The First Letter (77)

On the day I first entered the academy, I kept silent.

It was because I was nervous. To put it another way, I felt like an adventurer setting foot in unexplored territory.

In all my years, I had never stayed away from my family for so long. At most, my experience of spending nights away from home consisted of visiting the Ainstern or Haster territories for a few months at a time.

Yet I was suddenly expected to leave the embrace of my beloved family and spend four years in this unfamiliar place. I could not help being afraid. Of course, since I had chosen to enroll, I was also looking forward to spending my youth at the renowned academy.

But my pounding heart had to quiet down the moment I arrived at the grand plaza where the entrance ceremony was being held. Everywhere I looked, I saw nothing but unfamiliar faces. Until then, I had always stuck close to Reto, so I had felt less lonely, but after going off alone to the Department of Swordsmanship, I could not find a place for myself among the groups gathered in threes and fours.

Those who appeared to be high-ranking nobles were already moving from place to place, exchanging greetings. They must have been the children of families they already knew. Unlike me, who did not know even their faces, let alone their names, they were starting from an entirely different place.

I shook my head with a sigh. What was the use of being frightened already? Just as I was thinking that and preparing to steel my resolve once more—

“Ah, ow!”

A girl had bumped into me. With the crowd pressing in from all sides, she must have been pushed around and made a mistake. My eyes slid toward her.

She had guileless eyes. That was my first impression of her. She was a girl with light-green eyes reminiscent of the lush green of a deep forest...