The next morning, at exactly 7 a.m., I woke to find someone standing at the foot of my bed.
A maid. Not the warm, smiling kind from fairy tales, this one looked carved out of steel, posture straight, eyes forward, and expression unreadable. Her black-and-white uniform was flawless, not a wrinkle in sight.
"…Wow," I muttered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "I didn't think the academy would actually send me a personal wake-up service. At this rate, I expect breakfast in bed tomorrow."
She bowed just enough to acknowledge me. "Good morning. I am an academy staff member. Because you are not yet officially enrolled, you are not permitted to travel the floors alone. I will escort you to the top floor."
I groaned, flopping back onto the pillow. "Ah, yes, the 21st floor. My prison for the next six months. Living with a blind woman who tried to kill me yesterday. Lovely."
{Correction,} Bastard said, his voice dry. {She did kill you yesterday. Just in a really, really slow-motion way.}
'Please. If that was her trying, I would've won if I wasn't holding back.'
{You coughed blood on the second swing.}
'Tactical intimidation.'
The maid cleared her throat softly, not even blinking at my theatrics. "Instructor Belle is waiting. Please be ready."
Dragging myself out of bed, I straightened my clothes and threw my hair back with all the flair of a king preparing for coronation. "Very well. If the great Belle Ardent wishes to bask in my presence, who am I to deny her?"
{She's blind.}
'Shut up.'
With a sigh that was equal parts dramatic and noble, I gestured to the door. "Lead the way, my dear jailer. May the gods protect Belle's fragile heart. After all, she'll have to live under the same roof as me."
{Six months. She'll need ear protection.}
The maid didn't comment on my nonsense. She just turned on her heel and started walking, every step as precise as a metronome.
I followed, stretching out my shoulders and rolling my neck like I was heading into a spar. Truth was, my legs still felt a little shaky. Yesterday's "training" hadn't left me with just bruises; it had left me with phantom aches in my bones.
We were on the first floor of the Aetherium when we entered the elevator. The door slid shut with a hiss, and the capsule began its slow ascent.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, trying to look casual. "So, 21st floor, huh? Belle's personal quarters. Very prestigious. Very… suffocating."
{You're sweating,} Bastard said. {What happened to your whole 'living with a 25-year-old goddess of death' bravado?}
'Shut it. I'm just… mentally preparing myself.'
{For what? Breakfast?}
I exhaled through my nose, eyes fixed on the glowing floor indicator. 'Six months… under the same roof as her. Not exactly what I pictured when I got thrown into this world.'
{Did you think you'd get a harem and a throne by chapter three.}
'…Maybe.'
The elevator hummed. The higher it rose, the heavier the atmosphere became, like the air itself knew what kind of monsters lived above. My earlier dramatics started to feel thin, stretched over the knot twisting in my stomach.
I didn't even feel like bragging. I just adjusted my stance, forced my shoulders back, and braced myself.
The maid didn't look at me, didn't say a word, but somehow her silence made it worse. Like she knew I was walking into something I wasn't ready for.
When the elevator finally dinged, my hands had curled into fists without me realizing.
The elevator doors slid open, and I stepped out behind the maid.
The air on this floor felt different. Denser, heavier, but not because of magic, because of how normal it was.
Unlike the twenty levels beneath, there was no spatial expansion here. No sprawling libraries, training halls, or endless corridors wrapped in enchantments. The 21st floor was… small.
Just a single hallway.
It stretched barely twenty meters ahead, lined with smooth stone walls the color of old parchment. No windows. No decoration. Just the faint hum of mana in the walls and the sterile gleam of the overhead lights.
The floor beneath my feet was simple marble, worn faintly at the center where countless steps had passed. A few doors lined the left wall, storage rooms maybe, but the hallway led unmistakably toward one thing: the door at the far end.
Belle's door.
It stood apart from everything else. Dark wood framed in muted silver, unadorned except for a small sigil etched at eye level, the mark of an instructor. The light caught on its surface like oil, reflecting just enough to make it seem alive when you weren't looking straight at it.
The quiet pressed in. Not peaceful quiet, the kind that made you aware of your own heartbeat.
{Cozy,} Bastard muttered. {If your definition of cozy includes claustrophobic death corridors.}
'Shut it,' I murmured under my breath, my eyes fixed on the door.
This was it. Belle Ardent's living space, my new "home."
If the rest of the academy was a cathedral built to awe, this floor was a cell built to contain.
I stopped at the end of the corridor. The door loomed in front of me — plain, silent, waiting.
For a second, I just stared. My hand hovered over the handle, hesitating.
{What's wrong? Afraid she's going to eat you alive?} Bastard teased.
'She might,' I muttered. Then I turned the handle.
The door opened with a quiet click.
And everything I'd been bracing for the cold, refined aura of a warrior, the suffocating stillness of a killer's den shattered the instant I stepped inside.
The room wasn't what I'd imagined. Instead of the refined, intimidating aura I had expected from a scary woman like Belle, the place looked… lived in. Cozy chairs pushed slightly out of line, a blanket draped half off the couch, books stacked haphazardly on a side table.
But it wasn't the room that left my jaw hanging. It was Belle.
She was pacing slowly across the floor, wearing a loose blue hoodie and black trousers. Her hair was tied back messily, a few strands falling across her face.
"Where is it?" she muttered, frowning. "I know I left the remote here somewhere. How am I supposed to—ugh—"
The problem was, she already had the remote. Clutched tightly in her hand.
She turned, still muttering under her breath, waving the remote around. A woman blind for three years, wandering her room in circles, hunting for the very thing she already held.
I stood there, staring.
After everything, the goddess, the sword art, the soul egg, Bastard's endless chatter, this was what I walked into?
I blinked once. Twice. Then, finally, said in a deadpan tone
"This is not what I expected."
{I take it back,} Bastard said dryly. {Maybe she is dangerous. To herself.}
'You might be right,' I muttered, still staring at the blind woman chasing a remote around her apartment like it was a wild animal.