Academy life was going smoothly.
Most of the class material was stuff I'd already learned, but I listened carefully as a refresher.
Whenever I got genuinely bored, I'd sneak in some skill training to kill time without anyone noticing.
That's how it looked if you only looked at the classes in isolation—peaceful enough. But when it came to interpersonal relationships, all sorts of problems kept cropping up.
First, the teachers.
They fell into three patterns: the ones who groveled before me, the ones who tried to avoid getting involved with me entirely, and the ones who charged at me with hot-blooded enthusiasm.
Part of it was probably because I was royalty, but the real reason was that my stats already exceeded most of the teachers'.
Being groveled at didn't help—I didn't actually have that kind of political power. Being obviously avoided stung. And being bombarded with enthusiasm was just plain annoying.
It'd be nice if they'd just treat me normally, but hardly any of them did.
Next, the students.
Also three patterns here.
The ones who fawned over me, the ones who kept their distance, and the ones who directed outright hostility at me.
None of them were normal.
Because of all this, I ended up spending most of my time with
Hasebe would join us too, and the four of us were usually together.
The fawning types were mostly chased off by Kathia.
She could see plain as day that I'd end up forcing a polite smile and playing along no matter what, so she'd cut them off without the slightest hesitation. I was honestly moved by how my friend could be so ruthlessly decisive.
The keep-their-distance types had their own subcategories: students who gazed at me with admiration, students who looked at me with cold indifference to avoid involvement, students who tried to find an opportunity to get closer, and so on.
The most troublesome were the ones who directed hostility at me.
Most of those students were royalty from other countries, or nobles of similarly high rank.
Occasionally there was a commoner who had risen through the ranks.
What they all had in common was a massive ego.
Many of them had both high status and high abilities.
So I, who possessed equal or greater status and abilities, was an eyesore they simply couldn't stand.
Sometimes I'd even be challenged to a duel.
If I, a foreign national, engaged in something like that, it could easily turn into an international incident.
Of course, I refused every one.
And when I did, the rumor would spread throughout the academy: "The genius prince is too cowardly to accept a duel."
Give me a break.
That said, they were just kids in the end.
Combined with my previous life, I was essentially an adult already, so I just laughed it off.
Though each time, I had to physically hold Sue back from going to "purge" whoever had challenged me.
Speaking of Sue, she'd been acting strange lately.
There was something she wanted to ask me, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.
That was the vibe I was getting.
Well, I had a pretty good idea what it was she wanted to ask.
Actually, Kathia had told me about it.
"Sue's been wanting to ask about our relationship."
"Huh? Our relationship?"
"Your past life and mine, dummy. She must've picked up on something from the way you interact with the teachers and stuff."
"Ah. Come to think of it, we've been talking in Japanese right in front of Sue."
"Exactly. Imagine you've been with your brother since birth, and suddenly he starts chatting in some unknown language with a stranger like they're old friends. You'd think that was weird, wouldn't you?"
"Ah, right. My bad."
"Well, if she asks, it's up to you whether you tell her the truth or dodge the question."
"Huh? Wouldn't we dodge it?"
"That's for you to decide. Whether you keep lying to your own little sister for the rest of your life, or sit her down and tell her the truth. Either way, you need to steel yourself and handle it properly. Otherwise, you'd be doing her a disservice, wouldn't you?"
"Ugh... fine."
So that was it. Sue wanted to ask me about my relationship with everyone else.
Honestly speaking, I wasn't prepared at all.
Tell Sue the truth?
That the person she thought was her real brother was actually the reincarnation of some random guy?
I was afraid that if I told her, she'd hate me.
Up until now, I'd genuinely cherished Sue as my real little sister.
But that was from my perspective. What did I look like from Sue's side?
I knew she was attached to me.
But what if the brother she'd grown attached to turned out to be a complete stranger?
I had grown, to some extent, using memories and experience from my past life.
Sue had caught up to me on her own merits. You could say I'd been cheating.
When she found out about that, wouldn't she look down on me?
I didn't think Sue of all people would, but the fact that I could even imagine it meant I was already in trouble.
But then, didn't dodging the question feel just as dishonest?
My real little sister was tormented by this question, too anxious to bring it up—and I was supposed to just brush it off lightly? I just couldn't feel okay about that.
If I was going to dodge it, I'd need to make a firm resolution to hide the truth for the rest of my life.
I still hadn't figured out what to do.
But if Sue did ask me, I'd have to give her a serious answer.
If Kathia hadn't warned me, I probably would've dodged the question without thinking too deeply about it.
I needed to thank Kathia for the advance advice.
So yeah, social life inside the academy—both inside and outside—wasn't going well.
Among all of this, the biggest headache was the remaining three reincarnators.
The teacher was still a mystery, as always.
She'd skip class and seemingly disappear somewhere, then suddenly show up and attend a lecture like nothing had happened.
Even when I tried asking her various questions when we met, she'd dodge most of them with vague, slippery responses.
That tendency got especially strong when the topic turned to Kyoya's whereabouts.
Kyoya was a close friend from Kathia's and my past life.
But the teacher wouldn't tell me where he was.
She seemed to have a certain amount of information about him, but she wasn't protecting him either.
Where Kyoya was now and what he was doing—I was curious, but with the teacher acting like this, it didn't look like I'd be getting answers anytime soon.
Hasebe was also a problem child.
Hasebe's current name was Yurin Wren.
The surname "Wren" was apparently the name of the church that served as an orphanage.
Hasebe—Yurin—had been an abandoned child.
Abandoned children were common in this world.
There had been plenty in my previous life too, but in this harsh world where civilization was underdeveloped, the number was staggering.
Normally, that would be unfortunate, but in an ideal scenario, she'd have been raised by the church from the start and grown up there once she was old enough to understand the world.
But Yurin was different.
Shortly after being born, she had memories of her past life and a fully developed sense of self.
One moment she'd been a normal person, and the next she found herself as a newborn baby.
I'd experienced it too, so I knew—it was an enormous shock.
It was disorienting, and above all, terrifying.
What was going to happen to me from here on out?
Had my previous self died?
If so, what had become of my previous life?
Just like with me, the anxiety never ended.
And Yurin had been abandoned while in that state.
The shock must have been beyond anything I could imagine.
Honestly, I couldn't even begin to picture what Yurin must have felt at that moment.
In the depths of that overwhelming anxiety, Yurin clung to something.
That something was the Divine Word Religion.
It was the faith practiced by the church that had taken her in, a doctrine that had deeply permeated the entire Human race.
In rough terms, its teaching was: "Extend your Skills so that you may hear the Divine Word."
The Divine Word.
I had no idea what it actually was.
In gaming terms, it was probably something like a system message, but in this world, hearing it was considered completely normal.
Only we reincarnators felt any disconnect about hearing this voice.
Hearing that voice was as natural as breathing.
Having Skills was a given.
That was the common sense of this world.
The Divine Word Religion taught that this voice was the voice of God, and that followers should raise their Skills and Levels to hear more of it.
From my perspective, it sounded like complete nonsense, but for some reason, this world accepted it.
And Yurin, who should have shared my skepticism, had fallen completely into this religion.
"You've raised so many Skills, Shun-kun. I think that's wonderful. Keep raising more Skills and you'll hear God's voice even more!"
"Haven't you raised your Level, Shun-kun? That's no good! When you raise your Level, you can hear so much more of God's voice! You have to raise your Level if you want to hear God's voice!"
"You can use Appraisal, right, Shun-kun? Well, let me tell you—if you ever meet someone who has a Skill called Taboo, you need to report it. Having a Skill that God has designated as Taboo is absolutely unforgivable. Absolutely unforgivable. So promise me you'll report it, okay? Promise?"
"Shun-kun, my Skill leveled up today and I heard God's voice! Ah, I could hear God's divine voice. I'm sure today will be a blessed day!"
It was off-putting.
Deeply, profoundly off-putting.
I don't think anyone could blame me for seeing Yurin's eyes go glassy whenever she talked about God.
But Yurin wasn't supposed to be like this.
She was supposed to be an ordinary high school girl—the kind you'd find anywhere.
What had turned her into this was undoubtedly her environment.
The terror of reincarnation.
The despair of being abandoned by her parents.
The anxiety of having to survive in Another world.
And into that void, the Divine Word—spoken in the comforting familiarity of Japanese—could easily have become a pillar for her soul.
On top of that, everyone around her worshipped that Divine Word.
Given Yurin's naturally impressionable temperament, it might have been inevitable that she fell into this religion.
Getting swept up in it and then using the blessing of Reincarnation to its fullest extent until she became a saint candidate—that was a bit much, though.
And the last one was the biggest problem of all.
Natsume—now known as Yugo—had me in his crosshairs.
And not just a little. Abnormally so.
The hostility from the other children didn't even compare.
Because his gaze sometimes carried killing intent.
I had no idea why he viewed me with such intense antagonism.
I didn't know, but I was certain something would happen if this continued.
That guy was going to make a move sooner or later.
I could feel it.
I'm thinking about doubling the length of the S-arc from here on out, or maybe posting two chapters back-to-back.