Cecile (1)
"Come this way if you're registering for the exam."
I followed the attendant's directions, but I couldn't take my eyes off Cecile in the line ahead of me. ...If I'd been in my right mind the first time I saw her, I probably would have known immediately.
Pink hair falling all the way to her waist. Large cyan-green eyes. If I'd met her when my head was clear, I would have clocked this as a romance fantasy on the spot. My gaze kept drifting to that cherry-blossom-pink hair that fluttered with every step, and those clear green eyes.
Still, no need to act like I know her here.
I could always talk to her later, when things were quieter. For now, I just followed the line in silence. Before long, my turn arrived.
"Next."
The clerk who'd been mechanically flipping through a mountain of paperwork looked up. He looked me up and down, taking in my ordinary clothes, and his brow furrowed with undisguised distaste. This was the academy's notorious class snobbery, hitting me in the face before I'd even enrolled.
"You there. Looks like you've wandered into the wrong place."
The admissions officer set down his quill with a sharp tap and jerked his chin at me.
"This isn't a place just anyone can wander into. You look like a commoner. Go back where you came from."
"I'm here to register for the entrance exam."
My calm reply drew a scoff of disbelief.
"You don't listen, do you. Clearly you don't know Royax Academy's rules. A commoner like you needs a recommendation letter to even sit the exam."
He waved me off like a bothersome insect.
"And not just any recommendation — it has to come from a high noble of confirmed standing, or a renowned magician."
"I'm aware."
"Whether it's a high noble or a famous magician, sponsoring a student and writing them a recommendation means that student becomes their face. Obviously you'd dress them up to look the part before sending them here."
His gaze raked over my worn, threadbare clothes.
"What kind of idiot sponsor would smear shit on their own face by sending someone here dressed in rags like that?"
I looked steadily at the clerk's slick, well-fed face. Dealing with so many high-born noble heirs had clearly gone to his head. He'd started thinking he was some kind of power himself.
Idiot.
Entrance days were always overflowing with eccentricities and wild cards. What did he think was going to come walking through that door, acting this fearless? The girl standing in line right in front of me was Cecile — the actual protagonist, with talent enough to shake the entire world.
I didn't bother with a long reply. I simply reached into my coat, pulled out a stiff sheet of parchment, and dropped it on the counter. The moment it touched the desk, a heavy pulse of mana rolled out, pressing down on the air around us.
"Here. The recommendation letter."
"So you did bring something. Though I've never seen this seal before..."
The admissions officer's irritated muttering cut off the instant he recognized the black rose stamped into the parchment. He sucked in a breath like he'd been punched.
"Th-this is..."
Gone pale, he fumbled in his coat, pulled out a crumpled scrap of paper, and started frantically comparing it to the parchment I'd given him. His trembling fingertips and ashen face said everything that needed saying.
"Yes, I'd heard that Violetta had taken on a disciple."
I looked at the old man across from me, eyes narrowed as he stirred his teacup. Unlike my master, he kept his mana neatly concealed — and yet the sheer depth of his power still came through.
My disciple, when you get to the academy, you must be careful of that old fox.
Rox Whitebells, chancellor of the Empire's finest educational institution, regarded me with an easy smile.
"A disciple of the most notorious magic tower on the continent — the Black Rose Magic Tower."
He set down his cup and tapped my recommendation letter on the desk. His wrinkled fingers slid across the parchment that still carried my master's mana.
"I'll be honest — I was rather surprised. That arrogant, eccentric Violetta, taking on a disciple of her own."
His quiet voice carried unmistakable curiosity, and a probing intent beneath it. As befit a man sitting at the top of an academy crawling with factional infighting and high-handed noble politics, his gaze was sharp enough to try to see straight through me. I didn't look away. I met Chancellor Rox's eyes calmly. There was no reason I needed to.
"Well, in any case, you've arrived bearing the title of Violetta's disciple. Starting you in Class A seems about right."
I frowned slightly at that.
"I haven't even taken the entrance exam yet."
Even with a recommendation this powerful, this was still the Empire's finest academy. Skipping the exam entirely and dropping me straight into the top class was excessive favoritism.
"An exam? I don't see much point in testing a disciple Violetta herself has vouched for."
The chancellor pressed his fingers to his brow, as if some dreadful memory had surfaced.
"Besides, your master was a Class A student here herself."
"Is that true?"
That was news even to me. My master had barely appeared in the original novel — more of a MacGuffin than a character.
"You have no idea how much I suffered teaching that girl. She was constantly causing the most extraordinary incidents all over campus."
I could picture it perfectly. Given her usual antics at the magic tower, she was more than capable of that and worse.
"No need to feel pressured. Class A is only the first button. If your skills don't measure up, you'll be demoted without mercy at the midterm evaluation."
The moment I heard that, I started running the numbers in my head. The real reason I'd come here was to find an item that could expand my pathetic mana capacity. And with Cecile's talent, she'd be placed in Class A the moment she enrolled — that much was certain. If I wanted to keep making contact with her and stay close in this vast, complicated academy, being in Class A would be far more efficient than languishing in some lower class.
The calculation took only a moment. I bowed my head to Chancellor Rox.
"Thank you for your consideration, Chancellor."
That evening, after the academy entrance exam — which I didn't take — the students who'd been accepted, myself included, headed to their assigned dormitories. Residence in the dorms was mandatory at Royax Academy. And of course, following the genre's rules, each class had its own dormitory.
I didn't need to know about all of them. Class A's dormitory was Merior Hall, named after Merior, the founding chancellor.
Merior Hall came with a number of perks. Dedicated servants for Class A students were stationed there around the clock, for a start. Every month, the academy even paid the students a stipend, ostensibly for maintaining appearances. Tuition, of course, was a full scholarship.
This was not, of course, the academy running a charity out of the goodness of its heart. Anyone good enough to land in Class A was, more often than not, the scion of a high noble house with deep pockets and powerful backing. And those illustrious families and patrons poured such enormous donations and sponsorships into the academy every year that the scholarships and perks the students received looked like pocket change. In the end, the academy skimmed off a tiny fraction of that money, handed it back to the students, and made a show of how magnificently they were being treated.
Though given my master's personality, I doubt she donated a single coin to the academy in my name.
Mulling over all these perks, I opened the door to Merior Hall and stepped inside. The interior was even more lavish and ostentatious than the exterior had suggested. The first floor consisted of a wide lobby and common spaces for the students; the second floor was the men's quarters, the third the women's.
Am I the first one here?
The first-floor lobby, glittering under an ornate chandelier, was silent enough that not even an ant would have been stirring. Starting tomorrow, I'll be living on campus. It was typical to spend tonight with family.
I was crossing the wide lobby, heading for the stairs to the second floor, when light footsteps rang against the marble — click, click — and someone brushed past me. Pink hair that swayed like cherry blossom petals with every step.
The moment I saw her from behind, a memory from the end of my previous life flashed through my mind.
When that time comes... instead of magician and assistant, could we just be friends?
Those last words, asking that if I really went back to the past, we live as friends. I needed to make contact with her somehow and keep her close anyway. Well, a greeting should be fine.
I turned and approached her, speaking as naturally as I could.
"Hey. You're Class A too—"
"Hold it."
I hadn't even finished. Cecile stopped walking and slowly turned her head to look at me. Gone was the bright face that had smiled playfully even on the brink of death in my previous life. The cyan-green eyes looking at me now held nothing but a bitterly cold light.
"You."
Cecile didn't bother hiding her displeasure as she spoke, her voice ice-cold.