'If that old man scammed me, I'll use every bit of my shitty father's power to get him kicked out of this school.'
[]
'I don't care about it. But if I can use it, why should I hesitate?'
[
'I do. That's exactly why I'd use it.'
[
My way of thinking was obviously too advanced even for a Goddess.
Honestly, I was starting to scare myself.
Smiling faintly, I looked down at the long staff in my hand.
With the tiniest thread of mana, I activated its mechanism and shrank it down to the length of a sword.
I really needed to buy a spatial ring.
This was ridiculous.
Even in its smaller form, I still had to carry the staff in one hand and the book in the other, and it was already getting annoying. Around me, the hall buzzed with activity. Hundreds of students from both classes were still wandering from stand to stand, talking loudly, comparing the weapons they had picked, asking questions they probably didn't understand the answers to, and generally acting as if they were choosing their marriage partners instead of tools for combat.
Professor Mona and Professor Katia were moving through the crowd at a steady pace, stopping now and then to answer questions or give advice.
….
....
Half an hour passed.
I was getting sleepy.
Seriously, what was taking them so long?
Were they choosing a weapon or their future spouse?
I let my eyes wander through the crowd until I found Jayden.
As expected, he was still with Milleia and Lyra. The three of them were standing in front of a table displaying bows. They were just browsing, though, because Jayden and Milleia already had swords in their hands. Lyra, meanwhile, wasn't planning to choose anything. She already had a personal weapon, just like many other high-ranking nobles. That said, some nobles still picked up academy weapons out of curiosity or for practice.
[
'Nope. My shitty father had expensive custom weapons prepared for my siblings, but he made sure I got nothing.'
[
'I know. But his favoritism toward them didn't stop there.'
I knew.
I knew I had behaved badly.
I knew I had become difficult, unstable, unpleasant.
But after Mother died, Father didn't even say a single comforting word to me.
Not one.
He comforted Elona.
And me?
I was seven.
Just seven.
After Mother's death, the nightmares began. Every night, without fail, I would see everyone turning against me. Hallucinations followed. I grew afraid of Elona. Afraid of Miranda. I avoided them. Rejected them. Shut them out before they could become part of the nightmare too.
Then Simon appeared in my life when I was nine.
And that was when I understood that the nightmares were not just nightmares.
They were the future.
That voice had warned me.
Father had adopted Simon out of nowhere, and I begged him, truly begged him not to do it. I was terrified. All I could see was that future where my own family killed me, and every step we took seemed to be leading straight toward it.
But my shitty father only gave me a cold look.
He didn't explain.
He didn't reassure me.
He didn't even answer.
That was when something inside me snapped.
At ten years old, I became the Edward from the start of the game.
Someone consumed by lust-
No.
That wasn't right.
Not just lust.
Someone starving for love.
Someone yearning for warmth.
Someone who needed to be held, needed to be wanted, needed to feel the same softness I used to feel when Mother stroked my hair or wrapped me in her arms.
Miranda and Elona had tried to give me some of that warmth.
They really had.
But whatever little trust I still had left in them shattered when Simon arrived and they got along with him so easily. Everything was unfolding exactly like in the nightmares. It was as if my death was already written, and all I could do was watch the script continue.
I wasn't the Edward from the game, so I didn't know how he eventually ended up joining Ante-Eden.
But I did know how a child could become that broken, hateful person by the age of ten.
Speaking of Ante-Eden…
I needed to be careful.
I had already stepped away from the original plot by leaving the Falkrona House a whole month earlier than I was supposed to.
That kind of deviation wouldn't go unnoticed.
I was almost certain they had been eyeing me for years already. I doubted they would simply give up on recruiting me. And if I refused?
They might not even bother asking twice.
They might just take me by force.
Fuck.
I needed to grow stronger.
Fast.
If they brainwashed me, that would be the end.
The first brainwashing I had received at seven years old, from that strange voice had already shattered me once. I had only truly begun recovering a month ago, when Edward and Nyrel had become one. Nyrel had gone through his own share of pain too, but Ephera had kept…
Ephera had kept me sane.
I let out a long breath and leaned against the nearest wall.
Let's at least look at this thing.
I opened the book Julian had given me.
Surprisingly, it wasn't some cliché old manual covered in dust and mystery.
It was new.
Fresh.
Almost disappointingly normal.
"How to Wield a Staff…"
That title was written in large red letters on the first page.
"First movement… thrust…"
What the hell?
There were five full pages dedicated to thrusting.
Five.
Was that old man taking me for an idiot?
Still, I kept reading.
"Keep your feet nailed to the ground… raise your mana output to ten percent at first…"
Then came the rest.
And by 'the rest', I meant a wall of theory thick enough to qualify as torture.
I was getting a headache just from reading about mana output.
This lunatic wanted me to maintain near-perfect control over the flow of my mana while moving.
Not only that, but I had to alter the output at every fraction of a second during the motion itself.
I finished reading the entire first movement and slowly closed the book.
My lips trembled.
Not from emotion.
From rage.
Ten times.
I had to alter my mana flow ten freaking times in a single second just to perform the first step correctly.
How was that even possible?
No normal person could do that.
My brain would never be able to...
"...!"
I stopped midway through the thought.
Wait a minute.
No.
It would have been impossible for a normal novice.
But I wasn't just any novice.
I had the Falkrona bloodline.
"Celeritas First Wing…"
The moment those words left my mouth, my perception changed.
My thinking accelerated sharply. The world around me slowed, not literally, but in the way I processed it. The movement of students, the shifting light in the hall, the hum of voices around me, I could grasp all of it with amazing clarity.
It consumed a lot of mana.
But it worked.
Immediately, I raised the staff and focused.
From the very moment I lifted it, I began altering the output of my mana.
My face turned pale at once.
The staff aligned itself perfectly, parallel to the ground.
I pulled my arm back and...
[
"...?!"
My eyes flew open and I let out a harsh breath.
"Clee-Cleenah? What?"
She scared the hell out of me.
[
Crap.
Right.
I looked up and saw my classmates still moving around the hall, browsing weapons, talking, standing exactly in the path I had been about to fire through.
I scratched my cheek awkwardly and shrank the staff back down to sword length.
"My bad. Thanks, Cleenah."
[
'What did I achieve? Almost a murder maybe.'
[
[Don't you understand, Edward? Do you think it is easy to reproduce what you just read on your very first try? Moreover, it is with a weapon you have never even touched before.]
Both Cleenah and Jarvis sounded shocked.
'Guys, I only managed it because of my bloodline. That's all.'
And it was true.
Under normal circumstances, my thinking speed wouldn't have allowed something like that. But with the Falkrona bloodline accelerating my thought process, I could force my mana to shift that precisely. It drained me, yes, but with enough practice, I could probably make real use of it.
I just needed training.
That was all.
Still…
Maybe it was impressive.
Could it be?
Was I actually a genius?
"It's been a while, Edward."
I raised my head at the voice.
Oh, God.
I would have recognized that blue hair and those blue eyes anywhere.
David Seaven.
A [Pretender].
"You've changed quite a bit, Edward," David said, scanning me from head to toe.
"I'm not into men, David. Fuck off."
The words slipped out on instinct.
David's smile twitched.
"I heard Aurora called off the engagement."
"..."
This guy.
As Aurora's biggest simp, he was probably the happiest man alive after hearing that news.
Had he really come all the way here just to provoke me?
Sure, I had once been very attracted to Aurora.
But that had been before.
"Cat got your tongue?" David asked with a smirk.
A vein bulged on my forehead.
I couldn't stand seeing that smug expression on his face.
What exactly did girls find handsome about him anyway?
That bastard had been one of the people I hated most ever since childhood, right there beside Loid.
Still, I forced a pleasant smile onto my face.
[
[Affirmative.]
"You know, David," I said sweetly, "Aurora used to talk about you a lot to me."
"W-What?"
I had to fight to keep my grin from stretching too wide.
"Yeah. She said you were an interesting guy."
"...!"
A hopeful smile started forming on his face.
"…But that it was a shame that aside from your face—"
I lowered my voice just enough.
"—you have nothing between your legs worthy of her."
"...!"
"Just a blue-haired impotent."
I jumped to the side just before David lunged for me.
"Oh my, David," I said, shaking my head in mock concern. "Your face is all red. Did you get hard when I mentioned Aurora? Of course not."
I smiled wider.
"Since you're im-po-tent."
"Ed-Edward! I-I'll cripple you!"
"The blue impotent will cripple me? Not happening."
-BAM!
David kicked off the ground and rushed at me.
Fast.
Very fast.
Maybe I had gone a little too far.
[
He started it!
I raised my small staff defensively.
I was weaker than him.
That much was obvious.
But there was no way I was going down without a fight.
Then—
Oh.
Wait.
A slow smirk spread across my face as I channeled mana into the staff.
[
Cleenah warned me, but I ignored her.
-BOOOM!
Before I could test the thrust, a brilliant golden light erupted right between us.
It exploded with such force that both David and I halted instantly.
And when I saw strands of golden hair blowing in the afterglow, I understood at once who had stepped in.
Aurora.
"Your Highness...?"
David stopped dead in his rush, frozen right in front of her.
"David…" Aurora said with a tired smile. "You remember what Ms. Katia told us yesterday. We can't afford to lose points over a childish quarrel."
That was Aurora's way of handling trouble.
In most cases, she didn't scold her classmates directly. She simply spoke in that calm, disappointed tone of hers, and somehow that was enough. Not that the Phoenix students gave her many reasons to lecture them in the first place. They respected her too much, for her strength, for her status as a princess, and for her role as the natural leader of the Phoenix Class.
"Yeah…"
David lowered his head slightly.
Like everyone else, he respected her deeply.
And with him, that respect was mixed with something even more pathetic.
Stupid love.
Aurora gave him another small smile, clearly relieved that he had backed down, and David nearly stopped functioning on the spot.
Then she turned toward me.
Her smile was gone.