“…No matter how many times I see it, this place is huge,” I murmured under my breath as I stood in front of the academy gates.
Though to be fair, this was only my second time here.
It was April now. After receiving instructions from the military officer I’d enrolled with, I’d taken the entrance exam and been accepted into the military academy without a hitch.
The main campus was in Ichigaya, where the Ministry of Defense was located. However, since we mech pilots-in-training had to do maintenance and operational testing on our units, and because we used the air base in Iruma, the campus we were to attend was out in Ome, removed from the heart of Tokyo.
Each grade had one hundred students. It was a three-year program, so that made three hundred students in total.
The top ten students were placed in Class A, the next twenty were in Class B, the thirty after that in Class C, and the bottom forty were put in Class D.
Only a hundred students a year with the war ramping up across the world? I’m sure it sounds dicey. But this department selected students based on their magicite compatibility. Only those with high compatibility ratings got in, and it seemed the small enrollment numbers hadn’t been a problem yet. Though, obviously, they would’ve loved to have more high-compatibility candidates if they could find them.
Among the students, only those in Classes A and B were said to have the kind of compatibility rating that let them bring out the full capabilities of mechs. Students from Classes C and D could technically use them, but with a noticeable drop in performance. That said, the academy did have a system in place where students could get promoted to higher classes during their time here if they showed growth. So even if you started in Class C or D, there was no reason to let it get you down.
Of course, that was much easier said than done for the poor kids actually stuck in the bottom classes.
Once registered to a student, a mech became their exclusive unit unless it was reset. After all, they were far too valuable to waste on kids who couldn’t use them properly. Even though this was a training school for mech pilots, there weren’t enough units for every student, so it made sense both logistically and financially.
That was why the academy only provided ten units a year—just enough for Class A.
Among the students in Class A, though, some had families with military connections. In fact, most of them did. And in those cases, their families sometimes secured private mechs for them.
…Must be nice to be rich.
When that happened, the academy’s spare units got passed down to the top-performing students in Class B. Of course, some kids in Class B also had their own family-supplied mechs, so all told, there were about fifty available school-wide.
So what did students without mechs do? They trained in simulators and learned to maintain real units, essentially studying and developing hands-on experience to build their understanding of both magicite cores and the machines themselves.
There was a big difference between “can’t use one to its full capabilities” and “can’t use one at all.”
Those students might not be skilled enough to have gotten a proper mech, but they were certainly good enough to fight with a training unit. That kind of base-level education could really come in handy if push came to shove, so it certainly wasn’t pointless.
Now, the most important question: Which class had I gotten into?
…Class A, naturally!
Heh. Those memories from my past life weren’t for nothing.
To be honest, accounting for both this life and my past one, I probably had double the usual compatibility rating. On top of that, I still had all my knowledge from my previous life, so the written exam had been a breeze. The real problem would’ve been if I hadn’t made it into Class A.
I placed third in the entrance exam rankings, by the way!
…Wait, third? Even with those memories from my past life and cramming like crazy, I’d only ranked third? I might’ve been swamped with the move and all, but still… Yuna had even prepped me with a full-on study guide and practice sets. And after everything—third? If I’d come in second, I could have shrugged it off with the thought that there really were bona fide geniuses out there… But third?
Frankly, knowing there were two people ahead of me was a blow to my ego.
“…Guess I better head in.”
I might have been feeling a little down, but third place was nothing to complain about. Sulking over it would have been an insult to everyone else, so instead, I tried my best to hide it. I slapped on a confident look and puffed out my chest as if to say, “I’m Kawakami, who got third in the entrance exam!” then marched proudly through the academy gates.
✦ ✦ ✦
So that’s him.
Black hair, black eyes, average height and build. At first glance, he could have passed for an ordinary young man. But on closer inspection, the impression he gave off changed completely. Those sharp eyes were constantly scanning his surroundings, and he was surrounded by a certain aura.
Keita Kawakami, huh? Not from a military or corporate family, but unbelievably, our intelligence agents only described him as “somewhat clever” in their reports. What were they even looking at? Unless…he knew he was being watched and hid his ability?
A normal teenager from a civilian background getting recommended to the academy was already suspicious. And the one who’d recommended him wasn’t a naive political puppet, but an officer in the Second Division—someone who worked day in and day out with the best of the best.
Considering everything, maybe the “pretending to be useless” theory wasn’t so crazy. Maybe he’d acted like a nobody so he wouldn’t attract attention before enrollment.
Well, what’s done is done. I’ll bring up the declining performance of our intelligence operations later. The real question is, what now?
His sense of presence, compatibility rating, and written exam scores were head and shoulders above everyone else. There was no way he was some fluke.
So the only reason he was placed below me and the top scorer was thanks to the influence of our families? Trying to save face for the military elites is exactly the kind of thinking that got the Third Division wiped out.
The academy may have been a school, but it was still part of the military. Political games and power plays were par for the course. Regardless, it stung to see the establishment care more about appearances than actual results.
Not that I can complain. I lost to him. People would probably just tell me to shut up and be grateful.
That’s right. The only reason the academy needed to manipulate the rankings to protect the reputations of a select few was because those few had actually lost to a civilian.
Both he and the girl who’d placed first came from powerful military families and had been groomed for their current roles since early childhood. It had long been decided they would enter the academy, and they’d been given the best education imaginable to get there.
Yet they’d still lost. Not to some longtime rival or a prodigy from another school, but to a random newcomer who’d only taken the entrance exam at the last minute because he happened to catch the attention of a Second Division officer during military enlistment.
It was no wonder the higher-ups had scrambled to prop them up.
If you’ve got complaints, you have to earn the right to voice them. That’s the only way.
Yes, it stung. But it was their own fault for not being good enough. That was the bitter truth.
So once they had come to accept that fact…what was the best way to deal with the real top student?
Do I treat him as a friendly rival? Try to bring him down a peg? Or just keep my distance?
Definitely not the last option. With someone like that, you either kept them close, or you took them out. Leaving them alone was the worst possible move.
In a perfect world, they could have been friendly rivals, pushing each other to grow. But this boy, Kawakami, had been recommended by someone from the Second Division, meaning he was probably under their protection now.
If I’d made contact before enrollment, maybe I could’ve recruited him. I wouldn’t stand a chance now.
The Seventh Division—which his family was a part of—didn’t have a bad relationship with the Second Division, but they weren’t exactly cozy with them, either. More like politically neutral. If he made a move on his own, it would only cause friction.
Wait… Could he be part of the Savior Project? If so…I’d need to talk to the family first. They might want me to befriend him or order me to eliminate him. Until then, I’d better play it safe and keep my distance.
Grades should have had nothing to do with family. Yet here he was, still thinking about what was best for them.
With that twinge of self-loathing, the second-placed student from the entrance exams, Kazunari Fujita, stepped through the gates of the military academy.