Chapter 03 …
The Reborn Luciana
“Good day to you all.”
The day after skipping the academy for two and a half days, I finally arrived at school today, fully determined that this time I would attend properly.
And although I intended to greet everyone with a modest expression—
“Why, Lady Luciana! To receive a greeting from Lady Luciana herself is the highest honor imaginable!”
“Ahh, as beautiful as ever! Your smiling face puts even a blooming rose to shame!”
“The mere presence of Lady Luciana brightens the entire world! These past two days, the academy itself must surely have been shrouded in gloom!”
…Oh dear, this is becoming strange.
I thought I was acting as modestly as I possibly could, but apparently my behavior still came across as dazzlingly confident and magnificent enough to impress everyone.
Though, considering that every single one of them came from families beneath mine in rank, perhaps they were simply flattering me.
Still, the troubling part was that for sixteen years, I truly had lived as an arrogant marquis’s daughter.
And the personality of the Luciana who had lived those sixteen years was undeniably part of me as well.
This morning, when I saw the rain lightly pattering outside the window, I had immediately thought, “Perhaps I should skip school today too.”
That only confirmed it again for me:
Luciana’s lazy way of thinking had seeped into every corner of her body.
If I didn’t correct this hopelessly indolent way of living—a level of laziness powerful enough to cancel out the nearly thirty years of steady living from my previous life—then before I knew it, a whole year would pass, and my family would be cast out with no countermeasures prepared at all.
No, no! I absolutely cannot live like that!
For now, my battle is against laziness itself!
Clenching one fist tightly, I renewed that determination in my heart.
And then I remembered—no, there was another problem too.
I clenched my other fist as well.
That’s right, I was suffering from two problems at once.
Not only my laziness, but also this attitude that unconsciously tried to behave charmingly no matter what.
I have to do something about that too.
I’ll do it!
After all, I’m a former Japanese person who believes in being modest in all things.
I’m going to devote myself to the “Roadside Stone Strategy”—becoming so unremarkable that nobody pays any attention to me at all!
Having reaffirmed my resolve, I put on what I believed to be a restrained smile and quietly slipped away from the people surrounding me.
Perhaps because my memories of my previous life had returned, the academy felt incredibly fresh after three days away.
Or perhaps it was this entire world itself.
From the perspective of my previous life, this world felt like a mysterious place simply by existing.
A world of swords, magic, and dresses.
Compared to the world of smartphones, science, and business suits where I used to live, this place operated on entirely different principles.
And nothing represented that world more clearly than this academy.
—Located north of the royal capital stood a small castle surrounded by towering white walls: that was the Lilium Academy of Magic.
Originally, it had been a detached royal villa built for the first king’s queen, who loved lakes.
In other words, it was a renovated royal castle built upon an island floating in a lake, which gave it a luxurious and beautiful design.
However, because it stood somewhat removed from the center of the capital, commuting was difficult, so all students lived in dormitories built within the academy grounds.
That said, considering the special circumstance that most students came from high-ranking noble families, each dormitory room was extravagantly designed as a suite consisting of five separate rooms for a single student.
Those rooms included a living room, private study, bedroom, kitchen, and a maid’s room.
And as the presence of a maid’s room suggested, ordinary students usually brought along one or two maids to care for them during dormitory life.
Luciana herself normally lived in the student dormitory as well, relying on two maids to take care of her daily needs.
For things like preparing tea whenever she felt thirsty, or helping her change clothes.
…Yeah, the current me could do all of that myself.
Now then, the school motto of the Lilium Academy of Magic was “Freedom and Integrity.”
Perhaps because it emphasized freedom, the academy was surprisingly relaxed in many ways.
For example, the enrollment age requirement was simply that students had to turn fifteen during that year—or be older.
As a result, sixteen-year-olds like me were the most common in the second-year class, but there were also seventeen-year-olds, and even eighteen-year-olds like the Crown Prince.
Next, as one could probably guess from my own unimpressive academic knowledge, the academy’s grading policies were not strict.
There were examinations, but they existed merely for students to understand their own academic ability, or for the academy to manage things like class placement.
There were no report cards distributed to individuals.
To begin with, any child of a count or higher-ranking noble family could enroll in this academy.
In the Highlander Magic Kingdom, those with strong magical power were considered superior, and since high-ranking noble families often possessed stronger magic, their children were regarded as future candidates for important government positions.
From this alone, it was clear that the academy did not believe academic knowledge was necessarily the most important quality for high-ranking nobles.
After all, if one truly desired academic learning, one could simply hire private tutors.
So why should brilliant nobles gathered like glittering stars spend all their time quietly doing solitary desk work?
The academy sought not to raise mere know-it-alls, but individuals capable of understanding perspectives, ways of thinking, and how to design their own lives.
Thus, the academy encouraged discussion and collaborative work among students, believing that through the mutual refinement of these brilliant minds, students would acquire multifaceted and comprehensive ways of viewing the world.
That was the academy’s ultimate goal.
The academy uniform reflected this grandeur as well, using a traditional design accented with vivid blue-and-white contrast.
The men wore trouser-style uniforms, while the women wore dress-style uniforms.
The men’s cuffs and the women’s entire outfits were decorated with lace, making them look far too glamorous to be considered school uniforms.
Most famous of all was the special blue color used in the uniforms.
Named after the academy itself, the color was known as “Lilium Blue,” and it had become a dream color admired by the young people of the royal capital.
Although wearing the uniform outside school grounds was not mandatory, being a student of the Lilium Academy of Magic was considered the highest possible status symbol, so many students apparently preferred wearing the uniform even outside the academy.
Tracing the fabric of my uniform with my fingers, I narrowed my eyes at how pleasant it felt.
Seriously, what kind of material did they use to make this feel so luxurious?
I don’t know how much these uniforms cost, but they’re definitely more expensive than my monthly salary from my previous life!
Entering the classroom, I took my seat in the very back row by the window.
Seats were assigned each season through discussions among the students themselves.
In other words, it was obvious that Luciana, one of the academy’s people in power, had deliberately chosen this seat.
…If a tall student sat in front of me here, it’d be hard to see the front of the room, wouldn’t it?
And if I can’t see the teacher very well, then the teacher can’t see me very well either.
Luciana really is hopeless, letting laziness show in every single action she takes!
But the reborn Luciana won’t survive that way.
Thinking that, I firmly decided that when winter seating arrangements came around, I would choose a seat in the very front row.
While seated, I opened my desk drawer and found several textbooks that had been left there.
I took them out and looked over their covers.
Kingdom Common Language, Ancient Kingdom Language, Mathematics, Music, Astronomy, Magic Theory, Practical Magic Studies.
Unfortunately, the knowledge inside Luciana’s head didn’t even include what subjects were taught at the academy, so this was the first time I truly learned what classes I was studying.
I see.
Looking at them like this, they all certainly seem useful for life.
Though the astronomy and magic-related textbooks definitely tug at a maiden’s heart.
But no, no.
This isn’t the time for that.
The reborn Luciana is going to become a young lady devoted to scholarship above all else.
In order to discover what I’m suited for and what I can do to earn money, I’m going to study everything with all my strength!
Come to think of it, in my previous life, while lazily eating snacks, I used to say things like:
“Students have it so easy. All they have to do is study.”
Of course, I only said that because I already knew that once you entered the workforce, you could never go back to being a student again.
But now that I’ve actually returned to student life after so long… how would I feel?
Would I really think, “Being a student is wonderful” after all?
Thinking that, I opened my textbook.
