Chapter 12
The Floren Empire was the only nation on the continent to have maintained its supremacy for centuries.
People often attributed that to its enormous treasury, powerful military, and vast territory.
Of course, that wasn't wrong.
But ultimately, people were the foundation of all those things.
No matter how much money you had, it was useless without anyone to spend it, and no matter how strong your army was, it wouldn't last long without talented people to lead it.
The greatest reason the Floren Empire was called an empire was that it could cultivate the finest talents on the continent.
And at its center stood Astell Imperial Academy, unquestionably the continent's finest educational institution.
The first emperor who founded the Floren Empire made cultivating talent the nation's top priority from the moment the country was established, and he spared no expense in providing enormous imperial support to Astell Academy, which already had a distinguished reputation at the time.
As a result, Astell Imperial Academy had become a dream institution that every noble wanted to send their children to, while for commoners, it had become their only chance to change their lives.
And now.
The entrance exam for Astell Imperial Academy was over.
“Kya! What incredible weather!”
I sprawled across a park bench near the examination hall and looked up at the sky.
Once both the written and practical exams were over, all the tension left me in an instant.
Since it was the day of the entrance exam, the park was filled with boys and girls around Isabel's age discussing their tests, and the nobles who had brought them were visible here and there.
“They really are on another level….”
Since the results would be announced tomorrow, most of the people walking around here were nobles.
Accessories decorated with glittering jewels, clothes made from expensive fabric that was obviously costly at a glance, and even the kind of extravagant outfits you only ever saw in romance fantasies.
Everyone passing by looked like they were shouting with their entire bodies, 'I'm rich.'
And me.
I was dressed like a commoner.
Extreme King, you biiitch-!!!!
You took care of my tuition, my dormitory, and even got me admitted, so I'm really grateful, okay?
But you could've bought me one outfit!!!
I, myself, am super embarrassed right now-ieyo.
Dressed in the most pitiful commoner outfit imaginable, I shoved my hands into my pockets and trudged through the park between the glittering nobles, nervously glancing around at them.
As I walked along with self-loathing weighing on my steps, a gigantic guide map of utterly insane proportions caught my eye, planted squarely in the middle of the plaza.
“Oh…….”
As expected of the finest academy on the continent.
The size was insane.
It was so enormous that I wondered whether three university campuses from my original world could be joined together to match it.
There seemed to be dozens of lecture buildings alone, along with training grounds, laboratories, dormitories, and martial arts halls. It looked like an entire small city had been relocated here.
Astell Imperial Academy was broadly divided into two departments.
The General Department.
And the Combat Department.
The General Department taught skills not directly related to combat, such as accounting, administration, cooking, and alchemy.
The Combat Department, as its name suggested, was where students learned how to fight. They learned to wield swords, practice magic, and face monsters.
Most of the original story's major events also took place in the Combat Department.
The crown prince, the Magic Tower Master's disciple, and other protagonists. And my sister, Isabel.
All the major characters from the original story gathered there.
Of course, now I was in the Combat Department too.
“Hehe…….”
The corners of my mouth rose on their own.
At last, I was joining the original story's main plot.
For someone who had been dragged to the tower before ever getting the chance to attend high school, academy life was the very definition of a dream.
Wearing a uniform, eating with friends, going back to the dormitory at night…
…Huh?
Come to think of it, I didn't know how to make friends.
“Well, it'll work out somehow.”
I casually turned away from reality.
Come to think of it, the protagonists from the original story must have taken the entrance exam today as well.
There were so many applicants that they had been divided into groups of one hundred for the exams, but none of them had been in my group, at least.
I would have recognized them immediately if they had been. Protagonists had a presence all their own, after all.
“I wonder what Sis is doing right now.”
Isabel was a special-admission student.
The dean had personally scouted her, so she hadn't even taken the entrance exam.
She was probably receiving basic instruction in the dormitory by now.
So there was no chance Isabel would get an early look at the list of admitted students that would be announced tomorrow.
Combat Department valedictorian, Lee Rowoon!
It would be no fun if she found out already!
The best part would be standing tall at the entrance ceremony and giving the valedictorian's speech, properly taking her by surprise.
Good.
Now the original story would truly begin.
The original story opened with the representative speech by the top-ranked student at the entrance ceremony.
Normally, that was a position the crown prince would have taken.
But this time.
“…I'll be the one?”
I pictured it in an instant.
Isabel staring up at me from below the podium with her mouth hanging open.
…
Wow…….
This is going to be fun-ieyo!
Ah, her speech pattern rubbed off on me.
***
Lately, the Extreme King had been spending more and more time in serious contemplation.
Could it be that her hair was falling out?
Of course, she had not been given the name Four Emperors for nothing.
Her body, which she had trained in martial arts to the extreme for decades, was incomparably sturdier than that of an ordinary human, and even if her hair did fall out, she was confident she could solve the problem with martial arts.
But the problem was the cause.
The fact that there was someone who had made one of the Four Emperors worry this much.
And the cause was none other than.
"Lee Rowoon……."
Nine months ago, while tracking down a mysterious group that had been trying to summon a demon, she had encountered a young boy by chance.
When she first discovered the child, the Extreme King had been a little excited.
No, to be honest, she had been extremely intrigued.
The energy she sensed from the child's body was far too familiar.
Rejuvenation Reversal.
On the Eastern Continent, there was a realm in which martial artists who had reached the pinnacle could reverse their body's passage through time and regain their youth.
It was a realm that one could not know whether they would reach even after training their entire life, and the Extreme King could count on one hand the martial artists she knew who had come close to it.
Yet the young boy before her clearly looked like a child, while an inexplicable power lay dormant within his body.
'Could it be?'
That thought occurred to the Extreme King.
'Could he be a master who has reached the same realm as me-ieyo?'
But that expectation was shattered before long.
The energy flowing from the boy was too different to be described simply as strength.
It was a concentration of killing intent, malice, and an aura like a calamity.
The Extreme King had fought countless powerful people throughout her life.
She had met martial artists who had surpassed the limits of humanity, and even crossed fists with monsters that had threatened the world.
But even those beings were different from the aura she sensed from this child.
It felt as though his very existence were a calamity.
So she became suspicious.
Could he be a demon who had crossed over from the demon realm?
But she could not draw a conclusion so easily.
If he really was a demon, then what she had to do was already decided.
But conversely, what if he was simply a human born with talent so terrifying that it defied belief?
She might end up killing an innocent child with her own hands.
So the Extreme King decided to watch him.
At first, it was a few days.
Then a few weeks.
And before she knew it, several months had passed.
Yet he was strangely ordinary.
He helped the villagers with their farm work, chopped firewood, and ran around with the neighborhood children before being scolded by his sister.
When the sun went down, he sat around the dinner table with his family, and his eyes even lit up when delicious food appeared.
He was simply an ordinary country boy who could be found anywhere.
The Extreme King wondered about it several times.
Could she have been mistaken?
Had the aura she sensed from the child merely been the result of extraordinary talent, and had she overreacted because she was too sensitive?
It was when she began to have those doubts.
That aura burst out of the boy once more.
For a moment, the Extreme King did not hesitate.
This time, she had to confirm it for certain.
If he really was a demon, she intended to end him right there.
But the first words the boy spoke were completely different from any answer she had expected.
'I'm actually a regressor.'
When she first heard it, the Extreme King did not believe him.
Regression was closer to an absurd fantasy that existed only in books.
But the problem came afterward.
The boy began bringing up stories he had no way of knowing, one by one.
The realm he had attained, and the source of the martial arts he had never revealed to anyone in his entire life.
"That was something you absolutely must never tell anyone-ieyo!"
Even the preference she had never wanted anyone in the world to discover.
At that moment, she had no choice but to admit it.
The boy had not been lying.
He really knew the future!
Of course, he could not tell her everything.
He often brushed things off by saying there were restrictions on interfering with the future.
But the existence of the demon worshippers, the world's coming destruction,
and even their plans hidden inside the academy.
The boy had asked her to send him to the academy so he could save the world.
The eyes of the child speaking those words were strangely serious.
In the end, the Extreme King nodded.
From that day until the entrance exam, she spent almost every day with Lee Rowoon.
And she realized two things.
First.
This child was absurdly strong.
Of course, for now, he was not at a level that could be compared to her.
But things would be different after he grew up.
She had no choice but to believe his claim that, before his regression, he had stood shoulder to shoulder with his future self.
And second.
"He's an unbelievable troublemaker-ieyo."
The Extreme King let out a deep sigh.
That was the real problem.
She had clearly told him several times before he entered the examination hall.
To take it easy.
That was all she had asked of him.
But the result that came back was.
0.1 seconds.
"...Is that even a record a human can achieve-ieyo?"
The Extreme King clutched her head.
The academy must already have descended into chaos.
There was no way the professors would sit still after a child casually shattered a record that had remained unbroken for decades.
But what about the person responsible?
He was surely somewhere in the park right now, staring at the sky without knowing anything.
"Seriously……."
The Extreme King laughed as though she could not believe it.
At first, he had been someone she needed to monitor, and then he had become a child she needed to protect….
Now he had become a troublemaker whose mess she had to clean up.
“This won't do-ieyo.”
If she left things as they were, it was obvious that strange rumors would attach themselves to Lee Rowoon.
The dean would certainly become suspicious after seeing a record of 0.1 seconds as well.
Then there was only one way.
"I can just say he's a disciple of one of the Four Emperors-ieyo."
That one statement would resolve most of the questions.
The reason he possessed such absurd skill at a young age, and the reason he had set such an unbelievable record, could both be explained to some extent by the single title of disciple of one of the Four Emperors.
Of course, she did not know whether the dean would believe it easily.
But it did not matter.
She could simply insist on it until the very end.
The Extreme King nodded confidently.
Since she had actually trained him, she thought it was not entirely a lie, anyway.
"Come to think of it."
The Extreme King slowly smiled.
"Lee Rowoon."
A savage expression that did not match his cute face rose in her mind.
"I've got a million knuckle taps reserved for him-ieyo."
Having made that resolution, the Extreme King forcefully opened the dean's office door.
***
Evening had come to Astell Imperial Academy before anyone knew it.
The crimson sunset settled over the enormous campus, and the sunlight shining through the window gently suffused the dormitory room.
The girls' dormitory. More specifically, a private room assigned to a special-admission student.
Isabel sat upright in her chair after finishing her final basic lesson.
“Come to think of it… You said today was the entrance exam, right?”
“Yes.”
The tutor smiled gently and nodded.
“All the exams have finished today, so the results will be announced tomorrow. Starting tomorrow, the new students will begin moving into the dormitory one by one, so it will be much livelier than it is now.”
“Wow….”
Isabel's eyes sparkled.
“Until recently, I was just digging up fields in a country village, and now I'm going to live in the same dormitory as nobles…. It still feels like I'm dreaming.”
The tutor gave a small laugh and set down her teacup.
“You may take pride in yourself. You possess such an affinity for spirits that you could be called the greatest in history. Besides, at Astell Academy, the name of student comes before social status.”
Royals, nobles, and commoners alike could not flaunt any status within the academy.
Everyone was treated equally as a student.
“Still… I'm a little nervous.”
Isabel smiled awkwardly and looked out the window.
The sunset was already fading, and stars began appearing one by one in the sky.
'It really isn't long now.'
The entrance ceremony and new friends. And a new life. None of it felt real yet.
She had always thought she would live in the countryside for the rest of her life, and now she was going to attend the finest academy in the empire!
Was it all right for her to be this happy?
Isabel clasped her hands tightly together.
'I'll definitely become a wonderful spirit mage and make both Dad and Rowoon happy.'
Just as she was making that vow to herself.
“Oh, come to think of it.”
She lifted her head as though something had suddenly occurred to her.
“You said the top-ranked student gives the representative speech at the entrance ceremony, right?”
“That's right.”
“Wow….”
The Combat Department valedictorian and the General Department valedictorian.
They were the two most outstanding people among the thousands of new students.
'They must be incredibly cool, right?'
Refined, dignified, clever, and confident!
For some reason, she imagined someone like the crown prince giving the speech.
Isabel grinned in anticipation and swung both legs back and forth.
“Hehe…”