The Empire sent me to the Royal Military Academy on a garbage scow that was falling apart, a reminder not to forget where I came from.
I didn't care.
When that temple, floating amidst a magnificent nebula, appeared outside the porthole, the only thing I smelled was a stench of hypocrisy more nauseating than engine oil.
It wasn't a school at all.
It was a temple—a temple forged from alloys that emitted a soft white glow, floating in space. Countless spires soared into the clouds, pointing toward the depths of the stars, their tips shimmering with the Imperial crest.
The beat-up transport ship I was on was like a fly that had accidentally landed on velvet: a lowly eyesore.
Guided by an invisible gravitational pull, the ship landed at a nondescript cargo port on the edge of a massive circular plaza.
The hatch hissed open, and a rush of air—a mix of disinfectant and the smell of fake flowers—flooded in, choking me and making me scowl. The scent was sickeningly clean, just like the hypocritical face of the Emperor's envoy.
A port worker in a gray uniform glanced at me like I was trash and waved his hand impatiently. "Special recruit, right? Head out that way and find the gate yourself." His voice was thick with undisguised disgust.
Ignoring him, I slung my canvas bag—stuffed with various wrenches and tools—over my shoulder and jumped off the ship.
The bag was heavy, and the tools inside clattered together. In this port, where the only sound was the faint hum of the ventilation, the noise was as jarring as a stone shattering glass.
I hadn't changed into the uniform they provided.
I still wore my scavenger's overalls, stained with grease and sweat, the cuffs still caked with the distinctive red dust of Planet 7. This was my battle armor, my manifesto. I wanted them to see clearly that I was the one who had crawled out of the mud they so despised.
I activated my datapad, and the glaring special admission notice lit up the screen, its golden Imperial crest shimmering.
I walked toward the so-called school gate, one step at a time.
The further I went, the more people there were.
They were all dressed in spotless, pure white uniforms, gathered in small groups with elegant, aloof smiles. The boys were handsome and tall, the girls beautiful and noble; they were like perfect dolls from an assembly line—exquisite, fake, and fragile.
They were the future of the Empire. The children of the nobility, born with everything.
And I was a cockroach, crawling into their perfect world.As I walked through them, shouldering my tattered canvas bag and covered in grease, the world fell silent.
All the chatter and laughter ceased abruptly.
Countless stares focused on me like searchlights.
Curiosity.
Contempt.
Disgust.
And a well-hidden trace of... fear.
"Look, that's her!" a girl's voice shrieked, sharp as nails scraping across glass.
"My god, she actually showed up dressed like that? She reeks of engine oil... how revolting," another voice chimed in, dripping with revulsion.
"I heard she's the one who used a wrench to smash Prince Leon's cockpit..."
"Shut up! Don't mention that!" a male voice snapped, tinged with humiliated rage.
The whispers buzzed in my ears like mosquitoes. I could feel their eyes stabbing me like needles, trying to pierce me through from the inside out. If looks could kill, I would have died hundreds of times by now.
I wanted to ignore these flies, but their buzzing grew louder and more insolent.
So, I stopped.
I slowly turned my head, my cold gaze sweeping across the crowd before finally landing on the blonde boy who had been laughing the loudest. His smile froze on his face—the kind of arrogance born of a pampered life that had never encountered a real threat.
I walked toward him.
Step by step.
The crowd parted for me like butter under a hot knife. My boots thudded against the pristine white tiles, each step sounding like a tolling death knell.
I stopped in front of him, close enough to smell his expensive, cloying cologne. He was a head taller than me and looked down at me, trying to use his height to maintain his pathetic dignity.
"What are you looking at, you piece of trash..." He stuck his chin out, but his voice was much weaker than before.
I said nothing.
I raised my hand and, with fingers stained black with grease, lightly brushed the collar of his pristine white uniform.
A clear, filthy streak of grease, like an ugly scar, instantly defiled his perfect whiteness.
He stiffened as if bitten by a viper, the color draining from his face. Disgust and shock rooted him to the spot.I leaned in close to his ear and whispered in a voice only the two of us could hear:
"Back where I come from, dogs that make that kind of noise get their tongues ripped out." My voice was soft, like a murmur from the depths of hell.
I could feel his stiffness give way to a faint tremor. His lips moved, but not a single word came out.
"Want to find out?"
Using my grease-stained thumb, I slowly and firmly traced a line from his chin down to his Adam's apple. The cold, rough touch of my fingertip left a second, even more insulting mark. His Adam's apple bobbed uncontrollably beneath my thumb as fear surged through him like an electric current.
I straightened up, stepped back, and looked coldly at his face, now contorted with terror.
The surrounding area was deathly silent.
I curled my lip in a smirk, turned away, and continued walking.
Right then, my personal terminal vibrated suddenly.
I glanced down to see an encrypted message from an unknown number.
"Welcome to the cage. If you want to know the truth about your parents, find the 'Ghost Engine' files in the library's restricted section."
My heart tightened, and my blood seemed to freeze in my veins.
The truth about my parents... the Ghost Engine...
Those words were like red-hot branding irons, searing themselves into my nerves.
A trap?
Almost certainly. In a place like this, anything from an unknown source was likely a trap—a carefully laid snare designed to lure me to my destruction.
But... what if it was real?
This was the first and only lead I'd received regarding my parents since arriving here.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to stay calm. Delete it? No, that would be stupid. Whether it was real or fake, this message was now my prey. I archived it for now, marking it as the highest threat level. I would observe, I would analyze, and I would strip away the sender's mask to see who they really were and what they wanted from me.
Pushing down the storm rising inside me, I continued forward.
The vast square was so empty it was unsettling. I was alone—a tiny, filthy black speck slowly but steadily invading this world of pure white.
I walked past the young nobles; they stood frozen as if under a spell, watching me, the ominous intruder, pass by.
Just as I stepped onto the massive white plaza leading to the gates, my focus razor-sharp, a faint sting of pain shot through my brain.
My "Engineer's Eye" activated uncontrollably.This time, what I saw wasn't a mechanical schematic, but a surge of... energy?
A faint yet incredibly strange ripple of energy emanated from somewhere deep within the academy. Like a phantom in the deep sea, it vanished as quickly as it had appeared—cold and desolate.
That sensation...
I shuddered, goosebumps racing from my arms up the back of my neck.
That feeling was eerily similar to the "Ghost Echoes" mentioned in my father's encrypted journal!
I snapped my head up, peering into the depths of the academy, trying to trace the source of that energy. But it was gone, as if it had never existed. My eyes swept across the tallest watchtower in the distance; I thought I caught a cold glint of light reflecting off a lens, and an uneasy feeling of being watched by a hunter washed over me.
My heart began to race.
What... exactly was hidden here?
This trap went deeper than I had ever imagined.
I suppressed the shock in my chest and kept moving.
Finally, I reached the school gates—absurdly grand and imposing.
Cast from a pure white alloy and standing over a hundred meters tall, the gates were emblazoned with a massive Imperial crest, its wings spread wide. The surface was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting my small, bedraggled figure.
At the very top of the gates, three words were inscribed in Ancient Imperial:
[HONOR, ORDER, LOYALTY]
I stood beneath them, like an ant looking up at the toes of a giant.
I stared at those three shimmering golden words, silently chewing over their meaning.
Honor? Was it the kind of honor that divided people into ranks and defined everything by birthright?
Order? Was it the kind of order that pointed orbital cannons at an unarmed girl to force her into submission?
Loyalty? Was it loyalty to the very Imperial family that had killed my parents and now sought to lock me in this gilded cage?
Screw that.
My lips curled into a cold, mirthless smile.
I didn't come here to learn your honor, your order, or your loyalty.
I came to smash them—and this gilded cage—into pieces.
I lifted my foot and took my first step through the gates.