Chapter 6: “The Lessons of the Gifted”
Chapter 6: “The Lessons of the Gifted”
The moment I stepped into the classroom wing of the Gifted Academy, I couldn’t help but think—yeah, this place really feels like a military installation. It was sterile, but strangely refined: every wall covered in displays, every desk linked into the network. Compared to the archive at Saint Tosgorne, where I came from, this was another world entirely. That place was a ruin; this felt like “the future.”
As soon as I walked into the classroom, every pair of eyes stabbed into me. …Of course they did. The data from my first field battle had already been uploaded onto the school’s network, and now I was the talk of the academy. “The nameless monster.” Who the hell even came up with that?
“Good morning, Oliver.”
Rafaela smiled from the desk beside mine. Her cream-colored hair was neatly tied back, and her gentle smile softened the tense atmosphere around us. Strong as ever, yet kind as always.
Behind her, Katie was glaring at me with a frown between his brows.
“You might be strong, but listen—if you sneak out to ride your bike on the coast again, I’ll be the one catching hell for it.”
“I get it,” I shrugged. “But the sea breeze clears my head. Doesn’t it do the same for you?”
Katie opened his mouth to snap back, but Emil’s voice cut in, quiet and steady.
“The teacher’s coming.”
The door slid open. A tall man stepped inside. He didn’t bother hiding his metal prosthetic arm, and a data-scope gleamed over his left eye. …So it was him.
The Gifted Academy’s instructor of “Strategy and Record.” The dorm supervisor—Baxter.
The same man who had been part of the looters who murdered my mother.
A cold chill spread in the pit of my chest. My face didn’t change, but my eyes narrowed, locking on to my enemy.
“Welcome to the Gifted Academy, gentlemen and ladies. We are here to forge the ‘chosen’ not as mere keepers of knowledge—but as rulers of the future.”
With each word that echoed through the room, anger pressed heavier on my chest. That man didn’t know. He didn’t know that my mother, Hera, had been killed. That my father, Zeus, had been broken by grief.
Outside, Hachikō growled through the network. Even as an AI, he resonated with my emotions. There was no hiding anything from him.
⸻
Lunchtime, in the courtyard.
“You demon!!”
Here we go again… Feitarō had dug up Katie’s bonsai “Michelangelo No. 3.”
“Damn it, the roots are completely exposed! What the hell kind of instinct is that?!”
“But it’s a ferret’s instinct,” Feitarō answered, hopping nimbly with no shame whatsoever.
“I’ll just put a label on one that says ‘OK TO DIG’ next time…” Rafaela laughed as she tried to smooth things over. What the hell was this—peaceful chaos?
Katie had a “bonsai-only room”—a forbidden chamber that even his family wasn’t allowed to enter. A sign hung on the door:
“Entry Forbidden: All ferrets and associated parties (especially Feitarō).”
Rumor was, that legendary room housed a single bonsai worth 1.2 million yen. Apparently, Feitarō once tried to stick his nose in there, and Katie had whispered to him: “That’s a breach of contract.” Terrifying.
And yet, Feitarō still wanted to dig. Later that day, he stood motionless in front of the courtyard security camera, staring as if waiting for a chance. …What the hell was he doing?
⸻
I was in the archive.
Digging into Baxter’s past—the records of his days as a ruins surveyor. Each page I turned bled with cold words, the truth behind my mother’s death seeping through them.
Then, from behind me, came a quiet voice.
“Are you… thinking of revenge?”
It was Maharaja. Straightening the collar of his white uniform, he fixed his gaze on me.
“Revenge will chain your actions. But truth—truth will give you strength. Oliver Jones. Your battle has only just begun.”
…I know that.
Nothing’s over yet.
⸻
And so, my battles at the Gifted Academy continue.
The next field battle. The next enemy.
And until the day I confront my mother’s death and settle the truth of the past.
End of Chapter 6
