Chapter 3: “Gifted Academy – The First Trial”
Chapter 3: “Gifted Academy – The First Trial”
At Gifted Academy, there’s no such thing as “by age.”
All that matters is skill and aptitude.
Evaluation comes in three stages—Observation, Judgment, Creation—and gets updated daily.
I’m ten. Maharaja’s twelve. Raffaella is three months younger than me—so also ten. Katie’s the same age as Maharaja. Emil looks nine… but what’s inside him is a whole different story.
Even with our ages all over the place, we ended up in the same class.
Apparently, they like grouping the eccentric ones together.
Rumor has it some kids enter the Talented Division at age six.
Talk about broken stats.
──
First day. The second we opened the classroom door, every eye turned toward us.
Silence. The air was unnervingly cold.
(Wow, zero welcome vibes here.)
And of course, the one to break it was her.
“Good morning. I’m Raffaella Bird. Looking forward to working with you.”
Her voice rang like a bell. The tension in the room instantly softened.
Maharaja immediately stepped forward, flashing that prince smile of his.
“As royalty, I can vouch for them. You can trust these ones.”
“What the heck are you saying? You’re the shadiest one here,” Raffaella shot back.
Laughter rippled through the class.
…Not bad.
──
The teacher never showed. Instead, a drone descended from the ceiling, projecting a hologram across the room.
《Introductory Field Training》
《Objective: Measure self-judgment and teamwork》
《Task: As a group, recover the “hidden symbol” from the Old Garden》
(They’re really throwing us straight into it…)
“I suck at this kind of thing,” Katie muttered. Honestly, if it’s not about plants, she couldn’t care less.
“Leave it to me. I never lose the first trial,” Maharaja boasted.
“…But don’t you always only win the first one?” Emil cut in.
Nice one.
──
The Old Garden was a restricted zone now.
The glass greenhouse tower half-collapsed, ivy crawling everywhere.
“Looks like a ruin,” I whispered—just as Hachiko started sniffing the ground at my feet.
“Hach? You found something?”
“Woof!”
He dug out a metal box. Inside was a card—one of the so-called “symbols,” the Academy’s starter badges.
But something was off.
Engraved on the edge: “R-0.”
I remembered what it meant: The Betrayer’s Jester.
“…Someone’s touched this before us.”
“Are they testing us?” Emil asked.
“Or maybe trying to get rid of us,” Katie said, voice low for once.
(This Academy has a dark side.)
The thought stuck in my throat, almost certain.
──
Then, from atop the collapsed greenhouse tower—
A sound.
“Who’s there?” Raffaella called.
No answer.
I crept closer, silent on my feet, and caught a glimpse of a man’s back.
The dorm supervisor. Baxter.
But in the next instant—he vanished like smoke.
(Knew it… There’s something rotten behind this Academy.)
──
That day, we didn’t hand in the symbol.
We just took it back with us.
“If we submit it, something will start,” I thought.
“No,” Katie said, sifting soil through her fingers. “Something will be triggered.”
──
A few days later, rumors spread around the school.
“They say the newbies from Class 1-A crushed their symbol.”
“Royalty, a clone, a kid from ruins—what’s with that crew?”
“And bringing a dog? Seriously weird.”
I pretended not to hear. But it was clear—
We were being watched.
“This makes our enemies clear,” Maharaja muttered darkly.
(Don’t fight. Record. Leave evidence, and turn it into strength.)
Dan’s teaching burned in my chest again.
This wasn’t just a “trial.”
Someone was testing us.
…Or targeting us.
