A woman with flame-red hair and brilliant golden eyes.
Her pointed, elf-like ears and the two short horns protruding from her head made it clear that she was not human.
The Red Duke, Ash Bell Drayg.
People said this:
If one were to debate who was the strongest swordsman on the continent, countless candidates would be named.
But if one were to debate who was the strongest in magic, everyone would choose this person without hesitation.
The headmistress of Lumea Academy, and one of the five dukes who supported the Empire.
In a world where dragons had become the subject of cheap jokes, she was the only half-dragon left in the world—and the last dragon.
【Ash Bell Drayg】
◈ Level: 90
A monster who had reached the realm of level 90, three levels higher than the head of the Logres family.
That was the person who had stepped onto the stage.
Even if every student here rushed her at once, she could reduce them all to ashes with a single gesture.
"That is Ash Bell Drayg, one of the five dukes…"
"She is truly underrated. It seems even the rumors could not fully capture her beauty."
The students here did not seem to know that.
True to a typical romance-fantasy cliché, they were only eager to appraise the headmistress’s appearance.
They were babbling on about her looks, but I knew what she really was.
She looked about twenty, and she was an astonishing beauty.
But in truth, she was an old hen.
As someone with the blood of a long-lived race, she was over five hundred years old.
It had been roughly five hundred years since Astoria rose to rule as an empire, so it would not be an exaggeration to call her a living witness to Imperial history.
In any case, as she took the stage, waves of mana spread out around her.
Then, just as she swept her gaze over the crowd—
Huh?
Her passing gaze stopped on me for a split second.
It was only for an instant, but I definitely felt it.
Did we just make eye contact…?
It must have been my imagination.
Anyway, after looking us over once, the old hen—no, the headmistress—let out a breath and began her speech.
She did not seem to be shouting, yet her voice sounded as vivid as though she were speaking right beside me.
There was no microphone, but her voice reached even the distant seats. She must have used some sort of magic.
"From this moment onward, you will stand as students, in a place of equal opportunity and strict evaluation. Your family, your origins, and your past hold no meaning here at Lumea."
A subtle stir rippled through the students at those words.
Displeasure crossed the noble students’ faces, while faint anticipation appeared on the commoner students’ faces.
Of course it did.
The headmistress of the academy had declared it herself.
At the academy, everything was equal regardless of one’s status outside.
It was an academy principle created to give nobles competition for growth, and commoners hope for a starting point.
But as I said before, those were merely formal words.
The moment you actually believed that and spoke casually to a noble, you would be completely screwed.
You attended the academy for four years.
Even if they could not do anything within those four years, the moment those four years ended, you would no longer have the academy’s protection.
And after graduating, you would have to work somewhere in the Empire. If you made enemies of Imperial nobles, well…
If you wanted to spend your life as an academy resident, I would not stop you.
The headmistress’s tedious speech showed no signs of ending.
At least there had been a skip function in the game. There was nothing like that here, and I was bored out of my mind.
"Dolnesia."
"What is it, Ian?"
So I decided to chat with Dolnesia.
There was no particular reason to listen to the headmistress’s speech anyway.
It was just a sleeping pill meant to put people to sleep.
Rather than waste time making her listen to that, it would be better to tell Dolnesia about hidden pieces and gimmicks that could make her stronger.
Dolnesia and I were in different departments, so unless we overlapped in some general education class, I would not be around her.
Of course, she was stronger than me right now, but there were still hidden pieces in the magic department route that could make her stronger yet.
It would have been nice to tell Isabella too, but Dolnesia had been growling at her, so Isabella was sitting a little apart from us. A shame, really.
#
The top student’s oath, delivered as the freshman representative, concluded, and the academy entrance ceremony came to an end.
As expected, the top freshman who had gone up onstage was Angelica.
There was no one but her who could have pushed Dolnesia into second place and claimed first.
Still, that had to sting a little.
The top incoming student at the Empire’s academy was not from the Empire, but from the Karl Kingdom of all places.
The Karl Kingdom and the Astoria Empire were rivals constantly locked in a WWE-style showdown.
The Emperor’s insides must have been burning.
The title of top student had been stolen not by just anyone, but by the Karl Kingdom.
The Karl Kingdom was probably celebrating right about now.
Even better. Screw the Imperial Family.
If they had made others weep tears of blood, then they ought to shed some bloody tears themselves.
"This concludes the entrance ceremony. Please proceed to the classrooms designated for the departments you applied to."
With the headmistress’s words, the lights of the auditorium came back on.
Amid a murmur of voices, the students began to disperse like the ebbing tide.
"This is where we part ways, Ian."
"I suppose so. Make sure you remember what I told you."
The hidden pieces I had told Dolnesia about.
If she acquired all of them, Dolnesia would grow stronger than she was now.
With four more protagonists around, it would not be a major problem even if Dolnesia did not grow stronger.
But the stronger even one of them became, the easier things would be for me.
Her growing stronger was a blessing to me.
So she needed to grow big and strong…!
"Honestly, you are so oblivious…"
"What did you say?"
"I said it is nothing, honestly…"
With that incomprehensible remark, Dolnesia sighed, bowed her head to me, and disappeared into the crowd.
Was my first class at nine in the morning? I signed up for it myself, but this is seriously fucked up.
I watched her retreating back.
Then I was about to head toward the classroom that held class at the goddamn hour of nine in the morning, but…
Wait.
Something occurred to me, and I stopped walking.
I briefly glanced in the direction Dolnesia had vanished.
With me, her bodyguard, gone, young men and ladies had begun gathering around Dolnesia, trying to strike up a conversation with her.
Had I ever told Dolnesia anything about hidden pieces…?
When I told her about those hidden pieces, Dolnesia had nodded as though she understood.
But she had nodded too readily.
You would think she would ask how I knew that, but she had not.
It was as if she were simply certain I would know.
She had nodded as though it were only natural.
So I thought maybe she was only half-listening and checked once with [Insight Eye]. It said she was in agreement, so I let it go…
Surely not…?
No. That could not be it.
When we first met after I returned from Dreamland, she had treated me as nothing more than Ian de Logres.
I had thought that she kept getting angry at Isabella because her family was in trouble and she had stepped in out of anger.
Besides, if she had realized that I was the person she met in Dreamland, would she really have stepped in while getting that angry?
She would have simply treated me like I was invisible.
Or she would have gotten angry at me.
She must resent me.
After all, I had disappeared alone, leaving her behind without keeping my promise.
The reason Dolnesia treated the current me like family was probably not because of me, but because she had gotten along well with Ian before I possessed his body.
It could not be.
Thinking that, I shook my head.
"Sir Ian?"
I turned at the familiar, refreshing voice and saw not a large loaf of bread, but blond hair.
The identity of the capybara approaching me with sparkling eyes was Iris.
"Ah, Lady Iris."
"What are you doing standing there?"
"I had something to think about for a moment."
As expected of a capybara.
My face must look extremely fierce right now, judging by the pattern.
To think she would approach despite ignoring my [Heavenly Demon’s Dominating Step].
But where was her best friend?
"Where did Lady Haede go?"
"Haede had something to do, so she left first."
I see.
"By any chance, do you have a nine o’clock class too, Sir Ian?"
"Yes. I believe it was ‘Fundamentals and Understanding of Swordsmanship’…"
"Oh my, I am taking that class too! That is wonderful."
Iris clapped her hands in delight.
What should I call her? A retriever, maybe…
That was what her appearance reminded me of, and I nearly laughed without meaning to.
"Then we should get going now…"
"Then would you like to go with me?"
Keeping those characteristically harmless-looking eyes, she invited me.
……?
Something was strange.
"Do you not have anyone to go with?"
"The same goes for you, Sir Ian!"
"No, that is not what I meant."
Why was she saying that to me?
With Iris’s sociability, she should have charmed at least a few male leads at the banquet.
Angelica and Isabella had been tied up with the Second Prince.
Dolnesia had not charmed anyone.
Which meant that banquet had basically been arranged for Iris.
"Did Prince Charles, perhaps, or Asdel from the Holy Kingdom not invite you to go with them?"
"Oh my, how did you know that?"
Not ‘oh my.’
Why had she not gone with those guys?
"Then why did you not go with them…"
"Well…"
What Iris said next was this:
Charles, the First Prince of the Karl Kingdom; Asdel of the Holy Kingdom; and Ars, the third prince of the Mage Tower Kingdom of Getia, had all invited Iris to go with them.
But since they all wanted to go with her, the atmosphere became so heated that it seemed like a fight would break out the moment anyone provoked the others. So Iris had said she would simply go by herself.
Of course, Ars had been turned away since he was in the magic department.
In the game, she would only have had to pick one person from the choices. But since this was reality, Iris’s personality apparently made it difficult for her to choose just one.
The one making the choice was not a player in front of a monitor, but Iris herself.
Could they not have just gone together…?
Ah, they had been growling at each other so much that there was no atmosphere in which she could even suggest it?
This was seriously ridiculous.
No wonder.
"That is her, right? The one who rejected invitations from First Prince Charles and Asdel of the Holy Kingdom?"
"Oh my, she must be such a country bumpkin that she knows absolutely nothing about etiquette."
"She simply lacks the refinement to realize what an insult she has committed."
"What a lamentable world, where even that sort of rudeness is wrapped up as innocence."
So that was why the ladies’ chattering had suddenly increased.
It felt like watching the toxic fandom of an idol group I had seen in my previous life.
At the ladies’ sharp slander, Iris’s shoulders seemed to visibly shrink for just a moment.
If she had awakened as a saint, it would be one thing, but right now she was merely the daughter of a country baron.
She was the perfect target for the other ladies to tear apart.
But those crazy bastards should at least have defended her.
This mess happened because of them, and they just left her behind?
How could their cleanup be more of a clusterfuck than that delinquent Second Prince’s?
At least that guy covered for Isabella and redirected the arrows aimed at her.
"It is all right…. I will just go alone."
"No, let us go together."
"Will that be all right? I do not want you to suffer because of me…"
My reputation could not fall any further anyway.
"It is fine. My reputation cannot get any worse anyway. And what can they do? If they gossip, they ought to worry about their own necks first."
Even if the family head had stepped away from politics and I was an illegitimate son, a grand ducal family was not something to be fucked with.
Unless they were from another grand ducal family or the Imperial Family, they should be crawling on their own.
Tell them to fuck off.
#
When we opened the double doors, we found an enormously spacious classroom.
Was this what one should expect from the continent’s largest academy?
The classroom, true to its reputation, was enormous.
Naturally, there were an enormous number of people inside too.
And I spotted the idiots who had taken a dump on Iris and run away.
"Ah, Iris! Over here! I saved you a seat!"
Among the students, one young lady waved her hand.
A woman with the typical look of a romance-fantasy heroine, whose emerald-green eyes made a deep impression.
It was Haede, Iris’s friend.
To think the thing she had left early to do was save seats.
When she saw me beside Iris, she looked surprised. In response to her expression, I waved back.
As Iris and I approached her, she dipped her head in greeting.
"Ah, Sir Ian, you are here too?"
"Yes, I have this class as well."
After returning her greeting, I looked around to see whether there were other seats available.
I intended to bring Iris to Haede, then sit somewhere a little farther away.
"Then I will…"
"Excuse me…"
"You. What exactly do you think you are doing?"
"Hm?"
Just then, some strange bastard suddenly stepped in front of me.
Then he even demanded to know what I was doing.
Appearing out of nowhere and immediately picking a fight was enough to earn him a broken back, but I was an intellectual of the twenty-first century, so I would grant him a brief reprieve.
Go ahead. Spit it out.
"What is it?"
"I am asking why you are threatening her."
Her?
Was he talking about Iris?
He had finally appeared, fuck.
A guy so sick with knight syndrome that he charged in without knowing right from wrong.
His face looked somewhat familiar, so he was surely some kind of secondary male lead.
But this bastard was making shit up.
"Why would I threaten her?"
What a joke.
My only crime was stopping the mess the protagonists had left for Iris.
I understood that he was full of hot blood and wanted to look good in front of a woman.
But he should not start shit with me.
Seriously, what the fuck.
If he wanted to play knight, he could find somewhere else to do it.
Acting as though he was not worth dealing with, I simply ignored him and headed for an empty seat in front of me.
But then—
"I have not finished speaking yet."
The bastard put a hand on my shoulder.
Ah, fuck.
Even a watermelon wants its turn to be cut.
There is a saying that if you endure three times, you avoid murder.
Put another way, it means that once you have endured three times, you are allowed to commit murder.
I thought I had endured enough.
I endured it when the Imperial Family published a cheap, attention-seeking rag.
I endured it when the ladies whispered their fucking gossip.
And I even endured this bastard suddenly blocking my way and interrogating me.
At this point, even Buddha would applaud me and tell me I had done well.
"Now some nobody with no pedigree is getting on my nerves."
"What?"
"Hey. What family are you from?"
Because I had tolerated them, did these bastards seriously think I was a pushover?
That is three, you son of a bitch.
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