Chapter 4: First Steps

Inside the carriage heading to the academy.

In this carriage, where the only people are me and the coachman pulling the carriage, I’m spending a very boring time.

“If it weren’t for the high price, I would have gone by teleportation.”

If I used the 5th-circle magic, teleportation, I could have arrived at the academy immediately without having to spend such a boring time.

But unfortunately, there was no mage of the 5th circle or higher among the Kindred Count family’s connections, and it was too expensive to travel through a teleportation specialist mage.

The price varies depending on the mage, but generally, you had to pay around 100 gold.

My allowance before I was branded as a good-for-nothing was 15 gold per month, so it was a very expensive fee.

Teleportation magic requires a lot of mana, so after using it once, you wouldn’t be able to use teleportation again for about 3 days.

“Still, 100 gold is a bit…”

Since my family stopped giving me any allowance after I was branded as a good-for-nothing, it was an impossible wish for me to use teleportation.

“······Let’s make a plan first.”

It takes at least 5 hours to get from the Kindred Count’s mansion to ‘Selenia,’ the capital of the empire where the academy is located, so I thought I could endure the boring time by making a plan for the future.

“How should I take the class placement exam?”

The first thing I was worried about was the class placement exam.

The academy operates a grading system that divides students’ grades according to their skills.

The standards for accepting new students are that the academy selects students directly and sends them an acceptance notice.

After receiving new students in this way each year, the grades are determined according to the individual’s skills, and the classes are divided according to those grades.

Class 1 for those ranked 1st to 20th, Class 2 for those ranked 21st to 39th, and so on.

And at the end of each semester, the class placement exam is held again, which involves another ranking battle to redivide the classes.

If you raise your ranking here, you can move up to a higher class, and conversely, if your ranking drops, you can fall to a lower class.

Of course, it’s not determined solely by the ranking battle, but it’s combined with how you performed in the written and practical exams during the normal times.

The academy is where you prove yourself solely with your skills, regardless of whether you are a noble or a commoner, whether your rank is high or low.

Even if you graduate from the academy, you will be welcomed almost everywhere, but it’s also true that the treatment is different even for the same academy graduates if you graduate from a higher class.

So, everyone, regardless of whether they are nobles or commoners, wanted to go up to a higher class.

Except for a unique case like me.

“I’m going to die in about three years anyway, so there’s no need to bother raising my rank.”

It’s quiet now, but as time goes on, this unnamed illness that was Adel’s chronic disease will gradually eat away at me.

I didn’t think it would be easily curable.

If it could be easily cured, Adel wouldn’t have had to suffer from her chronic illness.

Anyway, because a bright and shining future is not an important element for me, there was no need to work hard to raise my rank.

What’s important to me is that I want to live an ordinary life like other people, not the wealth and glory I will enjoy later.

“I’ll just go with the flow.”

That doesn’t mean I’m going to take the entrance exam in a strange way.

I intend to take the exam according to my own skills, in line with the academy’s characteristic of valuing individual skills.

“I don’t think I’ll get a high ranking anyway…”

My level before awakening my unique magic was around 2nd circle.

Saying 2nd circle might seem like a very low level, but it wasn’t a low level at all, considering it’s before entering the academy.

Most 1st-year students at the academy are at 1st to 2nd circle, and starting from 3rd circle, which is the next level and Adel’s circle in her first year, they are called geniuses.

“This is a bit disappointing.”

In fact, Riana Kindred’s body, my body, was talented in magic.

I reached 2nd circle very quickly, and if I hadn’t deviated and hadn’t stopped my efforts, I might have reached 3rd circle by now.

I do end up regretting my past self, who lived like a good-for-nothing, but… what can I do, since it’s already happened.

It’s too late to regret it, and now it’s time to think about the future that is not far off.

“First of all, it’s important to fully understand my unique magic.”

The reason I emphasized ‘before awakening my unique magic’ when I talked about my circle just now was this.

Unique magic has powerful and effective magic in most cases, but it has a penalty that you can’t use regular magic.

Before I awakened my unique magic, I was a mage whose main magic was fire magic among elemental magic, but now that I’ve awakened it, it doesn’t matter what kind of magic I was good at in the past.

Because I can only use unique magic anyway.

But is the circle not important?
That’s not the case.

Because the level of unique magic is also determined by a person’s circle.

To sum it up, ‘the circle is as important for a unique magic holder as it is for a normal person, but unlike a normal person, only the level of unique magic is determined for a unique magic holder.’

In this respect, I could be considered very disadvantaged in the entrance exam.

While other students are taking the entrance exam with the magic they’ve been practicing until now, I have to compete with my unique magic that I awakened not long ago.

Of course, as I said before, I didn’t need to be obsessed with the ranking, so it didn’t matter whether I did well or not on the exam.

But taking the entrance exam casually was against my wish to live like other people, so I was going to try everything I could do.

“But to do my best… I need to know my abilities.”

But the problem was that there was no one to test my abilities even if I wanted to do my best.

All I’ve confirmed so far is that I can absorb diseases from people.

“Should I find out slowly after the entrance exam?”

If there’s no way to do your best even if you want to do your best, there’s nothing you can do.

“······Let’s think about it slowly.”

No matter how much I worried, there was no way for me to find out my abilities on my own, so I decided to postpone my unique magic for later.

“This is actually a bigger problem than the entrance exam…”

The entrance exam, which would be held in a few hours, was also a big problem, but there was a much bigger problem than the entrance exam: the existence of my fiancée, Adel.

“I thought we would naturally break off our engagement like in my previous life.”

When I first realized I had regressed, I didn’t think much about Adel.

That’s because I was naturally thinking that the engagement would be broken off immediately.

But for some reason, the breakup between me and Adel, which had happened in my previous life, didn’t happen, and because of that, our engagement was still ongoing.

“We’ll definitely meet at the academy.”

There’s no reason for the genius, Adel Listonia, not to go to the academy, so it was a foregone conclusion that I would meet Adel again.

“······Why didn’t we break off the engagement?”

Adel hated me to the point of almost despising me at this time.

Even before the rumors that I frequented entertainment districts and brothels spread, Adel didn’t like me much, but when I met her after the rumors spread, I really felt like she didn’t treat me like a person.

So, didn’t she send me a divorce notice right away?

Anyway, I couldn’t predict why we didn’t break off the engagement, but it was clear that Adel would still hate me.

Moreover, if it becomes known that I’m engaged to Adel, the princess of the Listonia family, the most famous family in the empire, there was a high possibility that my wish to ‘live an ordinary life’ wouldn’t be kept.

“What do I do?”

As a result of worrying about it for almost an hour with my head in my hands, the conclusion I came to was simpler than I thought.

‘Let’s not pay attention.’

It’s true that we’re not close in reality, but Adel wouldn’t want to show off her engagement to a guy like me, so it was clear that she wouldn’t pay attention to me if I didn’t do anything.

I remember that Adel has had boyfriends a few times at the academy and has made many other friends, so she wouldn’t have any interest in someone like me.

“It’s a bit… bittersweet.”

It was a rather bittersweet thing to be engaged and not be able to say anything about your fiancée having a boyfriend, but I had no words to say, given the sins I committed in the past.

“If she gets a boyfriend and so on… she’ll probably ask to break off the engagement while she’s at the academy.”

It may seem like I dislike Adel because I keep saying I want to break off the engagement, but as I said before, I don’t dislike Adel, and rather, I like her very much.

What fiance wouldn’t dislike having a beautiful and talented woman, who is also the heroine of the novel, as their fiancée?

But Adel wasn’t someone for me, an extra with a limited lifespan, to be greedy for, and she was the protagonist who deserved to meet a better person, so it was right for me to give up.

That was the way to receive the least amount of pain and to bring happiness to Adel.

“We’ve arrived, sir.”

Perhaps because of the hard work I put into planning, I arrived at the academy’s main gate at some point.

The main gate itself was very huge, and the academy seen behind the main gate was so huge that it could be considered a palace rather than a school.

“······I guess there’s a reason why they say the empire’s budget all goes there.”

I was quietly impressed and packed my bags and got out of the carriage.

“Thank you. Sir.”

I paid the coachman, adding a little tip, and I set foot in the academy for the first time in my life.