Ariel Academy (1)
I had fought through the previous night until dawn, so I was short on sleep. The moment the carriage started moving, I fell straight into a deep slumber. By the time I woke up, we had already crossed the border and arrived in the Lianna Empire. The scenery outside had completely changed.
From the empty, barren plains to the dense forests thick with towering trees—this was the landscape of the Lianna Empire. As expected of a great empire that had unified three nations, the streets were alive with people of every race. Muscular warriors of various skin tones proudly displaying their massive maces, elven archers seamlessly blended into human society, and all kinds of adventurers filled the roads.
Seeing it like this really drives it home…
This was a fantasy world. It felt completely different from what I’d experienced inside the narrow confines of the duchy. The scenery was as beautiful as a Western European tourist destination, yet woven through it were fantasy elements—staves, armor, and weapons of every kind. It was the kind of game world that crammed every appealing trope into one package.
“We’ll be arriving at Ariel Academy shortly!”
The coachman’s shout came not long after. Thirty minutes later, the carriage pulled up to the entrance of a grand building and came to a stop.
“Thank you for your service.”
“Good work.”
Sarah and I stepped down from the carriage, thanked the coachman, and headed inside the academy. Four escort knights followed behind us, carrying our luggage.
“Hey, fatty. Stop walking so close to me. People are going to think we’re friends.”
“…You’ve been calling me fatty for a while now. I’m not even that fat anymore, you know? I’d appreciate it if you stopped.”
“What else would I call a fatty but fatty? Shut up and stay back.”
“……”
I seriously wanted to punch her. Anyway, once the semester started, I wouldn’t have to see this insufferable girl anymore. Leaving the foul-tempered Sarah behind, I walked ahead.
A towering building with a massive analog clock at its peak stood before us. Flanking it like guards were two enormous, majestic white rectangular structures. They looked big enough to hold several thousand students with room to spare. It truly lived up to its reputation as one of the top three academies in the empire. If I had to compare it to something from Korea, it would be… no, not Seoul National University. This place was more like Stanford.
Seeing it in person, it really is incredible. Just how much money did the game devs pour into the graphics?
While I was lost in admiration, a sharp voice rang out from behind.
“Hey, fatty! I told you to stay back! Who said you could walk ahead?! It pisses me off, so get behind me!”
Sarah’s obnoxious shouting echoed after me.
. . .
After sending two of the escort knights back once they’d moved all our luggage to the dormitory, I decided to explore the building.
The dormitory itself was nothing special. It was a bit smaller than my room back at the duchy… I hadn’t expected anything luxurious like a massive bed or a spa-like bathroom anyway. With over ten thousand students attending, there was no way they could customize every single dorm room. If they had that kind of money to burn, they might as well open a motel chain on the side.
But the main academy building was on another level. I was genuinely impressed.
The lecture halls were spacious enough to seat at least fifty students. Each one was arranged in a pyramid-style seating like a foreign university, with a large blackboard and lectern at the bottom center clearly meant for the professor. The marble corridors stretched up twenty floors, decorated with intricate geometric patterns. Just looking at it made me excited to study here. The interior perfectly captured the grand fantasy of a magic academy, stirring a sense of awe in anyone who saw it.
If the classrooms are this good, what about the training grounds?
Today happened to be back day. Working out in a place this fancy would probably give me an amazing pump. Unable to contain my excitement, I dashed up to the second floor.
The lecture halls on the second floor looked similar to those on the first. But I knew that at the end of this corridor was the training ground. It was the gym—no, the training facility—I had used constantly while leveling up the protagonist’s strength stat. Since I could never see the interior clearly in the game, my heart was racing at the thought of seeing it in real life.
Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!
The sound of my footsteps on the marble echoed through the quiet hallway. I was the only one here. I had arrived early, and most students apparently arrived in the evening.
When I finally reached the end of the second-floor corridor, a luxurious door that looked like it was made of layered red mini cushions came into view.
This must be the gate to heaven!
Too excited to wait, I grabbed the handle, pulled it open, and stepped inside.
Whoosh…
“Get ready, back muscles… Today’s your funeral…”
“Hmm?”
Crap. There was already someone inside.
A woman was doing push-ups as a warm-up, surrounded by training equipment. If she had heard my muttered monologue, this would have been incredibly embarrassing. The moment that thought crossed my mind, I clamped my mouth shut and froze in shock.
“Y-you…?!”
“……”
The person alone in the training room recognized me. And it wasn’t just that—I recognized her too.
“…Excuse me!”
“H-hey! Where are you going—! Stop right there!”
Like a lost pedestrian who had taken a wrong turn, I slammed the door shut with a loud bang! and sprinted toward the stairs on the first floor.
. . .
“Huff… huff… She shouldn’t be able to follow me this far…”
I had engaged in a full chase with the woman pursuing me before finally escaping into the male dormitory I had come from earlier. The one chasing me was Aria of the Sylvester family—the same Aria I had saved once during the griffon battle. I had been so overwhelmed by the academy’s grandeur that I had completely forgotten she also attended this school.
Getting involved with her would be a huge headache. In the game, Aria was one of the protagonist Cain’s heroines. Cain was like a walking disaster magnet, dragging every kind of catastrophe and incident along with him. If I got tangled up with the people around a character like that, any hope of a peaceful school life would vanish.
Why would I willingly sign up for that kind of suffering? My goal was simple: build a solid foundation at the academy, make useful connections, and quietly graduate so I could live a stable life in this harsh world. Graduating from Ariel Academy pretty much guaranteed a comfortable future.
That was why I had decided never to form any connections with the game’s main characters.
It’s like laundering my identity and starting over… If anyone finds out that the infamous trash noble, the rogue Sian, is me, I’ll get dragged into all sorts of annoying situations. The heroines might even misunderstand and think I’m trying to hit on them again.
Luckily, I had lost so much weight that no one seemed to recognize me. That was a relief. Now all I had to do was avoid running into Aria and live quietly.
…I guess I’ll work out at night instead.
Disappointed, I settled for bodyweight exercises in the dormitory. Before long, evening arrived. From the afternoon onward, noise had started coming from the neighboring rooms, suggesting the other students had finished moving in.
It was time to head to dinner. The student cafeteria officially opened this evening. I was curious what the dining hall of an academy that taught swordsmanship and magic would look like. Though at the end of the day, it was still just a place to eat… I couldn’t help but let my imagination run a little wild.
I opened the dormitory door and headed up to the third floor where the cafeteria was located.
. . .
As expected, my expectations had been too high. I had thought there might be some magical system for ordering food, but apparently that would have been a waste of mana. Instead, it was just a normal setup with menus and staff waiting at counters to take orders.
The cafeteria was large enough to seat about five hundred people, so there was no need to wait in line at the entrance. I passed several counters and arrived at one that seemed to serve dishes similar to East Asian cuisine. I ordered what looked like a rice-based meal and grabbed a random table.
“Oh my…! You’re saying Count Garius’s only son, Ruburn, has a one-sided crush on Her Highness the Fourth Princess?! Is that information accurate?!”
“It is! I heard it from a friend of my younger sibling who works at the Garius estate! …Her Highness is about the right age to start dating, isn’t she? I wonder who she’ll end up with…”
“This is so interesting! What am I supposed to do… I had already claimed Ruburn for myself!!”
“Hey, hey! Shh! Look at the guy who just sat down at the table next to us!”
“Huh? What’s the— gasp.”
“Who is that?! Which family is he from?! Isn’t he insanely handsome?! If he lost just a bit more weight, he’d be exactly my type!”
“Looks like the Ruburn in my heart is finally leaving me… Ah, now my heart belongs to that man over there…”
Since I was sitting alone, the chatter from the next table drifted over clearly. I couldn’t quite make out everything they were saying, but at least the background noise kept me from feeling bored.
Soon, a magical amplification spell announced that my food was ready. I picked up what looked like a black curry dish and returned to my table. It didn’t taste bad. It was like rice mixed with a soy-based sauce, and there were a few chunks of meat, so it seemed like a decent source of protein.
I was about halfway through my plate when—
Clack.
Someone set their tray down on the seat directly across from me and sat down. I immediately found it strange. There were so many empty tables—why sit at mine?
Curious, I lifted my head to look at the person in front of me.
“Hey, you…! Are you Sian?”
A slim young man around my age stared at me with wide eyes, acting like he knew me. Who was this guy? I looked at him with a puzzled expression and asked,
“…Who are you?”
“You, you idiot! It is you, Sian! That voice… It sounds a bit thinner now that you’ve lost weight, but it’s definitely you!”
He pointed at me dramatically. What kind of manners was this while people were trying to eat? More importantly—he recognized me as Sian? Could it be…?
Was he one of the friends the original trash Sian used to hang out with before I possessed him?
“Hey! What are you doing over there? Did you catch another sucker?!”
“That guy can’t go a day without tormenting someone…”
While I was thinking that, two guys who appeared to be his friends slowly approached our table. When they got close, the first guy shouted even more excitedly.
“Hey, hey! Look at this guy! Look at him…!!”
“What? …He looks annoyingly pretty, like some gigolo. What about him?”
“Is he picking on people based on whether he likes their face now?”
When his friends failed to catch on, he jumped up and down in frustration.
“You idiots! It’s Sian! It’s Sian—! Don’t you get it?!”
“What about Sian?”
“Why is he acting like this all of a sudden…”
“……”
Maybe I should change tables. I was considering it for the hundredth time when the guy who had recognized me, apparently unable to hold back his frustration any longer, shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Sian!! This bastard is Sian, I’m telling you—!! Look at his face closely—!!”
“…Sian?”
“That doesn’t even make sense…”
The three of them leaned in, staring intently at my face as I sat there quietly. They stared. And stared. Then their eyebrows twitched a few times, and gradually, their expressions filled with shock.
“Wait…? Huh…? The face is starting to….”
“Come into focus… huh…? Huhhh…? Huuuuh……?!!”
“Huuuuuuuh?!! Huuuuuuuuuu—?!!”
“Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu—?!!”
“I told you, you morons! It’s Sian! Siiiiiaaaan—!!”
“……”
Their commotion drew the eyes of everyone eating nearby all at once. Even in that mortifying situation, I ignored the idiots and the staring crowd, calmly continuing to shovel the rest of my food into my mouth.
…I need to finish eating quickly and head to the training ground.