As we took our seats in the great hall alongside the other classes, a portly man with curled blond hair stepped onto the stage at the far front.
"You are the dropouts, the incompetents of this Babel. I do not expect a single thing from any of you. Therefore, do not do anything unnecessary, and keep your heads down so as not to drag Babel's traditions through the mud."
He twirled his curled mustache with a finger on his left hand, delivering the words with utter arrogance.
Truly incorrigible. Of course, the headmaster's total lack of interest in his students was bad enough, but what was far more beyond saving was how the students themselves took it. Not one of them showed the slightest hint of discomfort at his disgraceful remarks; they simply swallowed them whole. It was what one might call a loser's mindset, but these students were decisively lacking in pride. Indeed, a thorough overhaul of their mentality was in order.
"Is this not amusing?"
Indeed it was. If I was going to do it anyway, I might as well completely rebuild their mindset—to the point where it would be as good as being reborn.
Rose, sitting beside me, peered into my face and let out a heavy, exasperated sigh.
"Kai, do you have any idea what kind of face you are making right now?"
She uttered such pointless nonsense.
"Well now, I wonder."
At this late stage, I did not have the slightest interest in academy life, but seeing their sorry state suddenly filled me with drive. Yes. I was a contrarian, after all.
They said to do in Rome as the Romans do, and I had humored their customs out of basic courtesy, but they had gone out of their way to spit on it. In that case, there was no longer any need to play along with such painstaking politeness.
All that echoed from the stage were the faculty's petty boasts and contemptuous jeers aimed at the students. There was not a shred of value in listening to any of it.
I turned on my heel and prepared to walk away.
"Wait, Kai, the ceremony has not concluded yet."
Rose grabbed my sleeve as I began to leave, pointing that out in a fluster.
"This is an entrance ceremony? You must be joking. This is nothing more than an outlet for their vanity and an arena for kicking down at the weak."
"That may be true, but..."
"Rose, you should know by now. I do not have the slightest interest in the vulgar ideals and traditions of you royals and nobles. Entertaining those fools any longer is a sheer waste of time. Therefore, I shall return to the classroom ahead of the rest."
Having said my piece, I began walking away.
"Hey, you incompetent! Where do you think you're going?!"
A man with his black hair slicked straight back, presumably our homeroom teacher, roared in fury.
"To the classroom, of course. It seems I have a mountain of tasks that must be attended to."
With that reply, I made my way toward the classroom.
Stepping into the room where not a single soul was expected to be, I was surprised to find someone had already beaten me there.
It was the Elf girl, Seth Accard. The faculty's attitude toward Seth was one of total nonexistence—pretending she was not there no matter what happened. In a situation like that, sitting through an entrance ceremony like that certainly was not worth her time either.
"Is that all right?"
The moment I sat down, she abruptly spoke up.
"Is what all right?"
"Ditching the entrance ceremony."
"Ah. Of course, it does not matter."
Right now, I needed to focus on how to beat some backbone into the spineless spirit of this academy's students.
The finest spice for human growth was hardship. Above all, a struggle on the razor's edge where life and death hung in the balance fostered the greatest growth in a person. Gil had, in a sense, proven that.
In that case, I had to tailor the supreme hardship for them.
How should I go about it? Should I make use of monsters like I did with Gil? That was not bad. It was not bad, but repeating the exact same method as Gil was a one-trick routine and somewhat lacking in elegance. Besides, Rose and Ares were at this academy as well. Since the opportunity presented itself, perhaps I should construct the trial with the two of them at the center.
To mold them into the fiercest warriors in all of Babel, nothing short of the absolute highest difficulty would suffice.
Hmm, I was suddenly brimming with motivation.
"You have a truly wicked look on your face."
A faint twitch tugged at Seth's cheek as she made the dry remark.
"Is that so?"
Now then. Time to think. An extraordinary ordeal that would be utterly impossible to clear without all three: wisdom, might, and luck—.