Namgung Se-ga, the warrior, was reincarnated in Romance

The main hall we arrived at was very vast.

Even though it was a hall larger and taller than the banquet hall of Count Ernhardt’s mansion, it was surprising that there were very few columns.

The number of chandeliers alone is twelve, and the stairs in front of the platform have seven steps.

I heard that the Emperor’s rank is nine levels according to the number of continental gods, and the rank of the Duke is five levels, so it was the second highest rank in the empire.

From the highest point of the platform to the entrance of the hall, a very large red carpet was spread out.

Hershey Milton, who guided me to where I needed to be, greeted me in a whisper and moved to the left side of the hall.

Over there, boys and girls dressed like Hershey Milton were standing in a line, looking at the new students.

When I opened the aura and checked, it seemed that one-third of them were students from the swordsmanship club.

A student from a third-rate martial arts school had ten, a second-rate had seven, and a first-rate had two, but there were no more than that.

I was secretly proud of my own level attained through forty years of training, so I was taken aback to see the level of the boy and girl who seemed to have just surpassed the age of fifteen.

It was a state I only reached when I turned twenty.

It felt like I was looking at the review scores of the Nine File Room from my past life, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

Boom, a massive sound echoed through the auditorium.

Dear new students of Searan Academy, it’s a pleasure to meet you. The speech that began with “Hello” was neither long nor short.

From where I was standing, I could only tell that the speaker was a middle-aged woman.

His silver-gray hair was neatly tied back and hung down, not styled with great effort, but arranged in a way that allowed the strands to rest as comfortably as possible.

One hundred and twenty new students. On the left, there are about ninety work-study students, and on the right, there are about ninety teachers.

The sight of nearly three hundred members, including myself, standing there with their eyes fixed on one person was quite a spectacle. Even words that weren’t particularly impressive sounded grand.

I shook my head, thinking that this was all because the clan only had about fifty knights. In the past, I once ran alongside tens of thousands of warriors to stop the Ma Sect’s rampage…

It’s all useless talk. It was even laughable.

As the speech was coming to an end, a freshman stepped up to the podium as a representative.

Even without looking closely for long, I knew he was the one who had just ascended to the rank of a second-rate martial artist.

He was a boy from the same swordsmanship club as me, and I was curious about what he might be better at than me, so I observed him closely. Then, the boy with red hair standing next to me lightly tapped the back of my hand with his own.

“Don’t glare at me like that.” “The representative of the new students at Sieran Academy has always been a commoner, Mikael Ernhardt.”

“Mm.”

“It’s unreasonable to grade based on titles that haven’t even been inherited yet.”

“Mm.”

As I nodded in understanding, the boy with a furious expression glared at me for a moment before looking away.

After hearing the freshman representative speak firmly and clearly about studying diligently in the future, having high ideals, and dedicating glory to the empire, I finally understood why the boy next to me was so furious.

I forgot to say thank you because I thought it wouldn’t be right to talk while everyone was quiet.

I opened my mouth while looking straight ahead.

“Thank you.”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Because you were the one who told me something I didn’t know…?”

“Hey, don’t you remember me?”

“⋯Hmm.”

It was a difficult thing to say.

I was so busy with training that even finding time for family trips in the summer and winter felt like a waste. Since I had not yet turned fifteen and had not debuted in society, I only sent gifts in the name of my family to other families’ banquets or parties and did not attend.

Every year on my birthday, I reunite with dozens of boys and girls, but it’s impossible to remember the names of the forty to fifty people who come rushing in for just one day and leave the next.

There were kids who came last year on their birthday but didn’t come this year, and of course, there were kids who didn’t come last year but came this year on their birthday.

Moreover, there were more than ten children among them with hair as red as a fox!

If you combine my past and present lives, I am already over fifty, but where would I find the time to memorize the faces of the children I meet only once a year?

Even just memorizing the names of family members and the names of the servants and knights within the household was overwhelming, and by the time I was eight, I had to memorize the names of five people a day!

The strange and intricate laws of each herbivore are not easily forgotten, yet it is rare to have absorbed this peculiar name all at once.

I was so scared that I might even forget my own name.

Even without me responding, the boy, who noticed that I had forgotten his name, bit his lower lip hard and glared at me.

The boy was exactly one inch (*3cm) taller than me.

The scruffy red hair hung down to the nape of the neck, resembling a young fox, and the sharp, fierce eyes had a pale yellow hue with a hint of green, making it look like a cat.

As with most young boys I met in this life, he was a beautiful boy with a pale face and a slender chin. As I looked at that sharp expression, a scene suddenly flashed through my mind.

“⋯si, she, we⋯.”

“If you don’t remember, just say you don’t remember.”

Sorry. I don’t remember.

“Sheiden Rose.” Today is the ninth time I’m teaching you.

It seemed like the guy’s grumbling was never-ending, as if it would go on for the tenth time.

Only then did I remember. He was the boy who always left a family crest with a rose drawn on it and a card on the wrapping of his gifts.

However, as is the case with most birthday parties, the gifts were usually gathered together and opened and sorted by the attendants first, and then handed over after the birthday was over.

The boy and girl who wrote their names clearly on the card and asked me to remember them had their not-so-secret plan fail every time by the time they turned twenty.

The faces of the people from the Central Plains were easy to remember, but the faces of the people from the Sieran Empire were all characterized by large eyes, high noses, and slender faces, making them difficult to remember unless you looked at them for a long time.

At this point, I decided to firmly memorize his face and name, so I turned my body slightly towards him.

“I won’t forget anymore.” Sheiden Rose.”

“Why do you look at people like that?”

“To not forget.”

If the families have been consistently interacting with each other, it would be reasonable to consider them somewhat close.

Since Sheiden Rose spoke informally first, I decided to speak comfortably too.

In fact, since I couldn’t remember who to address formally and who to speak casually among those who came to the birthday party, I always spoke casually to everyone equally.

When I replied, it bit me, and its red lips protruded sharply. What surprised me upon being reborn was that the people of this land, regardless of whether they were boys or girls, took great care of their faces.

Like a gisaeng of the Hwangdo, she would squint her eyes, lift her head slightly as if dancing, gaze into the distance, and keep her lips in constant motion, pouting and then breaking into a wide smile, only to bite down hard, fully revealing her emotions.

In my past life, no, during my time in the Murim Alliance, I had never seen anyone make such an expression.

They were mostly silent, and only slightly lifted the corners of their mouths to smile.

The foolish guys from the Peng family in Hebei and the Black Path gang members of the Sapa laughed so hard that their uvulas were visible, while the members of the Murim Alliance, including the Namgung family, were people who remained calm and serene, as if they were monks or Taoists, regardless of whether they were men or women.

In reality, with the likes of Shaolin, Wudang, Huashan, and Chongnam leading the way, the naive ones had no choice but to occupy eight-tenths of the orthodox sect.

Staring at the face of a peer and getting lost in old memories is not something I can do for long. Only after thoroughly examining every detail of his face, down to the very mole, did I lift my head.

Just then, after the student representative had given various pieces of advice in the next part of the program, the principal took the podium again.

[Then now, the Swordsmanship Department, the Magic Department, the Business Department, the Administration Department, the Office Department, the Law Department. We will continue with the explanation of the courses available after moving to the classrooms divided into six departments. Please follow the guidance of each class’s homeroom teacher closely.

[For the next three years, unless there are department transfers, these are the faces you’ll be seeing regularly, so I hope you all get along well.] That’s all.

The voice resonating in the auditorium was as gentle as it had been at the beginning.

If you divide over a hundred and twenty students into six groups, there will be about twenty in each class, so I should be able to memorize all their names within a month. A sigh escaped involuntarily.

Hoo, as I exhaled, a few people around me followed suit, pausing for a moment to look around as they sighed and gasped.

I had never heard that sighs spread like yawns. Suddenly, I remembered what my mother had advised me before coming to the academy.

They said that if you want to get close to someone, you should follow their actions.

When I thought about how the children wanted to get close to me and even imitated these little things, my heart warmed like freshly steamed dumplings.

Until I arrived at the academy, I had no intention of playing friendly games with these young kids, but now that I look like a thirteen-year-old child, it would be ridiculous to push away those who come close.

By the time I reach adulthood, I will lead the empire alongside them, so aren’t they my comrades and allies?

Thinking about the embarrassment a master who has achieved the level of *banrohwandong (the martial arts skill reaching its peak and rejuvenating) would feel when coming out into the Central Plains, I felt strangely awkward as if I had reached that level myself.

While moving with the swordsmanship club students, someone said to the girl next to me, “It’s true what they say, Ernhardt.” ‘Look, even her eyelashes are pink⋯.’ I heard them whispering things like that.

I was briefly curious about how my rumor started, but soon I was so shocked that I forgot.

“Nice to meet you, everyone.” From now on, I will be your homeroom teacher and the instructor for both beginner and advanced swordsmanship classes for the next year.

A gentle voice penetrated the gaps between the noisy voices.

The opening hours of the training hall are from 7 AM to 8 PM. Class times vary according to individual schedules, from 9 AM to 8 PM. Swordsmanship cannot be mastered in haste. The most important foundation for first-year students is to eat well, move a lot, and rest enough to build a proper body. Got it?

It was the first time I encountered a powerful figure in this land.