Finders Keepers
The concept of a transfer student did not exist at Gift Academy.
It was not because every other institution in the world was considered inferior.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Headmaster?! How can some outsider who hasn't even survived Gift Academy's first-year curriculum just stroll in and become a second-year?!"
"This is an insult to our dignity! An insult to all of us who bled our way through the hellish first-year curriculum! Skreeeeeek!"
The real reason was the torrential protests from current students—chiefly the second-years, who were driven half-mad with indignation whenever the subject arose. It was an uproar born purely from that spiteful, universal human impulse: If I had to suffer through this misery, everyone else should too!
Conversely, most second-years harbored a degree of genuine pity for the fresh underclassmen slated to endure the exact same horrors they once had.
"Is she really a freshman?"
"Isn't she some veteran who's been repeating the first year for like five years?"
"Ugh, you idiot. The kid barely looks eleven. Repeating for five years? How old would she have been when she enrolled?"
"Wait, she's not a legal loli? How's that even possible?"
"What kind of insane bullshit are you spouting about an actual child, you lunatic? Hey, get over here! Stomp this bastard!"
"Aargh! Ow! I didn't know! I didn't know, alright?!"
I almost felt bad for the senior who had brought up legal lolis. Honestly, even I would be suspicious if I saw a first-year waltz into the Secret Training Ground, casually configure the target distances without a hitch, and seamlessly make use of the auto-arrow retrieval function. Besides, it was not as though fantasy worlds lacked bastards who lied about their age.
How many long-lived races pull crap like, 'I'm a ninety-year-old maiden, which is ten in human years!'?
Considering that humans dominated the 981st cohort and exceptionally strong demi-humans rarely enrolled in the academy, there were no legal lolis in our batch. Expand your view to the other cohorts, however, and legal lolis definitely existed within Gift Academy.
Though strictly speaking, after thousands of playthroughs, can I really be treated as a child either?
...Well, as long as nobody finds out, who cares!
Zhuang and Mob wandered around in a daze, completely overwhelmed by the unfamiliar facility.
"Hey, freshmen. How did you even find this place when you don't even know how to use the equipment?"
"We read the tips in the Room of Double-Sided Paper Strips."
"The room of what now?"
Seeing the utterly blank expression on the second-year senior's face, Zhuang marveled inwardly. Orknodi managed to uncover information that even upperclassmen don't know. A bizarre sense of superiority washed over her at the thought that they had accessed notes left behind by seniors even higher than second-years. Wasted all those years. Your intel network is worse than a freshman's!
As Zhuang puffed her chest with silent pride, the second-year grumbled and spoke up.
"Just tell me what you came here to train. I'll show you how to work the machines. Don't ask me to repeat myself, though. I'm only showing you once, got it?"
"Okaaay."
"Y-Yes, sir!"
The senior smirked at the sight of a thoroughly stiffened Mob.
"I'm not gonna eat you, kid. Relax."
"Haha..."
"...At least, I won't."
"...Wait, so other seniors will?!"
"You must have heard rumors by now, right? About that scumbag second-year who hands out fraudulent contracts."
"Ah, the one distributing errand contracts..."
"Watch out for that guy. If you get roped in, you'll spend your entire year slaving away on gathering quests like a beast of burden before you even realize it."
Zhuang thought to herself: This senior is surprisingly nice.
Considering the academy's brutal curriculum, it was genuinely astonishing that someone with this decent a personality even existed here. Naturally, not all upperclassmen were so kind.
"Unbelievable. Freshmen freeloading off the Secret Training Ground already? Back in my day—"
"Shut up. Back in your day, we were all freshmen too. Want me to tell everyone how your grades went up in flames?"
"Come on, man! Do you really have to trash my rep like that?"
A second-year muttered sourly, glaring at them with disdain.
"...If I drag that sharp-looking freshman to our lab, do you think the professor will praise me?"
"Dude, are you even human?! How could you say something so monstrous about an innocent first-year?!"
A third-year plotted evil schemes in the corner, radiating an ominous aura.
"...The professor said so. Don't touch the first-years. Must resist. Must resist. Must... resist..."
"Whoa, even we're freaked out by that senior. Can't someone kick him out?"
"No way. We're terrified of him too."
Unlike the third-years whose motives were at least fathomable, there were even fourth-years giving off an insanely unhinged vibe, making it impossible to predict what horrific acts they might commit. As if to prove that the campus grounds populated only by freshmen were merely a beginner hunting zone, this single room was packed with upperclassmen who were anything but normal.
"Hey, Orknodi. Do you have any tips for using this facility? You know... safely?"
At Zhuang's question, Orknodi replied with a bright, cheerful smile.
"Yep! Three things!"
"Three?"
"First, don't get close to the seniors!"
"...And?"
"Don't talk to the seniors!"
"..."
"And finally, never make eye contact with the seniors!"
Are they ghosts or something?! Am I sure I'm not still in period five? Am I hallucinating, wandering lost in the rain right now?
Regardless of Zhuang's spiraling anxiety, Orknodi—infuriatingly cheerful as ever—focused solely on planting arrows dead center into the target, looking nobody in the eye.
Maybe coming here was a mistake.
Paralyzed with dread, Zhuang and Mob finally understood why the school rule forbidding students from leaving the dorms late at night existed. Perhaps that rule was a minimal safety mechanism designed to protect freshmen. For all they knew, there might be a school rule granted to upperclassmen from their second year onward that said: Any first-year wandering outside the dorms after 10 PM is fair game.
"...Let's finish up and get out of here quickly."
"Yeah..."
And so, the three first-years silently wrapped up their assignment.
Amidst the downpour of assignments from practically every course, there was one uniquely clean class that never assigned any homework. That was Professor Plato's Tuesday and Thursday period one course: Upper Class Physical Training.
"Urrgh. I had to swim for three whole hours over the weekend during supplementary training."
"If you added up all the water I swallowed back then, it'd probably equal everything I've drunk in my entire life."
"Gahahahat! What a bunch of pathetic weaklings! Am I right?"
Continuing from the previous session, today's class was scheduled as another swimming lesson for students vulnerable to water. Unlike the last class where over half the students had to practice just staying afloat, most had now mastered breathing while swimming.
"Therefore, the difficulty of today's lecture has increased!"
Despite taking a course with no homework, the students felt terror rather than gratitude. No student could possibly rejoice in a lecture dripping with murderous intent, clearly designed to finish them off in the classroom alone without needing homework. Above all, there was a very specific reason swimming was completely out of the question right now.
"Due to the continuous torrential downpours causing the river to overflow!"
"Is class canceled?"
"An alternative lecture?"
"Yay! A swimming pool!"
"We shall conduct a lecture on navigating an overflowing river!"
"WE'LL DIE!!!"
"Just because we're first-years doesn't mean we'll say yes to everything, you know?!"
"Are you trying to slaughter the empire's precious treasures?!"
Even by academy standards, this crossed the line. For once, regardless of group, everyone refused adamantly. Even Group C's Cassia shook her head firmly from side to side in refusal. The instructor assigned to monitor her sent a glare from behind that screamed: Have you lost your damn mind, Professor?
"Tsk. Such fragile wimps," Professor Plato grumbled. "Back in my day, students would tremble in fear and shout, 'Sir, yes, sir!' with vigor whenever a professor gave an order. These days, even the Headmaster must be going soft with old age..."
It was worse back then?!
Regardless of how traumatized the students were by that revelation, a lecture like this was problematic for me as well.
"Professor!"
"What is it, Orknodi?"
"Could we rest today and work twice as hard over the weekend instead?"
"Twice as hard?"
My classmates nodded vigorously in agreement. With Giant King Crabs clacking their massive pincers in the churning water as if daring someone to jump in, swimming there would guarantee a string of student funerals.
"Very well! If even Orknodi, who consistently achieves top marks, says so and the rest agree, as your professor, I have no choice but to take the students' opinions into account."
"Hooray!"
"We're saved!"
"Thank you, Orknodi!"
"In exchange... remember you were the ones who said it first. Twice as hard."
A contract with a professor was like a pact with the devil. Today's bliss was tomorrow's doom. The students began to shiver with an ominous sense of foreboding.
"Wait... wouldn't it have been better to just take the lecture now?"
"What if the Giant King Crabs wash away and he brings in even worse monsters next time?!"
"I'm so scared..."
Whether they panicked in hindsight or not, the students were chased out of the training grounds. While everyone competed to imagine the most heinous, diabolical training regimen they would face come the weekend, a brazen delinquent who had zero interest in such petty parlor games strode right up to me.
"Hey, Orknodi. You've got time to kill right now, don't you?"
"Until second period, yeah."
"Come on a treasure hunt with me."
Jigoku glanced around at our surroundings before leaning in to whisper conspiratorially.
"They say the heavy rains swept away one of the seniors' storehouses. You know how it goes on the open sea: finders keepers for ownerless loot, right?"
If one considered the flooded academy campus an ocean, he wasn't entirely wrong.