Shin Morino.
Every wall, every hallway, every loudmouth in this goddamn academy knew his name. Top ranks. High scores. Golden boy. Broke records for breakfast and still had time to flex on the dueling mats. One hand tied behind his back, they said. Maybe exaggerated, but who cares, from their words it might as well be true. Rumor had it he once caught an instructor's spell with his bare hands.
People called it talent. Others called it divine favor.
Then the stories hit. The heroic crap everyone couldn't shut up about. How he stopped a mana surge that could've vaporized half the campus. How he took down a berserk spirit-user to save three first-years. How he stared down a professor and walked away without so much as a scratch.
Typical protagonist shit.
And the "harem."
"Hey, what was the name again? Ami and Cella, right?" I asked, glancing down. I shifted my weight carefully. One foot stayed planted on the cold rung while the other searched for the next one. My hands tightened, the metal biting into my palms. The ladder creaked softly, not threatening, but not reassuring either.
"Yeah. Ami and Cella Belmont." Lars answered, his gaze fixed downward, refusing to look anywhere but down. "Seriously, couldn't you shake your shoes before climbing? Stuff's falling on me."
"You insisted I climb first," I shot back, chortling. "Imagine if I stepped on shit."
"Did you?" Lars asked, his voice edged with horror.
The way he said it made me pause. "…No idea."
Lars grumbled, "Can you move already? You're taking forever, a snail would probably be faster than you."
"Take a breather, enjoy the view of my ass from down there. I'm moving as fast as I can, thank you very much." Inside, though... a completely different story, my heart was pounding against my chest, and every nerve in my body were like laughing.
Depending on the gossip, Shin was either a hopeless romantic or a nightmare for every guy.
Ami, the childhood friend. Some said she was the first heroine. Makes sense. She's been around forever. Always clinging to him, clingy as hell. A loyalty that borders on parasitic. Always there. Always hovering. Always waiting for him to blink. She's what I call a freebie in the game.
Then there's the quiet one with red hair. Nobody knows much, just that she's always in his shadow, quiet, introverted. Most distinguishing part of her was the red hair. That would probably Rosalyn Aurelion, the phoenix girl, which will be one of the key characters later on.
Cella Belmont, the cousin of Claude Belmont, a pretty, refined woman, also too noble for her own good.
And Adelle Fabien? Simply, whispers. Perhaps?
And that's when it hit me—none of it lined up. Chronology, logic, whatever you want to call it. The childhood friend? Sure, she's there. But the rest? Off. The first heroine should've been Adelle, not some quiet redhead. She was meant to be introduced later on. And the berserk one from the rumors, an event that was supposed to come later.
Everything was out of order.
Write it off as a rumor? Maybe. Or perhaps the whole story was twisted by someone who liked making shit up. It didn't make sense. None of it did.
I grabbed the cold metal hatch. It didn't budge at first. So I pushed again, a little harder this time, and it finally gave in. Light leaked through the cracks, catching the dust motes in the air. I shut my eyes when the light hit me, too bright. It stabbed through my lids before I could turn my head away.
With one hand stayed hooked over the rim, the other tight around the rung below. I pushed up, slowly.
Air rushed up past my face, carrying a scent of stone and dust. I paused for a moment, half-crouched, letting myself adjust to the beautiful scenery before me. The sky stretched overhead, clouds drifting past. I straightened slowly, foot settling against the solid ground.
I took a few slow paces forward. The surface was uneven in places, cracks spidering through the stone where weeds claimed a small area. I let my gaze travel, mapping out everything. From up here, I could practically see the entirety of the campus.
I glanced at Lars. He was sitting along the roof's edge, eyes glued to Shin Morino and his little entourage down below, then said, "There they are, like I told you. You can see everything here. Quite a neat spot, huh."
"It really does." I replied.
We shouldn't have even been up here. This section of the academy? Off-limits. For obvious reasons. But Lars? He'd found a way. A narrow passage behind a room stack of busted training dummies, hidden in plain sight. Lars pulled a loose panel aside and grinned like a lunatic. 'Shortcut.'
Without question, navigating through those vents was the worst experience of my life. Hands down. Tight. Hot. Suffocating. Dust everywhere, clung to my face, clawed at my throat, even in my thoughts. I hated every second of it, every second was agony. Not even the worst part. I flinched every time it creaked. I swear, it felt like the whole thing could fall apart at any second.
Strangely enough, there was a spark of excitement too, as if we'd just broken into some top-secret military base.
Lars? Just cruising by. And now we were here, staring down at the academy's strongest. Don't ask me how he knew the way.
But I've got a guess.
Pervert would probably top of the list. No contest.
Still, had to hand it to him. The view was perfect. From here, we could see the whole courtyard, the stretch of campus, and even my dorm in the distance.
Back to the main topic, should I write off the rumors? Maybe. But from where I'm standing, they looked pretty damn real. It was just Shin and the rumored three.
"Beautiful," Lars said.
I shot him a look. That dazed, idiot grin of his. I sighed. "Way out of your league, right? Waaay, way out."
"Huh?" Lars blinked, genuinely baffled.
"Don't 'huh' me," I followed his gaze down to the courtyard.
The girls circled Shin.
Ami's bright smile would capture anyone's heart. At the same time, you could almost see her murdering someone, while still wearing that too bright of a smile of hers. Cella leaned on the railing, calm, untouchable, her smile hovering somewhere between genuine happiness and quiet annoyance.
Then there was Rosalyn. Just existing. And her hair—God, her hair. It writhed and flickered on its own, curling and twisting, moving with a life. That was it. Only the hair. And somehow, that was more than enough. Looked cool though.
Below, threads of color wound between them, bright and alive. Every swing, every block, every strike forced the mana into the air, twisting it, snapping it, feeding off their motion. The air got heavy fast. You could feel it crawl under your skin, vibrating through your teeth.
The mana didn't just move. It reacted. It felt. It pressed in from every direction.
Shin stood in the middle of it all. Just there. Yet, it responded to every movement, every breath, every heartbeat.
I glanced at the stone between my fingers. This was a stone of luxury. Let's say, if I, a normal person with mana, tried, I'd probably extract like ten, maybe twenty percent of it. Not like I didn't try. I tried. Feeling it. Willing it. Nothing. In my hands, this was just a piece of rock.
"In theory, the denser the mana, the more it becomes visible to the naked eye—even for us," Lars started blabbering, raising his hand, shaping the air, fingers closing slowly until his palm met. "The more concentrated it is, the more it compresses. Light. Pressure. Everything."
"It reacts, adapts. It responds to emotions. But you can't ever pin it down." Lars said, leaning closer to the ledge.
Lars raised a hand, fingers moving through the air, tracing shapes only he understood. "That's why someday, I'll find a way to see it for myself. Maybe the truth sits between the gaps. How something so abstract can still obey rules."
"My father always says. Everything has a pattern—cells, sound, thought. Mana too. But it's like… the closer you look, the less sense it makes. Perhaps, if you look close enough at mana, maybe it stops being magic." Lars smiled faintly, still watching.
"Maybe it stops being anything," I added.
"That's the fun part, ain't it?" Lars smirked. "If you can take mana apart, you can rebuild it. Shape it. Make it yours. Endless possibilities."
Below, the courtyard Shin's white aura flares bright enough to paint the walls gold.
Lars's fingers tightened on the railing. "I swear," He muttered, "one day I'll figure it out. I'll find the pattern that ties it all together."
"Sorry about that." Lars smiled, scratching his cheek with a sheepish smile. "My bad for unloading all that. Can't help myself,"
"Whenever I'm here, I can't help myself but dump all the crap rattling inside my head." He added with a chuckle.
I gave a thumbs up in response. My attention was already elsewhere. The stone that sat in my palm, I twisted it over and over, trying to make it react.
Nothing.
Not a flicker.
Not even the faintest hint.
I frowned, pressing it harder between my fingers.
Maybe I was doing it wrong.
I glanced to the side. Lars was gone. Huh? Where the fuck? The hatch clanged shut, echoing across the roof before the sound thinned out into silence.
Then a voice cut through the silence, "Having trouble?"
It wasn't a question. It was a command wearing the shape of one.
I turned. An elven girl stood at the edge of the roof, arms crossed.
I froze. Wind slapped my face, but it didn't matter. She was all I could see. Lips red, soft yet commanding. Long hair, a swirl of teal and gold, braided perfectly, crowned by a circlet with a crystal glinting at the center. Silver eyes tinged with blue. Then pointed ears, sharp yet delicate, an elf's signature characteristic. White coat buttoned all the way, quite stiff and angular at the shoulders, but lined perfectly. Paired with a black shirt underneath. Contrary to Adelle Fabien's outfit. Crimson tie with a streak of gold. Midnight-blue leggings, which gave quite an impression. And, a subtle but impossible to ignore, silver-and-gold emblem over her chest, an emblem reserved for royalty.
And I knew her. Lily Blanch. The princess of Aelinor Kingdom. My brother's favorite—or, in his words, waifu. One of the strongest heroines. Probably the last person I would love to see in this world.
Then I veered my attention away. The motherfucker left me.
"Well," Lily said, stepping closer. "That explains why the stone isn't doing anything for you."
I straightened, trying to mask the panic rising in my chest, "Oh. You… you know about this?" This is bad. Why her out of everyone?
"Hm." Lily pursed her lips together, "Are you practicing here?"
"Eh. Uhm. Yes," I muttered, voice small. I need to be careful.
Lily crossed her arms with her stare slicing through me. "You're trying too hard. Mana stones don't respond to force—they respond to balance. You're… completely out of tune."
One wrong move and I'm a goner. Bye, bye world.
She stepped closer. Too close for my liking. "Sometimes the fastest way to learn… is through experience."
"Fret not," Lily said, indifferently, "If the stone likes you, it'll save you."
"Guh—?!" Her heel slammed into my solar plexus. The air ripped out of me. Pain flared, and before I could even curse out, gravity dragged me backward. The world spun as the edge of the rooftop vanished. The wind roared through my ears. My stomach flipped inside out. My hands scrabbling at nothing. It was useless.
In a fleeting moment, she appeared above, leaning over the ledge. Her hair rippled in the breeze, and that familiar, unreadable calm spread across her face as she looked down at me. The princess didn't care about rules or opinions. She paved her own path. She did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, moving in her own terms, no one else's. That alone was the reason why she's the last person I wanted to meet.
How dangerous? Piss her off, and you were done. Nothing could change her mind. That's why most people kept their distance. Just being near her felt like walking on eggshells.
But even then, she was reasonable.
So…
Why—?!
Did I do something?!