A Strange One
A presence prickled at the edge of her awareness.
It was not the passing footfall of a traveler on the road. This was the sensation of being watched from afar—of someone eavesdropping, it seemed, on her conversation with Arsha. They hadn't been discussing anything particularly secret, but being overheard was another matter entirely. Sara turned her gaze toward the source of that presence, her voice thick with wariness.
"Who's there?"
A man stepped out with an unhurried gait, and Sara's eyes found his face of their own accord.
If his first impression could be distilled into a single mark, it would be an exclamation point.
The man who appeared before her was, without a shred of exaggeration, the most handsome she had ever seen in her life.
Born into the prestigious House Leoris, Sara had of course made her debut in high society at an early age. And what did men boast about in those circles? Their wealth. Their lineage. Their faces. She had seen more self-absorbed men preening over their looks than could fill a wagon, and among them were some whose pride was, admittedly, well-founded.
But even those men were nothing—a firefly before a full moon—compared to the one standing in front of her.
Hair like gold melted down and poured into brilliance. Crimson eyes so vivid one might suspect they had been cut and set from rubies. A noble countenance that looked as though a once-in-a-century artisan had sculpted it through countless hours of painstaking care.
His face seemed to distill every sculptural beauty human history had ever produced. For the first time in her life, Sara understood what people meant when they spoke of a face that wore a halo.
To think I'd actually get distracted by someone's face.
Sara was startled. She had never been the sort to fuss over looks. Study magic long enough and you came to understand that everything in this world reduced to essence. Appearance was, in the end, merely the outer shell of a human being. You could not discern a person's true nature from it. That was why Sara placed little value on physical beauty. Naturally, this was also the first time a man's face had ever stolen her attention. That was how extraordinary he was.
"Good day. My name is Johann Baker. I'm a commoner."
He introduced himself in a warm, easy voice. Name: Johann Baker. Station: commoner.
The word commoner finally drew Sara's eyes to his clothes. They were, indeed, far too coarse and rough to belong to any noble scion. Without that radiant face, his station would have been obvious at a glance. Put another way, his features were so aristocratic that the thought of him being a commoner simply wouldn't take hold.
"Ahem! Hello. I'm Sara Leoris. A noble, I'll have you know."
Had she even needed to tack that last part on? There was no one who wouldn't recognize the name Leoris.
But the reaction she received was not the one she had expected.
"Sara Leoris. A pleasure to meet you."
An utterly, thoroughly by-the-book response. If you asked whether it conformed fully to noble etiquette, it did not—but expecting a commoner to string together endless florid honorifics in the noble style was unreasonable to begin with. Given his station, the reply was ordinary. Proper.
If she hadn't been a Leoris, that is.
Ordinarily, when Sara introduced herself, the reactions went something like this:
"Wha—!? The Leoris family? The legendary house of magic!? It's an honor to meet you!"
That was the typical response from mages.
"It is an honor to meet the young lady of House Leoris, famed for its might and nobility. I am so-and-so of such-and-such house."
That was what she heard from everyone else. Commoners omitted the family introduction at the end, but the flavor of the reaction was much the same.
His reaction, however, was distinctly different. He showed not a flicker of surprise at the name Leoris. Which meant one of two things: either he possessed power so great that House Leoris failed to impress him, or he simply didn't know the family existed.
The former was impossible. The latter was vanishingly close to impossible—but not something she could rule out entirely.
He might not know. How would a commoner struggling to get by day to day be familiar with every noble house?
Sara Leoris accepted that explanation and let it go. Courting other people's admiration with one's family name was a vulgar thing, she chided herself. Of course, scolding herself was one matter, and the unease lingering in her chest was another.
"Lady Leoris. Forgive my presumption, but I overheard the conversation you were having with the other young lady just now."
The golden-haired man, Johann Baker, spoke up without preamble. What was this man about to say?
"It seemed you were competing for the top rank. Did I hear that correctly?"
Sara nodded.
"That was Arsha's idea. She started it on her own. Though yes—I am aiming for the top rank."
The man smiled faintly and went on.
"Ah, I see. Truth be told, I'm aiming for the top rank myself. I asked because it caught my interest."
Aiming for the top rank? This man?
Sara's eyes widened as she looked him over again. Still handsome. She could look a hundred times and never grow tired of it; every glance felt new. But that was all.
I don't sense any particular aura from him. His body shows no sign of intense training, either.
His ability, in a word, was ordinary. Calling him talentless would have been going too far—but if someone asked whether he looked like a contender for the Academy's top rank, Sara would have shaken her head without a second's hesitation. Anyone would have. This man had none of the distinctive presence that clung to the strong.
"A man ought to set his sights high, don't you think?"
His follow-up made the reason for that confidence click into place. Ambition. A grand dream, nothing more. Anyone could have one. Whether it had any grounding in reality was another matter entirely. Anyone who would challenge the Academy as a commoner clearly possessed a different caliber of ambition than most. Aiming for the top rank was simply an extension of that.
"It won't be easy."
"That's why I'm challenging it. If it were easy, I wouldn't have bothered."
He answered with complete self-assurance. There was an oddly intense conviction in that voice.
A shrill cry rang out from the heavens. In a cloudless expanse of blue, a tiny speck was swelling larger and larger—a mini wyvern, diving toward the earth.
The moment she saw it, a whim flickered through Sara's mind. This man hadn't been the least bit surprised by the name Leoris. That could only mean he knew nothing about the family at all. In that case, she would simply show him the greatness of House Leoris herself.
Upholding the family's honor was the duty of every member. It was a large part of why Sara was going out of her way to aim for the Academy's top rank in the first place. She would dispatch that monster in an instant, and hear from the man in front of her something like, This is House Leoris!? Truly magnificent!
Not for herself. For the family.
Sara nodded, convincing herself of as much.
"If you intend to aim for the Academy's top rank... you'll need to be capable of at least this much."
With that, she turned her gaze on the mini wyvern plunging toward her like an arrow.
That was all she did. She spoke no incantation. She raised no hand. She did not so much as flick a finger. She simply looked, steadily—and for her, that was enough.
A resonant hum cut the air. An arrow shot toward the mini wyvern as it descended in a graceful curve. Not an ordinary arrow—a sacred one whose entire body was woven of light. Brilliant radiance scattered from its fletching like a falling star as it streaked toward the creature diving for the earth.
The arrow punched clean through the mini wyvern's skull. Struck through its most vital point, the beast ceased its glide and simply fell. Its body slammed into the ground with a heavy thud.
Near-perfect silent casting. A supreme technique several times more difficult than ordinary magic, and she had performed it as naturally as breathing. It was a master-class feat that would make even a veteran mage's eyes bulge from their sockets as they clapped and cried, "Skill like this, at her age?!" Sara had not the slightest doubt that Johann would now offer an astonished exclamation—for her, and for House Leoris.
Once again, however, Johann betrayed those expectations.
"So this is a medal. There's a strange groove in it. Obtaining these is how you pass, I take it?"
Johann's attention was not on Sara's magic at all, but on the medal the wyvern had left behind as it vanished.
"Nngh—!"
The frustrated sound escaped Sara before she could stop it—a purely reflexive reaction.
"Here. The medal. Since Lady Leoris already has one, I'd better pick up the pace myself."
Johann was not surprised in the slightest. Whether his nerves were as thick as a tortoise's shell, or he was simply some new type of psychopath missing the emotion of surprise altogether, Sara couldn't begin to get a read on this commoner named Johann.
By this point, her competitive spirit had been well and truly stoked.
From you... from you, of all people, I will hear that I'm remarkable.
Not for her own satisfaction. For the honor of her house. Now that she knew the fame of House Leoris was still this paltry, how could she, the eldest daughter, possibly stand idle?
Sara Leoris clenched both fists and made a vow. Before this exam was over, she would wring an exclamation of awe from this man's lips, no matter what.
She had no way of knowing that Johann, casting a meaningful smile her way, was thinking to himself, Just as planned...