First Day of Enrollment
Yesterday's sleeping arrangements certainly weren't anything I could call good.
The furniture consisted entirely of one collapsing bed and a single storage chest shoved into the corner—whether it was a wardrobe or a storage crate, who could say.
Worse, the room was ridiculously cramped. Two people could probably scrape by in it, squeezed tight, but three seemed like pushing it.
Me, I'd lived in houses shaped like this my whole life since coming to this world, so whether a mouse or a cockroach popped out, it wouldn't have fazed me in the slightest. But for the young masters and ladies of wealthy families, I suppose it was enough to shatter their illusions.
Just yesterday I'd watched six people pack their bags and flee the dormitory, and for all I knew there were more students leaving that I hadn't seen.
Arden, for his part, apparently had some kind of protagonist-grade mental fortitude, because he'd seen the whole scene and still unpacked his things without batting an eye.
"Morning, Bell."
So it was on the way to class, with last night's pandemonium behind us, that I blinked twice at the sight of Rone waving cheerfully at me from up ahead.
As her single braid swayed in a neat line down her back, I felt my gaze snag on it before I could help myself.
Back then and now, all I saw in her was the same childhood friend forever busy throwing tantrums—yet that one braided strand seemed to glower at me, declaring, I've matured, you know. It made me laugh for no real reason.
"Were you waiting for me?"
It wasn't like we'd simply crossed paths on the road—I remembered her standing blankly under a tree—so I asked to make sure.
Rone broke into a smile and came right up to me without a hint of hesitation, tilting her head a little to one side.
"It's our first day, so I wanted to walk in together. Is that okay?"
"Nothing wrong with it. Though I'm impressed you thought to wait at all."
The academy grounds were needlessly sprawling to begin with.
There had to be more than one or two paths leading from the dormitories to the main building, so what on earth possessed her to decide to wait right here?
It was pure luck I'd come this way; if I hadn't, all her waiting would've been for nothing.
"I just had a feeling you'd come. Victory for my intuition. Hehe."
"Magnificent. Truly."
She flashed her trademark V sign and grinned, and I ruffled her hair roughly before we set off together.
Still, walking to class alone had felt a little lonely, so having someone to talk with was nice.
By the time we reached the front of the main building, my eyes caught a crowd streaming in along a different path on the far side of the trees.
Most of them were faces I'd never seen before, but among them were some familiar ones.
Elisha, huh. So that's the Loperia Hall students.
It was Elisha, brushing her blonde hair aside with a casual flick of her hand as it rippled like a scene out of a picture book, striding along with all the grace of nobility.
Then, as if she'd sensed my gaze, she turned her head toward me.
And without warning, raised her hand to shoulder height and gave a shy little wave.
That single small gesture set the students passing around me murmuring.
"Isn't that Lady Crochel?"
"Who is she waving at just now?"
"That guy in front of us, obviously."
"Come off it. Why would someone like her wave at some Class E student?"
One of the voices in there was spectacularly rude, but since I more or less agreed with it, I decided to keep quiet.
Truth be told, it wasn't exactly wrong.
At this school, the difference between your assigned classes amounted to an invisible caste system. If Elisha of Class A was royalty or its equivalent among nobles, then I was something like an untouchable.
Honestly, I'd wondered for a moment if the wave really had been for me, but hearing those voices brought me back to reality, and I turned away.
We weren't particularly close to begin with.
The only conversation we'd ever exchanged was a brief moment on the day of the entrance exam—why would she bother waving at me so warmly?
And so, parting ways with Rone along the way, I headed for the classroom marked with a sign reading 1-E.
She looked genuinely disappointed, saying she probably wouldn't see me much from now on, and I barely managed to pry myself away by offering the reassurance that the academy held plenty of joint classes, so it would be fine.
Once inside the classroom, I checked the assigned seating via the paper taped to the blackboard first.
My seat was the very back row, by the window. I liked it.
Better still, the seat next to mine bore a very familiar name.
Tina Everett.
Apparently, that energetic puppy of a girl I'd met at the entrance ceremony yesterday would be sitting beside me.
High energy was all well and good—I just hoped she wouldn't be too loud.
I made my way to my seat, dropped my bag, and was idly killing time as my classmates began trickling in one by one.
There were conspicuous gaps in the seating thanks to yesterday's runaways, no doubt, but that was none of my concern.
Click. Click.
Just as the classroom was growing noisier by the moment—
A sound like the heel of a high-heeled shoe striking the floor rang out, and the front door of the classroom swung open.
"Sit down and be quiet before I have to say it twice."
The purple-haired woman who entered through that door dispensed with greetings of any kind, barked the order at the students, and slammed the attendance ledger down on the lectern with an audible crack.
None other than Professor Seras—the very woman responsible for my being able to attend this academy at all.
Morning assembly concluded under the direction of our homeroom professor, Seras.
Any hope I'd harbored that there'd be no classes on our first day after enrollment was wiped clean away.
Then again, it had been the same in the original novel, so what had I expected?
Maybe I should just give up on magic theory.
That was the first thought that crossed my mind after finishing the morning sessions.
Second period today was a class called Introduction to Magical Studies, which covered the most fundamental basics of magic—and honestly, I understood barely half of it.
It felt like today was the first time I'd truly grasped that there were domains simply impossible to navigate on original-novel knowledge alone.
At this rate, I really would need at least one private tutor.
The problem was that asking Rone was unthinkable. Knowing exactly what type of person she was, I couldn't even bring myself to entertain the idea.
That girl's a genius, after all.
In the original novel too, Rone had been an overwhelming practitioner of raw talent rather than theory.
To put it simply: she had no idea why one plus one equals two as a matter of principle, but the moment a problem was placed in front of her, she'd just solve it outright.
Which made her, quite literally, the worst possible type to teach anyone.
Somewhere far down the line, once she'd mastered theory as well, I might be able to ask for her help—but that was a story for the distant future.
For now, let's just focus on the meal in front of me.
Not bad, actually.
My funds had been starting to run low, but the academy cafeteria here served up a thoroughly satisfying meal at a fairly cheap price.
I was happily carrying on with my meal, sopping up soup with my bread, when—
I felt an oddly prickling gaze from around me.
It wasn't imagination or paranoia. It was more like I could feel, plain and unfiltered, that peculiar hostility people exude.
Pretending to keep eating, I rolled my eyes and scanned my surroundings.
Then I widened my senses, straining to pick out the voices around me more clearly.
Only then did a few of the sound snippets I'd been filtering out on autopilot start filtering into my head.
"That's him, right?"
"Yeah. The second son of House Ostern said so, remember?"
"What a shameless bastard. How can he sit there eating like nothing's wrong?"
"Guess he doesn't feel even a twinge of guilt."
They were clearly talking about me, but I had no idea why they were radiating such hostility.
It was unusually sharp for looks aimed at someone just for being in Class E.
Had I done anything since enrolling that would earn this?
No matter how far back I combed my memory, nothing came to mind.
Come to think of it—who was the second son of House Ostern?
It sounded vaguely familiar, but the fact that I couldn't place it immediately suggested he wasn't a particularly important character.
Or maybe it was a relatively recent name, which was why it lingered only hazily in my memory.
"Ah."
Midway through that thought—
My mind stalled, and a sigh slipped out of my mouth without my meaning it.
That's right. Glick Ostern.
He was definitely the name of one of the applicants grouped with me during the entrance exam.
When he failed, he'd raised a tremendous fuss, arguing heatedly with Professor Seras.
He'd passed by me without a word, so he'd faded from my memory somewhere along the way.
But it seemed that afterward, he'd spread unverified rumors through his circle of acquaintances, and word had apparently reached the ears of the incoming freshmen.
Must have been prime gossip material.
If I'd at least been from a noble family myself, spreading a rumor that malicious would have been a much harder sell.
He'd clearly learned I came from some unknown family, realized I was a commoner, and targeted that weakness deliberately.
No matter how much the academy proclaimed on its surface that nobles and commoners received equal education, that was the academy's claim, not the students' values.
Discrimination between nobles and commoners existed within these walls all the same, and to those whose prejudices ran deepest, I must have looked like the perfect target.
"Phew."
It left a foul taste in my mouth, but for now, all I could do was pretend not to notice and carry on with academy life as smoothly as I could manage.
If I at least knew why Professor Seras had passed me, I might be able to offer some kind of explanation, but I didn't even have that yet.
Besides, even if I tried to explain myself with a perfectly legitimate reason, it would never reach their ears.
They'd seize on my words as their opening, drag the argument out, and kick up an even bigger fuss. That much was certain.
Far better, maybe, to let them carry on with their not-so-private backbiting while I played ignorant, each of us politely pretending the other didn't exist.
In that spirit—my appetite had long since evaporated, but for now, all I could do was keep eating.
Thud. Thud.
That line of thinking didn't last long.
I felt a heavy set of footsteps approaching me, and I turned my head, spoon frozen halfway to my mouth.
Standing there was a man boasting a formidable frame and a body built of solid muscle.
Unlike Elisha or Seras, his was not a face I recognized.
"Pardon the interruption mid-meal. Would you happen to be Bell Dinauer?"
"That's me."
The navy tie at his throat suggested he was a freshman like me, so I answered in kind, keeping it casual.
It wasn't all that strange a situation for a fellow student to strike up a conversation—yet because I'd just heard the crowd over there whispering among themselves, wariness bloomed first.
Was he planning to pick a fight, maybe demand to know how the likes of me had crawled into the academy?
But that didn't fit either—there was almost no hostility to be sensed from him at all.
Above all, the smile spread across his whole face felt almost blindingly bright. Almost too much to bear.
"Glad I found the right man! I'm Pargeon Glett, of the Combat Department, Class B."
House Glett, was it.
Just like Elisha's House Crochel, they were a martial family of considerable renown, if I remembered right.
And being in Class B meant his own abilities were fairly outstanding as well.
What business could a young lord that precious have with me?
"Bell Dinauer, as you know. So, what can I do for you?"
"Well, I heard a rumor that even with an F-rank mana manifestation, you caught the examiner's eye and passed. Is it true?"
"......"
Though his words weren't so different from what the whisperers had been saying, somehow it didn't feel particularly unpleasant.
How should I put it—he was simply stating the facts to confirm them, without any of that roundabout undertone of carving me down.
The concentrated attention was a bit of a burden, but nothing he'd said was wrong either, so I decided to nod for now.
How it all got interpreted would be up to this Pargeon fellow, wouldn't it.
"I see."
At my confirmation, the murmuring of the crowd focused on us swelled louder still, and a few of them nodded along smugly.
Probably reactions along the lines of I knew it.
Pargeon, on the other hand, had his eyes glittering at my frank answer, and he stepped a pace closer.
His already massive frame drew near with the lighting at his back, and the shadow he cast over me deepened all the more.
"In that case—apologies for the abruptness of our first meeting, but would you grant me a single bout? Just one spar."
"...What?"
At this utterly out-of-nowhere demand, the bread in my hand dropped straight to the floor and rolled.
Under normal circumstances I'd have stamped my feet in mourning over the waste, but right now I couldn't summon the thought at all.
A Class B student, requesting a duel with me—a Class E student?
What was the catch here?