The topmost floor of Stellar Academy's main building—a thoroughly concealed sector that ordinary students could spend their entire lives without ever setting foot in.
On the large table inside the faculty lounge that occupied that floor, dozens of mana crystal orbs that had been projecting a live view of the grand hall were flickering out one by one, their soft glow fading to nothing.
And gathered there were those who had been watching those orbs.
The professors of Stellar Academy.
Every last one of them had been personally selected by Headmistress Rustil—monsters in their own right, each with a legend to their name, such that it was said there were as many legends as there were professors.
In the lounge packed with such figures, a small crack split the air.
A soft shimmer rippled through the space like a heat haze, and then the red-haired girl who had radiated such overwhelming pressure in the grand hall just moments ago dropped out of thin air.
But whatever dignity she had commanded on that podium was nowhere to be found. Rustil was yanking her twin tails loose with irritable fingers, her expression utterly deflated.
Her outer robe had slipped entirely off one shoulder, and the way she shuffled forward looked exactly like an office worker finally unwinding after a long shift.
"Ahhh, it's finally over! Scaring a bunch of fresh-faced kids is all well and good, but doing this every single year is going to break my back!"
"You've worked hard, Headmistress. The performance was excellent. The new students looked thoroughly crushed."
A senior professor of considerable age clicked his tongue with the ease of long familiarity and extended a cup of freshly brewed black tea. Rustil snatched it without a word of thanks and, rather than pausing to appreciate the aroma, tipped it straight down her throat in one go.
The graceless sound of gulping echoed through the refined lounge.
Thunk—!
"Ahh! Now I feel human again! Hey, Felix. Next time, make the vice-principal do this. Why are you working the oldest person here like a common laborer?"
"Come now, no one handles whipping the new students into shape quite like you do, Headmistress. Besides, the vice-principal is buried in all the paperwork you've been pawning off on him."
At Felix's smooth-tongued reply, Rustil shot him a withering look and threw herself onto the premium leather sofa in the center of the lounge.
Sinking deep into the cushions with her legs draped ungracefully over the backrest, she looked nothing like the archmage she was—not a trace of gravitas to be found.
If the young nobleman who had nearly wet himself watching her in the grand hall could have seen her now, he might have coughed up blood from sheer betrayal.
Buried in the sofa, Rustil stretched out with the air of someone who found all of existence deeply tiresome and began to mutter.
"…Well, I suppose the young ones these days are getting more and more full of themselves, so you do have to clamp down hard from the start… But any of the other professors could manage that much!"
"It's tradition, isn't it? The headmistress crashing the entrance ceremony."
And that was the truth of it. This entrance ceremony ambush was a time-honored tradition passed down through the academy.
Every year, the professors and upperclassmen joined forces to devise a fresh new hazing event for the incoming students.
And when the new students were gasping and worn to the bone, the headmistress would make her grand entrance and demonstrate her authority—that was the event, designed to instill discipline from day one.
During this and only this, professors and upperclassmen who normally couldn't stand each other united with a single purpose.
Because there was no way they were going to be the only ones who had to go through it.
Every professor in this room was a Stellar Academy alumnus. They were seniors who had tasted the full, stinging flavor of this brutal hazing firsthand. In a way, one could call it a tearful act of love passed down from seniors to their juniors.
No doubt this year's new students would be rolling up their sleeves next year, united in spirit, to inflict the same on the next batch.
But that was neither here nor there. The headmistress's complaints, which served as the climax of every year's hazing, showed no sign of stopping.
"'Tradition,' they call it—it's nothing but a cruel habit that torments the elderly! At my age, do I really need to be delivering lines like 'I've grown so bored I want to die'? Ugh, it makes my skin crawl! Bring me whoever wrote that script!"
"Professor Elahim, who wrote the script, is on leave today."
"Why is she on leave again!"
Rustil buried her face in a sofa cushion and kicked her legs in apparent agony. Those lines that had rung through the grand hall had, in fact, been scripted for the purpose of establishing discipline.
Felix watched the display and clicked his tongue with practiced familiarity.
"The reaction was exceptional, though. This year's cohort is supposedly the greatest Golden Generation in history, so they must have been brimming with arrogance—thanks to you, Headmistress, they should stay quiet for a good while."
"Golden Generation or whatever… they're all just fresh-faced kids to me."
The head that had been buried in the cushion slowly lifted. Through the curtain of disheveled red hair, eyes that had seemed indifferent to everything now gleamed with something peculiar.
"…Though I won't say there wasn't anyone worth a second look."
She murmured it to herself, and a face surfaced in her mind.
A woman in a maid's uniform who had stood perfectly composed while everyone around her trembled—not a flicker of tension in her.
Even with Rustil's mana pressing down from all sides, she had been playing around with the girl in the black dress as though nothing were happening at all.
And above all else—
*That one reacted to my mana.*
She was the only one who had responded to mana that the other new students hadn't even perceived.
The moment Rustil had raised a finger to point at that impudent little noble—not a single one of the so-called geniuses packed into that hall had detected the mana moving in secret. They simply couldn't conceive of what 7th-Circle mana looked like in motion.
But the maid had been different.
The instant Rustil's mana stirred, she had felt the maid's gaze tracking its movement.
*It's not just sharp senses. She was reading the trajectory of my mana, clear as day.*
"…Headmistress?"
When Rustil fell into quiet thought and her expression turned unreadable, Felix, who had been watching her carefully from the side, called out to her with cautious restraint.
Rustil uncrossed her legs and slowly pushed herself upright on the sofa. Through the tangle of red hair, a smile settled on her face—one laced with deep, genuine interest.
"Hey, Felix."
"Yes, go ahead."
"From this year's roster… keep a close eye on the one in the black dress, and the maid who was glued to her side."
"…They sound like interesting ones. Understood."
Felix bowed his head and withdrew. Rustil sank back into the depths of the sofa. Beyond the fading crystal orbs, the afterimage of the woman in the maid's uniform—standing there without a care in the world—lingered in her mind.
Perhaps something more entertaining than expected had wandered into Stellar Academy, a place already full of monsters.
Rustil's red lips curved into a slow arc and were swallowed entirely by the dark.
***
The first day of the academy had arrived.
I was up early.
I couldn't be late for the momentous first day of academy life.
I checked my appearance in front of the mirror—not that there was anything to see with the blade undrawn.
But the mood was what mattered. The silhouette of my maid's uniform as gauged by Heart-Sight was, thankfully, crisp and unwrinkled from head to toe.
Perfectly put together from head to toe, I stepped out of my room.
Ah—for the record, the academy dormitories were single-occupancy.
Thanks to a system that assigned rooms equally regardless of social standing, I had been given my own private room as a full-fledged enrolled student in my own right, not merely as a lady's attendant.
Personally, I wouldn't have minded sharing a room with my young mistress, but she had been so vehemently opposed to it that we ended up with separate rooms.
A rebellious phase, perhaps?
I walked down the corridor and stopped in front of a door not far from my own.
Knock, knock.
A few perfunctory knocks, and I naturally turned the handle and walked in.
The curtains inside were drawn tight, leaving the room as dark as the middle of the night.
I drew the blade from my cane just a fraction.
Fortunately, Sword Saint activated even with the blade barely out—and the recoil was smaller that way, too.
Not that I could use it freely even so… but this was the moment to use it.
[Trait ⟨Sword Saint⟩ activates.]
[⟨World's Trial⟩ is nullified.]
With my vision restored, I could see a massive lump of blanket curled up in the center of the bed like a caterpillar.
I stepped closer and gently lifted the edge of the blanket. Beneath it, my young mistress lay fast asleep, blissfully unaware of the world.
"Mmph… mmmm…"
She was moving her lips.
The ferocious figure who had torn monsters apart in the hall was nowhere to be seen—lips murmuring softly, cheek pressed into the pillow, she looked for all the world like a small child.
She was always so quiet and sweet when she slept. I genuinely couldn't understand why she was so prickly the moment she opened her eyes.
But cute was cute, and waking her up was waking her up.
I walked without mercy to the window, grabbed the thick blackout curtains with both hands, and yanked them wide open.
Whoooosh—!
Brilliant morning sunlight poured through the window, flooding the dark room without restraint and streaming down directly onto the bed.
"Mmm…"
Blinded by the light, my young mistress scrunched her brow and thrashed to pull the blanket up over her head. I seized the moment and called out in a clear, carrying voice.
"My lady, it's morning! Time to get up!"
"Ugh… Dia, five more minutes…"
"There are no five more minutes. Up you get."
"The new bed felt strange so I went to sleep late… huh?"
Grumbling at my nagging, she reluctantly shoved the blanket aside and stared at me with bleary eyes.
The sleep hadn't worn off yet—her usually sharp gaze was thoroughly unfocused, and her black hair with its reddish undertones was sticking out in every direction. Sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into the middle distance with vacant eyes, she looked like her soul had taken a half-day leave.
She stayed frozen like an overloaded machine for a moment, then her eyes slowly began to move, taking in my neatly pressed maid's uniform and the morning light spilling behind me.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
At last, the stalled circuits in her brain seemed to finish processing the situation. Her dazed eyes went wide, and she snapped her head up to look at me.
"…Dia, why are you here?"
Oh, my dear young mistress—still not quite awake, it seems.
Where else would a maid be but beside her mistress?
After sulking so much about being left alone yesterday, too.
I pushed my young mistress—who was muttering things like "I definitely locked the door" and "how did you get past the mana lock"—toward the bathroom.
"My lady, at this rate you're going to be late for your first class!"
She really did require a great deal of looking after.