If This Is a School, Hold Classes
By the time the cadets arrived at the half-collapsed shack after lunch, they were all thinking the same thing.
Is this some kind of hidden-camera prank?
Getting into a prestigious imperial academy only to be fed insect stew had already been shocking enough. The place where the thief cadets were expected to stay was even worse.
Ethan jabbed Sera in the side with his elbow.
"Sera Barakin. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"What were you thinking?"
"That school life's completely screwed."
"...Yeah. Pretty much."
The place looked like a haunted house and then some. The cadets had been brought here under the explanation that this was where they would live for the next several years until graduation, so the tearful reactions bursting out were hardly surprising.
"Are they insane...? First they feed us bugs, and now they want us to sleep in a ruined house?"
"What the hell even is Thief School?"
"I... I want to go home..."
The cadets murmured among themselves.
"Welcome to the temporary dormitory... Heehee... I am Dermond, the dormitory warden."
A stooped old hag in ragged robes, leaning on a heavy wooden cane, stepped out and grinned slyly at the cadets.
"Have you all heard the explanation about the Dormitory Scramble?"
"...No?"
"Heeheehee! Of course you haven't! I haven't told you yet!"
The old hag broke into open cackling.
"Thieves are supposed to have it hard. Living in a place like this will help you far more than the real dormitory wi—"
She cut herself off mid-sentence.
Then she started cackling again.
"Kheeheehee! As if! Uheehee! Like living in this dump of a haunted house would help anyone! Kyahak! Look at those vacant stares—so fun to watch! I just can't help teasing the brand-new rookies. Wooheehee!"
"..."
The cadets' faces went sour.
"Kheuhhhk... Haaah~ Too funny."
The old hag laughed for a long while, then cut it off cold.
"You'll get free meals, but you won't get free sleep!"
"..."
"A thief always has to survive extreme situations! No matter what, you must never think of getting comfortable!"
She slammed her cane into the ground and continued.
"Want to get comfortable? Then you first-year Novice Cadets will have to seize a dormitory for yourselves!"
Spirits floated up into the air and unfurled a banner. Imperial script in a form very close to a formal typeface was written across it.
DORMITORY SCRAMBLE
"Fail the Scramble and miss out on a dorm assignment, and you'll be sleeping on the dirt floor for the rest of your school years!"
The old hag raised her cane and pointed toward one corner of the ruined building behind her.
"There's even a guy over there who's slept on the dirt for all four years! Without a dorm, you'll be camping out with no bed, just like him."
"...Wasn't that a doghouse?"
"Lose the Scramble four years running and that's what happens! He's lucky he at least has a doghouse."
A limp hand poked out from between boxes a little smaller than a doghouse and waved weakly.
"Wel... welcome, freshmen..."
Ethan frowned at the sight.
If I hadn't had the club room key, my life really would have been ruined.
This was a mad school that stuffed upperclassmen into doghouses.
"If you don't get a dorm, you live in a doghouse?"
"What kind of nonsense is this..."
"Is this even an academy...? This is too much!"
The old hag waved the banner away and lifted her cane.
"Everyone, go inside, unpack your bags, and wait! The Scramble begins this afternoon."
Ethan already knew this was the entrance exam. Proctors would almost certainly be hidden here and there, watching the entire Dormitory Scramble and evaluating the freshmen's abilities.
Watching the webtoon, I thought this was the perfect test for me...
That didn't mean he liked it.
If this is a school, hold classes like a school...
It was exactly like a Thief School that put daggers in students' hands more often than books.
Uneducated thief bastards, the lot of them.
Ethan tapped Sera on the shoulder.
"That upperclassman in the doghouse is probably staged too."
"You think so? He asked me earlier if I had any leftover grasshoppers..."
"Shh. If I say so, then it is."
Ethan narrowed his eyes.
Live in a tiny place like that for four or five years?
Come on... No way.
Even thieves who'd sold off their consciences wouldn't go that far.
Ethan pushed through the spiderwebs hanging all the way to the floor and entered the lodging.
The temporary dormitory looked exactly like an old Korean army barracks. Swap the walls for rotting wood and the exterior wouldn't have looked any different.
Commotion kept erupting among the cadets.
"I can't go to school treated like this! What kind of academy is this?!"
"Hardship has limits!"
"I'm leaving! Where's the way out?!"
The cadets' morale was tanking.
Not good.
From ancient times, an organization divided from within could never survive its enemies.
He didn't like it, but he had to rally them.
Ethan, who had been quietly listening to the grumbling, opened his mouth.
"You lot only know half the story."
"Ethan Cass! What do you mean by that?"
The cadets turned their attention to the fallen-noble boy who had made such a mysterious showing at the entrance ceremony.
"No matter what you say, it doesn't change that this place is a dump!"
"You protected your ID at the entrance ceremony because you're the headmaster's lackey, aren't you?"
"You're actually a full-fledged thief, aren't you?"
Ethan clenched a fist at the last remark, but decided to forgive the thief prodigies for a moment—they didn't even know basic manners.
"It's nothing like that."
Ethan pulled a paper booklet from a metal cabinet that looked like a footlocker.
When the luxurious design appeared, every cadet's gaze locked onto it.
"What's that?"
"You can't tell just by looking?"
It listed consecutive years of producing Thief Masters, the names of famous thieves who had graduated, thieves who had joined the intelligence bureau, and more.
"No way... Why didn't they hand this out at the entrance ceremony?"
"Look at this! It says the empire's top master blacksmith gives a Mythic-grade Assassin full set as a graduation gift?"
"Insane... Sell just that and you could buy several mansions in the capital."
Life began to return to the cadets' eyes.
"Attention."
Ethan tapped the booklet with a finger.
"Thief School is a place where graduating alone guarantees wealth and honor as a baseline."
He stood and looked around at the cadets.
"This is all the path to becoming a 1st Grade Imperial Thief—recognized by the empire and accepted into the Imperial Black Unit and Shadow Unit."
"..."
"Didn't every one of you come here carrying your family's fate on your backs? A family's revival doesn't fall into your hands for free!"
Ethan crossed his arms with confidence.
Feels nasty, like I'm some Thief School salesman...
If he didn't get the cadets under control right now, they would all fail the entrance exam and end up sleeping on the street. That was something Ethan did not want.
Even if they're thief prodigies... having even one ally is still a help.
In his previous life Ethan had been a Special Forces platoon leader. The experience of seizing every chance to give speeches and raise morale in front of his men was finally paying off.
The cadets began to nod.
"As expected of the Cass family. Everything written in the booklet is true."
"Cass... I've never heard of the house, but they must be extremely well-educated."
"Ethan, I think I've been wrong about you until now. You're right."
As the situation turned, the atmosphere grew heated.
"...I absolutely need merchant-guild training. For that I need a thief license."
"I'm going to graduate from Thief School and join the group my parents run."
"They say the Imperial Intelligence Bureau gives you a whole castle just for joining! Everyone, let's do this."
Ethan smiled in satisfaction at the changed mood.
Time for the finishing blow.
"Everyone remember that quality time you spent with the headmaster?"
At those words the cadets' faces went ice-cold.
The headmaster who had already stolen their IDs at the entrance ceremony. Living without an ID in the empire meant tasting the ordeal of having your human rights stripped away.
A strange light gleamed in the eyes of the freshmen who had tasted his madness.
I'll get into a dorm even if it kills me.
Damn headmaster.
What kind of academy doesn't even give you a proper place to sleep.
Fuck it, I'm graduating out of pure spite.
Ethan naturally seized control of the atmosphere.
Even if they're future thieves and thief prodigies, their eyes alone are useful.
He flipped through the booklet in his hand and wrapped up the speech.
"Everyone take one good look at your brilliant futures and burn with resolve."
"O... oh...!"
"Let's graduate from this damned school and shove it up that bastard headmaster's nose!"
"Oooh! Ethan Cass!"
The cadets ignited in an instant.
He had successfully stopped the signs of division and united the cadets as one.
"Ethan! Ethan!"
Flutter-flutter!
But a single cockroach that appeared from behind the footlocker shattered it just as quickly.
"Aaaagh! Cockroach!"
"Catch it! Catch it! Aagh, it has wings!"
"Cockroaches can fly! Ack! Don't fly at me!"
The room turned into pure chaos in seconds, and Ethan revised his evaluation of the cadets downward.
Hmm... for now, everyone in this room except me is probably washed out.
While Ethan was carefully examining the booklet, a long head of silver hair poked out from where it had been hiding by the door.
"Ethan! You finished unpacking?"
"Sera Barakin."
"Just call me Sera!"
She drifted over to him. Apparently Ethan's barracks speech had left an impression.
"Ethan, I didn't know you could talk like that. Kind of cool."
"I've always been cool."
"...Cancel that. Maybe a little annoying."
Sera complained that the cadets in the next barracks had no strategy at all.
"They're all just sitting there with their mouths hanging open, refusing to accept the situation."
"For kids this age, that's normal."
"You talk like you're not a kid yourself."
She tilted her head; her hair slid past her bronze shoulder and spilled over her chest.
"So. Do you have a plan?"
"What difference does it make if I say I do?"
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"Of course I do."
Sera blinked her big eyes.
"You have a strategy for the Dormitory Scramble!? Mmph!"
"Quiet. Everyone can hear you."
"Ethan, I can't breathe...!"
Ethan clamped a hand over Sera's mouth and dragged her upstairs.
He pushed into one of the still-empty upper barracks.
He murmured quietly.
"I have no intention of fighting this Scramble."
Sera was shocked.
"Y-you don't need a dormitory?"
"No? I need one."
"Th-then?"
Ethan laced his fingers together with complete seriousness.
"I said I have no intention of fighting the Scramble. I never said I wouldn't take part in it."
Sera narrowed her eyes and thought.
I have absolutely no idea what that means...
I guess noble ways of thinking really are different from commoners'...?
Finished speaking, Ethan rummaged in his coat and pulled something out.
Clink.
It was a complete, proper key—something that would almost never be used in this school, pushed aside by lockpicks.
Sera's eyes went as wide as saucers at the sight.