One Day in Solitary
After the entrance exam ended.
The first thing Ethan did was check where the club building the principal had given him was located.
"Why is this place so enormous?"
And he immediately gave up.
The school was simply too vast.
"You're going to look for the building?"
"Yes."
Dermond frowned as she shook out her broom with sharp little taps.
"Don't. Don't even try. You think you can wander around this Thief School—big enough to put a mid-sized city of the kingdom to shame—without any preparation?"
"..."
"You think the cadets who went missing while exploring campus number just one or two? Clubroom? What clubroom. You got a dormitory, that ought to be enough. Aigoo, these young cadets these days don't know how to be satisfied."
The old hag rubbed her big nose and added,
"Ethan Cass. I'm giving you this special warning because you're the top student. If it were anyone else, I'd have just handed them a school map and told them to go poke around here and there."
"Could you give me that map, then?"
"Nonsense! Absolutely not! It'd be a disaster! Did you hear a word I just said?"
"Then what about the other cadets?"
"If they get lost in the caves, that's their own responsibility."
"..."
It was infuriating, but Dormitory Warden Dermond had a point.
Wandering around looking for the clubroom was an absurd idea.
The outskirts of the Thief School were practically unexplored wilderness. Ancient ruins laced with formations and traps lay scattered everywhere, and even the principal himself did not know everything that existed across the entire school.
In the end, Ethan had no choice but to return to the Ruby Dormitory for now.
"With this much ivy..."
The place holding the key Ethan had won in the contest was the Ruby Dormitory wing.
"Why is this such a mess?"
It was nowhere near a normal state.
"There's enough cobwebs that spider monsters could spawn."
Sticky mold clung to every surface. The space allocated to the novice cadets was not, even by the most generous stretch, a decent living facility. Until trap-clearing work on the main dormitory finished, they had to use this annex. If they did not want to die of lung disease, cleaning was mandatory.
"Looks like I'm stuck playing a territory-management game I never signed up for."
Ethan needed to gradually turn this Ruby annex into a place fit for human habitation before the semester began. For the top enrollee, a key once received could be used permanently until graduation.
"If I clean this place up once, I can use it for my entire school life."
There was a reason, however, that Ethan had chosen this place over the other perfectly serviceable dormitories.
"No surveillance is just too convenient."
Being able to stay out of the professors' sight. The Thief School was a living space where professors and students coexisted, so when professors who ranked as high-tier heroes extended their senses even a little, those senses reached the dormitories.
Even now, the noble outside getting points docked by a professor dressed like a short-brimmed-hat magician was one of the victims.
"Carson Valerius. You ran in the Topaz Dormitory corridor, so demerit points: minus three."
"Ah—no, Professor, you were in another dorm!"
"Hmm... You invaded another dormitory, so demerit points: minus three."
"Aaaargh!"
Carson protested fiercely while brushing up his thick eyebrows.
"Why me! I only went because I urgently needed the bathroom!"
"A thief cadet must maintain basic qi concealment at all times. Disobeying a superior. Demerit points: minus five."
"Nooo!"
So unless the building was completely isolated like the Ruby Dormitory, you ended up eating demerits like that.
"Just send me to solitary!"
"Solitary is also a demerit, student. Being sent to solitary comes with ten demerit points on the spot."
"Isn't that expulsion at that rate!"
"Expulsion is two hundred demerit points. You can sufficiently make up for it with merit points before then, Cadet Carson."
Of course, if you successfully escaped the professor, the demerits would be waived.
...If you can manage it, go ahead and try...
"Cadet Carson. The range of my senses is approximately ten thousand large paces. Avoid that and there are no demerits."
"Ugh... Does that even make sense! Every dormitory falls inside that range..."
"That's why, when the semester starts, take the basic stealth techniques class diligently."
In that fashion they would chase you all the way into other dorms and hand out demerits whether you were a novice cadet or not.
(For reference, that magician-looking professor's sensory range covered a radius of ten kilometers.)
Once the commotion had passed, a voice calling Ethan drifted in from outside the dormitory.
"E—than—."
Ethan slid the window open with a rattle and stuck his head out.
"What is it, Caion's lackey."
In the courtyard overrun by ivy stood a boy in a white uniform, thick eyebrows and all.
"Carson Valerius."
The fourth-year dormitory cadet I had brought in by selling off a leftover Ruby Dormitory entry ticket. A new addition who had been hanging around Caion, then come to his senses and joined Ruby. For the record, that guy had never once defended me when Caion badmouthed me. (I had seen it all and remembered every bit.)
Ethan looked Carson over once.
"That outfit is way too bright for a thief."
"...Does it not suit me?"
"You're dying to advertise that you're a march lord's son. Do you think I wear dark clothes because I enjoy it?"
"...You've got a real talent for saying things that hurt."
"I'm offering advice to my new neighbor. Don't listen if you don't want to."
"Tch."
In reality, wandering the campus in bright clothes unsuited to a thief was a fine way to get called over and slapped with demerits just like earlier. In the entire Thief School, the only person thoughtless enough to wear bright clothes purely for fashion was this guy.
"Dye it navy at least."
"Hmph. As expected of the top enrollee—boring as hell."
"If you want something fun, go learn magic. Why come be a thief?"
"Thieves are fun, though."
"I don't agree."
Carson flicked the silver coin in his hand, caught it again, and let his mid-low voice roll across the courtyard.
"Hey, and what's with calling me a lackey!"
"Come on! I'm a completely different species from that unappetizing guy."
"I'll let myself be fooled once."
"Man, sincerity just doesn't get through. Sincerity."
"Come up."
When Ethan creaked the window wider, Carson soundlessly stepped onto the sill and crouched there.
"Hmm."
The reason Ethan was entertaining conversation with this thief at all was simple: the others—Sera, Iska, and the rest—had gone to different dormitories like Topaz and Sapphire. Right now in this Ruby Dormitory, specifically the annex, only the two of them remained.
No matter how trashy these thieves are... refusing a neighbor's greeting isn't noble etiquette.
"...So. Did you find the club building?"
"What are you talking about."
"The rumor's already everywhere among the cadets. That you became the landlord of the Thief School."
Hmm. The only people I had told were Sera, Iska, Dormuut, and Senior Chris. I had spoken only to trustworthy comrades, so there was no way the story should have leaked.
Except for one person—no, one animal.
"I should strip Chris of his senior-cadet status effective immediately."
Carson raised his eyebrows.
"What? What's that about now."
"There's something like that."
Carson crossed his legs.
"By the way, that club building—there's a rumor it's no ordinary structure."
"And what's that supposed to mean."
He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered,
"The secrets of the world! They're hidden all over our school's ruins and buildings, you know?"
"..."
"Plus there's talk that the principal himself hid the imperial treasures. The senior cadets are hunting with fire in their eyes."
Imperial treasures?
"Is that true."
"It's a rumor, but there were stories that a few upperclassmen actually discovered royal treasures."
Treasures in the club building.
I might be able to find traces of the Imperial Seal there.
Ethan resolved then and there to secure the club building first.
Knock knock.
The door opened and a dark elf in a black mask shyly tilted her head.
"Ethan! I brought the spicy vegetables you asked for... Huh? Who's that next to you?"
Carson switched to refined bearing in an instant.
"Oh, to think a flower-like black rose could bloom even in a dusty hole like this."
"Huh?"
"I am a descendant of the Knights of the Round Table who guard the empire from the vast western borders. Second son of House Valerius—Carson."
Sera twitched her long ears in confusion.
"What is this?"
Carson paid no mind and lifted his chin slightly to meet her eyes.
"Where might our lovely young lady hail from?"
"Uuu... Too greasy! I don't like it!"
"Uh..."
Sera ignored him completely and hurried over to Ethan.
"Hehe, Ethan! You were looking forward to this, right?"
"Ohh."
"Take it! A whole crate of spicy vegetables! I had a hard time airlifting them in."
She added that if she had not been on Ethan's team, she never would have received the privilege of bringing in outside food like this. The novice cadets belonging to Ethan's group had generally scored well—and given their actual contributions, that result was only natural.
"Still, if it weren't for you, Ethan, I couldn't have attended school this comfortably!"
"Yeah. Be grateful to me."
"...You're annoying."
Ethan clicked the crate open.
"Wow."
In a world where he had been stuck eating little more than cheese and bread, this was the first time he had encountered the scent of home. That spicy aroma made his nose sting in more ways than one.
This is truly moving. The aroma is even better than the batch Grandma used to make.
It was the spicy vegetable salad Ethan had lived for—refusing to die—in his previous life.
"Sera."
"Yeah?"
Ethan solemnly took her hands.
"Eh? Eh? Eeeh?"
Sera's ears flushed scarlet.
"Uu... Eeh!? Ue?"
It was genuinely hard to tell which was redder—the spicy vegetable salad in Ethan's hands or Sera's ears.
"I want to be with you for life, Sera."
"Eh!?"
Meaning he wanted a lifelong side supply of Eastern cuisine.
"Will you walk the same path as me."
"Huet..!"
Meaning he wanted her to open a trade route for Eastern food through the Goryeo Merchant Guild.
But perhaps her grasp of rhetoric was lacking. Sera seemed completely unable to extract the context between the lines.
"I-I d-don't know!"
With a poof, smoke seemed to billow from behind her. She covered her face with both hands and bolted down the corridor.
"Huh? Miss Sera? What's the matter?"
"I-Iska! See you in class later!"
Iska watched her retreating back. As if tagging in, she now peeked around the doorframe of Ethan's room, arms laden with a heavily filled basket.
"Uh... Mr. Ethan. I went ahead and gathered the materials you requested last time from the forest near Sapphire Dormitory. Oh? You have a guest. May I come in..."
"Class is starting soon. I'd appreciate it if you just left it there."
"Yes, I'll set it here for now... See you in the classroom later."
Meanwhile Carson Valerius stood frozen with his head slightly bowed.
"I-I got rejected..."
The scent of a defeated male pushed out of the competition rolled off him in waves, but Ethan had no attention to spare for that.
Because the pink orc was knocking on the door again.
"Ethan, the principal is calling. Go."
Four visitors in a single day left Ethan a little scattered, but he calmly assessed the situation.
"For what?"
"That... I don't know. Ahem."
What is this? Kind of suspicious.
Ethan headed toward the Ruby side, boarded the monorail fixed to the cave wall, and rode it to the principal's office.
Ethan stood before the desk in the principal's office.
Donovan slapped a red warning card onto the wall with a sharp tap.
"Ethan Cass. One day in solitary."
"What?"
The top enrollee had been sentenced to solitary confinement on the very first day of the semester.
"Why?"
It was a major incident unprecedented in the history of the Thief School.