I kicked off the ground.
And I ran, quite literally, until I fainted.
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