Everyone, welcome to the academy.
I am Leopold, First Prince of the Kingdom of Deluah, and this year I have the honor of entering the Royal Academy as a new student.
May you all devote yourselves to your studies here and contribute to the everlasting prosperity of Deluah-
“For Deluah-!”
Seated in the banquet hall, raising a glass of wine along with everyone else in a toast, Teron thought to himself.
Because of last year's famine, twenty people died in my village alone...
Where does the food you eat and drink come from, and where does it all go?
The Kingdom of Deluah, which those men draped in gold and smiling would never understand for as long as they lived. Disgusting hypocrites, doing it all "for Deluah."
If someone asked what black magic was, he would answer that it was the devil's fruit that bred murderers.
This was no metaphor or anything of the sort. It was the very essence of black magic itself.
To learn black magic, one had to kill people, and the more people one killed, the stronger one's magic grew.
So a powerful black mage would be the very first sort of person one should avoid in life. Someone who, for the sake of his own power, could cut down an innocent in an instant... to borrow someone's words, "trash."
At present, Teron Meyer was in no condition to use even a shred of black magic.
The prickling bloodlust that used to run through his whole body, the uncanny sensations, none of it was there at all.
It was a shame. To learn black magic again, he would have to kill people, and moreover, to become a powerful black mage, he would have to kill as many people as he had in his past life.
Teron opened and closed his cold, sweat-slick hands, over and over.
After wandering the academy all weekend, swallowing every kind of insult, coming to terms with his situation and analyzing where things stood, a suffocating hopelessness settled over him. It got to the point where he began to doubt whether the reason for his return to the past really was to atone for it.
Even so, Teron calmly laid out the situation.
Fact one. Teron was currently not a black mage. He was nothing but a loathsome parasite of the academy.
Fact two. To become a black mage, serial murder was inevitable.
Fact three. Serial murder did not suit atonement. Teron had to live his second life the way "he" from his past life had said to.
"He" despised murder. He hated crime as much as he despised murder. The reaction he'd shown when those two hated things came together was so vivid in Teron's memory that it made his skin crawl. Teron Meyer never wanted to see that look again.
But most important of all, fact four. There existed no magic stronger than black magic.
Whether Teron lived a virtuous life in the name of atonement, or became a murderer as he had in his past life, in the end nothing would change. The dynasty would collapse, and a nation of black mages would be established. The nobility who attended the academy, or were of a rank to attend it, would be slaughtered to the last.
There was no way to change it... None at all. Truly none. Teron Meyer had been his sovereign's vassal, not the damned "sovereign" himself.
Even Leopold, the First Prince who had been the kingdom's sole sword master in his past life, hadn't lasted a single minute against the touch of black magic before dropping dead on the spot.
Couldn't he find a way, even now? At the thought, Teron pressed his pen hard into the paper, jabbing at it, his face twisting.
If that was the plan, I should have come back to when I was ten. By now, his sovereign and all his followers had already gathered.
Then could I do something with ordinary magic...?
Teron lifted his quill and jabbed meaningless dots onto the textbook, which had a teleportation magic circle drawn across it.
There's a limit to delusion. Do you honestly think it's possible?
What could I possibly accomplish with this shoddy, feeble magic?
The spells it could cast were teleportation, summoning, attack magic destroyed by a single swing of a knight's blade...
“...Meyer.”
This trash of a magic circle, shattered by even one swing of my own blade.
“Teron Meyer!”
The old professor's cry came, cracked with anger. Teron narrowed his eyes and peered at the blackboard. Snickering rose from all around him.
“Do you not see what sort of time this is?”
“...My apologies.”
“Vulgar things, the lot of them... daring to do this in the sacred hour of magic studies. You're the kind of breed that should never have been allowed to set foot in this place to begin with!”
At the old professor's fury, Teron recalled his past life.
When Teron focused in class, the man had cursed him as filthy, greed-riddled blood; when Teron scored well on exams, his face would go pale and he'd strain to grind Teron down by any means, yes, an utterly ordinary noble.
Usually a man like that was among the first to die at the hands of a black mage. The professor's head, split in two, flashed vividly through his mind.
Sneering laughter came from all around. Everyone laughed, save for a single person. One lone, serious boy checked the other students.
“Quiet, all of you. What do you think you're doing during class?”
“No, Your Highness. Tell them to laugh all they like. He's a student who'll be expelled soon anyway, isn't he?”
“That's not so. A student sponsored by the royal family is not easily expelled, Professor.”
He countered lightly, a hint of laughter in his voice. His well-groomed, splendid golden hair shifted a little each time he spoke.
The professor, who had been raging, pressed his lips shut, as if displeased at having his conduct checked. But he was a middle-aged man steeped through and through in the class system. It seemed the fact that Leopold was the kingdom's prince, the one who had brought Teron here, mattered more to him than the humiliation of having his conduct checked by some green boy.
He forced the corners of his mouth up and answered.
“Understood... Your Highness. But Your Highness ought to know as well. That it's only for a time. You'll regret it.”
“What do you mean, Professor?”
“I mean that one should not associate with lowly things.”
The prince of Deluah lightly furrowed his brow. But soon he let out a sigh, as though resigning himself. A faint smile lingered at the corners of his mouth.
“If that's what you think, Professor.”
Then there's nothing to be done.
Had Teron Meyer been the one to spit out these words as they were, he might soon have been dragged up to the scaffold and executed.
But the prince of Deluah... Leopold Deluah was the kingdom's First Prince, and he knew how to make the other person feel good. There didn't seem to be the slightest malice in the beaming tone with which Leopold replied.
The professor ordered Teron to write out the formula for the magic circle, and even after watching Teron's flawless answer with his own two eyes, he kept fussing irritably. Teron Meyer was slowly beginning to remember why he had turned the academy into a sea of blood.
It had been a mere three days since his return, and yet Teron was being picked on constantly, by classmates and professors alike, at every turn.
Everyone looked at Teron Meyer with expressions of contempt. He was this school's parasite. A commoner intruding into a space meant for nobles. Trash who, being a mere commoner, drew needless attention. A worm...
It was almost funny that most of these people, in less than three years, would come to kneel and beg beneath Teron.
But whatever the case, Teron had to find a way to save them.
Black magic was no instrument of justice that killed off only the people you couldn't stand.
The first sacrifice to this horrific magic had been Teron's mother, and the last had been the kingdom's First Prince. The former was Teron's only blood relation. The latter was...
“Teron, don't let it get to you too much. Sometimes there are people who see the world through narrow eyes.”
After class, Leopold called Teron and led him into a shared study room. Wearing a guilt-tinged expression, he went on.
“All right?”
“...”
The latter was, yes. Damned Leopold Deluah.
The man who, of all the people he'd seen in his life, had been the most out of his mind.
The person Teron had loathed his entire life.
“Leopold...”
Even taking the hostile glare head-on, Leopold remained unruffled. He shrugged and made a gesture as if to say, Go on, if you've got something to say, say it.
Only now did Teron truly feel that he had returned to the past. He answered with a twisted smile.
“Don't play the hypocrite.”
