Seeing her brought back what had happened not long ago.

How she had brushed off his invitation to walk the gardens together, acting as if she knew nothing, and left.

Today was the same.

He had come to the Academy, {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} yet he had not seen a trace of Camilla this entire time.

If he hadn’t happened to pass near the practice yard, he might not have run into Camilla at all today.

“She really does seem like a different person.”

Petro let out a faint laugh.

“Let’s go.”

After looking at Camilla for a moment, he started walking again.

“By the way, doesn’t Miss Camilla seem a bit changed?”

“Yeah.”

“Even if she doesn’t work hard in class, she’s not the type to sleep so—”

Thud!

“Hey, what the—!”

Roy, a friend walking and chatting with Petro, lurched as he smashed shoulders hard with someone.

He screwed up his face and started to bark, but never finished the sentence.

“What was that?”

The instant he checked the face of the person standing in front of him, his whole body froze.

“Was that meant for me?”

“N— No! That’s not what I—”

Roy met the flash of black eyes through a long fringe and felt his heart drop straight down.

“S— Sorry, Arsian.”

Arsian Sephra.

Heir of House Sephra, counted with Sorpel and Jevillan among the Three Great Guardians.

He was far slimmer than the average grown man, almost skinny to the eye.

But...

“Don’t apologize.”

“A— Arsian.”

“Because I’m not going to.”

At Arsian’s twisted smile, Roy shuddered. He knew all too well how cruel the man was.

As befit the heir of Sephra, a magic house that had produced countless archmages, Arsian’s mana was tremendous.

Unlike other mages, his athletic reflexes were exceptional as well—yet nothing is perfect.

There was exactly one thing Arsian Sephra lacked: character.

Last year there had been a very famous incident.

A transfer student who picked a fight with Arsian without knowing better was, quite literally, beaten by him to the brink of death.

Then, using his vast mana, Arsian cast healing magic to restore the boy—only to start beating him again.

Healing and beating.

The cycle repeated over and over. Those watching and the one taking the blows alike were pushed to the edge of sanity.

Even the professors who rushed over at the news hesitated to intervene, cowed by the poison Arsian was giving off.

“I— I’m really sorry!”

So Roy’s reaction after bumping into Arsian was only natural.

“All right, that’s enough. This isn’t worth a fight.”

Petro suddenly stepped between the two.

“It was a misunderstanding, Arsian. You’ve received an apology—how about leaving it there?”

He mediated with the same affable smile as ever.

“Are you a clown.”

“A clown?”

“Makes me wonder.”

“......”

“Whether you’ll still be smiling like that while you’re getting your face beaten in.”

“...I admit I’m a little curious too.”

Petro’s smile deepened.

“Even so, let’s stop here.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Arsian.”

Whoosh!

Thunk!

“......”

“......”

A fist came flying in an instant, and Petro stepped in fast to block it.

The two pressed their fists together and stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“Don’t call my name carelessly.”

Arsian’s low voice was icy enough to burn.

“I don’t like the sound of it.”

Just the voice made his whole body lock up; Roy swallowed hard.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing!”

As the commotion grew, professors came running from afar.

“Shame.”

Arsian clicked his tongue as if genuinely disappointed and took a step back.

It was laughable that the professors who usually pretended not to see such things would sprint over the moment they thought to touch the son of a ducal house like Petro.

“Don’t appear before my eyes again.”

With that, Arsian turned as if nothing had happened, and Petro watched him go in silence.

“He’s fast.”

He looked down at his hand that had met Arsian’s. It still stung.

From that single clash he had learned the gap between them well enough. Faster than himself, a man who had held a sword and trained his body all his life...

And Arsian had something far greater besides.

“Mana.”

Yet just now he hadn’t felt a trace of mana from the pressure Arsian put on him. The man had pressed him with physical strength alone.

Step.

“......”

Meanwhile, Arsian’s steps halted as he passed the practice yard.

His eyes stopped on Camilla, lying beneath the shade of a tree.

He saw her fidget this way and that, then flinch at something, and jerk her gaze away. She never turned her head back in that direction again.

“Hm.”

Arsian stared holes into that sight.

“Don’t tell me she can see it?”

****

“At this rate it’s not an Academy, it’s a ghost paradise.”

Finishing sword class and entering a classroom for a general lecture, Camilla let out a hollow laugh.

A student ghost was sitting bold as brass in one of the empty seats in the back.

“Why is there a desk with no owner left in the room?”

No one paid any attention to the extra desk, and no one moved it—because of the ghost, obviously.

Places with ghosts stuck to them were the sort people unconsciously avoided and ignored.

“Sigh.”

If that had been the only ghost in the room, she could have let it slide.

“But why is that one holding class, too?”

Right beside the professor who was currently lecturing at full tilt, there was a ghost conducting the same lecture with equal zeal.

The sound coming from both sides made her head swim.

“Such scholarship.”

Do you want to stay at the Academy even after you’re dead? Do you love studying that much?

Camilla chose to drop her head to the desk as the best way not to make eye contact with the ghosts. She planned to just sleep through the class as well.

“Miss Camilla.”

But unlike the sword instructor, the professor currently teaching mathematics did not tolerate that.

There were two kinds of professors at the Academy.

The first kind were those who thoroughly ignored Camilla Sorpel and treated her as if she didn’t exist.

And...

“It seems my class bores you, Miss Camilla.”

The second kind were those like Professor Bellet, who tried however they could to cut Camilla down.

Not only was she failing to pay attention, now she had even laid her head on the desk—that was clearly her fault.

But there were plenty of others in the room just as distracted. Some were even sleeping openly.

Leaving them all alone while singling her out was for an obvious reason.

Base gratification.

Those who couldn’t even lift their heads before the Duke of Sorpel wanted to crush her and feel superior.

“Are you staging a protest that my lecture isn’t worth your time?”

“Of course not.”

“I see. Then shall I take it as confidence that you can solve this much without attending class?”

What a neat conclusion. Camilla stifled the laugh that nearly burst out of her.

“Come up and try these problems.”

A faint smile touched Professor Bellet’s mouth. The expressions on the other students were much the same.

Even those who had been goofing off lifted their heads, eager to watch Camilla flounder at the board.

“Childish.”

Camilla gave a small snort. She skimmed the problems written on the board and strode forward.

“I did graduate from S University.”

She had even made the news for entering as top freshman with a perfect score on the College Scholastic Ability Test.

An entertainer’s perfect score and admission to S University had been a huge story. It wasn’t just the entertainment world—pretty much all of Korea had buzzed.

“Because I didn’t want to hear it.”

Because she was an orphan, because she had no parents—she really didn’t want to hear anyone say she couldn’t study.

She studied like a fiend. Even while working in entertainment with barely any time to sleep, she never gave up her academics.

There were plenty of days she slept less than an hour, but it didn’t matter. She always carried a script and study materials together. Luckily, her inborn aptitude wasn’t bad.

“No— it wasn’t just ‘not bad.’”

If she read a script a few times, she could memorize it whole.

In any case, she was the one who had drawn the public eye with a score no one could dismiss: a perfect CSAT.

Don’t make light of the math ability of Korean test-takers.

“These are nothing.”

More than anything, she had watched Camilla’s school years for over twenty years to the point of tedium.

By now she could practically recite what was in that textbook.

“I’ve solved your midterms more than ten times.”

Standing at the board, Camilla worked through the problems without much trouble.

Professor Bellet, who had written up problems that could be solved with a single basic formula and looked so smug about it, found his eyes widening.

“May I put my head down and sleep now?”

Having written the answers to all three problems in a flash, Camilla flashed him a bright smile.

“......”

Professor Bellet went slack-faced.

Solve those problems in one breath like this?

Everyone else felt the same.

Even as Camilla returned to her seat and set her forehead back on the desk to sleep, no one opened their mouth.

****

“Haa...”

She was tired.

When classes were over and she climbed into the carriage, Camilla let out a long sigh.

She had only spent half a day at the Academy, yet her whole body felt like lead. It felt like she had shot three different dramas back-to-back.

Mathematics had been like that, and the other lectures were no harder. The content was so familiar it was boring.

The ostracism didn’t bother her much either. If anything, it was downright pleasant not to have anyone pestering her.

The problem, as ever...

“The ghosts.”

There were so many ghosts it was ridiculous. They were everywhere around the Academy.

Watching ghosts enjoying their own private Academy life, Camilla could only keep sighing.