Prologue: The Reason I Ended Up Taking In a Transfer Student

“I’m so sorry! Please forgive me, Headmaster Rick! Celica-sama!”

In the headmaster’s office of the Alzano Imperial Magic Academy.

Summoned to the headmaster’s office, Glenn, upon entering, immediately executed a spectacular moonsault jumping dogeza.

Witnessing this, Celica and Headmaster Rick could only freeze, their eyes wide with astonishment.

“Oi, Glenn. What’s this all about? So sudden.”

“Just a tiny mistake… a teensy little slip-up, I swear!? I totally get why you two would be mad! Please, have mercy~!”

As Celica and Rick exchanged bewildered glances, Glenn solemnly began his confession.

“The Kihareto flowers being cultivated in the herb garden—I messed up the type of magical fertilizer and ended up wilting them all. I’m truly, deeply sorry—!”

To the overly apologetic Glenn, Headmaster Rick spoke calmly.

“Hahaha, Glenn-kun. Raise your head. You’ve got the wrong idea. We didn’t call you here today about that. It’s about something entirely different.”

“Oh, phew, is that so? Hahaha, don’t scare me like that!”

Glenn let out a sigh of relief and stood up.

“Right? I mean, I made sure to completely cover my tracks for that incident. I was wondering how it could’ve possibly gotten out, hahaha!”

And with that, he laughed cheerfully.

“Foffoffo, Glenn-kun, you’re such a scatterbrain, aren’t you?”

The headmaster laughed cheerfully as well.

“Hahaha!”

“Foffoffo!”

And so, they shared a hearty laugh together…

“By the way, Glenn-kun, you’re getting a pay cut.”

“GYAAAAAAAH—!? I knew it—!?”

The headmaster delivered his judgment with a smile, while Glenn clutched his head and let out a wail.

“Ugh, damn it… If my pay gets cut any more, I’ll end up having to pay the academy to work here…”

Faced with this all-too-reasonable yet merciless reality, Glenn could only shed bitter tears.

“Ugh… If only I still had the winnings from that bet with that senior—what was her name, Har-something?—from last month’s Magic Tournament… I shouldn’t have shown off and treated the students… Argh! I’m such an idiot, idiot, idiot!”

“You’re too pathetic… Don’t you ever feel embarrassed for yourself?”

From the wall, Celica cast a dumbfounded look at Glenn, who was slumping gloomily.

“To begin with, if you’re going to whine about every pay cut, why not improve your work attitude a bit? Your classes are decently serious, so that’s fine, but everything else about you is just too sloppy. Have a little pride as a mage, will you…”

“Tch… Shut up already. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can’t heaaar you.”

“Or, if you’re going to mess up, at least do it so perfectly it never comes to light… like I do. You’ve always been too careless.”

“Got it! My revered, great master, whom I’ll dedicate my life to respecting!”

Glenn grabbed Celica’s hands with both of his, gazing at her with eyes full of admiration and respect—

“Why in the world did I hire these people…?”

Before this beautiful display of master-disciple bonds, Headmaster Rick gazed out the window with a distant look.

Beyond lay the usual sight: the lush, nature-filled garden within the academy grounds, the quaint, old-fashioned streets of Fejite beyond the iron fence—and high above, floating majestically in the sky, the grand mirage of a castle, Melgalius’s Sky Castle.

“Now, back to the matter at hand, Glenn-kun. We need to talk about a transfer student.”

“…A transfer student?”

“Yes. Starting tomorrow, a new student will be transferring into this academy, and I’d like your class to take them in.”

“Starting tomorrow? That’s awfully sudden… And transferring at such an odd time feels strange.”

“…That said, you don’t exactly have the right to refuse.”

The headmaster slid something across his desk toward Glenn.

It was a cylindrical envelope, its wax seal already broken. The envelope bore no address. Considering the high-quality leather used in its binding, it was likely delivered directly to the academy by someone trusted, bypassing the postal service.

(And this wax seal… Isn’t that the one used by the imperial military?)

Glenn picked up the cylinder, opened it, and pulled out a neatly rolled piece of parchment. Unfurling it, he saw it was densely packed with fine print, with a hawk’s crest embossed in gold at the bottom.

“A hawk’s crest? So, an official imperial government document, endorsed by Her Majesty… and with an unusually high secrecy level… Wait, what!? This is a top-secret military personnel reassignment document, isn’t it!?”

Glenn’s eyes widened in shock as he stared at the parchment.

“Indeed. In simple terms, it states that this transfer student is to be placed specifically in the class you’re in charge of, by direct order of Her Majesty and the imperial government.”

“…No way.”

An unnatural transfer at an odd time, specifically assigned to his class.

“Headmaster, this transfer student…”

“Most likely, it’s as you suspect. This transfer student is a mage from the Imperial Court Mage Corps, dispatched to protect Rumia-kun. By posing as a classmate, it’ll be easier to guard her—that’s the judgment of the government and the military.”

“…!”

Rumia Tingel.

A female student in Glenn’s class. She excels in academics but struggles with practical magic outside of white magic, making her overall grades average. Aside from her striking appearance, she seems like an unremarkable student at first glance.

But she harbors several secrets.

First, she is a legitimate princess, a direct descendant of the Alzano Empire’s royal family.

Second, she is both a princess and an ‘Ability User,’ believed in this world to be a reincarnation or spawn of demons. For various political reasons, she was stripped of her second-in-line status to the imperial throne and exiled from the royal family.

Third, and inexplicably, she is being targeted by the Researchers of Heavenly Wisdom, a magical society that has long operated in the shadows of history, engaging in bloody conflicts with the government as the worst kind of terrorist group.

Rumia’s ‘ability’ is that of a ‘Sympathetic Amplifier.’ She can amplify and enhance the magic and mana of anyone she touches.

It’s certainly a rare and extraordinary power. But it shouldn’t be something a magical society like the Researchers of Heavenly Wisdom would covet so desperately. If it’s just about amplifying magic and mana, modern magical technology offers plenty of other methods.

The most plausible theory is that they might intend to exploit Rumia’s former princess status for political purposes, but their second attempt on her didn’t care whether she lived or died. The political angle seems unlikely.

What exactly does Rumia have? What are the Researchers of Heavenly Wisdom after? The mystery only deepens.

Though their motives remain unclear, the imperial government has concluded that they cannot allow Rumia to fall into the hands of the Researchers of Heavenly Wisdom. It’s easy to predict that nothing good would come of it.

However, treating Rumia, a former princess, too specially would inevitably draw attention to her, risking unnecessary domestic and international turmoil. An ‘Ability User’ from the sacred royal family is like a bomb that could shatter the nation’s foundations.

Thus, the compromise was to have an elite mage from the Imperial Court Mage Corps infiltrate the academy, secretly protecting Rumia.

“That’s… reassuring.”

Glenn genuinely felt that way.

Having once been a part of it, he knew well. The Imperial Court Mage Corps is an elite unit of the empire’s strongest mages. Each member is a one-man army, truly deserving of the term ‘unmatched.’ Glenn still wondered how a third-rate mage like himself had ended up among such monsters.

Ever since learning that Rumia was explicitly targeted by the Researchers of Heavenly Wisdom, Glenn had been constantly on edge about her safety. Knowing that a guard from the Court Mage Corps was being dispatched felt like an immense weight lifted from his shoulders.

“Your class also has the second-year mandatory course, ‘Field Study,’ coming up soon. This transfer student might be a valuable asset for you, Glenn-kun.”

Rick was absolutely right, and there was no denying it.

“Got it. I’ll gladly welcome this transfer student into our class.”

“Oh, excellent. That’s good to hear.”

Rick nodded with satisfaction at Glenn’s response.

“Oh, and the details about the transfer student are in that document, so take a look.”

“Roger that. Let’s see…?”

Glenn began skimming through the official document.

(A dispatch from the Imperial Court Mage Corps… but given the special nature of this mission, it’s probably someone from the Special Missions Annex.)

The Imperial Court Mage Corps, the cornerstone and symbol of the empire’s magical forces, includes a highly secretive special unit that handles magic-related cases and incidents—the ‘Special Missions Annex,’ where Glenn himself once served.

(In that case, someone skilled in magic suited for protection and young enough to blend in as a transfer student… Maybe ‘The Pope,’ Christoph? If it’s him, I’d feel a bit…)

As he skimmed the document, fairly certain of who the candidate might be—

Re=L Rayford.

That name, listed in the transfer student section, caught his eye… or so he thought.

“…Yare yare.”

Glenn dramatically looked away from the text and rubbed his eyes vigorously.

“Haha… Looks like I’m pretty exhausted… For a moment, I thought I saw the most unlikely name possible…”

He looked again.

Re=L Rayford.

Sure enough, that name seemed to be written there.

“This is bad… I’m seriously hallucinating. Or maybe it’s a severe eye condition… or I’ve gone mad.”

He looked once more.

Re=L Rayford.

“…Oi, oi, Glenn, calm down, stay cool. Re=L? That Re=L, ‘The Chariot’? That rampaging muscle-brained boar girl, the natural-born goddess of destruction, the disappointing slaughter angel, the perennial uncontested number-one colleague no one wants to work with? The Re=L notorious for ruining coordinated strategies, where people say, ‘Why bother planning when Re=L’s around?’ and who’s got the seal of approval from every military faction for that?”

Glenn shrugged, sweat pouring down his face.

“Haha, nice joke. Protection is a pretty delicate mission, right? To think they’d send Re=L for a special task requiring such high-level situational judgment? No way, hahaha! The Special Missions Annex isn’t that stupid or desperately short on talent…”

He glanced again, cautiously, with narrowed eyes, carefully checking each letter.

Re=L Rayford.

No matter how he looked at it, no matter how many times, the text clearly read Re=L Rayford.

He even suspected it might be an anagram, breaking down and rearranging the spelling, but it didn’t work. Thinking it might be a hidden message, he held it over his oil lighter’s flame, but the paper showed no change.

“…”

Glenn stared at the name on the parchment in silence for several long seconds…

Faced with that unyielding, merciless, and cruel reality.

“Hold on just a damn minute—!?”

Glenn’s scream echoed through the headmaster’s office…