NOVEL NEXT Keep finished his report and stepped back.
Roan sat on a chair with his legs crossed and deeply immersed in thought.
The long coat he wore to the dance slipped down the chair.
‘Princess Aily……’
Somehow, Aily’s face filled his head.
‘Why am I so concerned about her?’
Love?
‘No way.’
Roan shook his head.
He and Aily never met before today.
Also, there was no way that Roan, who was living his second life, didn’t know the feeling of love.
No, he thought he knew.
‘Was there some sort of connection in the last life?’
Even Roan can’t remember everything.
It was possible that there is a memory related to Aily among those that he thought wasn’t important.
He rubbed the tip of his chin while furrowing his forehead.
“Sir Baron?”
At that sight, Keep nervously stared at Roan.
Since his time in the 7th Squad of Rose troop until now, he had been watching Roan’s side.
Because he was fast and quick-witted, he became the head of the information squad when Amaranth troop was made.
Keep realized Roan’s expression was different than usual.
Worries about whether there may be a problem in the mission surged through his mind.
“Hmm. Sorry.”
Roan organized his thoughts a step late and turned towards Keep.
“Excellent. Continue to actively use the agents to gather as much information as possible.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Keep lowered his head with a look of relief.
Then, Roan hesitated for a moment and then raised his right hand.
“Ah. And by the way……”
He lost his words for a bit and wavered.
After breathing in and out several times, he whispered in a small voice.
“Within the information you gathered and analyzed, is there perhaps anything about Princess Aily Rinse?”
“Princess Aily Rinse?”
Keep tilted his head.
“I’ll have to check separately for anything specific, but I don’t really remember anything special…… ah!”
As he continued his words, Keep suddenly exclaimed.
Staring at Roan, he asked in a cautious voice.
“Are you perhaps talking about the shadow princess?”
“Yeah. That’s right. The shadow princess.”
On Roan’s face, a slight look of expectation had appeared.
For some reason, Keep whispered in a small voice.
“Around last year or so, it seems that the shadow princess caught a serious disease.”
“Serious disease? What kind of disease?”
Roan frowned.
Keep shrugged his shoulders.
“We’re not exactly sure. It was a rumor going around Miller’s residents. Because the princess hadn’t appear ever since last Fall to this Spring, it seems that everyone thought that she had been sick.”
“Didn’t appear ……”
Roan squinted his eyes.
‘If such rumor started to run even amongst the castle’s citizens, even the royal family wouldn’t stay still.”
At the moment, he unconsciously held a great interest in Aily.
“Keep.”
“Yes. Sir Baron.”
Keep lowered his head.
Roan gave a new order in a low voice.
“Gather some information on the palace and the royal family. Even rumors and ghost stories like this one is fine.”
“The, the royal family?”
With a surprised expression, Keep asked back.
Roan nodded his head.
“Secretly. Don’t go burrowing too deep.”
If they weren’t careful, they could earn hostility from the palace.
Calming down his shocked heart, Keep lowered his head.
“Yes. Understood.”
Certainly, it wasn’t an easy mission.
But it wasn’t impossible either.
‘Let’s show the information squad’s ability.’
He wanted to show something that could match the Agens, no, an appearance that is greater than Agens.
‘And although he said the palace and the royal family……’
His eyes quickly spun.
‘It seems that he is interested in the shadow… no, Princess Aily.’
As expected of Keep.
‘Sir Baron. Just believe in me and the Information squad.’
He clenched his fist.
Roan, perhaps knowing his thoughts or perhaps not, stared at Keep and smiled.
‘That’s it. Compete together, grow together.’
Still water is doomed to rot.
With a satisfied expression, Roan stood up.
‘Then, is Tron Academy the next……’
His heart trembled.
In the last life, it was a place he couldn’t attend even if he wanted to.
‘Will something happen again at that place?’
The smile on his mouth grew deeper.
*****
Roan’s dream was big.
It was different than an ambition or a desire.
It was pure and hot.
Because of that, he learned words despite being a commoner and bought and collected all sorts of books.
And to him, the academy was like a holy land.
‘I really wanted to go there.’
Looking at the grand entrance to Tron Academy, Roan bitterly smiled.
A place where he wanted to, but couldn’t attend.
There were various reasons why, but the biggest reasons were his standing, wealth, and time.
To attend the academy, he needed to at least be from a noble family or have a noble’s recommendation.
Additionally, he needed to pay a colossal tuition fee and spend four years there until graduation.
To Roan, it was a place that he could only stare at.
“I heard that there’s a special lecture from Baron Tale?”
“Baron Tale bullsh*t. It’s Roan, Roan.”
“Yeah. For an exiled convict, he got lucky and became a Baron overnight.”
“He became like that because he caught the prince’s eye.”
The academy’s students that passed by Roan began babbling words of ridicule.
They didn’t recognize Roan at all.
‘Noble’s kids……’
Roan smiled bitterly.
The mindset of the students that should be leading the kingdom was too laughable and immature.
Following the students that continued to complain, he moved his feet.
The ones walking in the front stole a glance behind.
“What?”
“Is he someone you know?”
“Don’t know. Is he a first year? Or maybe a transfer student?”
The students frowned and whispered between themselves.
They couldn’t imagine that Roan, the hero of the expedition and the one who recently became a Baron, might be around the same age as them.
Since the academy’s fourth year student’s age was nineteen, there was merely a difference of a single year away from Roan.
When the students’ eyes met his, Roan smiled at them.
“What? Why is he smiling?”
“Who’s he supposed to be?”
The students’ expressions twisted.
That moment.
“Ah! You came?”
From far away, he heard a familiar voice.
Roan’s and the students’ gazes followed the voice.
‘It’s Ian Phillips.’
The owner of the voice was Ian.
Waving his hand, Ian ran from the academy’s main building.
“Hhm. He’s that Ian Phillips, right?”
“Right. The firstborn of Count Phillips and Miller Castle’s, no the kingdom’s greatest genius.”
“He’s a freshman that started this year.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t he look like he’s greeting us?”
The students pointlessly came to their own conclusions.
“I thought he would be arrogant since he’s the firstborn of a count on top of being a genius.”
“It looks like he’s quite the well-mannered brat.”
Then, the brats awkwardly waved.
Before they knew it, Ian was right in front of them.
“Yes. Good to see you. Ian. I’m the fourth year Pi……”
When the student at the front introduced himself.
“Excuse me.”
Ian pushed the students to the left and right and went up to Roan.
“Eh?”
“What?”
The brats who were pushed aside frowned and looked at Ian.
Their eyes naturally focused on Roan and Ian.
Ian bowed right away.
“Welcome. Sir Baron Tale.”
“For you to even come out to meet me, thank you very much.”
A fair and clear voice rode the wind into the students’ ears.
“Huk!”
“Ba, Baron Tale?”
“He’s that Roan?”
With a completely shocked expression, the brats looked at Roan.
When Roan met their gazes, he brightly smiled and slightly nodded his head.
“Hph!”
The students gulped and quickly lowered their heads.
However much they insulted and looked down upon Roan, they couldn’t keep their heads up in front of a kingdom’s noble.
“Si, Sir Baron Tale. A, about our talk just now……”
The voice sharply shook.
Although they were certainly sons of nobles, their positions weren’t something that could hold up against Roan who held a true title of nobility.
Roan cheerfully smiled and stood in front of them.
Ian tilted his head, wondering what had happened.
“It’s okay.”
A gentle voice.
Roan extended his hand and brushed each of their head.
A completely natural and adult-like act.
At the unexpected hand, the students who had their heads lowered bit their lips.
‘Damn it. He’s completely treating us like kids.’
Even so, they couldn’t raise their heads.
At the same time, Roan tapped their shoulders as he brightly smiled.
“Work hard.”
With a word and an act, he cleanly split the hierarchy between himself and the students.
“Kuu.”
The brats, still with their heads lowered, couldn’t move without permission.
Roan averted his gaze and looked at Ian.
“Should we head to the location of the lecture?”
“Ah, yes. Follow me.”
Ian took hold of himself a second late and nodded his head.
Within that short moment, he understood the entire situation.
‘That’s why, you always have to be careful about what you say.’
Ian snickered and shook his head.
Soon, Roan and Ian disappeared from sight.
Only then did the students raise their heads and sigh.
“Huu.”
“To think that brat was Baron Tale.”
“Seriously. That rumor about a giant was a complete lie.”
Then, one of the brats spoke with a quiet voice.
“Maybe, could it be that his skills and exploits are also exaggerated?”
As soon as he spoke, the rest of the students clapped.
“That’s it!”
“That could be it!”
Quickly putting their heads together, the brats continued to quietly talk.
“Then, should we test if Roan’s skills are real?”
“Test? Us?”
At those words, the student who spoke first shook his head with an eerie expression.
“No. There’s that guy in our grade.”
“That guy? Ah! That guy!”
Promptly, the students’ faces brightened.
The brats looked at each other with a cruel light in their eyes.
“For now, let’s go convince that guy.”
A cold voice rolled down on the ground.
******
“It’s an honor to meet the hero of the expedition.”
“No. I’m more honored to have the chance to meet Sir Fred Brown, the principal leading the kingdom’s greatest academy.”
Holding the white-haired old man’s hand, Roan lowered his head.
The old man wearing a clean suit was Fred Brown, the one who was leading Tron Academy for the twentieth year.
‘He’s someone that I wanted to meet at least once.’
Roan was unimaginably moved.
It was a moment where a small goal from the last life had been achieved.
“If I could, I want to chat, but it seems that there isn’t much time left for the special lecture. Let us talk after the lecture is over.”
“Yes. Understood.”
That was what Roan wanted as well.
To him, who wanted to build an academy in the Tale Barony, a talk with Fred was a chance that could become the flesh and bones of his plan.
“Now, do follow me.”
Fred walked a step in front and Roan followed behind him.
Coming out of a simple office of the principal, they crossed the wooden hallway.
Passing through several buildings, they headed towards the garden behind the academy.
The location of the lecture was prepared in the open air instead of inside a building.
“Because there were too many students that wanted to audit, we prepared the place in the academy’s training field.”
Fred turned towards Roan and apologized.
Roan wordlessly nodded and gazed in front of him.
He could see a tall wall covered in vines.
There was an entrance at the center and several words were ornately written on top.
< Tron Academy Training Field >
The door was wide open.
Fred walked ahead and Roan followed behind.
Then.
Huuk!
Scorching heat was felt.
“Ah……”
Roan quietly exclaimed.
The field was enormous.
It was twice as large as the field where the Amaranth troop held drills.
Excluding one side, chairs filled the three sides of the field.
An unbelievable number.
Students sat in each and every one of those chairs.
It was an incredible number of students, but they didn’t let out a single sound.
They simply stared in curiosity while exuding heat from their entire bodies.
More than a thousand pair of eyes stabbed into Roan.
‘Are they trying to pressure me?’
Roan smiled bitterly inside.
Then, he heard Fred’s voice.
“It seems everyone has high expectations. For now, shall we go up onto the stage?”
“Yes.”
Roan replied shortly and followed Fred up the stage.
On the stage, there was a vertically long table and a loudspeaker made of a magic stone and a magic circle.
“We will now start the special lecture of Sir Baron Roan Tale, the hero of the Istel War and the monster expedition. Everyone please welcome him with a round of applause.”
As soon as he finished, claps sporadically resounded here and there.
A scene as if clapping against their will.
Fred furrowed his forehead at the sight, but didn’t criticize them.
‘It’s something Baron Tale will have to solve on his own.’
Truthfully, he wanted to see Roan’s ability.
Slightly lowering his head at Roan, Fred walked off the stage.
Now, only Roan was left on the tall stage.
He stood in front of the table and looked at the students.
‘Everyone’s expressions are ones saying let see how well I do.’
An undisguisable antagonism could be felt from their faces.
Of course, there were also students like Ian who showed signs of curiosity, desire, and respect.
‘Hm?’
Roan, who was scanning the students’ faces with Kalian’s Tear, frowned at the tip of his nose.
‘Royalty is also here.’
As expected of the kingdom’s greatest academy, he could see several princesses among the students.
And the one who stood out amongst them.
‘Princess Katy Rinse and……’
His eyes stayed in one place for a long time.
‘Princess Aily Rinse.’
For some reason, his ears felt hot and he became happy.
For a while, Roan motionlessly stared at her face.
“What the?”
“What’s up with him?”
Because Roan stayed silent for a long time, the students began to chatter.
Only then did Roan finally take ahold of himself.
‘It’s not the time for that.’
With a smiling face, he lowered his head.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Baron Roan Tale, who will be giving the special lecture today.
Even though he introduced himself, the field was silent.
“Woah!”
Only Ian cheered without worrying about others.
Roan slightly lowered his head toward Ian, and then made a faint smile.
“Hm.”
The students’ gazes pour down.
Calmly taking on those gazes, Roan spoke with a soft voice.
“The topic I want to talk about today is……”
Playfulness flashed in his eyes.
“About “what would you do if you knew about the future”.”