Chapter 2

<Ah, ah.>

What came from the glass orb was the voice of a woman who sounded incredibly lazy and tired.

Her voice was so lazy that it almost sounded like she was dragging out every word.

The new students began whispering among themselves because the voice sounded much younger than they had expected.

“Isn’t her voice too young?”

“That’s strange. I heard the principal is already over a hundred years old.”

“Over a hundred? Hey! How can a person be over a hundred?”

“She isn’t human!”

“Anyway, is the principal really allowed to skip the entrance ceremony?”

“Is she just a figurehead principal?”

<Everyone.>

The lazy voice called out to the new students again, dragging out the last word.

“……”

“……”

The entire hall became completely silent.

<Ugh… I shouldn’t have mixed so many drinks yesterday…>

After that quiet muttering, there was the sound of someone searching through papers on a desk.

<I think the welcome speech the vice principal wrote should be somewhere around here…>

The principal’s attitude was the exact opposite of welcoming, leaving the new students looking confused.

But Daisy remained calm.

After all, the principal, Seardrid Carsedin, had never cared much about students even in the original novel.

After the entrance ceremony, she would occasionally appear again, usually after Daisy had almost forgotten her name, and do something just as bizarre.

“Wow, look over there!”

The new students had already lost interest in the principal and were looking around the hall.

Their eyes turned upward in awe.

Daisy followed their gaze and saw the returning students sitting in the high spectator stands.

Most of them were casually chatting with one another, as if they were already used to the principal’s strange behavior.

But one person stood out especially.

Brilliant platinum-blond hair.

Bright blue eyes.

A face so handsome that people couldn’t help but gasp.

And an extremely cold expression.

It was Daisy’s eldest brother, Kaillen.

You might wonder how she knew it was Kaillen when the original novel had no illustrations of him.

Well…

“Is that Kaillen Sableheart? The one with the platinum hair?”

“Yeah! The Young Count of Sableheart!”

She could say that the people around her had told her.

“How can a person be that beautiful…?”

“Do you think I could talk to him…? Even just once…”

“Maybe! I heard one of this year’s new students is Kaillen’s younger sister!”

“What? Really? Where?”

“……”

Daisy pulled her black hood farther over her head, like a hermit crab hiding inside its shell.

The messenger of love has retired. Don’t look for me…

She looked around through the gap in her hood, but she couldn’t find another platinum-haired man who was obviously her second brother.

He’s probably off fooling around somewhere. That delinquent.

While Daisy clicked her tongue, the lazy voice from the communication orb spoke again.

<Ah, here it is.>

Rustle, rustle.

The principal slowly flipped through the papers.

<Hmm. Useless information. This is useless too. Useless. Terrible. Awful. Horrible.>

She brutally tore apart the welcome speech that the vice principal had probably worked very hard to write.

After a brief silence, she finally spoke.

<Welcome speech. I hope you all study hard so that you don’t grow up to become someone who writes a terrible welcome speech like this. That’s all.>

“……”

“……”

Is the vice principal crying?

There was the sound of paper being crumpled on the other side of the communication orb.

Then the principal spoke.

“Yes, Principal.”

Even his reply sounded like he was saying, “Yes, Your Majesty…” through gritted teeth.

The principal continued without caring.

“Yes, understood.”

Click.

The communication ended.

The vice principal had clearly ended the call without hesitation.

He stared at the communication orb for a moment.

Should I smash it so she wakes up?

His expression practically said exactly that.

But he seemed to decide against it.

Carefully putting down the communication orb, the vice principal said,

“…Then, we will now begin the dormitory assignments.”

The new students, who had been sitting there in stunned silence, immediately became excited again.

“Wow, finally!”

“Are we going to take a test? Or do we get to choose?”

“Damn it, I kept asking my brother how dorm assignments work, but he wouldn’t tell me anything! What a stingy bastard!”

“Your brother goes here too? Which dorm is he in?”

“The Tower of the Tiger. He says he’s going to become an imperial knight. But I want to go to the Hall of the Crow! Magic looks cooler.”

“I want to go to the Garden of the Bee.”

“What? Why? That’s where they study boring administrative stuff!”

“It’s safe! I hate getting hurt.”

“I don’t know about the others, but that guy is definitely going to the Altar of the Horse. He’s been praying this whole time.”

“Oh! Then me too! God, please don’t let there be a test!”

The dormitories at Eldvain Academy were divided quite simply.

They were based mainly on career paths.

The Tower of the Tiger, which produced knights.

The Hall of the Crow, which produced mages and alchemists.

The Garden of the Bee, which produced administrators.

And the Altar of the Horse, which produced priests and holy knights.

Of course, these weren’t absolute rules.

After taking the basic classes, each student’s curriculum was decided according to their grades and abilities.

Because of that, a mage might occasionally come from the Tower of the Tiger.

But such cases were rare.

Usually, a student’s assigned dormitory and curriculum matched their natural abilities and interests.

“By the way, did you hear? About that incident in Dunwich Forest…”

“Yeah! That crazy person was actually the Duchess…”

As the new students moved on to another topic, Daisy’s attention was drawn back to the original novel.

Dormitory assignments… So that scene is coming too.

This was basically the highlight of the entrance ceremony.

Yet the dormitory assignment scene in <Is the Academy Really This Miserable?> had received an unbelievable amount of criticism.

Because…

“The great legacy of Sir Tigris, the founder of Eldvain Academy…”

The vice principal solemnly placed something wrapped in a black veil onto the stage.

“And now, I present a sacred artifact that will collect, analyze, and judge the essence inside your minds to determine which dormitory is best suited for each of you.”

He dramatically pulled the veil away.

It was…

“A helmet?”

It was an old, brass-colored helmet that covered the entire head.

“Wow, I know that! That’s Sir Tigris’s magic helmet!”

“I read about it in a book! They say that once you put it on, the helmet can see through everything!”

“What? How can a helmet do that?”

“Wow, I never thought I’d actually see something from the history books in person…”

“Are we really going to wear it?”

As if responding to the students’ expectations, the vice principal explained,

“When your name is called, come up and put on this helmet. It will tell you which dormitory you will stay in.”

“……”

Yes.

It was because this system looked suspiciously similar to the sorting hat from X-gwarts.

└ Is this an X-gwarts rip-off? LOL

└ Wow, even if you’re copying it, isn’t this a little too similar?

└ And they changed the hat into a helmet LOL. What difference does a helmet make? LOL

└ They’re probably going to get sued.

In the original novel, Daisy had put on the huge helmet, and her dormitory assignment had been completed almost immediately.

〔The Hall of the Crow!〕

Even the way it announced the result was so similar to the sorting hat that the novel received even more criticism.

“I will now begin calling the names.”

The vice principal raised his voice.

“Cedric Oskilt!”

Someone nearby sharply inhaled.

The pale-faced Cedric Mosquito suddenly stood up and staggered toward the stage.

“Did you see him? He’s so handsome!”

“And he’s so tall…”

“His eyes are amber!”

“Do you think we could end up in the same dormitory?”

“I hope he goes to the Garden of the Bee!”

“Hey, look at his shoulders. He’s definitely going to the Tower of the Tiger!”

The girls whispered excitedly, their cheeks turning red.

Oh dear.

Daisy clicked her tongue.

Apparently, their education needs to focus more on raising their standards for men than on swordsmanship or magic.

“But where is he looking?”

“Ah! Isn’t he looking this way? Is he looking at me?!”

Hearing the new students getting excited, Daisy looked up.

Her mood immediately became worse.

She had made eye contact with Cedric.

He was looking at her with a pathetic expression, as if he were staring at the straw he had lost.

It irritated her.

So she silently mouthed,

What are you looking at?

Cedric flinched and quickly looked away.

Then he obediently put on the helmet.

No one could see his expression inside the helmet.

But Daisy knew exactly what was happening.

The helmet would examine the student’s characteristics, think carefully, and then announce the dormitory.

Just like this.

〔The Tower of the Tiger!〕

The helmet’s voice rang loudly through the hall.

Clap, clap, clap!

As everyone applauded, Cedric took off the helmet.

His face showed a mixture of relief and satisfaction.

Just like the original.

Daisy thought about it with an indifferent expression.

That mosquito bastard is going to become an imperial knight?

The world really is coming to an end…

In the original novel, Cedric graduated first in the Knight Department and was specially recruited into the Imperial Knights.

The only thing that separated him from the second-place student was his written assignment scores.

And who had done those written assignments for him?

Me.

“……”

Ha.

Daisy closed her eyes for a moment as her blood pressure rose so high that her vision blurred.

Then the vice principal’s voice rang in her ears.

“Gale Vendermain!”

A boy with short, dark blue hair and dark skin stood up from directly in front of the stage.

“Wow, look at his size.”

“He could probably beat an orc to death.”

The boy was so large that it was hard to believe he was the same age as the others.

He had a serious, strong-looking face.

He quietly walked onto the stage.

Without showing any excitement or nervousness, he looked straight ahead and put on the helmet.

〔The Altar of the Horse!〕

The result was exactly what everyone expected.

After all, Gale Vendermain would eventually become a completely inflexible and stubborn holy knight.

“It’s the High Priest’s order. The sinner cannot leave this place.”

“Gale, please…”

“You cannot leave.”

What an idiot.

“……”

Daisy took off her hood and rubbed the stiff back of her neck.

If this keeps going, I might die of stress before the dormitory assignments are even finished.

She was having that silly thought when it happened.

“Heh.”

A strangely annoying chuckle came from behind her.

“That’s Daisy Sableheart.”