Sören's training center was an open space for anyone to use.
It’s wide and there were three such training centers, so students could freely cast spells anywhere in the spacious space.
The most common users of the training center at the beginning of the semester were especially the freshmen, who were curious about the prestigious Sören's facilities.
As a result, it was inevitable that the freshmen would obviously be involved in small accidents.
The children who entered Sören had already heard that they were geniuses everywhere.
Freshmen who have not experienced proper competition have strong self-esteem because they still think that they are the best.
There wasn’t any chance that they would give up to the other party.
At the start, they would spend time nonchalantly with each other, but if they gradually proceeded with the class and become engaged with each other, there would always be a collision that happens.
And it was the first training center where such occurrences happened most often.
Just like at that moment.
"What? Say it again."
"…This is a place that's free to use for everyone. There's no reason for me to leave, though?"
Lynne frowned at the three students who were glaring scornfully at her.
The woman who had gray hair, which was rare in the Empire, was caught in a dispute when she visited the first training center out of curiosity.
The reason was trivial…
It's just that those three people were going to use the place, so they told Lynne to get out of there.
They did not speak in a good manner, and they one-sidedly ordered her to leave because they did not want to use the same space with a commoner.
There were not that many students using the training center and there was enough free space.
Nevertheless, it was a blatant insult for anyone to only rule them out and tell them to leave.
A total of three people were picking a fight with her: one woman and two men.
They were all children of aristocratic families with nobility flowing in their blood.
Among them was Dynema Romley, a first-year student who was the daughter of Count Romley. She was standing at the center of the trio while spitting direct verbal abuse at Lynne.
Her blonde hair, which was flowing down to the waist, was curled up like a roll in the edges.
Just by looking at her fierce impression, Lynne could already assume that her personality was usually rude.
Even so, Lynne didn't expect Dynema to suddenly pick a fight with her like that.
"If you feel so uncomfortable, why don't you guys leave instead?"
"Hah! How dare you talk back to me? How dare such a vulgar and impudent commoner like you to a noble blood like me?"
"…Sören doesn't divide the students' rank by social class and blood. You entered this school yet you don't even know about it?"
"That's just what you guys want to believe. You have a blind trust in what they said to you just to make you happy. That's why you guys are so low."
"That's right, Miss Dynema. That's why we shouldn't have low-class commoners here."
"This is why people say that you shouldn't be nice to your underlings."
The two boy students on both sides were flattering Dynema as they adjusted themselves to her mood.
Lynne bit her lips.
They didn't even try to listen to whatever she would say in the first place… because she was a commoner.
Even if she continued to argue there, she'd only tire herself out.
Lynne turned her back while thinking that she would just not have them as her company.
The problem was that such behavior offended Dynema's high self-esteem.
"...How dare a commoner like you ignore me when I was talking?"
Count Romley was a typical aristocrat who fell into elitism and looked down on commoners.
And Dynema, the only daughter of the Count, had also inherited her father's tendency.
For her, who had only seen and heard such elitist views since she was young, she was bound to have that kind of personality.
Dynema thought she should play a leading role in Sören Academy.
Even if there were many great seniors in the second years, she should be the most dazzling one among the first years.
—That's what she believed.
When she arrived at Sören, most of the students became her competitors. It was a hard reality for her, who had been receiving the best treatment throughout her life.
'It can't be like this!'
It already hurt her pride for commoners to use the same classroom and take classes with her, she wouldn't want to accept the fact that there were also students who were more talented than her.
An aristocrat must always be aloof and stand on top of everyone…
Because that's how she was born.
She was the chosen one, and those lowly commoners were nothing but a tool that she used to make herself stand out.
To Dynema, a commoner named Lynne was just an annoying existence.
The first time Dynema noticed her was when they were in the classroom.
Her extremely uncommon ash gray hair color had also attracted people's attention, but most of all, it was Lynne's beauty that irritated Dynema's nerves.
She was like a doll made by the goddess of beauty with all her best efforts, her beauty seemed to be out of this world.
Even she, who was also a woman, thought that it was enviable for a moment.
—Her pride was hurt.
Dynema couldn't forgive it. She couldn't forgive herself and that despicable commoner who had swayed her.
Dynema needed a target to vent her anger, and the target was obviously Lynne, who had caused such animosities inside her.
So she started a quarrel with the intention of taking her down a notch.
'What's up with that arrogant attitude?!'
Lynne's eyes were looking at her as if she was pathetic.
Dynema gritted her teeth and glared at the back of Lynne's head.
'How dare she ignore me and think that she’ll be alright afterward?’
Dynema took out her wand. It happened unexpectedly, so even the two followers who were clinging to Dynema could not react.
‘No way, Dynema is aiming at Lynne with her wand and going to cast a spell as she was leaving after turning her back?'
The same went for Lynne.
She never imagined that she would do such a thing in Sören.
"How dare a lowly commoner like you!"
A spell technique was formed with mana, and buds of hot lightning sparked around its surroundings.
Feeling something strange, Lynne turned her back, and her blue eyes widened.
'Stupid. It's already too late.'
A cruel smile formed around Dynema's mouth.
It wouldn't kill her, but instead, it was going to burn her beautiful face.
The moment she was about to shoot the prepared spell into the face of that despicable commoner…
A white flash of light pierced through her magic.
Dynema distorted her face into a demon-like appearance when she saw the reverberation of the scattered lightning.
“Who is it?!”
She stared at the place where the spell was casted.
And she saw him…
* * *
* * *
A man who was looking down at them from the audience's railings.
"What are you doing?"
‘Do the frost pillars that are raging on the frozen ground of the Northern continent feel like this?’
Her skin reacted the moment his voice, which was mixed with subtle anger, touched her ears.
It was such a force and vigor that it would make anyone's teeth bump together on their own.
‘He's not a student, not a Sören employee either.’ There was no way Dynema didn’t know about a man with such an intense impression in the first place.
“Prof… Professor Ludger?”
"While I was on patrol, I suddenly felt a wavelength of mana, so I came here."
His gaze glanced through Lynne, Dynema's gang, and the students who had just watched nearby and hadn’t stopped the gang.
"I didn't know they created this kind of problem habitually."
It wasn’t even a mere fight between students.
To be exact, it was an incident in which one side unilaterally attempted to ambush the other party.
"Sören must have looked pretty easy to you."
If they had fought in front of each other's faces, he could just pass it with a warning.
However, it was undoubtedly one-sided negligence that caused her to ambush an opponent who had no intention of fighting with her.
The professor had even witnessed it with his own eyes.
"Exactly why and how did it happen?!"
Dynema's anger had already reached the top of her head and she shouted while protesting against Ludger instead.
"This is to protect my authority as a proper aristocrat...!”
"Authority? Who the hell is that authority for?"
"That's what this commoner—”
"All students are equal in Sören. Their learning, teaching, and magic are only going to be judged according to their talents and passion. I don't care how noble your blood is."
Ludger's words were for them to stop bluffing while acting as an aristocrat.
Dynema bit her lips.
Ludger shook his head at her behavior which had not shown any remorse.
He was convinced that the first years would cause trouble.
Rather, it was possible because they were first-year students who were still ignorant of the world.
Freshmen who didn’t know the way Sören was run naturally made their judgments based on their environment so far.
The petty and prejudiced way of thinking that the world they lived in was everything there was obviously caused the problems.
—Just like Dynema Romley had been thinking.
But her ignorance wouldn't absolve her.
If her prejudiced way of thinking was the cause of the problems, it wasa Sören's policy to impose stronger disciplinary actions to bring people back to their senses rather than to forgive them.
"It hasn't been long since school started, and you've already caused such a big problem, so please don’t believe that you can avoid disciplinary action."
"You come with me right now."
Ludger said so and turned his back immediately.
'She's understood by now.’
He thought his warning would moderately soothe the incident.
Of course, it was not only a verbal warning, he really intended to put disciplinary action on her.
It wasn’t a mere fight, she was trying to cowardly do an ambush on her classmate.
"A mere fallen aristocrat like you...”
But with that one sentence from Dynema Romley…
The training center, which was already quiet, became dead silent.
“M-Miss Dynema?”
The two students, who were Dynema's followers, were drenched in a cold sweat.
No matter how badly they acted, they thought her words were not a good choice.
Even Ludger Chelysie, who was about to leave, stopped walking.
It was a big problem.
The students who were watching the situation turned pale.
Dynema belatedly realized what she had just said.
But she couldn't take back what she had already said.
"What did you just say?"
Ludger's more subsided voice was aimed at Dynema.
It didn't stop there, his body also floated in the air lightly.
Ludger, who slowly came down from the audience's railings while walking in the air, landed on the ground and walked toward Dynema.
Thump. Thump.
With every step that Ludger took, Dynema felt the illusion that her world was falling apart.
She didn't realize it when he was far away, but when she faced him closely, the pressure that Ludger emitted was beyond her imagination.
He looked exactly like a giant.
He had a huge appearance like a mountain which made it seem like he could press her with just one finger.
“Ah, aah.”
She accidentally said a harsh thing.
It was something she shouldn't have said, but she had crossed the line.
It's no wonder that Ludger was angry.
"Did you just call me a fallen aristocrat?"
“Ah, uh, aah…”
Dynema couldn't even move her mouth properly as Ludger looked down at her while casting a shadow on her face.
Ludger's atmosphere was so brutal that it seemed it would be no wonder if anyone died afterwards.
When the students were thinking if they should stop him while glancing at each other…
“Professor Ludger!”
Selena, the new professor of Spirit Studies, rushed over while calling Ludger from the outside.
She had just arrived after hearing the news a little while before.
But as soon as she got there, she saw Ludger, who was glaring at a trembling girl as if he was about to eat her.
No way… Just in case… Maybe…
An uneasy thought entered her mind.
The moment Selena was about to stop Ludger…
Ludger opened his mouth.
"That's not exactly wrong."
What everyone heard was a completely unexpected word.
“What?”
"What did Professor say just...”
They thought he'd get angry.
Or they thought he'd punish give her a physical punishment on the spot.
"I am definitely a fallen aristocrat, but this is Sören and I am Sören's professor. Dynema. What you said were clearly the words of a student who's challenging the authority of the professor."
But Ludger did not do it.
He just spoke in an infinitely calm and admonished voice.
"But you are still a young child before you are an aristocrat and a student. It's your first time, so you might not know."
“Ah…”
"So I'll pass it as a warning this time for your slip of the tongue, but just know that there's no second opportunity."
It was a totally unexpected and yet so mature treatment.
The students had no choice but to stare blankly at Ludger.
"Of course, you will have disciplinary action accordingly for what you did to your classmate. I hope you are aware of it."
Dynema felt the illusion that the world was collapsing at the mention of disciplinary action, but even so, she could not protest.
What Ludger said was too much of an argument.
…To the point where they thought he was too lenient on her instead.
Ludger's eyes turned to Lynne, the gray-haired girl, as Dynema showed no words of consent.
"And you there. Lynne."
“Yes, yes!”
Lynne's shoulder shook when she heard Ludger call her name.
"Did you get hurt anywhere?"
“Pardon?”
"I asked if you got hurt anywhere."
“Ah, aaaah no! No! I’m alright! Be-because Professor helped me…..”
"Then it's a relief."
Ludger turned his head right away and looked at Selena.
"Professor Selena, I'll leave the rest to you."
“Ah, yes!”
Ludger left the training center after saying that to Selena.
No one dared to move until he disappeared beyond the darkness of the corridor.
Just blankly…
They could only stare at Ludger's back.
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