The Academy

I was now six years old.

I had been living in this world for long enough to know that this wasn't just some cruel joke.

I had died, and been reborn in another world. Or perhaps the same world, but thousands of years in the past. I was still researching the details of this world whenever possible, but I had exhausted the supply of books available in my room.

I finished the last book yesterday, which was an interesting fictional novel about about monsters and adventuring - but ultimately proved useless in terms of information.

I was now able to have simple conversations with my mother. I questioned her about the monarchy, magic and this world's history. I was still a child, though, so her answers were watered down and sugar-coated to avoid traumatising me.

She refused to talk about my father, Ervin. Whenever I tried to ask about that man, her face darkened to the point that I could no longer recognise her as the cheerful woman who comforted me as a baby.

I had learned that, while generally happy, this poor woman had a bitter side cultivated by a life of misfortune and regret - culminating in her twisted relationship with the barbarian named Ervin.

My father returned home every few months, turning my mother docile. She was left at his beck and call, following his every command for the duration of his stay. Luckily, it was only ever for a few days.

I'd started eavesdropping in on their conversations for the past year, though, once I had learned what they were speaking about I almost wished I hadn't.

Ervin was a mercenary, selling his sword to the highest bidder to earn the money he needed to scrape by. Dreaming of life as a noble, his grand plan was to raise a child capable of magic and sell them off to the academy to be trained as a mage.

The academy, according to him, was offering parents life-changing sums of money to take in gifted children. Tabitha would always try to bring up alternatives, but wasn't able to hold her ground in an argument against my father.

I resented Ervin for this cruel plan; and I couldn't help but resent my mother a little for going along with it, but it's not like she had much of a choice. As a cloth weaver, she didn't have enough money to leave this house, and wasn't strong enough to stand up to my father.

If only I was able to use the knowledge from my past life to come up with an invention that would make us rich. Alas, that would have been too easy. My mind remained too jumbled to recall things like that in any amount of detail.

Though, looking back, I do remember the existence of a magic academy in my previous world. It was a military-run hellhole, where children were pushed past their limits in the government's desperate attempt to cultivate powerful mages.

I'm not sure if I ever attended, but there were definitely more than a few horror stories about that place spread around as rumors within the first battalion...

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"Thomas?" A hand shook my shoulder in a desperate attempt to wake me up. My eyes snapped open, and I gave the boy who had woken me up a weak smile.

"Sorry." I whispered. "Didn't get a lot of sleep last night..."

He shook his head, sighing. "Well, you better wake up soon, next class is practical combat."

I winced at the mention of that class, sitting up in my chair and peering across the classroom. The lecturer was finishing up his lesson at the front of the class, speaking about the dangers of mana exhaustion or something.

I glanced over to the side at the orange-haired menace who had disturbed my slumber. His hair was messy, and his uniform was unkept. He radiated positive energy, and quite frankly, was the only reason I was able to suffer through these classes.

His name was David, the class clown, and my best friend at the academy.

The bell rang, and the lecturer called out to us as we funnelled out of the classroom. "Don't forget to hand in your homework tomorrow!"

David stopped in the doorway and yelled back, "Yeah, yeah, as long as you remember to turn up tomorrow!"

The entire class erupted in giggles and laughter. The last time we got homework, our teacher didn't turn up to class for the entire lesson. He never mentioned it the following week, and we were never asked for that piece of homework.

I looked back at the teacher as we were whisked down the corridor by the bustle of students. He didn't look angry, or amused. I couldn't read his expression. He stared off into space, as if his mind was somewhere else.

We lined up outside of the practical combat class and waited to be let in by our next teacher. I couldn't help but fixate on the last lesson. The situation did seem a little odd, where had the teacher gone that week? Why couldn't he discuss it with the class?

"Thomas, what're you lookin' like that for?" David slapped my back, trying to cheer me up in his own way. "They're giving us pizza in the cafeteria today y'know?!"

I forced a smile. "Y... yeah. That's better than the slop they usually feed us, haha."

The entire class erupted in a cheerful pizza-based chant. 'Pizza! Pizza! Pizz-'

"Shut the fuck up."

Everybody froze.

This ominous presence.

Mana filled with bloodlust was leaking into the hallway, and the origin was... that man.

He stood at the front of the line in nothing but cargo shorts and a black t-shirt. Ugly scars covered his entire body, from head to toe.

"Get in. I will be teaching you today." His deep voice boomed down the corridor, shaking the entire class to their cores.

Nobody moved a muscle. Nobody even breathed.

The amount of mana this man possessed was ungodly. He was unbelievably strong.