An Invitation from House Leoris
The entrance exam wrapped up without a hitch, and I warped into the Academy's central plaza.
The square was packed with students who had just finished the test, and their faces told as many stories as there were people.
"I'm done for. I didn't get a single medal!"
"I got thrown out in ten minutes…"
"I have to wait another whole year. Maybe I should just give up on enrolling…"
The gloomy voices belonged to the crowd that already knew they had failed. Students who hadn't earned a single medal clustered there. Most of them were commoners, though not every face in that huddle was a commoner's.
"It was an easy exam. A comfortable win, really."
"For the heir of House Vant, a test like that is nothing."
"Mother! I finally did it!"
On the other side, cheers and bright, bubbling talk spilled from the group that expected to pass. Plenty of them were nobles, of course, but commoners were hardly scarce among them either.
A number of familiar faces from the original game stood scattered through the plaza. Something about seeing them made me oddly glad.
"Yohan!"
A voice called for me as if it had been searching the whole square. There was no mistaking the owner. It was Sierra.
"Sierra. How'd the exam go?"
I was certain she had passed, but I asked anyway, if only to be polite. Sierra put on a deliberately grave face.
What was that? Had she actually been nervous?
"I got two medals! That means I passed, right?"
The solemn look had been a joke. She broke into a full, radiant smile and answered in a bright rush of words.
So she can pull pranks like that too. Sierra, you terrifying girl.
Was this really the same mid-boss who, in the original, had unleashed a terrifying presence and driven the protagonist and his party into a corner? Her change might have been the single greatest difference between the game and this reality.
That change might yet set off events the original never had, and a butterfly effect along with them—but I didn't regret my choice. If it meant I got to see Sierra's cute smile, a little extra trouble was a small price to pay.
The examinees who already felt their passing in their bones clustered into little groups and started talking. These were people they would be seeing every day at the Academy, and after graduation those same faces might become useful connections. Better to start building friendships now.
"A pleasure to meet you. I'm Rania Dorzier, of House Dorzier."
"Ah! What an honor to meet Miss Dorzier herself—the one they call the Flower of the North. I am…"
"I am Carpan Dios! A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"A familiar face. I am…"
The central plaza turned into a bazaar in no time. For the nobles, this exact moment mattered a great deal. Socializing was not a hobby to them. Connections were power. Connections were authority.
Unlike the nobles, who moved through the ritual as if they had been born to it, the commoners simply exchanged names, or stood off by themselves grinning at the thought of having passed. The gap between commoner and noble, I realized, was not just a matter of wealth. Not that every commoner fit that picture.
"Hello there~!"
If cheerfulness had a maximum stat, this was what maxing it out would sound like. A bright, pleasant voice rang in my ear, the kind that left a listener feeling freshly rinsed. Sierra and I both turned toward it before we even thought to.
A young woman in a black off-shoulder dress stood there, perfectly composed. She was a beauty, and her face was as warmly inviting as her voice. Her eyes smiled; the corners of her mouth curved with practiced elegance. It felt less like a natural smile than a business one.
The vivid dyed gold of her hair, the expensive-looking jewelry, the impeccable manners—none of it had the texture of a commoner's bearing. And yet calling her a noble didn't sit right either. There was a feather-light quality to the air around her that made the thought impossible to hold. A true noble would have struck a more deliberate pose.
People like that were usually wealthy commoners or newly minted nobles. The girl in front of us belonged to the former.
"I'm Elie Janette! If you ever need anything for daily life, please don't hesitate to make full use of the Janette Merchant Guild~!"
Elie bowed and held out a business card. She was the daughter of the Janette family, famous throughout the Royal Capital as one of its great fortunes.
"The Janette Merchant Guild!?"
Surprise lit Sierra's eyes. It wasn't because she was meeting the guild's daughter, exactly. This plaza was already overflowing with the kingdom's finest prodigies—Sara Leoris alone was proof of that.
What had startled Sierra was that Elie had chosen to speak to us. True to a merchant's daughter, Elie seemed to catch that surprise at once, and added a little more.
"Academy admits make wonderful customers, after all. There's a special ten percent discount just for those who pass. Once you enroll you'll need all sorts of things, and if you come to the Janette Merchant Guild, you can get them cheap~!"
In the plaza right now, you could read pass or fail off a person's face alone. I could do it, and someone as sharp-eyed as Elie would manage it even more easily. In the game, too, Elie's self-introduction had been a guaranteed event.
"Well then, I'll be off! Have a lovely day~!"
She flicked two fingers lightly against her forehead in a little salute and drifted away from us. There it was again—that lightness no noble quite possessed.
"Sara Leoris."
The instant Elie was gone, a familiar voice sounded at my ear.
It was the opposite of Elie's, which had been light as a balloon pumped full of helium. This voice was heavy as deep-sea water, solid as a fortress wall—weighty, grave, and steeped in dignity. It rolled out from somewhere ahead of us.
I was not the only one who turned toward it. Several nobles in the thick of their networking paused their work and looked that way.
"Look. It's Miss Swordhorn."
"What presence. Surely Miss Swordhorn took first in the entrance exam?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Look who's standing in front of her."
Arsha Swordhorn. Ranked among the Royal Capital's greatest talents, she stood face-to-face with Sara Leoris, whose name already thundered across the continent as its finest. Arsha's gaze was locked on Sara without a flicker.
"I have ten medals."
Arsha tipped her head as she said it. The look on her face asked, plain as speech, And how many do you have?
"T-te-ten? I only managed one."
"Miss Swordhorn didn't choose the center dungeon, did she?"
"I heard the monsters in there were wyverns. Are wyverns easy for a swordswoman?"
"Don't be an idiot. It's the other way around."
The crowd stirred at her words. It was a scene that laid Arsha's talent out in the open. She had chosen a dungeon whose conditions were rather unfavorable for a swordswoman, and still posted a result that crushed every other examinee. Hard proof that the rumors about Arsha Swordhorn were no exaggeration.
"I have seven."
That was Sara's answer. The corner of Arsha's mouth lifted, just faintly.
"Seven? Impressive, but she still falls short of Miss Swordhorn."
"If they were up against wyverns, wouldn't a mage have had it easier than a swordsman?"
"Miss Leoris might not be all that, surprisingly."
Perhaps because Arsha had unveiled such a dazzling record first, the crowd's reaction was lukewarm. The reason Sara had only seven medals was, strictly speaking, me. She had spent the exam trailing after me, too busy keeping me in her sights to hunt properly.
If she had gone all out, she would have farmed more than twenty. Not that anyone here would have bought that excuse.
"Curious. Didn't you tell me earlier you'd give it your all?"
Arsha said it as if to lock her victory in place. Sara nodded without a hint of hesitation.
"That's right. I didn't take it lightly. I lost."
She declared her defeat so cleanly, so readily, that Arsha's expression shifted into something peculiar.
"I-I win?"
The feeling spreading across Arsha's face was bewilderment. She clearly hadn't expected a reaction like that. Had she been bracing for something stickier—some heated string of excuses?
"Miss Swordhorn. I think I've been mistaken about you until now. Or perhaps not mistaken so much as prejudiced. I would like to apologize for that."
Sara did not stop at conceding. She apologized to Arsha instead. An apology, most likely, for having filed her away as nothing more than a nuisance. And at the root of that change in how she saw her, I was sure, sat the little game of push and pull I had been playing.
"Which is why I would like to invite you to the banquet at our estate this evening…. Do you have the time?"
A banquet at the estate. The examinees around them stirred at the words.
"An estate banquet! And House Leoris's, no less."
"D-do you think I could get in too?"
"Wake up. Minor nobles like us were never going to be invited to a great house's feast."
The estate banquet was one of the events that followed the Academy entrance exam. What was high society without a banquet, after all?
Plenty of nobles had already locked in banquet engagements of their own. But banquets had ranks, and the thing that most decided a banquet's rank was the prestige of the house that hosted it.
House Leoris was one of the handful of foremost families in the Royal Capital. Of course a banquet of theirs would draw every eye. Even the commoners who had been watching noble networking the way one watches a story from another country turned their heads the moment the word banquet left Sara's lips.
"I-I have the time, but an invitation to a banquet… that's rather sudden."
A flush of pink spread over a face that had looked as if it wouldn't let a needle through. It was the look of a loner with not a single friend, suddenly asked, Want to be friends? And for Arsha, the invitation just now was hardly any different.
Having invited Arsha, Sara glanced around as if searching for someone.
Her eyes met mine. Then she started walking toward us, and the crowd of examinees parted before her steps like the Red Sea.
"Huh? Miss Leoris is coming this way, isn't she?"
Sierra caught my sleeve as she said it. Sara stopped in front of me.
"Yohan. I would like to invite you to the banquet as well. Do you have the time?"
She dropped the line like a bomb. It was the banquet-invitation event that triggered when Sara's affection sat at twenty or higher.
"Of course. Would it be all right if I brought a friend?"
"I don't mind. The person beside you, I take it?"
Caught in Sara's gaze, Sierra dipped her head in a hurried bow.
"S-Sierra Bay— I mean, Grimkeeper. To meet the young lady of House Leoris… it's an honor!"
"A pleasure, Miss Sierra Bay-I-mean-Grimkeeper. I'm Sara Leoris."
And so the two of them exchanged names. Her surname had sounded a little strange. Must have been my imagination.
"A carriage is waiting. Shall we go at once?"
And with that, we set out for the Leoris estate.