So, This Is the Prologue
The hallway was a river of students, more of them than I could count. I stood rooted in the very center of that current, and not a single gaze so much as brushed me. Ever since I was dropped into this academy, it was a sight I had grown used to.
They weren't avoiding me on purpose. Purely—yes, purely—they simply had no idea that I existed here at all.
Haah... A sigh was all that would come of it. Even so, I had to do this.
Up ahead, a student who looked like an upperclassman was walking toward me. I stepped into their path and caught them by the shoulder.
"Excuse me."
"Aagh—!! You scared me!"
A chime rang.
The opponent perceives you.
The startled reaction and the notification window had gone past familiar and straight into unbearable. I shoved both aside and forced out the words I'd actually stopped them for.
"Could you tell me how to get to the combat training room?"
"Uh... first floor of the building next door. Keep going left, and it'll be there..."
"Thank you."
I dipped my head in a small bow.
What is this situation, you ask? Nothing much. Class had been so boring that I nodded off, and in that brief slip the whole lot of them had wandered off somewhere in the name of a so-called moving class—every last one of them except me.
I don't particularly blame them. If there's something I do want to blame, then...
Suppresses the holder's faint mana emission. Presence is restricted to an extreme degree, and detection via Mana Detection is impossible.
▸ Receives an excellent modifier to Attack.
▸ The holder can tell whether an opponent has perceived them.
Right. It was this trait, the one worse than having nothing at all. Thanks to it, my presence at the academy sat at about the level of air. I had dreamed of a dazzling in-crowd life here, and yet...
I can make friends, right?