TBAGM Vol. 3 Prologue

Prologue – A Gray World

—I was a genius.

That was eight years ago, back when I attended the Magic Academy.

“Lady Sothia really is wonderful, isn’t she?”

“Yes, I want to be like her someday.”

It felt a little vain to say it myself, but I had beauty, excellent grades, and a wide circle of friends.

There was probably no one at the Magic Academy who did not know my name.

And yet my world had been gray.

If you carried yourself in a manner that suited your looks, you could make yourself seem even cuter.

If you put in the effort, anyone could take first place in the year on exams.

As for friendships, if you approached people yourself and said exactly what they wanted to hear, you could get along with anyone.

Everything had been simple and easy. But it was not interesting. It did not feel like I was truly alive.

And then, at that moment, he appeared.

—

“What is with that boy? Is he really a student at this academy?”

“His attitude is awful. Someone from the slums is filthy.”

“He really doesn’t belong in this noble Magic Academy. I wish he’d learn from Lady Sothia.”

Lloyd. He was the only student at the Magic Academy who had come from the slums.

His way of speaking was crude, and he had no charm to speak of. He behaved nothing like a student of the Magic Academy should have.

To be honest, he had been disrupting the harmony of the academy.

The only reason he had not been expelled was because a teacher named Professor Rosaria was backing him.

Professor Rosaria stood head and shoulders above the other teachers in ability, and she was an excellent instructor as well. She held considerable power within the academy. Since she was protecting Lloyd, no one could expel him.

“I heard he even punched another student before.”

“How barbaric. Honestly, I can only wonder how his parents raised him.”

“I wish he’d leave this academy already.”

The usual three girls in my entourage said that while glancing at me oddly.

Whenever they did that, it usually meant they were about to shove some troublesome matter onto me.

“Lady Sothia, couldn’t you do something about him?”

There it was.

What, exactly, did they think I was?

“Well, I suppose I could at least go talk to him a little.”

But I, in all my perfection, could only answer that way.

And so I ended up heading toward that boy named Lloyd.

—

Lloyd was obviously isolated.

The moment I stepped into the classroom, I could tell at a glance that the students around him were avoiding him. It was as though that space alone belonged to another world.

I thought it had to be painful for him to spend his days there. 

“Huh?”

But when I looked at him, there was not the slightest trace of pain on his face. If anything, he looked overflowing with confidence.

I could not understand how he could possibly carry himself that way.

Even so, now that I had come this far, I could hardly leave without saying anything.

“So you’re Lloyd? Nice to meet you. You know who I am, right?”

For the moment, all I had to do was what I was supposed to do.

Students like this usually softened once a perfect woman like me spoke to them. In the end, no matter how much someone tried to act aloof, people were weak to the approval of someone with status.

After that, all I had to do was admonish him a little so he would stop disrupting the harmony around him.

“Who are you?”

“That’s right, I’m the Sothia everyone talks about… wait, what?”

Hm? Had I misheard him? Yes, surely that was it.

There was no way anyone at this academy did not know who I was.

“You’re the one who came up and started talking to me, and yet you’re acting like I should already know who you are. Who do you think you are?”

“……………”

What on earth was this man talking about?

It was a shock unlike anything I had ever experienced since the day I was born.

“You’re getting in the way of my studying, so if you don’t need something, leave.”

That was how I met him.

And from that day on, my perfect life gradually began to fall apart.

—

“Whaaaat!? Lady Sothia didn’t come in first on the academic test!?”

“And the one in first is that delinquent…?”

For the first time in my life, I failed to place first on a test.

It was only the academic exam. In swordsmanship, martial arts, magic, and every other subject, I was still first. Even so, for me, failing to take first place in even one area was an abnormal situation.

And to make matters worse, it had been stolen from me by a student from the slums, where people said there was no such thing as refinement or education.

“Why are you the one in first, Lloyd?”

Before I knew it, I had asked Lloyd himself.

“How can I beat you?”

I had never lost to anyone before. I had never experienced defeat.

That was why, when I finally did lose, I did not know what I was supposed to do.

To be honest, I had not expected him to answer me at all, but instead he answered with a question of his own.

“Sothia, was it? Why do you think I took first from you?”

“Maybe the difference was effort?”

The words slipped out of my mouth on instinct.

I was a genius. If someone like me had lost, then the only explanation I could think of was that he had put in effort that far surpassed the difference in talent between us.

But he dismissed that answer outright.

“No. It was simply talent.”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t have the talent for it, and I did. Satisfied now?”

“……………”

I felt like every time I spoke with Lloyd, I ended up stunned.

It was only our second conversation, and already the second time in my life that I had been left speechless.

Perhaps taking pity on me, he slowly opened his mouth.

“…Do you know the story about a slime becoming human?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

The topic shifted so suddenly that I could not keep up.

“It’s a fairy tale you hear a lot in the slums. A slime that had always admired humans prayed to a god. ‘Please make me human,’ it said. So the god gave it a trial. At first, the slime couldn’t overcome the trial at all.”

“If you say at first, does that mean it eventually overcame it?”

“Yeah. It managed to overcome the trial after putting in effort in a completely different direction. In other words, your real talent can lie in a field you’ve never even considered.”

After I heard the story, I tried to organize the information in my head.

There was a slime that wanted to become human.

The god’s trial was difficult, and it could not overcome it.

But after working hard in a different field, it finally did.

Meaning your true talent might not be what you think it is.

“…What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Even after sorting it out in my head, I still could not understand why Lloyd had told me that story.

Then Lloyd, with utterly shameless condescension, declared:

“So since you’ll never beat me in academics, why not work at something in a different field?”

“Whaaaaaat!?”

The cry burst out of me before I could stop it, utterly unbefitting the beautiful and brilliant woman I was supposed to be.

Apparently that was the kind of sound one made when anger rose from the depths of the soul.

The only saving grace was that no one else had been around to hear it.

My life had probably begun to go off the rails from that very day.

And it was also when color began to seep into my world.

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