The events from the previous night's corridor still lingered in the corner of Yahata's mind. The way Arishia's cheeks had flushed. Her silence when he'd answered "both." He still couldn't quite explain what that meant. In game terms, maybe her affection stat had gone up, but it didn't feel like that kind of problem. So he'd shelved the thought halfway through. The morning assembly hall was as noisy as always. Tonsura Academy's grand lecture hall—the largest classroom space in the institution, distinguished by its high stone ceiling and arched windows lining both sides—was spacious enough to accommodate an entire year's worth of students with room to spare. Today seemed to be some kind of full assembly, with nearly a hundred students seated on wooden benches while a drowsy-looking instructor took attendance from the podium. Yahata sat at the edge of the back row. He rested his elbow on his knee, observing his surroundings. To his right, an unfamiliar second-year boy. To his left, the aisle. Arishia sat several rows ahead, her back perfectly straight. The posture of a model student. As if that night had never happened. (Well, I guess that's how it goes.) Not that he'd been expecting anything. Yahata told himself this while finding the wooden chair's hardness increasingly uncomfortable. Then—the air changed. Not gently. It shifted with mass and weight. The room temperature seemed to drop a degree or two. The students, sensing something, all looked up at once. From the front row onward, silence spread like a receding wave. The scraping of chairs, coughs, whispers—all noise vanished within seconds. Yahata craned his neck to look forward. The main doors of the lecture hall had opened. Standing there was a giant of a man. He was easily over one hundred eighty centimeters tall, but somehow appeared even larger than that. His white-silver hair was almost entirely gone—roughly ninety percent of his scalp gleamed like polished stone. Across that bald head, fine magical tattoos were etched from his forehead to his temples, visible even from a distance. Deep blue eyes swept across the entire hall with no emotion. In his right hand, an ancient staff. His black and gold embroidered robes were perfectly arranged down to the hem. The students rose as one. Chairs scraped in unison. Some bowed deeply, others stood rigid, still others whispered urgently to their neighbors. The second-year next to Yahata spoke in a trembling voice. "Grandion, the academy director... why is he here...?" Grandion—the director of Tonsura Academy and a council member of the Royal Magical Council, the "Bald Crown Council." A great mage boasting the third-highest baldness rate in history, presiding over the top of this institution. So this was the result of Pedro's report arriving, Yahata calculated in the back of his mind. (It's like a boss arena BGM just started playing.) While making that cool observation, Yahata also recognized the subtle unease churning in his gut. That pressure was simply... terrifying. Grandion walked slowly. Between the benches, one step at a time. Students bowed as he passed, their bodies freezing when his gaze fell upon them. Yahata hadn't stood up—or rather, he'd realized that remaining seated while everyone else stood would draw attention, but he'd missed the timing. Grandion stopped. About three meters in front of Yahata. Deep blue eyes looked directly at him. From top to bottom, slowly. Without emotion. Simply observing. It was the pure "judgment" of a gaze like a cat watching an insect. Silence lasted about five seconds. Something caught in Yahata's throat. There was no reason to stop it from coming out. "...You've got quite the bald look going yourself, old man." The words came out. "One more decade and you might catch up to me." The lecture hall turned to stone. The next instant—with a sound like ZUUUDON, all the windows in every direction shattered. Glass fragments exploded outward. Cold morning air rushed in at once. Several students were blown backward, toppling with their benches. Yahata took the pressure wave directly—magical force released as physical mass—and was slammed against the stone wall behind him. The impact sound came from his own back. "—ugh." Sharp pain shot through his ribs. A piercing ache. As he crumpled from the wall to the floor, Yahata thought with strange calm, "Ah, I think I broke something." He'd never broken a bone in his previous world, but somehow he just knew what this pain meant. Grandion hadn't moved. Standing still, staff not even raised. Just one hand casually opened, and all of this happened. "A mere insect like you," A low, quiet voice echoed through the hall. "To even claim the title of Mirror Crown is a desecration of three hundred eighty years of this academy's history." Not a single student moved. Several were still sprawled on the floor. Morning wind blew in through the broken windows, rolling glass fragments with a clattering sound. One of the blown-back students, still half-propped against the wall, spoke in a voice barely audible. "...someone... help me..." Neither Grandion nor Yahata looked that way. But the voice was definitely heard. Yahata pushed himself up against the wall, rising slowly. He pressed his ribs. Each breath hurt. Probably just cracked. If it were broken, he couldn't stand—that judgment too came from his game-logic thought process. Grandion approached. "Within three days, produce a single spell." His voice was calm. Saying something outrageous in a calm tone. "If you cannot—you will be sentenced to forced hair growth." Forced hair growth—one of the severe punishments defined in the Bald Crown Code. Forcibly made to grow hair through drugs, stripped of all honor as a mage. Deprived of the "Mirror Crown" title and rendered socially impossible to exist as a mage—effectively a social death sentence. "...Does that have anything to do with magical power?" A genuine question. He was curious about the mechanism—whether forced hair growth actually consumed magical power, or if it was merely social punishment. "Silence." One word froze everything. Yahata fell silent. Internally, he was sweating cold (resource management game with zero ammo forced into a boss fight, completely stuck), but his face maintained its usual frown. Breaking his expression felt like losing. He couldn't explain why, but he was certain of it. "Got it." He answered shortly. No other words came. Grandion's gaze left Yahata. He turned on his heel, heading toward the exit—then stopped. In front of Arishia. "So you're the supervisor." Arishia answered while standing rigid. "Yes." "If you aid that man," Grandion's voice was lower than before, "your family's honor ends as well." Just those words. Then Grandion walked on. The door closed. Deep silence fell over the lecture hall. Yahata, pressing his ribs, looked at Arishia. She remained standing rigidly. Her complexion unchanged. Noble expression, silver eyes, not a wrinkle in her uniform. Perfectly composed. But Yahata saw it. Her left hand, gripping the hem of her uniform ever so slightly—just barely—was clenched. The fabric was distorted by a single wrinkle. --- After Grandion's exit, the lecture hall became like a disturbed hornet's nest. Though not in the sense of students shouting—rather, they huddled together whispering, staring at the shattered windows and overturned benches with expressions of disbelief. Yahata approached Arishia, pressing his ribs. "Hey, could you show me some magic practice? I want to use it as reference." Arishia paused for a beat. "...That's impossible today. I have independent study." With only that, she turned her back and left the hall at a brisk pace. Yahata didn't chase after her. He couldn't chase after her. He understood the reason himself. What Arishia had to protect—her family's honor, her family's future, her position in noble society—weighed far more than anything Yahata could offer right now. "Ah, that hurts..." Taking a deep breath made his ribs creak. He couldn't help but voice it. A nearby student gave him a puzzled look, and when their eyes met, they looked away. That was the kind of reaction he got. --- From the next day onward, change spread quietly but steadily. The handful of same-year students who'd begun thinking Yahata was "interesting" after he'd held off Kalen for ten minutes started avoiding his gaze in the corridors. He stopped being called by name. Stopped being spoken to. When he went to the dining hall, bags were placed on empty seats. He was about to say something, but the person had already turned away. When he moved to another seat, the occupant quickly said "This one's taken too" in a rush. Physically, no one was sitting there, but Yahata said nothing more. Eventually, he found a folding chair tucked behind a pillar. A single-person folding chair with a slightly tilted seat. He sat there and ate thin soup and bread. It was a lunch that was somehow both miserable and absurd. (So this is the Grandion effect.) It was a rational judgment, he thought. The academy students' aversion to approaching someone marked by that great mage made sense. Not emotion, but survival strategy. When he carried his empty bowl to the return counter, the student there took it and then, as an afterthought, shifted one step sideways away from Yahata. He told himself not to mind, but he minded a little. --- Night came. The dormitory corridor was quiet, lined only with doors. Yahata sat directly on the floor of his room. Despite having a bed, he sat on the floor because the low ceiling and cramped feeling seemed to match his mood. It wasn't rational, but that's how he felt. His ribs still hurt. They creaked with each deep breath. "...Guess it was impossible after all." He spoke toward the wall. No one was listening. The fact that he couldn't use magic was something he'd known from the start. He'd also known there was no basis for being able to activate it within three days. And yet—the words he'd whispered toward the moon on that rooftop came back to him again. In his previous world, for twenty-eight years, he'd accomplished nothing. He was only good at games. At everything else, he was useless. He'd shut himself in a room, consumed time, and before he knew it, he was dead. He'd woken on stone pavement in another world, called a Mirror Crown, and things had seemed slightly better—but he couldn't use magic, his ribs were cracked, and now he was alone. In the end, it was the same. (Just the location changed. I haven't changed at all.) Wind passed through the corridor. A low, muffled sound peculiar to stone buildings. Suddenly, he thought of Arishia. That night in the corridor a few days ago, her silence when he'd answered "both." The candlelight on her downturned cheeks. He still couldn't put into words what that had been. But now, the silence of this room without her presence felt strangely heavy. Yahata stared at the wall for a while. Then he hugged his knees. It was an undignified posture, but he couldn't bring himself to stop. --- Deep in the night, at some point he'd lost track of time. Tap. A sound from the window. Yahata looked up. This was the third floor. If something hit the window from outside—clink clink, small stones rolled across the windowsill and fell into the room. Then a white envelope caught on the frame and fluttered down. Yahata stood up. His ribs creaked. He picked up the envelope. There was no sender's name. He opened it. A single line of text. —Hair roots are shackles. Trace the origin. Yahata read it three times. Hair roots are shackles. Trace the origin. Something clicked in the back of his mind. Days ago in the library—the forbidden section. The text he'd glimpsed for just a moment through the door's gap. "On Root Regression Theory: Prologue." The door had closed before he could read it. But these words—they connected to t