I sprinted down the winding hallways of the academy, my boots skidding against the polished stone. If I was late again, the instructor would likely have my head on a spike, and I had already used up my lifetime supply of patience for the day.
Yet, as I tore past the training courtyards, something felt distinctly off.
Crowd was staring at me with a bizarre, lingering curiosity. Even the girls, who normally wouldn’t look in my direction unless it was to spit, were whispering behind their hands, their eyes tracking my every move.
’What the hell is wrong with everyone today?’
Shaking my head to clear the thought, I finally reached the heavy oak doors of the lecture hall. But before my fingers could even graze the brass doorknob, a voice cut through the air like a snapping whip.
"Vale."
I froze, slowly turning around. Standing right behind me was a cadet who stood a good head taller than me. Every line of his body screamed absolute, unyielding discipline. He possessed a perfectly fitted, athletic build, his shoulders tapering down to a lean waist. Setting him entirely apart from the rest of the student body was his attire; instead of the standard academy robes, he wore the dark, customized uniform reserved strictly for the Student Council elite.
The uniform featured a sharp, blue-trimmed high collar that made him look less like a student and more like a soldier.
"What is it, seni—?"
Before the word could fully leave my mouth, the senior moved. His hand shot forward like a heavy iron vise, clamping down brutally on my collar. With a single, fluid surge of his broad shoulders, he yanked me completely off my feet.
Without a word of explanation, he began to stride back down the hallway, dragging me behind him across the stone floor like a discarded piece of cloth. My heels scraped helplessly against the ground. The surrounding cadets instantly scrambled toward the walls, their faces pale and terrified to get anywhere near the council officer’s path.
Before I could even blink, we reached a massive, imposing set of double doors. The senior threw me down onto my feet, and I stumbled slightly, quickly adjusting my posture. I looked up at the silver-gilded plaque on the wall that read "Student Council Executive Board"
"Why the hell did you bring me here?" I demanded, rubbing my neck as my irritation flared.
"Get inside," he commanded, his voice completely devoid of emotion as he heavy-handedly shoved the door open.
The room inside was vast, designed with towering vaulted ceilings and massive windows that were clearly meant to make anyone who entered feel utterly microscopic. Sitting behind a sprawling mahogany desk cluttered with perfectly stacked imperial registries and official documents was the President.
She sat folded in a high-backed leather chair, her razor-sharp gaze cutting through the dimly lit room to lock onto me the moment I stepped across the threshold. There wasn’t a shred of warmth in her eyes, nor a single drop of curiosity. It was the clinical, cold analysis of a absolute ruler assessing an insignificant ant.
’What the hell do these people want from me now?’ he thought, my mind racing. I couldn’t even count how many times i had been dragged into this room, but every single time, the sheer presence of that tiny little president felt deeply unsettling.
As if she had plucked the word directly from my brain, her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
"Did you just call me short in your mind again?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Instantly, the ambient mana pressure in the room spiked, a heavy, suffocating weight settling over my chest that made it hard to draw breath. The sheer authority bleeding from her words was staggering.
"Ha... haha." A quiet, careless laugh escaped my lips, and I reflexively reached up to scratch the back of my head. A faint, defiant smile lingered at the corners of my mouth. Instead of meeting her intense, strangely suffocating gaze
I purposefully turned my eyes aside, treating her stare as though it were far too radiant for a mere magicless defect to bear.The president let out a deep, exhausted sigh.
"Haa..."
She rose slowly from her leather chair, moving as gracefully as a flower turning toward the sun. There was an effortless elegance to her movements, a quiet, innate dignity that commanded the entire room. She walked over to the side wall, leaning against it casually as her gaze drifted out the tall window toward the academy grounds.
"Do you know why we called you here, Vale?" she asked quietly.
He blinked, thoroughly confused by the vague question.
"No," he replied flatly, his voice dripping with the anger that had finally reached its boiling point.
"How the hell would I know? You guys literally just dragged me here. Look, I just want to live peacefully. Why won’t any one in the academy let me sit peacefully?"
"Peacefully?" she scoffed, a bitter edge to her voice.
She snapped her head around and stepped closer, stopping directly in front of me to look up into my face. But because she was so compact, the visual was entirely absurd. I instinctively had to lower my gaze quite a bit just to meet the eyes of a senior who physically looked like a small child.
A sudden, uncontrollable urge to laugh welled up in my chest. "Pff—" i bit my inner cheek, trying desperately to hold it in.
"What?!" her voice cracked with immediate fury.
"Are you laughing right now?!"
*CRACK.*
A violent, sudden surge of mana pressure erupted from her small frame, swirling through the room like a localized hurricane. The wind whipped my hair into my eyes, and the sheer crushing force threatened to buckle my knees.
"What the hell?!" his mind screamed in genuine panic. "Is this crazy girl actually going to execute me right here?!"
Just as quickly as it had exploded, the terrifying pressure began to recede, dissolving back into the air. The president exhaled a heavy, ragged breath, trying to steady her own temper.
"A massive scandal is currently spiraling out of control through the entire academy," she said, her voice dropping to a sharp, serious whisper.
"And it is entirely about you. Don’t tell me you honestly don’t know?"
The room went entirely silent.
I blinked once. Then twice.
"Huh?!"