Chapter 01
Entrance Ceremony
Of course.
I had been possessed.
“……”
I wasn’t particularly surprised.
If anything, I had a strong feeling that this was bound to happen eventually.
After all, Kwon Doyo had been waiting for an Xgwarts acceptance letter since she was ten years old.
A magic school?
Thank God!
This time, I’ll really attend every single day and even come in first place!
Physics wasn’t suited to me, but I think magic will be right up my alley!
Xermione? Bring it on. I’ll give it a try!
But contrary to the aspirations she had always held in her heart, Kwon Doyo, who was staring at herself in the mirror, didn’t look very happy.
In the mirror stood a girl with an astonishingly beautiful appearance.
Platinum-blonde hair that shone like a jewel.
Large emerald eyes blinking beneath long eyelashes.
A clearly defined nose that was neither too big nor too small, along with plump red lips.
Every individual feature of her face was enough to draw people’s attention.
Although her gentle expression and an impression that was calm to the point of being slightly bored kept her from standing out too much.
Kwon Doyo knew the girl well.
Daisy Sableheart.
The female protagonist of <Is the Academy Really This Bleak?> and… its victim.
“Damn it.”
Kwon Doyo roughly grabbed her hair.
In the mirror, the beautiful girl also roughly grabbed her blonde hair.
God.
I wasn’t even asking for Xgwarts.
Well, actually, I wanted it a little.
No, but seriously, Eldvane Academy? You can’t be serious!
Here, Daisy Sableheart…
“Dies…!”
Where the hell was there a crazy novel where the heroine died?
Right here.
Readers who had been lured in by the weightless title, <Is the Academy Really This Bleak?>, all left while coughing up blood.
Go away… Don’t read this……
Some people, intrigued by the sight of readers crawling along the floor, came in.
What the hell is going on? I’ll give it a taste!
They coughed up blood too.
What is this…? This is weird……
Kwon Doyo had also fallen into that strange pyramid scheme where nobody recommended the product, yet somehow it sold like crazy.
Somebody save me! Curiosity is killing people!
The story was simple.
Daisy Sableheart was too kind to ever say anything unpleasant to anyone. After enrolling at Eldvane Academy, she met all kinds of unreasonable people and villains, suffered every imaginable kind of torment, and eventually died after being falsely accused.
All because she couldn’t say the word ‘no’!
By the time she reached the latter part of the novel, Kwon Doyo no longer even felt sorry for Daisy.
This girl was crazy too.
She was stubborn beyond belief.
Daisy.
The world isn’t going to end just because you say ‘no’……
But if you say ‘yes,’ you’re the one who’s going to end up dead……
In front of the mirror, Kwon Doyo squished Daisy’s young cheeks.
The remaining baby fat squished together like a rice cake.
Her skin… is really nice.
“This is going to die.”
In the mirror, Daisy still looked incredibly gentle even as her pretty face was being squished this way and that.
Of course, because Kwon Doyo was inside her, her emerald eyes occasionally looked rather fierce when they sparkled.
When she lowered her eyes, her gentle face became slightly gloomy.
Kwon Doyo felt a little troubled.
Had Daisy always said ‘yes’ with this face?
She looked too… young to have gone through all those things.
“Come to think of it, isn’t the entrance ceremony today?”
Yesterday, she’d been too busy going around saying ‘no’ to pay much attention, but today was the entrance ceremony at Eldvane Academy.
After the entrance ceremony, students would be assigned to dormitories.
And once the dormitory assignments were over… she could forget about dropping out.
Because to withdraw from Eldvane Academy, she had to have an interview with the dormitory supervisor, an interview with the professor in charge, an interview with the head of the department, and an interview with the vice principal. After going through a short period of consideration, she then had to call her parents and complete one final interview with the principal.
In other words.
It would be faster to just graduate.
“……”
While pressing her temples at the distant headache, Kwon Doyo suddenly raised her head.
“Wait.”
Did she really have to enroll?
Kwon Doyo thought about Daisy’s family.
Count Sableheart, who considered the family’s reputation the most important thing in the world and therefore treated Daisy, who was of no help in that regard, as if she didn’t exist!
Her eldest brother, Kaylen, the student council president who never failed to rank first in his grade, yet ignored Daisy more than anyone!
Her second brother, Chester, notorious for his debauchery and dissipation, who picked fights with Daisy over every little thing whenever he saw her!
This family arrangement meant only one thing.
“There isn’t… anyone who would worry if I didn’t enroll, right?”
She could say no.
If so?
No to this academy!
Kwon Doyo clenched her fist.
“Now that it’s come to this, I’ll just run away first.”
Rule No. 1 for surviving a bleak story.
Get out of the bleak situation.
Kwon Doyo decided to leave Eldvane Academy, a den of villains, and live quietly on her own.
Daisy put on a black cloak and gathered all the money she had.
It was obviously a small amount, but she wasn’t worried.
She was confident she could somehow make a living.
After all, that’s how Kwon Doyo had lived until now.
“Good.”
Plan A: Escape the academy while the entrance ceremony is taking place!
“Okay!”
Bang!
Kwon Doyo opened the bedroom door with determination, only to immediately close it again.
Bang!
Her heart pounded wildly.
What was that? What just happened?
“Daisy!”
As if answering Kwon Doyo’s thoughts, a cheerful voice came from outside the door.
“Let’s go to the entrance ceremony!”
Plan B: Jump out the window and do the same thing!
Kwon Doyo locked the door and hurried toward the window.
Creak.
Whoooooosh!
Along with the fierce sea breeze, she saw a sheer cliff directly below the window.
A fall would mean instant death.
What kind of idiot built a building in a place like this?
“Daisy! We’re late!”
“……”
Plan C: Beat up the guy outside the door first and do the same thing!
Bang!
Daisy opened the bedroom door again and looked at the boy standing before her.
The slender boy was considerably taller than Daisy. He had well-groomed sandy-colored hair and attractive amber eyes.
“Good morning, Daisy! You’re so pretty again tod—”
“Who are you?”
Kwon Doyo asked bluntly.
The boy tilted his head for a moment before answering.
“Don’t you remember? We introduced ourselves yesterday!”
“Name.”
“S-Sedric Oskillt.”
Hmm, Sedric Oskillt…
Oh, right. I remember.
A mosquito who uses his handsome face to latch onto kind and intelligent girls, exploiting them for their assignments and notes.
And who was the first sucker this crafty mosquito latched onto?
Obviously, Daisy.
For the record, Kwon Doyo called Sedric this:
“This Sedric Mosquito bastard is already—”
“Hm? It’s not Mosquito. It’s Oskillt.”
Sedric corrected her with an infuriating smile, then waved his long hand and urged her on.
“Anyway, we’re late. Let’s go to the entrance ceremony together.”
At that gentle voice,
「“Yes, okay.”」
Daisy would have said that with a radiant smile.
But—
“No. I don’t want to.”
“What?”
“I’m going alone, so don’t follow me.”
I have no intention of letting anyone stick a straw into me when I’m already struggling to stick one into them.
Leaving Sedric staring at her dumbfounded, Kwon Doyo walked down the hallway.
Yeah. Get out of Daisy’s life forever.
After easily shaking off the mosquito bastard, Kwon Doyo pulled her black cloak over her head.
Now all she had to do was get outside the academy.
She thought she could hear the buzzing sound of a mosquito somewhere, but she casually ignored it.
Finding the academy entrance was easy.
[→Entrance→]
Old brass signs indicating the location of the entrance could be found throughout the academy.
‘For a crazy academy, they’re surprisingly considerate about this kind of thing…….’
Kwon Doyo moved quickly without making a sound.
When she turned the corner, she saw the academy entrance.
There wasn’t even anyone guarding it.
Keeping her guard up until the very end, Kwon Doyo reached the entrance and clenched her fist in victory.
Thank God! So you do have a conscience after all!
Right. If you’re going to put someone into a ridiculously bleak story, you should at least give them a way to escape!
Thinking that, Kwon Doyo passed through the entrance.
Whoosh!
At the same time, she felt her body suddenly sink, and something soft touched her buttocks.
As if she had just sat down in a chair.
Wait, a chair?
“……Huh?”
Kwon Doyo’s head shot up.
“W-What’s going on?”
Hundreds of chairs were arranged inside a massive colosseum with a stage.
“Why am I here……”
“I was definitely looking for the exit……”
And all around her were swarms of freshmen making similarly bewildered expressions.
In other words, Kwon Doyo was currently sitting in the entrance ceremony hall.
While wearing a black cloak over her head.
“Heh heh, you got lost.”
Someone laughed heartily after seeing Daisy.
Daisy turned toward the source of the voice and almost fainted.
‘Wings?’
There was an angel in front of her.
No, to be precise, a sparkling creature with wings.
And this wasn’t a metaphor.
A handsome young man with long, snow-white hair falling to his waist really did have wings covered in densely packed white feathers, and his skin sparkled.
Like a diamond reflecting light.
The winged sparkle blinked his purple eyes and said,
“The academy is quite large. We installed a spell that automatically summons anyone who gets lost and wanders into a strange place to the entrance ceremony hall.”
Fuck.
“And when it’s time for the entrance ceremony to begin, everyone is summoned here no matter where they are. Now, let’s see, the time is……”
The winged sparkle stared intently at his completely bare wrist before saying,
“Right now.”
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
At that moment, strange summoning sounds rang out one after another, and the empty seats were filled in an instant.
“AAAAAH!”
A boy wearing a bathrobe and shaking his wet hair screamed while covering his exposed chest with a towel.
Snap.
The sparkling man snapped his fingers, changing the boy’s clothes into the academy uniform, then winked at Daisy.
“……”
It was then that Daisy was staring at him with a dumbfounded expression.
A man stepped onto the stage.
A frail-looking man wearing sharp green glasses and an orange microfiber cloak wrapped around himself like a blanket switched on a magical amplification device.
“Hello, I am Orphelias Mothergoose, the vice principal of Eldvane Academy.”
The man’s gentle voice echoed throughout the entrance ceremony hall.
“Since the principal is unable to attend the entrance ceremony, er, his welcome speech will be delivered through a communication orb instead.”
Did he just grind his teeth?
While the freshmen whispered among themselves, the vice principal placed a round glass orb in front of the magical amplification device.
Soon, the glass orb began to sparkle with multicolored light.
