[Leni?]
"Brother."
[What's going on? Suddenly calling like this.]
"I have a question."
It feels a bit sorry to get straight to the point after calling for the first time in a while.
Her brother had been away, busy, and hard to reach—yet here she was, diving straight into the topic.
Nevertheless, Selena was in such a hurry that she had to continue.
"Brother. You know the war with Luzens? You participated in it."
[…Yes, I did.]
"Could you tell me more details? There's someone among the returning soldiers who's similar to you, and I feel like I need to know more to have a better conversation with him."
The man on the other end of the magical communication device hesitates for a moment.
The silence stretches—heavy, sharp—like old wounds reopening.
Revisiting unpleasant nightmares is always painful.
Selena was about to say you don't have to tell me if you don't want to when—
[I don't know about other things, but I'll tell you this story, Leni. In the midst of the war, my unit was surrounded and almost completely wiped out. Nearly 300 of the Empire's finest soldiers were about to lose their lives without even getting to fight properly.]
"…"
The weight of his words presses into her chest, making her grip tighten around the device.
[But then some people broke through the encirclement. There was another group that was surrounded like my unit, and someone boldly stepped forward to rescue them.]
"Oh my!"
Her breath escapes in a small gasp—not of fear, but of shock and awe.
The image of such a moment, of someone stepping into hell to pull others out, sends a chill down her spine.
[The Luzens forces, seeing their encirclement broken, thought a major counterattack was imminent and quickly withdrew their surrounding forces. Thanks to that, hundreds of comrades were saved.]
It's an amazing story. Even hearing it directly from someone involved, it's unbelievable—yes, a miracle.
A miracle that shouldn't have been possible in that hellish battlefield.
"Do you know who that person was...?"
[No. I don't know their name, or even what they looked like. Everyone was so disheveled at the time that it was impossible to recognize anyone.]
The survivor's eyes become a bit distant, as if recalling that moment.
His voice softens, weighed down by memory.
[...Ah. I do know one thing. They were a regular soldier. That hero who saved hundreds was just a common soldier.]
A regular soldier saved so many people.
What an amazing person.
Someone who acted alone yet changed the fate of an entire unit.
Thinking this, Selena decided to ask Leon about it later.
Along with a sense of duty that she should get closer to someone who enlisted because of her.
Because learning that someone like him had been out there, risking his life, made her heart tighten with guilt and admiration all at once.
---
The Male Lead Quartet.
A few days after the Four Heavenly Kings who were rejected by Selena disappeared.
"It's you, isn't it?"
Marcus immediately questioned Leon when he visited the teaching assistant's office.
----
Good heavens. I never imagined making a class schedule would be this difficult.
Why are there so many overlapping lectures? Didn't the professors coordinate with each other?
Don't compete over who can attract more students!
How did I do this in my first year? And how did I manage in college during my previous life?
I'm sure I handled it well back then, but after going through military service twice, it feels like my brain has reset.
And now I have this instinct that says, "This schedule might actually kill me."
It feels less like I'm picking classes and more like I'm defusing a bomb.
Normally, asking seniors for help would be the quickest solution.
But based on student ID numbers, my peers have already taken all the senior positions.
Below them are rows of juniors I've never even met.
I don't even know my classmates' faces properly, so how am I supposed to ask juniors?
Even though my social skills improved naturally after rolling around with soldiers in the military,
I still feel like a lost recruit thrown into a unit that speaks a completely different language.
In the end, the path I chose was to visit the living fossil, Teaching Assistant Marcus.
I figured that senior might give me advice about my schedule, maybe help me adjust… but—
"It's you, isn't it?"
That question flew at me the moment I entered the assistant's office.
At first, I blinked in confusion, not understanding what he meant.
"Senior?"
"Did you do this?"
"Look, if you cut off the beginning and end of your sentences—"
"Schlieffen, Wilhelm, Alexander, Joachim."
"Uh."
"They all suddenly disappeared."
"...Oh."
So he's talking about the whereabouts of the male lead quartet.
Well, about that…
"Do you have evidence?"
I don't know. I'll just brazenly deny it.
Hey, I'm asking if you have evidence! Don't you know about the presumption of innocence?
"Evidence? I have it. The fact that you're not jumping up to deny it but immediately asking for evidence is proof enough, you bastard!"
Damn, I've been caught.
But it's fine. I can be truly confident.
Honestly, did I hold a knife to their throats or point a gun at them saying, "Go to the military"?
They're the ones who fell for it immediately after hearing my words and did this to themselves.
All I did was talk.
They stampeded straight to enlistment like enthusiastic idiots.
So if anyone's at fault… it's definitely not Leon.
Probably.