I Became the Academy's Official Outcast
Inside the academy, in the lecture hall where the Literature Department's first-years gathered.
The moment I stepped into that room, I could feel every pair of eyes in it turning on me.
After all, every student but me was already seated.
I swallowed my embarrassment and took a seat in the far corner of the room.
Call it a small mercy, but seats here were individually assigned — and mine was at the very end, by the window.
Which is to say, I all but fled to that corner and dropped into my chair.
As I sat there heaving a deep sigh, my gaze drifted to the girl beside me.
She was a freckled girl who looked impossibly bright and lively — and suddenly our first meeting, from my very first day of classes last week, came rushing back to me.
How did it go, you ask?
It was the worst.
Despite it being our first meeting, she'd acted like we were already the best of friends. If you asked whether that made me uncomfortable — not exactly.
Back then, I'd actually seen it as an opportunity.
After all, Master had always told me, "Once you strike out on your own, make sure you've made plenty of close friends."
"Hey, late on your very first day? You've got some nerve."
"Ahaha... h-hi...?"
"So what's your name?"
"Sheria."
At that name, the girl tilted her head and pressed even harder.
"Is that a given name? Or a family name?"
Asking whether it was a given name or a family name — in other words...
It meant, 'Are you a noble, or do you belong to one?'
For one thing, tuition at Lumiere Academy was astronomically expensive. Commoner students were few, and even the vast majority of them were sponsored by some noble or another. And the students under a noble's patronage borrowed that noble's name.
With one caveat: those borrowing a noble's name placed the noble's family name ahead of their own. How should I put it — as if to announce, 'This commoner is the property of our house~'
The girl next to me was probably curious about exactly that — whether Sheria was a family name or a given name...
In the end, all I could say was this:
"Sheria is my given name. I don't... have a family name."
"......"
The moment she heard my answer, the freckled girl — who'd been playing the friendly stranger not ten seconds earlier — went cold to the face.
Then she whipped her head away and stared at nothing but the lectern, as if to say, how dare a commoner try to speak to her.
Just in case, I reached for the last straw and tried talking to her anyway.
"Um..."
"Be quiet. You're distracting me."
"Sorry..."
I knew perfectly well, on an intellectual level, that I had no reason to apologize this much. But the guilt welled up all the same, and I decided to keep my mouth shut.
Instead, I looked around the room and took stock of the other Literature Department students.
The most important student in the Literature Department? Aiden Dupin, no contest.
As the name made obvious, Aiden Dupin was the character cast as the detective who hunted Sheria. And not just any detective — a righteous one, no less.
Going by the alpha version I'd played, Dupin was Sheria's greatest ally and her rival in one — and one of the few characters with a possible route to romance.
Fortunately, Aiden Dupin was easy to find. That strikingly handsome character over there, with the short brown hair — that was him.
Well, he is handsome. Yep.
I was still mulling that over when the professor arrived, and class began.
All the while I turned over the same questions: how should I approach Aiden Dupin? What would it take to build a bond with him?
That worry turned out to be completely pointless. I couldn't so much as manage a natural approach in the first place.
"Haaahhh..."
Lunchtime came, and the moment I rose from my seat with a heavy sigh—
Thud!
"Ugh...!"
During breaks, the other Literature Department students shouldered past me as they filed by.
With this tiny frame — a height far closer to 155 than 160 centimeters — a single shoulder-check from a boy topping 170 sent me stumbling backward.
They had to know it hurt. And still, not one of them so much as apologized. They didn't even deign to look at me.
Well, fair enough, I suppose. Lumiere Academy was, quite literally, a jungle.
And in that jungle, a scholarship commoner without even a noble's name to borrow was an obstacle — or prey.
Thud! Thud!
"Kyaah...!"
I got back up and started walking, only to be knocked flat against someone's shoulder again.
By now it was honestly getting heartbreaking. Who on earth would choose to enter this place as a patronless commoner on scholarship?
But my circumstances simply didn't allow for a sponsor. Thanks to Master's training, my abilities themselves cleared the entrance standards — I just had no way to prove where I came from.
As I lay there sprawled on the floor—
"Hey, are you okay?"
A voice reached me, impossibly gentle. I lifted my head toward it.
The owner of that gentle voice was, of course, Aiden Dupin.
The righteous detective who, one day, would stand against me.
"Ah... um... you're..."
"I'm Aiden Dupin. And your name?"
"Sheria... no family name."
"I see, Sheria. Are you hurt from the fall?"
Why did that one gentle sentence feel so impossibly kind? All I could do was nod.
And then — I caught Aiden Dupin's eyes.
At first he'd been looking at my face. But somewhere along the way, his gaze had slid to my chest... and then drifted lower still.
Only then did it dawn on me.
My skirt had flipped up when I fell.
"D-don't loooook...!"
I yanked my skirt down in a panic, and Aiden Dupin cleared his throat and glanced around.
Thankfully, the other students had all already headed out for lunch — he was the only one left in the lecture hall.
Which meant he alone had witnessed that upskirt.
Not that being Aiden Dupin made it any less mortifying for him, of course.
"...You're a real klutz, you know that?"
"That was... an act of God, okay...?"
"Right... So, what are you doing for lunch?"
I picked myself up off the floor and couldn't help grumbling at Aiden Dupin.
"You get to eat in the nobles' dining hall, remember..."
"Ahaha, well, that's true."
"I can't go there. Patronless commoner, see."
"Ah... I see..."
"...Thanks for checking on me. I'll get going."
With that, I made my way to the cafeteria where lunch was relatively cheap, and started on my meal.
Embarrassed... and heartsore... it was a moment crowded with altogether too many feelings.
After eating, I headed to the library for the afternoon.
The reason I'd come to the library...
"I'm Sheria. As of today, I'll be working here as a library scholarship student."
Because I'm a scholarship student here, you see.
Though honestly, 'scholarship student' ought to be written one way and read another — part-timer, that is.
"Good. Go sort the books, then. You do remember how the sorting works? I taught you last week."
"Yes, sir. I remember. I'll get right to work."
Professor Tiur Musset of the Literature Department, who doubled as the library's librarian, pointed me toward the return cart stacked with books, and I went over and began carrying them off.
My job here was to shelve the books students returned, and to point anyone who asked toward what they were looking for.
Easy enough on paper — except that this was Lumiere Academy. The largest academy in the Kingdom of Albion, and the one that received the kingdom's every support.
The number of books was staggering. The library itself was enormous, and parts of the collection were, at times, outright dangerous.
So whenever a student asked where a book was, I had to track it down using this quill-shaped magical tool.
There was just one small problem...
"Is that her?"
"And here I was glad they'd finally gotten us a library aide. A commoner."
"Not just any commoner — a patronless one."
"Just how incompetent can you get?"
"Bet she offered that lewd body of hers up to some professor to land the job?"
I had no idea where or how the information had spread, but someone from my lecture hall had probably leaked it on purpose.
No — better to look on the bright side. If nobody ever asked me for help, my workload shrank, didn't it?
Still musing on that, I gathered up the books from the return cart and started carrying them back to their shelves. It was my job, after all.
How many trips had I made by the time I reached the shelves deeper in?
Thud!
"Kyaaak!?"
Someone shoved me hard from behind.
Crash!
Arms full of books, I pitched forward, scattering them everywhere, then whipped around at once to see who had tripped me.
The boys who'd knocked me down looked to be at least second-years, and every last one of them was snickering as they loomed over me.
"What did I tell you? I said a commoner would be in white."
"Tch, tough luck. Hey, commoner — try a different color next time, will you~"
Tossing off those little jibes — toying with me between themselves — they sauntered right out of the library.
Humiliation. Shame. Fury.
Those emotions raged inside me, and yet nowhere in the world did a remedy for such treatment exist.
I had no backing, nobody behind me — and when you were bullied like this with no one in your corner, there was nothing you could do.
Report it to the Discipline Committee? The same committee that had toyed with my chest under the pretense of a 'physical inspection'? I doubted they'd hear a single word I said.
Besides, unlike in the alpha version I'd played, this Conradin seemed to carry a distinctly pro-noble streak.
Rubbing at my throbbing knees, I gathered up the books and rose to my feet again.
I'd been afraid the books might have gotten crumpled, but thankfully they were unharmed. A true relief — if those were damaged, my food budget would go up in smoke.
...Of course, the 3,000 gold I currently had could cover both my meals and my tuition — but that money was to be saved.
After all, an emergency fund was sacred. Always, and everywhere.