“Oh, they put some effort into this.”
When I entered the student dining hall for the class assignment ceremony, I found it decorated far more lavishly than before.
Red, blue, green, and white.
Apparently, the decorations had been divided according to the colors representing the four classes.
Even the table decorations and mobiles hanging from the ceiling had been arranged in each class’s symbolic color. They had clearly paid meticulous attention to the details.
I had heard that this Academy was rather short on money, but considering that, they certainly knew how to make the little things look impressive.
“Ugh…. This hurts like hell.”
Unfortunately, I could barely appreciate the scenery.
It was because of the aftereffects of overusing ‘Physical Enhancement’ during my Sparring Match with Pan Slipel.
When I was examined at the infirmary, they found that virtually every muscle in my limbs—from my thighs and calves to my shoulders and forearms—had been pushed to the verge of tearing.
As expected, I needed to avoid using that technique as much as possible until my body was fully developed.
I had already received treatment from the Healing Instructor, so moving around was not a serious problem, but there was nothing I could do about the pain in my joints for the time being.
When I looked beside me, however, Tyr was clutching my sleeve and trembling.
Why was this bold, simple-minded fellow acting like this?
Had he eaten something strange?
“Y-Young Master. I’m incredibly nervous.”
“Huh? You didn’t even flinch when they were selecting retainers back in our territory. Why are you nervous over something like this?”
“Back then, they were all people I already knew. But now I have to do something in front of all these complete strangers—”
“Tyr.”
At my call, Tyr turned toward me.
“You’re the finest Young Talent in the Seirin territory. Take pride in that. You’re far more suited to this Academy than I am.”
“Young Master···.”
Perhaps reassured by my words, Tyr gradually stopped trembling.
Ah, this was why I hated taking care of children.
Kids were so delicate that there were far too many things to worry about.
I certainly did not remember being like this when I was this age(?).
‘Hmm?’
But why had so many people been staring at us for a while now?
I might have had a slight tendency to attract attention, but ever since arriving at this Academy, I had been receiving far too much of it.
“Tyr. The cadets and the professors alike keep staring at us. Why?”
“Hehe, that’s because you gave that noble young master—Pan or Plate or whatever his name was—a spectacular lesson.”
“Huh? Why would that matter? It wasn’t anything particularly impressive.”
Pan Slipel might have been considered one of the most prominent members of this year’s class, but he was still only a sixteen-year-old freshman.
Surely spanking someone like him was not enough to make everyone this wary of me.
And as far as I knew, ‘Duels’ were commonplace at Warrior Academies.
So why was everyone looking at me so suspiciously?
“Pan Slipel was considered the most promising talent among this year’s incoming cadets. Of course everyone would be interested after you crushed him.”
“Even so.”
Come to think of it, I could not see Pan anywhere.
Was he in the infirmary getting his backside treated?
“Ahem. Now then, we shall begin the class assignment ceremony for this year’s incoming cadets.”
At that moment, the Dean stepped onto the platform and announced the beginning of the ceremony.
Thunderous applause and cheers erupted.
At last, my three years of Academy life were truly beginning.
Each of Lion Heart’s four classes represented a particular ideal.
Red represented courage.
Blue represented loyalty.
Green represented indomitability.
White represented aspiration.
They were the four virtues the founder of Lion Heart Academy had established as the Academy’s ideals.
A warrior had to be courageous, fiercely loyal, and possess an indomitable will.
And most importantly, a warrior had to possess an eternal aspiration for ‘strength.’
That was why Lion Heart Academy divided its students into the Red, Blue, Green, and White Classes.
The distinction did not carry any major practical meaning, but perhaps because of the symbolism behind it, each class had developed a noticeably different atmosphere.
Students in the Red Class were considerably more passionate than those in the other classes.
The Blue Class was highly cohesive and organized.
The Green Class had a quiet atmosphere that nevertheless carried an unmistakable sense of strength.
And the White Class burned with fighting spirit, along with a faint hint of madness(?).
“Panpirin. Blue Class.”
“Waaaaaaah!”
Each time a freshman’s name was called, the senior cadets of the corresponding class applauded and cheered in welcome.
It was a simple ceremony.
You received a name tag from the Dean in the color representing your assigned class, then went to sit at that class’s table.
The sentiment was nice and all, but how long was this going to take?!
Calling the names of nearly two hundred people one by one was going to take forever.
They could have just handed everyone a scrap of paper and gotten it over with.
“Hmm?”
Then I felt someone a short distance away repeatedly glancing in my direction.
I turned to see a familiar girl.
Anna Camil.
The instant our eyes met, she abruptly looked away as though she had done something wrong.
Had she done something to me?
Why was her face so red?
Had I caught her talking behind my back or something?
“How suspicious.”
I was thinking that I would definitely find out later when I suddenly heard my own name.
“Ruben Seirin. And his attendant, Tyr.”
I walked forward with Tyr, who still had not completely shaken off his nervousness, and stood before the Dean.
Seeing him this close, I could feel a considerable sense of pressure from him.
He truly felt like the Dean of a Warrior Academy.
I had heard he was an 8th-Class Sword Master, but the fact that he did not look like one at all made him even more frightening.
‘A true master knows how to conceal his strength completely.’
Locke had told me that.
And when I traveled with that bastard, I had seen firsthand how often it caused trouble.
Locke could completely suppress his killing intent, presence, and Sword Mana, making him look like an easy mark at first glance.
As a result, people picked fights with him wherever we went.
It had been incredibly annoying.
By that logic, carelessly provoking this heavily bearded old man would probably leave someone without even enough bones to bury.
Perhaps he noticed that I was trying to read him.
For the briefest instant, a sharp glint flashed through the Dean’s eyes.
But he immediately returned to his genial smile and announced our assignment.
“Ruben Seirin and Tyr. White Class.”
Strangely, the moment our class was announced, the entire dining hall fell into silence.
Hmm?
What?
What was this?
Why was no one welcoming us?
Everyone else had received applause and cheering.
“Apparently, they don’t seem to like us.”
Just as Tyr said, the cadets of the White Class froze with distinctly uncomfortable expressions the moment they heard my name.
Were these little bastards discriminating against people?
They were already learning bad habits at such a young age.
I would have to educate them later.
“Ruben Seirin. Congratulations on your admission. People naturally become wary of those who are different from themselves. Do not concern yourself with it too much.”
Whether he understood my simmering irritation or not, the Dean chuckled and pinned a white name tag onto me.
His hand was firm when he reached out to shake mine, yet there was an inexplicable gentleness to it.
Leaving behind his strangely soothing words of consolation, Tyr and I went to the White Class table and sat down.
“Anna Camil. And her maid, Karen.”
Ah, so that young lady was next after me.
When Anna heard her name called, she clasped her hands together as though praying for a particular class.
Why was she so desperate?
All the classes were more or less the same.
“White Class.”
“Eek!”
Hmm?
Was she happy?
Anna actually leaped from her seat with a shriek.
Karen, her maid, showed no change in expression whatsoever, making the contrast between them rather remarkable.
A master and maid could really be that different.
“Waaaaaaaah!”
“Hey, did you hear?! Anna Camil is in our class!”
“We finally got a beauty too!”
“Hey! I’m a beauty too!”
“Hurray! Hurray! Long live House Camil!”
“We love you, An-na! Radiant beauty, An-na!”
These bastards.
Was this not a little too different from how they reacted to me?
What a miserable bunch.
One day, I would absolutely correct their personalities and rotten attitudes.
The male cadets of the White Class were beside themselves, shouting, clapping, and even shaking their hips in excitement.
The female cadets, by contrast, either looked indifferent or even mildly annoyed.
The difference was rather amusing.
Anna and Karen took empty seats at the White Class table and greeted us.
“Lord Ruben. It seems we ended up in the same class after all. I look forward to spending the next three years with you.”
“The pleasure is mine. You seem remarkably popular already.”
“My, is that so? I hadn’t noticed at all. Ohohoho!”
Anna was a little irritating.
For the daughter of a noble family, she had a fairly easygoing and free-spirited personality, but apparently some things were unavoidable when one was raised as a noble.
The others clearly did not share my opinion, because a large number of senior cadets soon crowded around her to introduce themselves.
Naturally, not a single senior approached me.
Why in the world were they keeping this much distance from me?
I had been fairly popular at the Magic Academy in my previous life.
“Excuse me….”
Ah.
Had someone finally come to speak to me?!
Of course.
I was the son of a count, and I had even finished first in the entrance examination.
Naturally, there had to be someone who wanted to become acquainted with me.
Normally, I might have rejected anyone who approached me in order to maintain a cool and aloof image.
But just this once, I would make a special exception and greet them kindly—
Or so I thought as I turned my head.
“You’re Tyr, right? I run the Strategy and Tactics Club at the Academy. If you have some time later, perhaps….”
“W-What?! Me?”
A female senior built like a bear was blushing as she handed Tyr a piece of paper.
Tyr’s face also turned bright red as he accepted it.
Anyone watching would think they were exchanging love letters.
Were these people deliberately mocking me?
I lowered both hands beneath the table and began forming a formula.
As a former 10th-Circle Archmage, I could construct a fire spell faster than anyone.
“Eek! My hair!”
The bear-like female cadet who had been shyly handing over the paper suddenly grabbed her bangs and fled.
She must have been startled when a sudden flame singed her hair.
“Ah! Ah….”
Tyr watched her retreating back with regret.
He would thank me someday.
Anna was overwhelmed by the welcomes pouring in from every direction.
Meanwhile, Karen, Anna’s maid, was equally occupied keeping watch over everyone approaching her master.
‘Fire…!’
At that moment, Karen’s senses detected a sudden movement of mana.
Someone had caused an elemental change.
‘A mage.’
And not an ordinary one.
Generally, magic that caused elemental changes required a considerable amount of time to stabilize the mana involved.
Even producing a tiny flame like the one from moments ago should have required at least thirty seconds.
‘I couldn’t detect the casting time.’
Yet even Karen, who was exceptionally sensitive to the movement of mana, had sensed it for only the briefest instant.
Only an extraordinarily high-level mage could cause an elemental change that quickly.
Karen immediately raised her head and surveyed her surroundings.
But no one nearby stood out in particular.
The only suspicious detail was that Ruben Seirin was wearing a strange smile.
His gaze was fixed on the back of the large female senior who was running away while clutching her hair.
‘Does he like large people?’
Come to think of it, Pan Slipel had also been enormous.
Did Ruben have some peculiar fondness for the backsides of large people?
That was Karen’s first suspicion upon seeing his strange smile.
Then she remembered that he had been called a genius of the ‘Seirin’ family.
But no matter how talented a person was, the fundamental principles of magic could not simply be broken.
For that smiling boy to have cast the spell, he would have to be an Archmage of an absurdly high level.
Still, one fact remained unchanged.
Someone had used magic near Anna.
This was unquestionably a Warrior Academy, and an extraordinarily sophisticated spell had just created fire near her master.
It might represent a threat.
Karen needed an explanation for this inexplicable event.
And so, she made a mistake.
‘I’ll know if I test him.’
Without allowing anyone to notice, she slipped a hand into her pocket and compressed her Demonic Energy into an extremely thin, needle-like point.
Then she sent it toward Ruben’s toes.
Unless someone was a truly exceptional mage, there was no chance they would notice Demonic Energy this faint.
And even if he failed to detect it, it would merely sting for a moment.
There would be no major disturbance.
FWOOSH!
The instant the Demonic Energy shot toward Ruben’s foot, it suddenly stopped in midair.
‘He caught my Demonic Energy?!’
And when Karen looked at Ruben again, he was already staring directly at her.
With terrifying eyes.
“Impossible.”
The fact that he had intercepted Demonic Energy in flight implied far too many things, but Karen had no time to consider any of them.
She felt as though she might faint when she read the word Ruben silently formed with his lips while glaring at her with that dreadful expression.
“Demon.”
The face of the normally expressionless Karen drained completely of color.
Her pupils expanded unnaturally from sheer shock, and even the black eyepatch covering her right eye trembled slightly.
That mad Anus Hunter had seen through Karen’s true identity at a glance.