Arasaka Academy was located in Corpo Plaza.
It was early morning, and the pedestrian zones around the central circular plaza were already bustling with corpo employees hurrying to work.
In such a prestigious location, ordinary companies simply did not have enough capital to establish their headquarters.
The corporations capable of opening branches in this part of the city were, almost without exception, enormous multinational companies with significant influence across the world.
Although Arasaka Academy was backed by the Arasaka Corporation itself, even it had no intention of setting aside an enormous piece of the most expensive land in Night City just for a school.
The so-called Arasaka Academy was actually located inside the Arasaka Tower complex in Corpo Plaza, and the space intended for classes occupied only one level of the complex.
In today’s era of advanced technology, the method of education had also completely changed.
Braindance and virtual systems allowed all students to enter a digital environment resembling complete virtual reality.
All a student had to do was lie down in a teaching chair, put on a BD wreath, and begin class.
As for schools that still needed basketball courts…
Educational institutions with physical facilities such as football fields had now almost become synonymous with poverty and obsolescence; a top-tier school simply did not need such useless facilities.
If a school advertised a spacious football field and swimming pool, probably half of the parents attending the presentation would immediately stand up and leave.
The newest educational systems based on braindance technology even offered students cosmetic procedures, and there were also the latest Cognitive XS implants for memory enhancement…
and much more.
Those were the kinds of services a truly elite school was supposed to provide.
Arasaka Academy, an educational institution funded by the Arasaka Corporation, naturally had extremely strict admission requirements; without serious money, attending it was practically impossible.
However, there were always exceptions.
…
“Hey, isn’t that David? Selling XBDs around school again today?”
Inside Arasaka Academy, David, who was just about to enter the classroom, was stopped by three students.
David walked with his head lowered, but he looked up and, just as he expected, saw the three people he could not stand.
The first was Katsuo Tanaka, a student with light-blue hair and a fairly neat, handsome appearance.
His father was a high-ranking Arasaka executive, which meant Katsuo had grown up with privileges unimaginable to most residents of Night City.
The other two were his followers, so insignificant that David had never even tried to remember their names.
Tsk, tsk.
A classic little antagonist who appears at the beginning of the story just to dig his own grave, along with his two useless lackeys…
How is Leon so good at judging people?
Unfortunately, I’m not the main character of his story.
Faced with Katsuo’s provocation, David simply ignored him and pushed past him with his shoulder, making a path for himself.
“Hey! Stop!”
Katsuo turned around, gritting his teeth and glaring angrily at David.
His two followers immediately took on the same expression.
Just as Katsuo intended to grab David by the shoulder, someone else’s hand landed on his shoulder first and instantly stopped him.
“Oh? What interesting thing is happening here? Tell me too. I’m bored anyway.”
A voice sounded behind him, gentle like a warm spring breeze, soft like wind passing over the calm surface of a lake.
But when he heard that voice, Katsuo felt as though an icy wind had slipped beneath his clothes.
He could not stop himself from shivering.
He turned around and saw a face illuminated by the classroom’s pale-blue light.
Leon’s face, usually calm and elegant, could easily remind a person of a clear spring hidden deep inside a green forest.
Under the classroom’s blue light, his appearance took on an almost unreal, hazy beauty that gave him a special charm.
It was an incredibly pure and natural face.
Anyone who saw it would probably first think of something fresh and untouched, far removed from the metal, neon, and chrome that had flooded today’s world.
In an era where cyberware was becoming more and more extreme, Leon looked almost like a flawless piece of white jade among steel and plastic.
His appearance immediately attracted the attention of many students in the classroom, and several girls did not even try to hide how much they liked what they saw.
Thanks to the extremely open social atmosphere of this era, even students who were still attending school were not particularly innocent or reserved.
In some schools, there was nothing unusual about teenagers ending up among street kids very early.
However, whenever Katsuo saw Leon’s face, he felt as though he were looking at the devil himself.
“Hahaha, Leon, nothing happened. We were just talking to David a little… right, David?” Katsuo quickly shouted toward David, who had already returned to his seat.
“Yeah, yeah. They didn’t do anything,” David replied in his usual impatient tone.
The pressure on Katsuo’s shoulder immediately disappeared.
Katsuo felt enormous relief, swallowed hard, and quickly returned to his chair.
His two lackeys also did not have the courage to provoke Leon, so they obediently followed their boss and returned to their seats.
“They really didn’t bully you?”
Leon no longer paid attention to the three of them.
He walked over to the spot beside David, found his chair, and lay down on it.
Speaking of which, that seat had originally belonged to another student, but with the help of money and a few appropriate connections, Leon had managed to secure himself a place directly beside David.
David’s hair was short and slightly spiky like a hedgehog’s quills.
His face still retained youthful features, but it had already begun to take on a more mature and colder expression.
His chin was slightly pointed, his face slender and calm, and he was wearing the school uniform.
It was David Martinez.
The man who would become a legend of Night City within the next year.
“Did you bring the XBD today?”
Leon leaned closer and asked quietly.
He covered his mouth with his hands so that his voice would not reach the others, looking like a ganger carrying out a secret exchange in some old movie.
David slipped a hand into his pocket, took out a packaged shard, and carefully looked around to check whether anyone was watching them.
Then he quickly slipped it into Leon’s pocket.
“Here.”
“Received. You’re good, choom!”
Leon smiled and leaned back in the chair again.
Seeing how satisfied Leon was, even David could no longer hide his excitement.
He felt that special kind of satisfaction that came from finally finding someone who shared the same interest.
As the only student in the class who did not come from a wealthy corpo family, David had understood the situation well enough even before coming to school to assume that he probably would not make a single real friend here.
If his mother had not put so much effort, money, and sacrifice into sending him to this school, he would have left that classroom long ago.
The only reason he stayed was because he did not want to disappoint her.
But completely unexpectedly, he met Leon.
A friend who did not care at all what kind of family he came from, and who even liked buying XBDs.
David could no longer contain his excitement.
His eyes lit up orange as he established a private communication with Leon.
“This XBD is another work by Jimmy Kurosaki. From his Edgerunners series. Did you see the news about that cyberpsycho? This practically just came out!”
“I know. I was just waiting for you to finally bring me the goods,” Leon replied helplessly, while his eyes also lit up orange.
This kid usually behaved rather coldly and indifferently.
But the moment XBDs were mentioned, he immediately turned into a completely different person.
At the same time, Leon’s eyes lit up blue as he carried out the money transfer.
“One thousand five hundred Eurodollars? That’s too much!”
“Consider the rest a delivery tip.”
“I’m not going to complain.”
“Fucking awesome!”
“Alright, the teacher’s here. We’re done.”
The holographic projector in the classroom activated.
A completely blue figure of the AI teacher appeared above the students and began today’s lesson in a calm voice.
“Good morning, everyone. I’m glad there are no absent students today. Let us begin class. Please activate your braindance devices and enter the Green Classroom for morning meditation.”
Eh, another boring morning session!
Leon casually activated his BD wreath.
His vision changed in an instant, and he found himself in the middle of a lush green meadow where the other students from his class also appeared.
Everyone lay down on the grass, calmed their breathing, and slowly entered a meditative state.
If there was one thing about this teaching method worth praising, it was probably the fact that they could spend the entire class lying down, without putting any strain on their spines.
Meditation is just a sophisticated name for sleeping anyway, right…?
Leon closed his eyes, adjusted himself into a comfortable position, and slowly fell asleep.