It's So Unfair for Pinky (1)
Hindrastar was assigned to the graduating class the very next day after her selection—and not just any class, but Graduation Class 1, the one reserved exclusively for the highest-performing students. The very same class where Nightly Toulouse served as class president.
It was packed with sharp kids and well-bred nobles like Nightly. Could a mercenary-corps dropout like Hindrastar possibly get along in a place like that?
I wondered—and sure enough, she caused an incident on day one.
A handful of students from noble families, already well aware she was from the Leblanc Mercenary Corps—that infamous den of uneducated thugs—picked a fight with her. Hindrastar beat every last one of them and sent them to the infirmary.
Word was that all ten of the first-floor infirmary cots were occupied. What stunned me more than Hindrastar causing trouble was the fact that ten students had ganged up on a transfer student.
At this point, maybe the current students needed character education more than she did.
The one silver lining, I supposed, was that Nightly hadn't been among them. I'd have to have a word with that class's homeroom professor later.
No disciplinary committee was convened. She was, after all, the inaugural Special Talent Cadet—a historic first. And while her fists had flown first in response to the mockery, it had been a ten-to-one fight under extremely unfavorable conditions.
Ismera made no secret of her intense distaste for the fact that violence had been used to resolve the situation. My take was a little different.
"Doesn't this just prove our selection criteria were right on the money?"
The look in Ismera's eyes as she stared at me might as well have said, You uncultured Combat Department brute.
Still, I couldn't just let it slide. I needed to call Hindrastar in and give her a talking-to. If she kept solving every problem with her fists, she'd eventually end up in front of a real disciplinary committee.
"Hey, TA. Go fetch Hind—wait, Student Sophie. I need to talk to her."
"Right away, Chief Professor!"
A short while later, Hindrastar swaggered into the faculty office.
"What's with that look?"
"Just finished teaching a few of those arrogant human bitches a lesson."
"That's exactly why I called you. Sit."
I pointed at the chair, and wariness flickered across her face.
"Let me make this crystal clear—they started it. You even know what they said? They asked me what I did in the mercenary corps, then said I wasn't a mercenary at all—that I was their dedicated camp whore!!"
"I'm not deaf, so stop yelling. Calm down and sit."
I pointed at the chair again. Hindrastar dropped into it with a look of pure indignation and crossed her arms.
"Want some tea? Or I could get you cookies, pie, something like that?"
"I don't want to spend a single second with you, so just get to the point."
"Fine. Then this is all mine."
I pulled a cream cake wrapped in paper from the drawer I'd converted into a snack cabinet. Hindrastar's eyes snapped toward it.
"What's that?"
"There's a dessert café in the Academy Commercial District. I bought it there. It's actually really good—honestly, I was sweating it, thinking you might ask for some."
I pulled out a fork, carved off a big chunk of cake, and ate it. Hindrastar made a point of looking anywhere else.
"So why'd you call me here?"
"I know dragons look down on humans. But you can't do that here."
"I already told you! They treated me like a whore!"
"Yeah, I know. I'm not here to tell you that you were right or wrong this time. The problem is if you keep using violence going forward."
I said it while stabbing the cake with my fork.
"We're letting it slide this time because it's the first offense. But if you go around beating people up again, you could face disciplinary action. Stack enough of those and you get expelled. I'll leave it to your imagination what happens if you get kicked out."
"Haaah, fuck..."
Hindrastar let out a sigh and rubbed the back of her neck.
"Fine, fine. I'll be careful. I'm leaving."
She shot up from the chair, started to turn, then stopped.
"That thing. You said you bought it at the dessert café in the commercial district?"
"Yeah. Why? You gonna go buy one?"
"I don't even have money. I was just asking."
Hindrastar whipped around—but instead of walking out, she just stood there in the doorway, staring blankly. What was she doing?
Then I saw it: someone was blocking her path. Nightly, with her lush golden hair and arrogant golden eyes, was looking down at Hindrastar.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Who the hell are you?"
Hindrastar and Nightly stared at each other in silence.
"One of you move. I'm busy."
Nightly stepped aside first, and Hindrastar stormed out without a backward glance.
"And what do you want?"
"Professor. What are you doing right now?"
Nightly asked, looking utterly incredulous.
"Wasn't today supposed to be our private lesson?"
"Ah. Right. Completely slipped my mind."
"I waited at the training grounds forever and you never showed, so I came looking."
"Sorry. I was meeting with the Special Talent Cadet. Let's go."
As we walked toward the training grounds, Nightly asked,
"What were you talking about with that girl just now?"
"Nothing much. About the fight. Told her not to do it again."
"She's pretty rough, isn't she? Must be the mercenary background."
"Everyone in the world knows the Leblanc Mercenary Corps is a bunch of uneducated brutes. But calling someone their dedicated camp whore to their face? Come on."
"I didn't say anything like that."
"Yeah, yeah. Still, you're class president, so keep your kids in line."
"Understood."
"Anyway, how's Sophie doing? Does she have any friends?"
"Well, the lower ranks seem to like her, I suppose."
Oh, that was unexpected. But "lower ranks"? What's that supposed to mean?
"Give me the details. Like her how?"
According to Nightly, the kids who'd been calling Hindrastar a whore and worse were a gang of academy thugs who ran around in a pack. They'd been picking on students with poor grades or humble backgrounds—until Hindrastar beat the entire lot of them and instantly became a hero.
In other words, the transfer student had demolished the school bullies. On top of that, she was pretty and had a great figure, so everyone liked her.
"Though the Special Talent Cadet herself doesn't seem the least bit interested in making friends with anyone around her."
True to her dragon nature, Hindrastar knocked down any human who showed hostility and ignored any human who approached with goodwill.
"She probably won't make a single friend before graduation."
Nightly smiled, her expression dripping with contempt, as if she found Hindrastar utterly laughable. Not that Nightly was in any position to talk—she didn't have a single friend either.
"Professor. Why are you so interested in that Special Talent Cadet?"
"She's our first-ever recruit, and we went through a lot to get her. Isn't it natural I'd want to know if she's settling in?"
"Is that so? But from a third party's perspective, it could easily look like inappropriate curiosity, so please be careful."
What kind of nonsense was that? I burst out laughing.
"You're not actually dumb enough to think I've got some weird thing for her and that's why I'm paying attention, are you?"
"Not dumb—I'd prefer you put it as 'keeping an open mind to various possibilities.'"
"And this is the class president of our top-ranked class. The future of our academy is looking grim."
"Excuse me?!"
Nightly's eyes flared. I answered with a laugh.
"You. Get along with that Special Talent Cadet."
"Why?"
"It'll definitely help you later. I'm going to make damn sure both of you end up as Black Agents at the Imperial Palace."
"Is that so. Professor—I think we just walked past the training grounds?"
Nightly, who'd been walking along, stopped in her tracks and looked around.
We were near the academy's east gate. Step through that gate in the direction Nightly had once done her night infiltration training, and you'd reach the wild hills on the outskirts of the capital.
"Weren't we supposed to do this at the training grounds?"
"We'll do that during regular class. This is a private lesson from the Chief Combat Professor—shouldn't it have a more distinctive curriculum?"
"W-what are we doing this time...?"
Nightly stammered, fear creeping into her voice. But I couldn't tell her now. If I did, she'd definitely run.
I mean, if I told her we were going to capture a wild troll, of course she'd run.
"What are those two up to...?"
Hidden around the corner of a building, Hindrastar watched Dian and Nightly walk out the academy's east gate side by side.
After leaving Dian's office, she had pretended to head toward the lecture halls, then taken a wide detour and hidden herself in the bushes by the faculty building's front entrance. That blonde human girl she'd had a staring contest with was suspicious, no two ways about it.
Hindrastar had seen that particular "I ate my manners for breakfast" attitude plenty of times. The lady of the house at noble estates she visited for contract consultations usually carried herself just like that. So was that human woman Dian's wife?
But looking at her uniform, she was clearly a student.
Even Hindrastar, with her limited experience of the human world, knew that a professor marrying a student was not normal. Besides, from what she'd gathered since arriving, Dian was unmarried. Apparently he lived in the faculty housing district with some brat of a girl—a slave or a maid, one or the other.
So an unmarried professor had just slipped out the east gate—the one leading to densely wooded hills—alone with a female student he taught...
And Dian was a Chief Professor or whatever, a position that supposedly didn't involve teaching students directly...
The faculty office, sure. But why on earth would they go there...?
Hmmm.... This was genuinely suspicious....
