So Boring I Wanted to Die
It was so boring I wanted to die.
From the moment morning arrived I sat through the tedious speech that passed for an entrance ceremony, stifling a small yawn.
“Our Lumiar Academy is…”
I tuned out the headmaster’s lifeless reading of his script and began slowly turning over the schedule that lay ahead.
The fact that Serena was here meant the world’s end was still at least three years away—assuming, of course, that she did not graduate early.
So was it fine to just coast through academy life in comfort?
Of course not.
I never once believed that me getting stronger alone would be enough to save the world. And more than that, now that this place had become actual reality, I could not afford to put blind faith in the setting book’s contents.
I needed as much information about this world as I could get.
Relying on the Ludaiph family’s support would have been convenient, but… from their perspective I was an outsider who had stolen the body of the child they had raised like a precious jewel. If I approached them carelessly and they caught even a whiff that I was a possessor, there was no telling what they might do to me.
…I’ll put that thought aside for now.
In the end I was back at square one: the only things I could trust were the information in the setting book and my own abilities.
I pressed a hand to my forehead and carefully dredged up the contents of the setting book. Countless female characters flickered through my mind, along with every scrap of information about them.
Considering how extremely limited a woman’s options were in this place, receiving help from a man would have been overwhelmingly more convenient, but…
All I ever looked at were the female characters, damn it!
What man would ever take an interest in male characters in a chat that had started with impure motives from the beginning? It was absolutely not my fault. Not even a little.
While I was dumping out all these stray thoughts, a single name suddenly flashed through my mind.
Rachel Goldwin.
Daughter of Baron Goldwin, she ran a merchant group with outstanding skill, only to have every last bit of credit stolen by her family. That was the setting.
If the credit was going to be stolen by her family anyway, what was the harm in me snatching a little of it first? More precisely: hand over the glory and pocket the real profit.
I was nodding to myself in satisfaction at the idea when—
“Master…!”
Lirith whispered and tightly clutched the hem of my clothes.
“Ahem… Student Caron, our top-ranked entrant, please say a few words.”
I snapped back to reality and looked around. The majority of the students were staring at me. The magic professor was watching me with a look of pure pity.
Apparently I had been caught daydreaming. It was pretty damn embarrassing, but I forced myself to look nonchalant as I rose from my seat and walked forward.
What am I supposed to say?
If I started spouting feminist rhetoric just to farm points, it would hurt me in the long run. Yet doing nothing at all meant I might never get another chance to speak in front of a crowd like this. Once my real ability was exposed, the opportunity would be gone for good.
So… before that happened, I needed to grow as strong as possible.
While I was trying to figure out a way to keep up Caron’s usual behavior and still squeeze out some benefit, a brilliant idea struck me.
These people were young men in their twenties. And as a graduate of all-boys middle and high schools, I knew something very well: men go absolutely insane when you needle them. Classic example: “You suck at games.”
And here, rather than games… this would hit even harder.
I took hold of the magic tool that looked roughly like a microphone and declared, expressionless:
“Is this all you’ve got? Your level?”
They needed to get stronger if my future was going to be comfortable. I would provoke them into improving while farming points for myself at the same time.
“It’s so boring I wanted to die.”
The expectant buzz in the air froze solid.
I must not look flustered. I was Caron, the complete piece of trash, after all. I repeated that to myself and fixed the male students with a cold stare.
“You’ve received higher education since childhood, and this is the best you can manage?”
I layered every word with thick disappointment.
“You don’t even have the right to look down on those girls.”
The atmosphere grew even colder, yet not a single word of rebuttal appeared. In their eyes I was the legendary genius who had been hiding his power all this time.
“So improve yourselves. If you show me another disappointing performance next time…”
I paused for effect, then finished:
“I’ll treat you exactly the same as them.”
After dropping that bombshell I strode back to my seat without the slightest hesitation. My heart was hammering like mad, but so what? It wasn’t as if a truth-compelling spell was active right now.
I watched the headmaster scramble to salvage the mood, still looking thoroughly rattled, when—
‘Everyone Is Equal Before Me’
+1P awarded
A sincere smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.
“M-Master…!”
Of course the headmaster wasn’t the only one panicking, so it took quite a while to calm Lirith down.
After all the twists and turns, the entrance ceremony finally ended and the students began moving to their respective department classrooms under guidance.
Male students entered the lecture halls first, so I inevitably had to part from Lirith for a while. Unlike the other students who crowded into the front rows, I claimed a seat toward the back. It was a habit left over from my school days, and I also had no desire to look at Adrian up close.
I was zoning out while waiting for Lirith to hurry in when—
“Sir Caron. I heard your speech earlier. It was excellent.”
A good-natured-looking young man with pink hair and emerald eyes approached and spoke. I glanced at him, wondering what nonsense he was spouting, but he didn’t seem to be mocking me; he genuinely meant it. In other words, he was a lunatic.
“Oh. That so.”
I gave a half-hearted reply, hoping to send him on his way, but he showed no intention of leaving.
“Haha, allow me to introduce myself properly. I’m Leon, the second-ranked freshman.”
“Second-ranked?”
The question slipped out before I could stop it. Unlike me, who had taken first place through a loophole, second place meant he was a serious monster. More importantly, he might harbor less-than-friendly feelings toward me for snatching the top spot.
He’s not here to pick a fight, is he…?
I looked him straight in the face and saw the kind of pure, simple smile a country boy might wear. Judging by how his clothes weren’t particularly luxurious, maybe he really was a country boy…
“I was fortunate enough to record one minute and twenty-seven seconds and receive a 1st class ranking. Naturally I assumed I would be first, but Sir Caron taught me that there is always a sky above the sky.”
“...Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Not at all, I mean it sincerely. Stopping the crystal sphere… the idea alone is astonishing, but the sheer amount of mana required to actually do it is even more so.”
Watching him chatter on, it didn’t seem like he had come to cause trouble. That aside—one minute twenty-seven seconds? This bastard was a complete monster. I had better not mess with him.
“More than that, if it isn’t too rude, may I ask why you were hiding your power?”
I thought for a second about how to answer, then settled on something Caron would say.
“It is rude.”
“Ah, of course it is.”
Fortunately he didn’t press further and changed the subject.
“As you already know, my sister’s birthday is in a month.”
How the hell am I supposed to know your sister’s birthday?
He was definitely a madman, so I didn’t bother answering and simply waited for whatever came next.
“I would like to invite Sir Caron as my guest. Would that be acceptable?”
Even if he was crazy, I was still Caron. He had to know I wasn’t the sort of kind-hearted person who attended other people’s birthday parties. Something felt off, but I was too busy trying to get stronger right now, so I prepared a soft cushion of words to refuse with.
“Sorry, but—”
The refusal never finished. Female students were already filing into the back seats, and Lirith, who had come right up beside me, bowed her head deeply and cried out:
“I greet… the brightest star of the Empire. His… His Highness the Crown Prince…!”
What the fuck?
I looked at the young man again. He was definitely wearing clothes a commoner would wear. Maybe Lirith had been speaking to someone else? I glanced around a little, but… there was no one else near me.
Which meant…
My entire previous attitude toward him flashed through my mind like a lantern reel. Not only had I spoken to him in casual speech the whole time, I had even taken a sarcastic tone.
Lirith must have been mistaken. No—she had to be mistaken.
But my hopes were cheerfully betrayed.
“Haha… Outside, you may simply call me Leon.”
Oh, for crying out loud.
This insane crown prince clearly had a hidden-power fantasy. There was no other reason he would walk around dressed like that.
“More than that, Sir Caron, earlier you were about to say some—”
“—Sorry, but don’t state the obvious. If I don’t go, who will?”
I hurriedly corrected myself. I deliberately left my speech style unchanged. Fortunately he nodded in satisfaction and applied no pressure at all. Unlike the types I had seen in novels, he didn’t seem to be the kind of crown prince who swaggered around just because of his title.
“Then I shall see you after class.”
Only after he turned and left did Lirith raise her bowed head. She carefully pulled the chair beside me and sat down so quietly that not even a sound was made.
Damn it, I should have realized the moment he said he got 1st class.
I was uselessly blaming my past self when the door at the front of the classroom opened. And in walked a blue-eyed man with an annoyingly punchable face.
“Silence.”
Adrian’s short word, laced with mana, froze the entire atmosphere of the classroom solid, air and all. Lirith flinched as if startled. The way she looked like a rabbit that had just met its natural predator was rather cute, but… I wasn’t enough of a sadist to just leave her like that.
I stretched a finger under the desk and wrapped Lirith’s body in mana.
“...!”
Lirith’s eyes went round as she looked up at me.
“Thank… you…”
With the trembling stopped, she mouthed the words. I suppressed a pleased smile and turned my gaze toward the professor. I had felt his eyes briefly settle on me.
“The first day is theory.”
The moment Adrian finished speaking, pieces of chalk floated into the air. As if dancing to his will, they began writing something on the blackboard. It was the language of this world, yet thanks to Caron’s body I could read the characters.
Rift
“The reason you have all gathered here is to efficiently stop the monsters pouring out of the Rifts.”
He stopped speaking and his eyes rolled. The final destination of that gaze… was my eyes.
I had a very bad feeling…
“In that case, top student. What do you think a Rift is?”
He added with a cold smile:
“Or what? Is even my question too ‘boring’ for you to answer?”
This crazy bastard.
One by one the gazes of the surrounding students began to pin me in place. Considering I was sitting toward the back, most of them belonged to female students. I could feel Lirith’s hand fidgeting anxiously under the desk.
If I had to express the emotion I felt in that moment in a single line, it would be this:
I was so embarrassed I wanted to die.