The next day, it happened again.

  The teacher spent half the lesson droning on, and used the other half for a test.

  Still riding high on yesterday’s “upload the book into my brain,” I confidently scribbled answers all over the sheet and turned it in first.

  “Greg…” the teacher ran her eyes over the lines. “Not bad. But careless. Seventy-three out of a hundred.”

  “WHAT?!” I nearly fell off my chair. “Where did I mess up? I wrote it word for word!”

  “Here.” She jabbed a finger at the paper. “You wrote that the Human–Dwarf Alliance was signed in Year 183. It was Year 173. Ten years, young man. In history, that’s a huge gap.”

  “Yeah…” I slumped back at my desk. “So what, a typo. A pathetic ten years…”

  Then the princesses turned in theirs.

  “Lianelle — ninety out of a hundred. Alexia — ninety-two out of a hundred. Excellent, girls!”

  They returned to their seats practically glowing with smugness.

  Alexia shot me a sly grin.

  “Well, genius? Turns out you’re not good at everything. Mixing up numbers?”

  “Oh, whatever.” I waved her off. “Seventy-three is still a passing grade. Good enough for me.”

  The next day, a new monster appeared on the schedule.

  Mathematics.

  “Oh, come on…” I groaned when I saw the textbook. “Another subject? More homework? Why do you even study here—just to suffer? This is straight-up masochism!”

  Alexia looked at me sternly, straightening her stack of notebooks.

  “Greg, stop whining. Like they say: Hard in training—easy in battle.”

  It hit me like a jolt.

  I froze in the corridor.

  My eyes went blank.

  Déjà vu.

  A flash in my head: mud, blood, the clang of metal… and some rough, hoarse voice screaming that phrase right in my face while I’m trying to get up off the ground.

  Who was it?

  A mentor? A friend? An enemy?

  “Hey!” Alexia snapped her fingers in front of my nose. “Why are you standing there like a statue?”

  I blinked and snapped back to reality.

  “Huh? Nothing. Just… woke up. Let’s go.”

  Math wasn’t fun, but it was simple.

  The teacher covered the board in ugly, long formulas. To everyone else it looked like elven runes that melt your brain.

  People huffed, sweated, chewed their pen quills. Lianelle frowned. Alexia bit her lip.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I just stared at the board and yawned.

  “Boring,” I muttered. “It’s just logic. They cram a bunch of pointless extra steps into one solution. Why write three lines when you can reduce it to one?”

  Easy, but annoying.

  Like untangling earphones—nothing hard, just infuriating.

  After class, out in the hallway, Alexia tugged my sleeve.

  “Greg… listen…”

  “What now? You gonna pet me again?”

  “No.” She flushed a little, then immediately put on a business face. “Give me your scratch paper.”

  “Why? It’s just scribbles.”

  “I saw you solve that integrals problem in a minute. I got stuck. Let me copy the logic.”

  I smirked.

  “So much for ‘hard in training’…”

  “Fine. Here. Enjoy the generosity of a genius.”

  I shoved the crumpled sheet into her hands, and she—very pleased with herself—slipped it into her bag.

  Sneaky little thing.

  I went back to my room.

  The air inside was pure despair.

  Alfus sat at his desk, clutching his head with both hands, staring at the math textbook like it had just insulted his mother.

  “It doesn’t work…” he muttered, rocking slightly. “Why is x here… and the vector there… I don’t understand anything… Father will kill me…”

  I looked at his suffering back.

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “That’s a rough case.”

  Helping him twice in one day sounded exhausting.

  My daily kindness limit was already used up.

  I walked to my bed, fell onto it, and a second later I was asleep, leaving my roommate alone with his demons of numbers.

  Finally, the day came when everyone started yanking me around.

  After Combat Magic, Elandr gestured for me to stay.

  “Greg, about the Tournament. It’s simple. First we pick the best within the Academy (internal trials), then the winners go to the Inter-Academy Games.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Plan’s clear. I beat the locals, demand a meeting with the Old Elf, get my answers, and adios.”

  Elandr only smiled—mysterious as hell.

  In fencing class, it happened again.

  The trainer—the same scarred brute—pulled me aside.

  “Listen, Greg. I’ve got a job for you. Want to enter the fencing competition?”

  “Me?” I blinked. “Why? You’ve got Lianelle.”

  “Exactly,” he nodded. “Princess Lianelle is our favorite—she’ll take gold easily. But she needs sparring partners to warm up. You’ll go in as background. You’re sturdy, slippery—you can last a couple minutes against her, unlike those other idiots who collapse from fear.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “And what do I get for being a punching bag?”

  “You get to skip my classes for a week. Automatic pass.”

  I considered it.

  The pass didn’t matter—I planned to bail right after Combat Magic anyway.

  But… imagining Lianelle’s face when “background” pins her again?

  Priceless.

  “I’m in,” I grinned. “I’ll be your background. The best background you’ve ever seen.”

  Herbology tried to grab me too.

  “Greg, you have talent for mixing,” the teacher chirped. “Would you like to enter the potion-brewing contest? Give the other years some competition.”

  “What’s in it for me?” I’d gotten used to bargaining now.

  “A week off classes!”

  “Boring,” I yawned. “Too small. I’m not babysitting flasks just to ditch lessons.”

  I turned to leave—then she added:

  “Too bad… Princess Alexia is competing. She really wanted to win.”

  I stopped.

  Alexia?

  The one who pets my head?

  Seeing her focused face again… and maybe flicking her on the nose by brewing something better?

  “Hm. Interesting.”

  I turned back.

  “Fine. Sign me up.”

  I walked toward the dorm feeling like a complete idiot.

  “I was going to leave quietly,” I muttered to myself. “And instead I signed up for three competitions. Brilliant, Greg. Just brilliant.”

  I reached my door and heard weird sounds.

  Yelling, groaning, muttering.

  “Did Alfus kill someone?”

  I opened the door.

  Alfus sat hunched over textbooks, gripping his head, rocking back and forth.

  “It works… no, it doesn’t! What if… oh! It matches! Yes! I’m a genius! No, I’m stupid—wait—genius again!”

  Slowly, with creaking progress, he was moving forward.

  I walked to my bed—and noticed something familiar on his desk.

  A crumpled sheet.

  My math scratch paper.

  The same one I’d given Alexia.

  I frowned.

  “Hey, Cloud,” I said. “Where’d you get that?”

  Alfus flinched and covered it with his hand.

  “Huh? This… Princess Alexia gave it to me.”

  “Alexia?”

  “Yeah. She solved that problem at the board today and got the top score. I asked her after class how she understood the logic… She explained, and gave me these notes. Said: ‘Figure it out. It’s simple.’”

  “Mmm… okay,” I said, lying down.

  Warmth spread in my chest.

  So Alexia didn’t just copy.

  She understood (with my help), and now she’s helping this poor bastard Alfus so he doesn’t get expelled.

  She’s using my genius to drag weaklings upward.

  “Robin Hood in a skirt,” I smirked into my pillow. “Steals knowledge from the smart and hands it out to the poor.”