The Seat Behind Me
"Oh my god. I didn't sleep at all."
Okay, technically I probably *did* sleep a little, but this was nowhere near the refreshed, glorious morning I was hoping for. How should I put it — my body just feels all wobbly and off. Not as bad as when I first moved in, granted, but still.
— clack.
"Ophelia..."
"Princess, did you just cough?"
"Yep. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep properly. Maybe I should've taken a sleeping pill or something last night."
"Sleep aids build up tolerance over time, so it's best to avoid using them whenever possible."
If you asked me whether there was some grand, momentous reason I couldn't sleep — well, yes. Actually, there absolutely was.
"Here is your breakfast. I've prepared gimbap so it can be eaten quickly and conveniently."
"Ah, then I'll go brush my teeth first."
"Very well, Princess."
With Daengdaengi sprawled out asleep on the bed, I tucked her under my arm and headed into the bathroom. I gave her fluffy rump a few pats to wake her up, and the current time flashed before us: 7:11 in the morning. As for why I was up so early...
"Whew. It's only the second time, so why am I this nervous?"
Today was the opening ceremony.
The day a new semester began at Seoul Aegis Academy. Which meant that as a newly enrolled student, I had to go to school too.
"Daengdaeng, could you set the timer for me real quick?"
— beep...
With a cheerful *ring*, a three-minute timer spun away over the top of Daengdaengi's head. By the time I finished brushing my teeth, washed my face, dabbed the moisture off, and stepped back out, the gimbap Ophelia had made was already cut into perfect bite-sized pieces and arranged adorably on the plate.
"Ooooh. Gimbap."
"I would be delighted if it suits the Princess's palate."
"It looks absolutely delicious."
— click!
This was the breakfast Ophelia made me on my very first day of school. Just in case this turned into a memory someday, I snapped a photo. Maybe I should do it every single day.
"Tasty~"
Since Seoul Aegis was a unified academy spanning elementary through high school, even the little kids wore uniforms. Out in the world, an Aegis Academy uniform worked something like a badge of identity, after all.
Perched atop Mount Cheonggye, along the boundary lines where Seoul meets its neighboring cities, stands Seoul Aegis Academy — a private institution dedicated exclusively to training underage hunters, ranked among the top thirty in the entire world, and built all the way back in 2001.
Originally, the plan had been to open in the year 2000 as a hunter academy meant to lead the new millennium, but the sheer scale of construction delayed everything — a little piece of trivia only those in the know are aware of these days.
The curriculum was divided into a general studies track and a special studies track, the latter being what the public commonly called the Hunter Class. Students could complete everything from the entire elementary course to the entire high school course within a single school, and with the campus's enormous size and airtight security, it looked every bit like a fortress from the outside.
"Hooeee."
It felt less like a school built on a mountain and more like a mountain that had been remodeled into a school.
In the early days of the Gate and Awakening crisis, China had been thrown into a Sixteen Kingdoms–style upheaval — armed demonstrations by awakened masses in the Xinjiang Uyghur region, and the scattered Tibetans rallying behind the new Dalai Lama, an S-rank hunter whose power singlehandedly united the Tibetan Buddhist leadership under one hereditary title.
Around the same time, Japan — stumbling through its bubble collapse and a feverish wave of unethical conduct from awakened criminals and awakened yakuza alike — was busy licking its wounds, while Korea moved fast, rolling out a whole suite of preferential laws for its awakened citizens.
As part of that effort, on the reasoning that underage awakened needed character education and the guidance of senior awakened to learn uprightness of heart, the nation swept up awakened children from across the country and erected a facility at a level of construction that had been nearly impossible for the era.
The week-long window for students outside the Seoul/Gyeonggi region to move into the dormitories had already passed, and on the day of the opening ceremony, students from the comparatively close capital area began arriving — the new semester officially kicking off in earnest.
"Princess, are you nervous?"
"U-uum... a little? Not a lot though."
A rather expensive-looking car was making its way up the spiral road — engineered to block intrusions effectively while softening the gradient of the slope — toward the interior of Seoul Aegis Academy.
— beep...
"I-I'm not nervous, okay?! You're the one shaking like a leaf over there."
"That felt really tight and rigid, huh."
"That was actually a considerably abbreviated procedure. You had the letter of recommendation from Nova, after all."
"Oh, I see..."
After clearing an identity check that felt oddly like military inspection, apparently only students were allowed inside. It was opening day, but there were no parents' observation visits — and frankly, there wasn't parking space for that many cars in the first place.
"Princess. From this point on, you must go on alone. Will you be all right?"
"Yes! I'll be fine! I'm an adult, you know."
"Understood. I will have faith in you. Do you remember well the instructions I gave you beforehand?"
"Uuuhm..."
The instructions about the Calling skill. First of all, I was not to summon Ophelia. She might be out doing something on the outside, and legally she was registered as a person, so her appearing would count as an intruder breaching the premises.
For basic hunter classes, I was only to use Minium or Suri. Grandpa Galahad caused all sorts of problems with transportation, so I was better off avoiding him unless absolutely necessary.
And I'd been told to use the opportunity to practice fighting alongside Daengdaengi until we could do it more smoothly.
"Ophelia, thank you for your hard work. I'll do great!!"
"Yes, Princess. Fighting! Oh — your bag strap has slipped off your left shoulder."
"Ah. Ehehe, fighting."
Ophelia bowed her head one last time, then slowly climbed back into the vehicle and drove away. Now it was truly just me and me alone.
— beep!
"Oh."
Right, Daengdaengi is here.
From the midpoint checkpoint onward, enormous shuttle buses ferried students back and forth between the checkpoint and the school buildings at intervals of a few minutes. Before long I too boarded a bright yellow school bus bound for the main hall.
"It's huge..."
The main building was, as expected, colossal and unbelievably spacious. I'd worried my white hair might stand out a little too much, but once I actually got here, it might as well have been a crayon box in there. There were foreign students too, so plenty of blond heads dotted the crowd.
That said, most of those were upperclassmen; among the elementary students, the ratio of awakened children dropped off sharply. Wasn't it something like ten percent for our age group?
Naturally — the longer time went on, the more awakened people there were. By high school, the awakened ratio climbed past sixty percent.
"Eve? Here you go — your student ID. There's a necklace type and a pin type. Which would you like?"
"Ah, I'll take the necklace, please."
"Sure thing~ one moment~"
Just before the front gate there was a short line, where staff members verified each student's name and matched their faces and fingerprints against the records taken beforehand. Once identity confirmation was done, they handed over a student ID and waved you off in roughly the right direction.
Honestly, I was too nervous to actually hear any of it, but hey — you just follow the crowd ahead of you. Easy.
"The Nest..."
Student ID necklace in place, I passed through the main gate and cut diagonally across the athletic field toward the enormous main auditorium, The Nest, built into the grounds on the left.
With roughly 3,000 students and some 800 faculty and staff resident on campus, the place was absurdly massive in scale. After all, 3,000 people don't flow like water — we filed into tightly packed rows of chairs arranged by grade and waited. I'd arrived almost exactly on time, so I ended up sitting toward the back, and didn't have to wait long at all.
— screeeeeech...
'Here we go, I guess.'
That sound a microphone makes the moment it's switched on. The surrounding murmur died away in an instant, and light began pouring brightly into the dome-shaped interior, which had been kept dim.
— krrrumble...
The dome of the Nest opened along a left-right split, its ceiling peeling apart. The dim interior brightened under a wash of blue sky, the temperature inside dropped the moment it met the cold outside air, and my brain snapped wide awake.
'Nobody's gonna doze off with a setup like this.'
Then the center of the stage ahead split open, and a platform rose slowly upward — and behind it, as though space itself warped and rippled, a single figure appeared.
— clack.
An old man with graying hair. He was a bit too far away to make out his face clearly, but even from here I could tell he was tall, and that his dark brown suit suited him remarkably well.
"Welcome. To the enrolled students who were here last year and will be here again this year. To the transfer students who have only just awakened their abilities. And to the general studies students as well. I am Han Baekryeong, Headmaster of Seoul Aegis Academy."
A quasi-S-rank hunter who had been active since the earliest days of the Gate crisis and whose power remained undiminished to this day — Han Baekryeong, Headmaster of Seoul Aegis Academy, and owner of a spatial-type unique skill so rare it was precious even on a global scale.
"As of today, each and every one of you will be reborn as a student of Seoul Aegis Academy, an institution with fifty years of history—"
Wait. I was definitely just awake a second ago, wasn't I?
'Is it because I slept badly? I have to hold on somehow..!'
— zzzip...
"Oh my god."
I'd skipped right past the boring cutscene. If this had been a game, that would've cost about 49 Cash to do.
"Ugh. I drooled."
There must have been faculty introductions and everything, but I'd conked out cold and missed all of it. Looking to my left, I saw the first graders already filing toward their classrooms behind their group leaders.
"Fourth graders, next! Please rise slowly from your seats and line up in order as you come out~"
The ruckus of kids shuffling around must have woken me up. Just as my turn came, I stood up from my seat and...
— spring up!
"Wh-what... I can't see...!"
Since when were fourth graders this tall?! Everyone had been sitting down, so I had no idea — the moment they stood up, they all looked like high schoolers. Only I was this short, and it was incredibly inconvenient.
"Hey, you. Are you really a fourth grader? You didn't come to the wrong grade or something?"
And on top of that, the kid behind me straight-up asked if I'd wandered into the wrong grade.
"N-no I didn't! Look, see? I'm a fourth grader."
"Oh, so you are."
Written right there on the student ID hanging from my necklace: Seoul Aegis Academy, Fourth Grade.
Having to endure this kind of humiliation..! I am an adult, dammit! These little brats. I'll flatten every last one of you.
— She's so cute~
— Aww, she's tiny.
Thanks to the auditorium's layout, filing out through the main gate meant passing close to where the high school seniors were seated in the center — and I distinctly heard the older students in the back rows laughing as they looked this way.
'Tch..! Today I am Toxic Eve.'
And so, everyone shuffled out of the auditorium in a ragged line and entered the elementary school wing.
"No running, walk slowly~ Just find your own class — it's written on your student ID~"
"Uuum..."
Following what my student ID said, I headed for Class 3, Fourth Grade. The upper-grade and lower-grade buildings were separate, and the fourth graders had the entire second floor of the upper-grade building, so I only had to climb a single flight of stairs.
"Daengdaeng, you were nervous, weren't you."
— beep?
"Wh-what? No, I totally wasn't nervous either."
Really. Not nervous at all. Most of the kids here are general studies students anyway... General studies only goes up to second period, and the awakened ones all move off to different classrooms for special hunter classes, so..!
"Phew. Class 3, Fourth Grade. Let's do this."
— creeeak...
Since I'd been sitting toward the back, plenty of kids had already arrived before me. The back seats were taken, leaving only a window seat around the middle of the room.
'Almost everyone has black hair.'
Fourth grade — the lowest of the elementary upper grades — was the very first class year that accepted awakened students. Enrollment itself did take awakened kids from the lower grades too, but the special hunter curriculum didn't begin until upper grades.
Of course the awakened ratio was low. Even so, a few kids had hair colors different from everyone else's, the type that made you think, awakened, probably.
Granted, not every awakened person's hair changed color, but still...
"Hold on. You're gonna sit there? Someone already has that seat."
"Th-they do..?"
There was no bag, nobody around — whose seat was it supposed to be?
"That's Yu Choa's seat. She's an awakened."
"I'm an awakened too, though..."
"Oh yeah? Then suit yourself. Work it out with her."
What kind of elementary schooler uses the phrase "work it out" these days..? Honestly, kids are impossible to read.
In the end, I hung the backpack Ophelia had made me on the hook beside the desk and sat down without further incident.
With a brief moment to catch my breath, I set Daengdaengi on the desk and was just reaching for my phone when—
— creeeak — SLAM!!!
"Heyyy, everyone!"
A girl's voice rang out bright and clear from the classroom's back door.
'Red hair.'
Hair glowing a vivid crimson as if to announce to the world that she was awakened, paired with a catlike face.
'That's the face of a confident pyromancer, no doubt about it.'
Unlike me, a transfer student, she was already greeting several classmates — "Oh nice, we're in the same class!" and the like — mingling and making friends as she went.
"Oh right — did anyone save my seat?"
"Ah, Cho-a, your seat's over there. She's sitting in it."
'Ugh... here she comes.'
None other than the Choa-Ultimate insider Yu Choa (connections to spare, cartel already established, multiple purges of dissidents on record) strode right up behind me.
— tap tap.
At the feeling of fingers tapping my shoulder, I slowly turned my head and answered as nonchalantly as I could manage.
"Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-what is it..?"
"You sitting there? Ooh, you're an awakened, huh? Hmmm~"
With nothing more to say to my dignified, elegant reply, Yu Choa tilted her head back and forth, staring at me intently.
"Then... Kim Minseo, gimme your seat."
"Ehhh~ I rushed here early and fought hard for this spot, you know."
"Just steal the one next to you. Hehe."
And thus, Yu Choa's cartel was established in the seat directly behind me.
'Oh my god.'