Subject Runes - V1 Chapter 1

My name was Azoth Ferrum, and I was fifteen years old.

Starting today, I would be enrolling at the Knight Academy located in Count Blonmarch’s territory.

Once the children of noble families turned fifteen, they were required to enter one of the kingdom’s knight academies. There were three such academies in the kingdom, and students spent three years there learning things like magic and swordsmanship so they could grow into proper knights.

This was one of them: Blonmarch Knight Academy.

It was a school focused mainly on training magi-knights, and students gathered here not just from Count Blonmarch’s land, but from all across the kingdom.

As I passed through the academy gates, I called out to the other “male student” walking beside me.

“You’re really going to enroll looking like that?”

This was Neon Ferrum, also fifteen.

The two of us were members of the Ferrum family, a knight-ranked house. I was the eldest son of a branch family, while Neon was the second daughter of the main house.

Neon was a girl, but for certain reasons she had been raised as a boy since childhood.

Personally, I had been thinking that once we reached the point of entering the academy, maybe it would be better for her to go back to living openly as a girl.

That was why, when we were leaving home to head for enrollment, I had asked the Ferrum family head, Neon’s father:

“Are you really making Neon enroll as a male student?”

He had only given a faint, awkward smile.

“Take good care of Neon.”

And then he sent us on our way.

Unlike me, the person in question didn’t look bothered in the slightest.

“I’m more used to being a boy, so it’s fine.”

Even while feeling a small knot of anxiety in my gut, I faced the school building of Blonmarch Knight Academy, muttered a quick, “All right,” to pump myself up, and the two of us stepped forward.

The new students’ class assignments had been posted on a bulletin board in the school building, and a crowd had already formed around it.

“Now then, where’s our class?”

I started scanning the names in order, but Neon found it first.

“We’re both in Knight Class B. Same class.”

A relieved smile spread across Neon’s face, probably because we had ended up together. That expression looked a hell of a lot like her older sister, the eldest daughter Selene. We were enrolling in this academy under the setup that we were brothers, but with Selene already a second-year student, I couldn’t help worrying that if she and Neon stood side by side, people might realize Neon was cross-dressing.

Neon had silky white hair, blazing red eyes, and a slender, elegant build that made her look every bit the refined young noble. Me, on the other hand, had messy brown hair I didn’t do shit with, reddish-brown eyes, and aside from being a little taller than average, there wasn’t much about me that stood out.

Maybe I should at least do something about my hair so I don’t look like total dead weight standing next to Neon.

“Now that we know our class, let’s head to the entrance ceremony hall.”

Together with the other incoming students, we entered the auditorium where the ceremony was being held. There were about a hundred new students this year, and the seats had been arranged by class.

“Let’s see… our class is the second row from the back.”

There were signs posted near the seating area, and from the front to the back the four classes were lined up as Advanced Class, Knight Class A, B, and C. The Advanced Class was reserved for the children of baron-ranked houses and above. The Knight Classes were for the children of lower nobles, such as baronets and knights. Since there were so damn many lower nobles, they had three separate classes.

The reason only the higher-ranking nobles were put in a separate class was partly because the academy rigidly reflected noble hierarchy, but there was also a practical reason: the content of the practical training was a little different. In noble society, magical power was everything, and the higher a noble house’s rank, the more likely its children were to possess strong magic.

Lower nobles, on the other hand, tended to have weaker magic, and some of them had barely any at all. Because of that, the magic practicals in the Advanced Class were set at a higher level than those in the Knight Classes, while the Knight Classes put more emphasis on swordsmanship. As a result, even children from middle- or upper-ranking noble houses sometimes chose to enter a Knight Class if their magical power was low.

It was only natural that higher nobles had stronger magic. Commoners possessed no magic at all, while nobles monopolized it, so magical power itself was the source of noble authority. That was why, even within a single family, the person with the strongest magical power was chosen as the head.

And because of that, not just the head family but even branch families tried to secure as many magic users as possible within the clan, which meant political marriages between magic users were rampant. The higher the title, the more aggressively a family tried to bring more magic users into the bloodline, and in the end that pushed the magical ability of upper nobles even higher. Even lower nobles would lose their status and fall into commoner life if their family line stopped producing magic users, so they too were desperate when it came to marriage alliances.

That was noble society in the magic superpower known as the Kingdom of Argent.

By the time I snapped out of my thoughts, the entrance ceremony had already started. On the stage stood the academy headmaster, an old man with a long white beard who looked exactly like the kind of wizard you’d expect to see casting bullshit-level spells. He gave the opening address, then the teachers introduced themselves one after another, and finally the student council was brought out for introduction.

On stage, the current student council president, Sulfur Blonmarch, stood at the center with the other officers lined up around him.

Sulfur was the eldest son of Count Blonmarch, the ruling family of the land where this academy stood, and it had already more or less been decided that he would become the next lord. The Ferrum family had served the Blonmarch house directly for generations, so Sulfur was my liege. I had never spoken with him directly, but I at least knew his face.

The other student council officers were all unfamiliar to me, so they were probably students from distant territories elsewhere in the kingdom. Standing beside Sulfur were the two vice presidents, one male and one female.

The girl was named Fluorine Aureus.

If I remembered right, she was the daughter of a famous prestigious noble house from the royal capital, and I had heard she was Sulfur’s fiancée.

She was a ridiculous-level beauty with blonde hair and blue eyes, but there was something cold about her that made her feel hard to approach.

The male vice president was called Nicola Duret, though I had never heard the name before. I had no clue what territory he came from.

Once the student council introductions ended, the entrance ceremony finished without incident, and we moved to our classroom by class.

Our Knight Class B had twenty-six students in total, thirteen boys and thirteen girls. The seating chart had already been decided. I got the very back seat in the left-side window row.

Neon’s seat was around the middle of the room, which meant we were placed a bit apart. In the seat in front of me sat a well-built red-haired guy, and to my right sat a blue-haired girl. Before I could say anything, the red-haired guy turned around, smiled brightly, and spoke first.

“I’m Dan Arc. Nice to meet you.”

“Azoth Ferrum. Same here.”

While we were shaking hands, the blue-haired girl on my right placed both of her hands on top of ours with a cheerful, friendly smile.

“I’m Marl Poisson. Call me Marl.”

“Sure. You can call me Dan too.”

“Azoth is fine for me as well. And…”

I glanced toward the middle of the classroom.

“See the guy over there with the white hair? That’s my younger brother, Neon.”

“That guy’s your brother? He’s been standing out since the entrance ceremony.”

All around the classroom, the other new students were introducing themselves to whoever sat nearby, just like we were. But nobody was talking to Neon. A few girls stood a little ways off, sneaking glances in Neon’s direction over and over.

“Your little brother was already like that during the ceremony. There were quite a few girls around him paying attention.”

Yeah, he’s already popular with the girls, but the bastard truth is that ‘he’ is actually a girl…

Marl looked at me with sparkling eyes.

“Your little brother is seriously handsome. Introduce me later, okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll introduce him to everyone later.”

“Yay!”

Dan let out a sigh and shrugged.

“Man, being good-looking sure is nice.”

The first day ended after orientation alone. After lunch, the afternoon schedule was a campus tour, club introductions, and then moving into the student dorms. The three of us ended up sticking together for the afternoon as well, so I called out to Neon too.

“Neon, let’s go eat. After that, these guys are tagging along with us this afternoon. You okay with that?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m Neon Ferrum, Azoth’s younger brother. Nice to meet you.”

“Dan Arc. Just call me Dan.”

“Um, I’m Marl Poisson. Please call me Marl.”

Dan immediately snorted.

“The hell? Why are you talking more politely than when you talked to us?”

Marl answered without missing a beat.

“That is absolutely not the case. I always speak like this.”

“Yeah, bullshit.”

Marl covered it with an elegant little, “Ohohoho,” and laughed it off.

Maybe those two actually clicked pretty well.

The four of us headed to the dining hall, but the place was already packed with students and there were no open seats in sight.

“There’s one over there.”

Marl hurried toward a terrace section facing the courtyard.

“Nice view too. We found a damn good seat.”

We had managed to secure four seats at just the right moment, and were about to take turns going to buy lunch when a voice came from behind us.

“You lot, vacate those seats.”

A group of male students stood there, looking down at us.

“Huh? We found these seats first.”

Dan was clearly pissed off.

The boy sneered.

“Those are not seats for lower nobles. Get lost.”

He was grinning like an asshole. His uniform had two lines on it, marking him as the child of a middle-ranking noble house, either viscount or baron. Lower nobles—baronets and knights—had one line, while upper nobles—dukes, marquises, and counts—had three, so rank was easy as hell to tell at a glance.

Looking around, every student seated on the terrace wore uniforms with either two or three lines. Some were chuckling while staring at us, others whispering under their breath.

So yeah, it looked like these really were seats reserved for higher nobles.

“What a bad attitude. Let’s just go somewhere else.”

We tried to get out of there as fast as we could, but one of the boys stepped right in front of us and blocked the path.

“Hold it.”

“What now? You were the one telling us to leave.”

“You think you can walk off without apologizing?”

“What?”

“We just took the time to teach a pack of lowborn monkeys the rules of this academy. First, you apologize for your rudeness. Then you thank the gracious Lord Hardin while you’re at it.”

Laughter broke out around us, loud and deliberate, making it clear we were the punchline.

“Well, I suppose I could allow just that girl to stay.”

The boy calling himself Hardin grabbed Marl by the wrist. She flinched and tried to pull away, but his grip clamped down hard, refusing to loosen.

“She doesn’t want you touching her. Let go.”

I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him away from her.

“Don’t touch me, you lower-class monkey.”

The next instant, his fist came straight at my face.

Crack.

The blow dropped me to the ground. I looked up at him, forcing myself back onto my feet—then, in the next moment, a heavy thud echoed as Hardin fell backward.

“Don’t lay a hand on Azoth!”

Neon had tripped him, sending him sprawling flat.

“You bastard!”

Not wanting things to spiral any further with an upper noble, we bolted before he could stand again.

Behind us, his furious voice tore through the air.

“Get back here, you little shits! You’re not getting away with this!”