The hall fell into silence, as though the chaos of moments before had never happened.
Those who had been fighting the monsters, those who had been groaning from their wounds—not a single one dared open their mouth.
Every gaze in the room was fixed on the girl descending from above.
She had fiery red hair tied roughly into two bunches.
Her clothes were nothing more than loose, comfortable-looking garments utterly devoid of any dignity.
Her face itself had clean lines and striking features—pretty enough that you'd think she'd break a few hearts once she was older.
But the thoroughly sullen expression plastered across that pretty face, broadcasting to the world that she found everything a colossal bother, was doing its level best to undermine it.
Thanks to that, the first impression she left wasn't *pretty* but *insufferably arrogant*.
By any measure, she looked like nothing more than an ordinary girl with a bit of an attitude.
And yet—
"……"
Not one person in that hall dared move so much as a finger.
She wasn't doing anything. And yet the moment they laid eyes on her, they knew it instinctively.
This was a creature of an entirely different order.
Even our fearless young mistress has gone quiet— hm?
"My lady, what are you doing?"
"Obviously she's the one in charge."
So said my young mistress, gathering her mana.
Through my senses sharpened by ⟨Sword Saint⟩ and ⟨Heart-Sight⟩, I could see her Circles spinning furiously.
At the same time, the shadows lurking at her feet began flowing toward her fingertips, coalescing into a dark sphere.
That's my lady's finishing move, Mura—
Our young mistress really does handle mana beautifully.
The mana rising from her heart and flowing through her body to her hands—not a drop wasted.
Three years ago she couldn't control a single thread of mana, and now look at her. I'm genuinely moved— wait, this is not the time!
I moved quickly to her side and pushed down the arm she had aimed at the girl.
"Hey! Don't interfere! She's obviously strong, so I need to hit first!"
"My lady, you'd still lose even if you hit first, so please just stay still…."
I did raise her myself, but she really did grow up terrifyingly powerful….
Still, no matter how much stronger she'd become than anyone would expect at the game's starting point, she was no match for that monster. Because that girl was Rustil—principal of Stellar Academy and the single strongest being in the world of *Saintess & Hero*.
Principal Rustil, who had been drifting serenely through the air, finally set her feet lightly down on the shattered podium of the great hall.
*Thud.*
A landing so quiet it didn't stir a single mote of dust—yet the moment she touched the ground, the formless pressure that had been bearing down on the entire hall sank even heavier.
Rustil irritably swept her twin red bunches back with one hand and slowly swept her gaze across the row of new students filling the hall.
From the bloodied wrecks gasping for breath, to the crown prince who had somehow managed to hold formation with weapon in hand, to my young mistress still fuming with her arm caught in my grip.
Only after that mineral-cold gaze had passed over every living thing in the great hall did Rustil's lips finally part.
"I've seen enough. I know your level."
Her voice itself was saturated with the nuance of someone who found all of existence deeply tiresome.
But the density of mana riding that quiet sound was so suffocating that simply hearing it raised goosebumps and made the heart feel as though it were being squeezed.
Rustil let her shoulders drop and exhaled a long, heavy sigh.
And the murmur that followed sent the already-frozen atmosphere of the hall plummeting into the abyss.
"……I'm so bored I could die."
The principal, whose line called to mind a certain soccer prodigy, dropped herself carelessly onto a chunk of rubble as though she genuinely found everything beneath her.
Her loose clothes left rather more visible than was appropriate, and she didn't seem to care in the slightest.
…In the game, the camera angle was always conveniently positioned so you couldn't see anything. Here, there's no such mercy.
Yet another reminder that this is reality…. Coffee beans.
Rustil then began her introduction.
"I'm Rustil, principal of Stellar Academy. Hello, you little blood clots."
The moment that name slipped from between her small lips, shallow gasps and murmurs broke out across the frozen hall.
"Rustil…? Don't tell me—the 7th-Circle archmage, one of only two on the continent?"
"The Red Calamity…! That young girl is really the strongest on the continent?"
The eyes of the new students shook violently. Even gathered as they were—the Golden Generation, geniuses from every corner of the world—there was no one who could maintain composure before a living legend, a walking disaster.
Even the crown prince watched Rustil with visible tension as he dismissed his magic formation, and my young mistress, still held by the arm, let her eyes gleam with unmistakable interest.
My lady, please don't look interested. Rustil could flick her finger and you'd be dead.
Perhaps I raised her a little too much like a born fighter….
While I was reflecting on my young mistress's educational upbringing, Rustil was lazily picking at her ear and pointing out certain students.
"You, you, and you. Oh, and the one next to them too."
Those singled out exchanged bewildered looks.
"You're out. Go home."
The air in the hall shifted uneasily as Rustil propped her chin in her hand and looked down at the new students with undisguised contempt.
The sudden announcement of expulsion sent a ripple of commotion through the crowd.
Well, they'd probably gone home and bragged to everyone they knew about getting into Stellar Academy, so being told they'd failed on the spot would be a shock.
But Rustil responded to the uproar with nothing more than a yawn.
Her indifference finally drew a fierce protest from somewhere in the crowd.
"This is going too far!"
A young man who was obviously from a noble family shoved through the murmuring crowd and stepped forward.
He was one of those Rustil had named for expulsion.
His face—the face of someone who had been catered to his entire life—was smeared with dust from the earlier attack.
He jabbed a finger at Rustil on the podium and seethed.
"You may be the principal, but we are students who qualified and enrolled through legitimate means from across the empire! And yet, before the entrance ceremony has even begun, you stage this dangerous stunt without any warning, and then just declare us expelled out of nowhere?!"
His voice climbed higher and higher as he spoke, until he was outright shouting, his fury getting the better of him.
Several noble students nearby began nodding along in agreement, the murmuring growing louder.
Of course, they were all among those who'd been named for expulsion.
Rustil, still perched on the rubble, watched the young man pointing at her with a blank stare.
For just a fraction of a second, something strange flickered in those dull, bored eyes.
Rustil raised one finger and pointed it at him.
"…!"
The young man flinched violently at her sudden movement.
But one second passed, then two, and nothing happened in the great hall.
As the silence stretched on, relief gradually crept back into the young man's eyes as he watched the tip of her finger warily.
I, however, quietly sheathed my blade.
At the same moment, darkness swallowed my vision.
"…Dia, what are you doing? This is the good part."
"Ah, I'm not really a fan of anything too gruesome."
"?"
This scene was censored even in the game, you know.
I then pulled my young mistress—who had been watching with rapt attention—into my arms and covered her eyes as well.
Of course, since ⟨Heart-Sight⟩ was always active, I could still follow the situation well enough even without sight.
"Hey! What are you doing! Let go of this!"
"Please stay still, my lady."
While my young mistress and I were scuffling, the young man grew even bolder and raised his voice further.
"I will formally report this to His Majesty the Emperor! By the time I'm done, you'll be begging—"
*Bang—!*
Without any warning, the young man's body exploded in an instant, reduced to a spray of blood.
The sticky crimson splattered mercilessly across the faces and uniforms of the students nearby who had been nodding along with him just moments before.
"Aaaaaah!"
"He—he's dead?!"
Students around him who hadn't been able to process the sudden change screamed and recoiled in horror.
I had closed my eyes in advance, so I was spared the sight directly.
But through ⟨Heart-Sight⟩, the movement of mana was perfectly clear.
*Not even a spell. She just crushed him with raw mana….*
Like a person pressing a finger down on an ant, the mana Rustil had spread throughout the hall had concentrated into a single massive pressure in an instant and burst the young man apart.
A technique bordering on the miraculous, born from mana that defied common sense and inhuman mana control. Not that Rustil being inhuman was news—but extraordinary was extraordinary.
Meanwhile, my young mistress, held in my arms with her vision blocked, grumbled in a thoroughly disgruntled voice.
"Dia, let go! I heard something! There was a bang—why won't you let me see!"
"No, my lady. This is a scene deeply harmful to a young person's sensibilities. I absolutely cannot allow you to witness it on educational grounds."
"I'm not a child! I'm an adult! Let go of me!"
Says the girl who can't even drink yet.
Keeping my young mistress's head firmly tucked against me, I focused on Rustil's cool voice drifting down from the podium.
…Though I will note—my lady's hair smells of lavender. I hadn't noticed that before.
"Anyone else have a complaint?"
Rustil's brief question cut sharply through the hall.
The students who had been nodding along with the young man's anger just moments ago went white as sheets.
Unable even to think about wiping the blood from their uniforms, they dropped their heads to the floor as one, as if on cue. Far from complaints, they were desperately holding their breath, trying not to even let the sound of their breathing be heard.
Rustil watched them with flat disinterest, then tilted her head slightly and continued.
"Seems like you're all under some kind of misapprehension. The Emperor, or whatever else you might invoke—none of that means anything here."
Each time Rustil murmured, the overwhelming mana filling the hall pressed down harder, bearing heavier and heavier on the students' shoulders.
"The only thing that matters here is talent."
Rustil rose slowly to her feet. Her red hair surged like flames in response to the force radiating off her.
"Those with ability rise. Everything else is just a stepping stone. That is the rule of this place—Stellar Academy. And the one at the very top—"
Rustil tapped her own chest with one finger.
"—is me."
When she finished speaking, Rustil glanced briefly over the silent students, then let the mana she had filled the room with settle.
"Right. I think that's enough for you to get the idea."
*Snap.*
Rustil flicked her fingers with a crisp, cheerful sound. The clear snap rang through the hall—and in that very instant—
"!"
Something uncanny happened, as though time itself had reversed.
The blood soaked into the floor and splattered across the students' uniforms defied gravity and shot upward into the air, gathering together and rapidly taking shape.
Torn flesh and bone interlocked organically. The shredded fabric of a uniform stitched itself back together in an instant.
In less than a single second—in a blink—the young man who had unmistakably been blown apart in every direction stood there, whole and unharmed, without a single scratch.
To me with ⟨Heart-Sight⟩, the entire process was almost painfully vivid—but to everyone else, it must have felt as though time had simply snapped back, it happened so fast.
"Wh—what…?"
"R-right now, what is this…."
Magic approaching the power of a god, twisting the boundary between life and death like a child playing with a toy.
Everyone in the great hall stared at the overwhelming phenomenon with expressions of hollow, soul-drained disbelief.
And the young man who had just, quite literally, touched the bottom of death's abyss and returned—stared blankly down at his own two pale, unharmed hands—
"……Hic, hic!"
—and then began to shake convulsively. The bone-deep sensation of death, seared into his mind, finally seized his entire body all at once.
His legs gave out completely beneath him without warning, and he crumpled to the floor in a graceless heap, dragging in ragged, desperate breaths.
And on top of that— oh, for— he wet himself.
A yellow puddle spreading across the floor, and the smell slowly permeating the hall—I pressed my brow into a frown. ⟨Heart-Sight⟩ is annoyingly high-performance at the worst possible moments.
Even with my eyes closed, my heightened senses pick it all up automatically.
"Dia, what is that smell?!"
"Hush, my lady. A man's dignity is currently being destroyed on a societal level."
"Ugh, I want to see! You didn't show me the bang either—why do you get to see everything and I don't!"
Absolutely not letting go. I pressed my young mistress down by sheer force.
Rustil, finally looking satisfied at the sight of the young man collapsed on the floor and the thoroughly cowed new students, slowly rose from the rubble she'd been sitting on.
She began to drift upward into the air as she had when she first appeared, gradually dissolving into a haze of pale blue mana light.
As she faded as though merging with the space itself, Rustil turned one last smile on the hall—a smile that looked as though it could swallow the entire room whole.
[Welcome to Stellar Academy, you little blood clots.]
Leaving only the echo of her voice hanging in the air, Rustil vanished completely.
Carving into the new students the most terrifying and indelible impression they would carry for the rest of their lives, the entrance ceremony of Stellar Academy drew to its close.