Three months until admission to the Academy.
Far too little time for a penniless street urchin to prepare to enter an elite educational institution said to produce ‘gifted students on entry, geniuses on graduation.’
Nevertheless, Repizen. No, Repizen's wealth made the impossible possible.
After employing every possible means, I managed to learn the knowledge, magic, and swordsmanship required by the Academy to a passable level.
And by now.......
“Just when I thought I could catch my breath.”
Ahead of admission, I received a summons from the headmaster.
Apparently, he wanted to speak with me alone.
I wanted to ignore it, but considering I'd spend up to six years at the Academy, getting on the headmaster's bad side was certainly not something to take lightly.
“Excuse me.”
I took a breath, then opened the door to the headmaster's office.
Besides me, two other children my age had already arrived in the headmaster's office.
“There are as many as three reincarnators this year. As the Headmaster, I could not be more pleased.”
The white-bearded headmaster rubbed his hands together with a broad smile.
To me, he looked as if he were savoring the anticipation of a lavish meal laid out before him.
It seemed the other two summoned here were reincarnators like me.
Repizen had told me that reincarnators were not all that rare, but were not three in a single year too many?
“Kyle Sanders, Lucia Hayes, Lawrence Reed. I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you have chosen this Beaumont Academy.”
The headmaster's greasy gaze passed over each of us reincarnators, including me.
Kyle Sanders and Lucia Hayes. Only now did I learn the names of the people beside me.
And lastly, my name.
Lawrence Reed.
It was a name Repizen had arbitrarily given me, and I still had not gotten used to it.
“Introduce yourselves. You are fellow reincarnators, are you not?”
At the headmaster's words, the three of us awkwardly bowed to one another.
Thinking that I'd be entangled with these bastards countless times while attending the Academy already tired me out.
“Whenever you leave your mark on history after graduation, the name of Beaumont Academy will be spoken alongside yours. I can already picture that radiant sight before my eyes.”
The headmaster, however, seemed to feel differently.
His face looked as though he could barely contain himself at the prospect of having as many as three reincarnators.
“I am honored to be admitted to the renowned Beaumont Academy. I will do my utmost to become the new face of Beaumont Academy.”
“Although I have received the good fortune of reincarnation, I am still no more than a tiny seed compared to my seniors. Only with the guidance of Beaumont Academy's teachers and upperclassmen will I be able to sprout.”
The two reincarnators beside me responded to the headmaster's words with hollow flattery.
“Ha ha. Fifteen years have passed since I became the Headmaster of this Academy. Quite a few reincarnators have passed through it, but I believe this is the first time I have encountered entrants as thoroughly prepared as you three.”
The headmaster laughed heartily at the two reincarnators' smooth oiling.
“You are more than worthy of being called the finest Headmaster in Beaumont's thousand-year history.”
“It is because you are the Headmaster that I chose Beaumont Academy. I am deeply moved to have an opportunity to meet and speak with you in person.”
The reincarnators smiled as well.
“......”
I alone could not join that atmosphere.
The reincarnators beside me, trading praise back and forth with the headmaster, were somewhat creepy.
They looked like ten-year-old children, but the things they said were nothing like a child's words.
Since I had been like that too, it was no wonder Repizen had seen through me in an instant.
Once you considered the possibility that someone was a reincarnator, it was almost stranger not to recognize them.
“Ahem. I am having such a pleasant time speaking with you that I have lost track of time. But we cannot keep chatting indefinitely, so we must end it here.”
“Indeed. It is nearly time for a meal.”
“It would be shameless to take any more of the busy Headmaster's time.”
The three people who had been warmly praising one another for some time brought their conversation to a dignified close.
“Lastly....... I would like to confirm the ‘Privileges’ each of you received.”
At last, the headmaster brought up the main subject.
Here, it was taken for granted that every reincarnator had a ‘Privilege’ like mine.
What determined a reincarnator's worth was not their memories of a previous life, but the Privilege they had received.
“Ahem....... It is not anything grand enough to brag about.......”
Kyle feigned humility, but it was clear he wanted to boast.
“If the Headmaster wishes.......”
Lucia seemed more than willing to show her Privilege.
“I have received the Blessing of the Sword.”
Kyle swiftly drew his sword.
It was as if he could not bear to watch Lucia boast about her Privilege first.
The sword Kyle drew was enveloped in a bluish light.
Was it called ‘sword aura’?
An art that ordinarily required at least ten years of training in nothing but swordsmanship to achieve.
It was not an ability a mere ten-year-old child could display so casually, as if pulling a coin from his pocket.
“To use sword aura at that age already. You are a talent suited to the Department of Martial Arts.”
The headmaster was not surprised in the least. He merely nodded.
The Blessing of the Sword was a common Privilege among reincarnators.
From what I had learned while preparing for admission, an unusual number of reincarnators had come from worlds ruled by the sword.
If he had been an ordinary student, Kyle would have been praised as a talent who appeared only once every few hundred years. Among reincarnators, however, he was utterly average.
“I received the Blessing of Magic.”
Lucia then took a slender wand from her robes and waved it through the air.
Flames unwound from its tip, thin as threads.
“What delicate magic! Excellent. I will assign you to the Department of Magic.”
The headmaster's reaction was far better than when he saw Kyle's Privilege.
The Blessing of Magic was as commonly granted as the Blessing of the Sword, but it was more valuable because magic could be useful in many ways, unlike swordsmanship, which was useful only for fighting.
Kyle's face as he looked at Lucia, a future great mage, was a sight to behold.
Before long, it was my turn.
“And you.......”
The headmaster looked at me. The other two reincarnators did the same.
There was unspoken pressure to show what I had as quickly as possible.
“Phew. Do not rush me so.”
I let out a small sigh and took coins from my pocket. I had money deposited in advance, but to make them properly understand my Privilege, I had to show them the payment first.
With the intent to use the Shop, I blinked.
The Shop window, which had become quite familiar by now, appeared.
Clink. Clink.
The Shop greedily swallowed the coins.
“Hmm?”
“Money is disappearing into thin air......?”
The window floating before my eyes was visible only to me.
To everyone else, it would look as though I were making coins vanish into thin air.
Enough money had gone in, so should I select a product?
DING!
With a cheerful notification chime, a product popped out over my hand.
“Oh......?”
“Hm......?”
The reincarnators wore ambiguous expressions at the item I had created.
“What is that?”
“It is bread.”
Maybe my breakfast had been skimpy. I was a little hungry.
Rather than buy something useless just to boast about my Privilege, I thought I should buy something I needed right away.
“What kind of.......?”
“It is just bread.”
To prove my words, I bit into the piping-hot bread I had just bought.
Bread that was neither particularly delicious nor particularly bad.
“I do not quite understand. Is the Privilege you received as a reincarnator ‘just bread’?”
The headmaster asked with a stiff expression.
“No.”
I shook my head.
I had shown him using it right before his eyes, and he still needed further explanation.
How did someone this slow become the headmaster?
“The Privilege I received is the Shop.”
It was a little embarrassing, but I had no choice but to say it myself.
“With a shop, you pay money and buy things? That is your Privilege?”
The headmaster still looked unconvinced.
“Yes.”
I nodded.
“There must be many kinds of shops. Is it a shop where you can buy expensive goods cheaply?”
“No. It seems to reference the prices at the nearest shop, so the prices are ordinary.”
“Then does it sell special goods that cannot be obtained elsewhere?”
“As I said before, it follows other shops' prices, so I can buy things only if other shops sell them.”
“Then the goods it sells are ordinary as well?”
“I suppose so.”
Unlike when he heard the other reincarnators' Privileges, the headmaster questioned me closely.
It seemed that even for a headmaster with considerable experience, my Privilege was something he had never seen before.
“A plain shop that sells plain goods at plain prices is your Privilege of reincarnation?”
At last, the headmaster summarized my Privilege in a single sentence.
He repeated the word plain so often that he looked as though he had dementia.
“It is not plain. As long as I pay, I can have an item in my hands immediately.”
There were no shipping costs, and no shipping time.
It was a revolutionary ability that disregarded the fundamental principles of logistics.
“Is that really a Privilege?”
Kyle openly sneered.
He seemed quite happy to have found someone who appeared inferior to him.
“What are you talking about when you only got a common Blessing of the Sword?”
It was more amusing than infuriating.
It was only natural that the rarer something was, the more expensive it became.
The fact that many reincarnators had received the Blessing of the Sword meant it was comparatively low in value even among reincarnators.
Irreplaceable abilities were bound to receive better treatment.
“How dare you insult a Privilege bestowed by the Goddess of the Sword?!”
Kyle's face twisted in anger.
The accepted theory was that a Privilege was a gift bestowed by the god of the world in which one had lived before reincarnating. It was only natural to think of Privileges and gods as connected.
He was more devout than he looked.
Before reincarnating, I had doubted the very existence of gods, and after being reincarnated as a beggar, I had plenty of complaints about them. I couldn't sympathize much.
“It's true, isn't it? My Shop's much better than a blessing that just lets you handle a sword a little better.”
In any case, this bastard was the one who first spoke disparagingly of someone else's Privilege.
The way he got angry over insults and whatever else, despite that, was truly petty.
“True?”
Kyle snorted and growled.
“You seem to be the only one who doesn't know which Privilege is better?”
At Kyle's words, I turned to the headmaster and Lucia.
Their reactions differed from what I had expected.
The headmaster looked deeply troubled over how to answer, while Lucia seemed to pity me.
Apparently, they thought much the same as that ignorant swordsman.
“You all have such poor judgment.”
A sigh escaped me.
It was regrettable that they could not see its endless potential.
“What could you do with that amazing Privilege?”
Kyle sneered.
He had to be at least thirty years old, yet the way he acted was no different from a little brat.
I couldn't tell whether he had always been stupid or had become careless of everything else after having his religious convictions provoked.
“Anything.”
If I had sufficient money and an environment where I could buy anything, there was almost nothing I couldn't do.
No one who lived on modern Earth could deny that.
“Then you could fight me and win?”
Kyle laughed as if he had choked and provoked me.
It seemed he wanted to challenge me in the field where he was most confident, like the petty bastard he was.......
“Why are you trying to make yourself look like such an idiot?”
Of course, I didn't have anything to be afraid of.
The preparations for admission had included figuring out how to make use of my Privilege.
And the conclusion I reached was that, depending on how I used it, this Privilege could help with almost anything.
Naturally, that included combat.
Kyle looked as though he would draw his sword and swing it at me that instant.
“Ahem. Both of you, calm down.”
The headmaster intervened belatedly.
“There is no need to fight here. I will give you an opportunity to spar during the entrance examination.”
At the headmaster's next words, I couldn't believe my ears.
Reincarnators had their admission guaranteed.
Even so, the reason reincarnators took the entrance examination was to show the other students how special they were.
In other words, it was an event meant to make reincarnators look good.
Yet what could he possibly be thinking by proposing that reincarnators fight one another at such an event?
The loser might want to refuse admission out of shame alone.
“Yes. That is a good idea.”
Kyle growled as he glared at me.
What? He's agreeing to this?
Kyle's stupidity was beyond anything I had imagined. He truly seemed to believe, quite simply, that he would win.
The glory would be his, and the shame would be his opponent's.
His arrogance knew no bounds.
“Wow, I really can't wait.”
I clapped lightly without any feeling.
An ignorant fool only learned after experiencing it firsthand.