“Attention, salute!”
The bell announcing morning homeroom rang, and dozens of students saluted the person entering the classroom in unison.
Ielhas Magic Academy.
Located in the Kingdom of Le Mans on the Asirayu Continent, it was a renowned Magic Academy recognised as one of the three finest not only in the Kingdom of Le Mans, but in the entire world.
“At ease. Now, today I will introduce a new transfer student joining our class.”
“……My name is Jaes. Nice to meet you.”
MURMUR, MURMUR.
As murmurs spread through the classroom like a wave in response to his introduction, Jaes struggled to conceal his considerable bewilderment.
Although he appeared to be around the same age as the students before him, in terms of his previous world, they looked like middle- and high-school students more than ten years younger than he was.
‘Damn it. I never thought I would end up attending school again at my age. How did things suddenly end up like this?’
As Jaes struggled to maintain a calm exterior, the events of several days earlier flashed through his mind.
* * *
“You. From now on, you no longer need to report to the Mage Tower. Instead, you will attend a Magic Academy called Ielhas, so prepare yourself accordingly.”
“……Pardon?”
The day after the incident, Raiden had suddenly delivered this absurd news to Jaes, who had spent nearly the entire night awake from tension and excitement.
“A Magic Academy……?”
“Indeed. You are still young, and it appears that you possess a fair amount of talent for magic, so Duke Ailin has decided upon it. Duke Ailin will cover all expenses required for your education, room, and board, so you should be deeply grateful.”
‘So this world has schools too. Then again, I suppose that is only natural. ……No, but why so suddenly?’
“Uh…… do I simply have to attend?”
“Why? Do you not wish to?”
“No, it is not that. I am simply having trouble adjusting to being told so suddenly that I must attend school.”
Of course, attending a school might have been the most efficient way for Jaes to adapt to life in this world while also learning magic.
However, he could not greet the decision with unreserved joy.
That was because—
‘In my original world, I spent nearly twenty years attending school, from primary school through middle school, high school, university, and even graduate school. Now I have to enter that dreadful place all over again?’
For Jaes, school was not a place that held many pleasant memories.
“I am not forcing you. If you truly dislike the idea, you may continue reporting to the Mage Tower as before. It will be somewhat gruelling, but you have endured it well enough until now. There should be no issue with having the people there teach you magic directly.”
‘……Gruelling?’
Raiden’s words immediately caught Jaes’s attention, and an ominous feeling began to grow within him.
“It will be difficult, but if you insist on choosing the harder path for yourself, I see no reason not to respect your wishes.”
“Uh…… what exactly do you mean? You are going to teach me magic?”
Raiden folded his arms and nodded at Jaes’s anxious question.
“Indeed. It appears that you possess talent as a Mage, so we decided to teach you magic in earnest. However, your foundations are severely lacking, and you are still young, so our original plan was to send you to an academy first and allow you to establish the basics. Then again, you have already become acquainted with the people in the Mage Tower, so there should be no problem with letting them teach you directly. ……Not that I have no concerns whatsoever.”
‘…Learning magic.’
That was precisely what Jaes wanted, so it was unquestionably welcome news.
The latter half of Raiden’s statement, however, sent a chill down his spine.
After all, Jaes had spent the past week working in the Mage Tower and had personally witnessed the behaviour of its Mages.
BOOM!!
“Bwahaha! Another failure today!!”
There was the Mage who caused explosions every day without the slightest concern for his surroundings, leaving the Mage Tower in ruins.
“…Zzz.”
There was the Mage who remained curled up in a corner and slept all day despite the deafening environment.
“Hmm-hmm♪”
Then there was the Mage who continually sent him uncomfortable looks, staring at him as though she might devour him at any moment.
The Mage Tower was full of eccentrics who could hardly be considered normal by any conventional standard. If anything, they were even worse than the people in the graduate school that had left Jaes shaking his head in disbelief.
‘So he is telling me to choose between becoming a fledgling intern beneath a group of thoroughly seasoned graduate students and receiving a normal education at a school?!’
An internship in a graduate school where he would begin without any prior knowledge.
Or a standard education at a perfectly respectable school.
There could only be one reasonable choice.
“No! I will attend the school, just as you suggested.”
“Hmm. Is that so? Very well. Then we will make all the necessary arrangements. Spend the next few days resting in your room and recovering from the wounds you suffered. Once all the preparations are complete, I will return for you.”
“Yes.”
And so Jaes, a former graduate student, entered Ielhas Magic Academy as a transfer student.
‘I suppose this means I have effectively enrolled on a full scholarship.’
Aside from Jaes’s lack of pleasant memories associated with schools, this course of events was not bad for someone who wished to learn about this world, adapt to it, and study magic.
In that sense, Jaes’s decision to reveal one of his cards to Raiden that day appeared, at least for the moment, to have been the correct one.
‘Whew. But I cannot afford to look at this too optimistically.’
Jaes’s experiences in graduate school had taught him something.
Kindness such as this was never offered entirely free of charge.
‘Judging from what I have heard, even if Duke Ailin’s hobby is watching the growth of people who capture his interest, there is no guarantee that he will not demand compensation for it later.’
Even in his original world, graduate students who received corporate scholarships were ordinarily required to work for the sponsoring company for a certain period after graduation.
‘They might force me into that Mage Tower after I graduate. Raiden’s words already carried that implication to some extent. Of course, that might benefit me, but I honestly do not want to be dragged back into another place that reminds me of graduate school.’
In that case, there was only one course of action he should take.
‘I should avoid attracting too much attention. The chances of them giving me any real choice are probably extremely low.’
The greater the expectations placed upon a person, the heavier the responsibilities and obligations that followed.
Moreover, this was a world where enemy nations and spies truly existed. Learning magic would not necessarily end with theoretical study. At any moment, he might be thrown into another life-or-death situation like the previous one.
His best option was to quietly cultivate enough strength to protect himself while attracting as little attention as possible.
‘……I will meet only the minimum level of expectation they have for me, learn everything I need, and graduate without incident. Then their interest and curiosity toward me should naturally fade.’
Thus began his school life in another world.
‘School has never given me many worthwhile memories. This place cannot possibly be better. If anything, it will probably be even worse.’
Jaes had not expected a particularly warm welcome, but he inwardly sighed at the ambiguous reactions of his apparent peers…… who were, in truth, children far younger than he was.
Just as Jaes had expected, this world’s schools did not seem particularly different from those of his original world.
He could already feel several groups glaring resentfully at the transfer student who had appeared without warning.
“Hmm.”
“A transfer student at this time of year? Judging from his shabby appearance, he certainly does not appear to be from a noble family, Lord Damian.”
“…….”
“Still, I do not like that insolent look on his face. Shall I teach him his place from the very beginning?”
“……Do as you please. I am not particularly interested, so do whatever you wish.”
“Hehe. Understood.”
The number and quality of a nation’s Mages were directly connected to its national power. As a result, anyone with a talent for magic could freely enrol at Ielhas Magic Academy and receive an education, regardless of whether they were a noble or a commoner.
Duke Ailin de Reinhardt, the greatest Mage in the Kingdom of Le Mans and one of the Three Sages of the Continent, sometimes taught there alongside his disciples. Consequently, the academy’s education was widely known to be of exceptionally high quality.
Furthermore, Duke Ailin, who could effectively be considered the academy’s owner, allowed impoverished commoners to receive an education free of charge. The financial burden of attending was therefore relatively minor.
As a result, countless commoner students carrying grand dreams of success and social advancement studied magic alongside the children of noble families.
Of course, it would have been unrealistic to describe Ielhas Magic Academy as a worry-free utopia for the commoner children who attended it.
“Know your place, you insolent commoners.”
The academy’s rules might guarantee an equal education regardless of whether a student was a noble or a commoner, but most of its young, authority-conscious noble children had no intention of treating commoners as equal classmates.
‘……As expected. This is exactly what I anticipated.’
Jaes had sensed the atmosphere from the moment he arrived at the Magic Academy.
‘It is so clichéd that it is almost boring. But I suppose this is unavoidable in a world like this.’
School had never been a place associated with pleasant memories for Jaes.
Having lost his parents at an early age and been raised by his grandmother, Jaes had often become an easy target for delinquent students.
Of course, he had not simply endured their mistreatment. He had resisted in his own way and struggled through those difficult years.
Still, in a world where a rigid social hierarchy existed, the situation was likely to be worse rather than better. Merely thinking about it was enough to make his head throb.
Moreover, after attending both university and graduate school, Jaes had eventually concluded that although the methods might differ, wherever people gathered, they inevitably divided themselves into allies and enemies, tore one another down, and bolstered their own self-esteem at someone else’s expense.
That was simply human nature.
Therefore, although this was another world, Jaes was not particularly pleased to find himself back at school.
‘I can already feel several unfriendly gazes. Those students gathered at the back of the classroom in expensive-looking clothes must be the upper class here—the children of noble families.’
Public security in this world was considerably worse than in his original one.
If those children, armed with the additional weapon of high social status, regularly behaved like schoolyard thugs, dealing with them might prove incomparably more troublesome than it had been in his previous world.
Nevertheless, even as he felt their hostile gazes upon him, Jaes was not particularly worried.
‘Be quiet. I am simply not accustomed to being the centre of attention.’
Had he still been the person he was during middle school and high school, the present stress might have overwhelmed him.
However, although his current body might have been the same age as he was back then, the person inside it had endured the storm of graduate school and had been on the verge of graduation.
Compared to the psychological warfare and politics of graduate school, which had slowly drained the life from him, the provocations of children who were merely fifteen or sixteen years old were entirely predictable and hardly worth taking seriously.
Perhaps it was also because he had recently survived a genuine threat to his life.
Even while feeling the ominous gazes of the apparent noble children, Jaes was less concerned about what they might do than he was about finding a way to avoid their unnecessary attention without causing trouble or standing out.
Besides—
‘……I expected this much, so I took out a little insurance of my own. Whew. Since things have already come to this, I should learn everything I can while completing my school life as quietly as possible. At the very least, I must avoid repeating the mistake of being dragged into that Mage Tower, which looks like nothing so much as another graduate school.’
<Mir will work hard to help you too!>
‘Yes, yes.’
And so—
‘Hah. That bastard. He is not even averting his gaze. Has he no fear?’
‘Showing weakness for no reason would only embolden them. I intend to remain quiet and avoid standing out, so leave me alone. Whatever you children try to do, it will only look cute to me now.’
His second school life began in another world.