Denebergen Academy (1)
“I know you haven’t been well, but you can’t stay cooped up at home forever. Dad seems to hope that once you start going to school, things will gradually get better for you.”
“Young master, fighting!”
“Thanks, Charlotte……”
Even with Charlotte cheering me on, it strangely didn’t lift my spirits at all.
It wasn’t that I hated going to the academy. It was just a bit upsetting to think that my peaceful daily life up until now would be disrupted.
Besides, with the average age for first-year academy students—seventeen—drawing ever closer, it wasn’t exactly unexpected.
Maybe I should try thinking positively.
When something didn’t sit right with me, the best way was to give myself a strong dose of motivation.
Yeah, starting with the academy, I might gradually expand my horizons and one day run into those kids. Of course, I wasn’t expecting some dramatic encounter with them right there at the academy.
But the academy could serve as the foundation for weaving a vast network of human connections, starting with my fellow students.
And that makes sense—the academy’s basically a networking hub.
Here my deep-seated prejudice against academies came to light.
Commonly, academies were seen as sacred halls of learning. Places that taught the handling of mysterious magic, transforming students into resilient warriors and brilliant scholars.
But I knew the reality was different.
An academy as a sacred hall of learning? A true place of scholarship?
Not in my experience, at least.
For noble students, it was just a place to get familiar with the faces of people they’d meet later in high positions anyway. For the rare commoner who managed to enroll, it was a golden opportunity to snag a noble wife or husband and flip their life around in one go.
They ignored the studying they were supposed to do and focused on schmoozing and dating—what a lamentable state of affairs.
Back in my day, any school of decent size always had shady rumors swirling around it.
Though my views were outdated prejudices from a bygone era, covered in five hundred years’ worth of dust and creaks, I didn’t think things had changed all that much now.
Take Charlotte, for instance—they were picking me over her. If the academy was really about discovering talent, they’d take a brilliant commoner like Charlotte instead of some shut-in noble who hadn’t shown a thing.
Back when I’d told Yustina that my dream was to build a school, it had come from a genuine desire to create a proper one.
Just then, Luisa glanced at Charlotte, who was standing there blankly.
“But Charlotte, why are you cheering him on?”
“Huh? Because if the young master does well, it makes me happy too… right?”
“No, no—you’re going to be my junior too. You and Deneb are a package deal. You’re both enrolling in the academy together.”
“Wh-what?! Miss, what do you mean?!”
……What?
Only then did my ears start perking up a bit.
The academy had spotted Charlotte’s talent just like they had mine and judged her worth teaching?
“M-me, of all people, to the academy……”
“No… why are you two reacting like this? You spend all day buried in old books in Dad’s study, and now your mindsets are centuries behind the times?”
“Has the academy changed lately?”
“Heh, ‘lately’? What are you, from another era or something……”
Luisa let out a small snort before sitting at the dinner table and launching into an academy orientation session.
“First off, obviously the academy I’m talking about is the empire’s top one, Denebergen Academy, right?”
“Didn’t know.”
“Deneb, you little shit—don’t you even know the school your sister goes to?!”
“No cursing at the table, sis.”
“Er… sorry.”
Clearing her throat, Luisa continued her explanation.
“So, this isn’t some backwater joint thrown together by eccentric wizards to scam tuition fees. I don’t get why Charlotte’s so surprised. If you’ve got talent, they take commoners too.”
“B-but don’t you have to take exams or something? I’m terrible at them—if I took one, I’d definitely blow it……”
“Don’t worry. Bro and Dad talked it over and sent a recommendation letter to the school. When you’ve got the magic librarian as your master, you get perks like this.”
“So it’s just inheritance of wealth and privilege after all……”
“Deneb, just try passing that wealth and privilege on to your kids someday.”
Luisa glared at me for a moment before giving a light cough.
“Anyway, they can write recommendation letters, but it’s up to the academy whether they accept them. They decided Charlotte meets the criteria for enrollment here.”
“But bro wrote the recommendation?”
“More precisely, Dad did. Bro recommended Charlotte to Dad, and Dad wrote it.”
I didn’t show it, but hearing that Ned had recommended her put me a bit at ease. Unlike sis, he was hopeless at combat, but he was smart and had a great eye for people. The fact that he’d spotted Charlotte’s potential before I did proved it.
Whatever the case, from what the current student Luisa was saying, the modern academy seemed a bit different from the ones I remembered.
“So… Denebergen? What makes that school the best?”
“Huh? More history?”
“There must’ve been other academies before it. How’d it pop up out of nowhere and snag the top spot? That’s what I’m curious about.”
“Ah, got it. Well, their systems and curriculum blow everywhere else out of the water. The professors are all top-notch too.”
“Hmm, they got a bunch of grand archmages or something?”
“I’m in combat studies, so I wouldn’t know, but the magic department’s supposed to be even crazier. Rumor has it the chairman’s a dragon.”
“……A dragon?”
I was so startled that my grip tightened on the knife slicing my meat.
Wait—what did Luisa just say?
Rumor that the academy’s chairman was a dragon? Meaning the academy was run by a dragon?
“Why so shocked? It’s just a rumor. The chairman position’s been passed down in that family for generations—all women, and they look way too similar, so people whisper they’re the same person.”
“Th-then maybe it’s an elf?”
“Nah, not an elf.”
“Why not?”
Hiding my tension, I pressed her, and Luisa skewered a dripping piece of meat with her fork and held it up.
“They’re obsessed with the cafeteria steak.”
“Ah.”
With that, Luisa started chomping away at her meat.
There wasn’t a shred of noble elegance in her manner, but right now, I didn’t care about that.
All I could think about was how I’d once told a certain dragon girl that my dream was to build an academy. It left me utterly confused.
No way……
I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much.
But they were already swelling inside me, growing enormous.
“Y-y-young m-master, are you all r-readyyy……”
“I finished mine last night. You, Charlotte?”
“I-I prepared thoroughly toooo……”
“Stop shaking already.”
Time flew by like an arrow, and before I knew it, the day to head to the academy had arrived.
No matter how remote a great noble’s estate was from the academy, first-years were expected to live in the dorms. Meaning once we left home today, we wouldn’t be back at the Lehinar mansion for at least a semester.
Unless we get kicked out, that is……
Maybe that’s why my parents fretted endlessly upon hearing even the youngest son was leaving. Mom especially threw a fit about how I was still just a kid—what was I doing going off to school?—and loaded me up with gifts until I was embarrassed.
Was I really that unreliable in their eyes all this time?
It gave me a chance to reflect on myself anew.
“Sniff, my boy… write every week, okay?”
“H-haha… not this again… it’s just school.”
“I don’t know. Your sister and that reliable brother of yours—why are you so worrying, Deneb……”
No, Mom. In my past life, I stormed the palace solo and nearly took the king’s head. What’s school compared to that?
“We’ll be off!!”
Finally shaking off Mom’s “anything else?” fussing, Charlotte and I bolted from the mansion like fugitives. That’s when we spotted something enormous landing in the garden.
Woooong—!
“Y-young master, we’re not riding that, are we…?”
“It’s the Lehinar name. Gotta be this extravagant to count as nobles.”
“Wow, it’s so cool……”
“……Yeah, I think so too.”
The massive object that had landed in the garden was a mana airship—the pinnacle of magitech that hadn’t even existed five hundred years ago.
Nothing like this back in my day. Humans conquering the skies……
Even after seventeen years here, I still marveled at technological progress sometimes. And this grand mana airship was a true masterpiece.
Even I—a former commoner turned noble—couldn’t help but gawk wide-eyed. Charlotte must’ve been even more floored.
I didn’t have much experience venturing far from the territory myself, so this was my first time borrowing Dad’s airship.
“Hmm, should we head over now?”
“I don’t know, young master……”
“The wind’s still too strong. We might get hurt if we get too close.”
“Th-then should we wait for someone to come down?”
“Yeah. Dad’s busy, so sis said she’d pick us up. She’ll come greet us for sure.”
Fwoooong!
Even after the mana airship fully landed, the swirling mana vortex around the hull made approaching it daunting.
Of course, as an assassin who feared not even death, I wasn’t scared.
Just cautious around new tech, that’s all.
As Charlotte and I murmured and waited in place, a woman in uniform soon descended from the airship.
“What’re you doing way over there? Get a move on.”
It was Luisa, her brown hair tied back tightly in a ponytail.
She pressed down her windswept bangs and reached the entrance, then thwacked my head with an exasperated look.
“Hey, once it lands, you hustle up and board. What were you doing?”
“It’s not the young master’s fault! I was scared, so I suggested waiting a bit, and he just listened to me……”
“Ah, got it. Makes sense—you’re a mansion maid handling chores, so first time seeing an airship isn’t weird.”
As we boarded, Luisa snickered at our wind-tousled appearances.
“Pfft, but damn, Charlotte—the uniform suits you great. I’m used to seeing you in maid clothes, but this works too?”
“Hehe… thank you, miss. You look gorgeous in yours too.”
I alternated glances between the two women as they traded their overly sweet banter.
Hated to admit it, but sis was right. Charlotte looked like she’d been born to model the uniform—the gray Denebergen coat, white shirt, and red tie harmonized perfectly with her gently swelling chest.
Luisa, on the other hand……
“Sis, you need a new uniform.”
“Yeah? It’s been feeling tight anyway.”
She’d just grown out of it and been too lazy to get a new one?
The buttons around her chest looked ready to pop, but somehow, she’d probably look fine even topless. She was sis first, woman second—and the term “barbarian noble” fit her to a T.
“Anyway, what happened? I heard Dad was coming to get us, then it changed last minute.”
“Eh, not sure. I was traveling, y’know? They showed up at my spot on the date, loaded me up, and flew straight here.”
“You must’ve heard something.”
Luisa tilted her head at my persistent grilling.
“Dunno, he’s busy? Seems like a bunch of classified stuff popping up in the capital lately. You know how even as librarian, the Lehinars get called in for big deals.”
“Yeah? If Dad’s on it, it’ll wrap up quick no matter what.”
I left shrugging Luisa alone and looked up at the magic screen hovering in the airship’s center.
It displayed a map of the area, with the route to the academy marked. Another tech from after my time, so it was intriguing—but what really held my focus was the academy’s location.
“Drelin……”
“Huh?”
“Nah, nothing.”
Denebergen Academy had been built right where the old Drelin Kingdom once stood, smack in the empire’s vast territory.
Could call it coincidence, but to me now, even that felt like confirmation.
Confirmation that Denebergen’s chairman was Yustina.
“Drelin? That old country from way back?”
“Sis, you know something?”
“Dunno, maybe from history class.”
As I stared with sparkling eyes, she scratched her head—maybe feeling guilty—and added,
“Eh, but I dozed off, so I don’t remember much besides the name.”
Figures.
The mana airship carrying me, Charlotte, and Luisa dipped into the clouds and flew smoothly toward Denebergen Academy.