Palace Lessons and a deadly encounter.
The school was a city of gilded facades and quiet cruelties. Stone courtyards reflected light in sharp slashes. Students arrived in red wagons and mounted horses with reins braided like jewels; the campus smelled of polished leather and lemon oil, a scent that belonged to people who had never needed anything.
I had never known the feel of new things. The robe the school gave me sat on my shoulders like a borrowed promise. When I slid it on, the fabric hummed with other people's histories. I felt exposed between the shine and the dust of where I came from.
The classroom had a different order altogether. The teacher's entrance drew silence like a cloak. Her voice was low, precise — a voice that measured worth and handed it out in fractions.
"Class," she said, "we welcome a transfer student today. Tenshakuri."
Whispers uncurled like snakes. I bowed because the motion was safer than the words. No one answered.
The lesson was dry at first — names, dates, theory. When the teacher set a problem, she expected the usual answers, the familiar paths the royals trod in their ivory minds. I solved it differently. A method, old and sharp, that did not belong to their textbooks slipped from my hands onto the board. The teacher froze as if the air had thinned.
"This formula…" she murmured, incredulous. "I thought only a handful of us still remembered it."
The room turned toward me. Stares pressed against my skin like cold wind. Someone called me a commoner; another called me a church rat for daring to greet the teacher. Laughter, thin and brittle, chased my heartbeat until it sounded loud in my ears.
Later, the principal sent for me.
His office smelled of old parchment and polished wood. He sat behind a desk like a man in a throne, practiced civility masking a blade.
"You have talent," he told me. "Exceptional talent can be dangerous without direction." His smile was an arrangement of teeth and calculation. "There are levels of learning we do not provide in public. I will offer you a different education."
He introduced two people. One was a teacher with eyes that took everything in, the other a girl in the same uniform, watchful and cool. "Mr. Ooto Himatoji," the principal said with reverence, "the Brain of the Century. Toroshiba Muna will be assigned to keep an eye on you."
A name I had only read in forbidden margins. The man of unassailable knowledge. Where books whispered, he roared. My mind catalogued him: #2 — The Intelligent Lecturer.
When I left the office, the corridors felt narrower. I felt the watchful eyes of the school more keenly, like a hunger noticing a new feast.
That night, under thin sheets, the phantom's voice looped in my skull. "You keep a list of names. This new man — he's on it. Make note."
I turned the thought like a coin in my hand. The world had tilted; the thin line between survival and becoming a threat to the powerful had been crossed.
The next day.
I was on my way to class when I crashed into four figures so hard my books scattered across the corridor floor.
"Shit…" I whispered, crouching to pick them up.
When I stood, my spine froze.
The three royals from the village—and a giant I had never seen before—were blocking the hallway.
For a moment, everything in me screamed to run.
But the giant moved first. His hand clamped onto my shirt, lifting me like I weighed nothing, and he slammed me into the wall.
The wood cracked open—rkkk!—and I fell through it, hitting the ground with a force that knocked the air out of my lungs. Warm blood slipped past my lips.
I tried to rise, but he gripped my head with one massive hand and smashed me onto a table. The table snapped in half under the impact.
"Why are you still alive, kid?" he said, his voice low and cruel. "They paid good money to erase you."
Erase me?
Why did the royals hate me this much? What did I ever do to them?
My vision darkened. I couldn't move.
He lifted both fists, ready to bring them down and end it.
Then a voice cut through the tension, sharp and fearless.
"That's enough."
A girl stepped forward—Muna.
She stared at him with cold eyes.
"Bullying commoners… you think that makes you powerful? Royals are supposed to protect their people, not butcher them."
The giant scoffed. "We royals do as we please. This land belongs to us."
He shot me a final look—a silent promise that this wasn't over—then turned and walked away with the others.
I forced myself to stand, still shaking.
"Thank you… I would've been gone if not for you," I said.
Muna glanced at me, flicked her hair aside, and walked off without a word.
"What....was that all about." I asked still on the floor.
🔥End of Reap 7🔥