New School

Today was my first day at my new school, and I hoped this would be the best semester of my high school life.

As soon as I arrived at the school gate, I immediately noticed the principal’s office, located just to the left of the hallway straight ahead from the gate.

I walked toward the principal's office, which was about twelve steps from the gate. But just before I knocked on the door, I was called by someone—possibly a teacher, I thought—since I had also noticed another room labeled "Staff Room" across from the principal’s office, although the sign was faded.

“Good morning… Do you need something from the principal’s office?” a gentle voice asked.

A bit startled, I turned toward the voice—and to my surprise!

A beautiful girl with blonde ponytail hair, also wearing a school uniform, stood behind me.

“I-I’m Jovi,” I said, unconsciously reaching out my hand and introducing myself, completely captivated by her.

“My name’s Vienna… n-nice to meet you,” she replied with a blush, shaking my hand.

“I’m a new student here. I don’t know where my class is, so I thought I’d ask the principal,” I said with a cheerful face, thrilled that the first person I met was like an angel.

“Well then, let me help you,” Vienna said as she stepped toward the principal’s office door.

Just after Vienna knocked, a deep and stern voice called out from the staff room.

“Vienna, who is that standing next to you?”

Vienna turned to the voice and began to introduce me.

“His name is Jo—”

“My name is Jovi. I’m the new student here,” I cut in, looking at the large, muscular man who had called Vienna.

“Oh… you’re the new student. Alright, let’s go to class,” he said curtly, scratching his head and glancing at me with a bored expression.

We began walking, and just a few steps after following the muscular man, I saw a wide grassy field in front of the library. Beside the field was a basketball court, and next to that were the classrooms—our destination.

We passed the grade 10 and 11 classrooms and arrived in front of the grade 12 room, which would be my new class.

But then I thought—why are there only three classrooms, even in a city school? It’s the same as my old village school, which only had one classroom per grade.

I entered the classroom with Vienna and the muscular man.

“Stand up…” said a black-haired man wearing glasses in a loud voice.

Vienna immediately went to her seat and sat down, but the man with glasses glared at her, and she quickly stood up again as if nothing had happened.

“Greet!” the bespectacled man ordered again.

I was shocked to learn that the muscular man was actually the teacher and my homeroom teacher. I hadn’t suspected him to be a teacher at all because of his muscular build. I even mistook him for a security guard since I hadn’t seen one at the gate, even though there was a guard post. He was only wearing a plain white T-shirt that made his muscles stand out even more.

The whole class greeted in unison, “Good evening, sir,” except for the bespectacled man, who looked confused.

Everyone burst out laughing, as the class had actually started 45 minutes ago.

“E-enough, stop laughing,” the glasses-wearing teacher said with a slight stomp.

“Yeah… even Mr. Dante isn’t mad,” said a red-haired boy.

“Alright, calm down, everyone. Today, I wasn’t late—I was waiting for the new student so I could bring him to class. And here he is. Come on, introduce yourself,” said Mr. Dante lazily, scratching his head.

I paused for a moment, recalling the times I was bullied at my old school. After a few seconds of silence, I introduced myself.

“My name is Jovi Halcyon. I hope even if it’s just for a short while, we can be f-friends and help each other,” I said, still unsure if I’d be bullied again here.

“Alright, go sit over there,” he said—pointing at the boy with glasses. “Hector! As class rep, give up your seat and move to Putri’s desk at the back.”

“No,” Hector said flatly, shooting a sharp glare at me.

“Fine then… You sit at Putri’s desk for now,” Dante muttered with a sigh, turning to me.

Mr. Dante sent me to sit at the desk in the back. No wonder the glasses guy didn’t want to sit there—there was a pink flower-patterned pot with a single blooming blossom on the desk.

I couldn’t imagine what kind of person Putri was, to place such a pot on her study desk.

“Ahem… Today we’ll have a math test. And Jovi, just do your best,” said Mr. Dante while scanning the test paper in his hand.

I was suddenly motivated by his words. Math was my favorite subject—and my best one, too.

Vienna passed out the test papers. When she reached me, she handed me the sheet and said, “Good luck,” with a little hand gesture.

Then, the strange part happened right after Mr. Dante announced, “Begin.”

I opened the test sheet and noticed something strange—on the back of the first page, words began to appear by themselves. The paper lit up like a smartphone screen with a warning: “Do not use magic to cheat.”

I, being quite behind on tech, just smiled—amazed that city schools had paper that could display messages like phone screens. Just how far behind was my old school?

As I flipped through the pages, the same warning appeared on every blank space: “Do not use magic to cheat.” I started on the first question, and it was surprisingly easy. “Is that all?” I thought and quickly moved on—until I reached question 19, which was also a breeze.

But when I reached question 20—the final one—I froze. I had never studied anything like it before.

Confused, I raised my head to ask Mr. Dante about it—
And I was shocked!

I saw a red aura like fire around the student in front of me, and a brown aura beside me, radiating from a chubby boy.

I began to panic, but tried to stay calm. I turned toward Mr. Dante to ask about question 20—
And saw that even he was emitting a faint yellow aura while scanning the room.