Z...Z..z..z

z...z

(mumble)...

Urg...let me...sleep

Mr....(mumble)......Mr...

5 more minutes, please...

Alean...

Tomorrow is Sunday...I have no work...

Mr.Steelight...

Wait...work...I'm at school...and today is Wednesday...

"Mr. Alean Steelight!!!!"

"Wah!!!!!"

Sounds of raucous laughter echoed around me.

Trying to blink away the last remnant of sleep, I stand up in response to the words of Professor Winsor.

The short, round man who is known to be the nicest professor on the campus, who is always with a jovial smile, is not smiling.

In fact, he looks more than a little pissed. His skin is already pale, his cloud-white hair thinning at the top makes his reddening face much more pronounced. His large, pointed ears are twitching in irritation. The eyes behind his golden circle frame glasses are pinched with anger.

Ah, I messed up again.

I must have fallen asleep in his class for the fourth time in a row now. I had gotten 3 warnings already, and the kind professor must be at his limits. If it had been any other professors, they would have put me in detention after the first time already, but he let me slide with a promise of not doing it again. And I did it again. Repeatedly.

Sigh.

I don't want to say it's not my fault, but who would be able to stay awake in the first class of the day.

Especially if they can't sleep for the entire night yesterday. Being suddenly plagued with dreams (nightmares?) about your previous life makes for a poor sleeping experience.

1/10 would not recommend.

And now I'm referencing something that no one would understand. No one in this world at least. Maybe it's finally time to file in as a mental case. Although spending the rest of your life in an asylum is hardly the first choice for a young nobleman such as myself. Hard pass.

As I am being lost in my own thoughts, the professor once again addresses me:

"Mr. Steelight, it seems that my words had not reached you yet."

Oops, the professor looks calm. That's a bad sign. When a person who was yelling at you suddenly looks calm, they are in fact, not calm.

"I'm truly sorry, professor! I promise I won't fall asleep again !!!"

Alongside a deep bow, I ask for forgiveness.

"Mr. Steelight, I'm afraid this is one too many times already. You are to report to Miss Dawn about your punishment after class."

Shit! That she-beast professor? She'll have my neck!

"I'm sorry, professor. I promise this is the last time..."

"I won't hear any more excuses."

And with that, my life is forfeit.

Ahh...it had been a good 16 years...

Goodbye mom, dad, big bros, I'm fucking dead.

Sighing inside while sitting down, my deskmate whispers harshly at me:

"I tried to shake you awake 3 times already."

Yermen Caliser. Deskmate. Friend. Best friend. Only friend. The red-haired youth looks both concerned and amused at my situation.

When one laid eyes at Yermen, one would come up with a single term to describe him: nerd.

His face is slightly round, his eyes the color of melted gold. His nose is slightly flat, and he has freckles spreading across his face, making him look very punchable, in my opinion. Especially his thick, and I mean thick round glasses that hide almost his entire face.

Combine that with a thin, short body and pale skin that seems to have never seen the light of day makes him look very frail and feeble. He is not bad-looking compared to a lot of people, but because his glasses are so thick that no one can really see his face.

Well, he's not some adonis either. In fact, if you compare him to the students at the Academy, he's painfully average.

The most memorable traits are his eyes and hair. It makes him look like some incarnation of autumn if you only look at those.

"Thanks for trying..."

"Still having a hard time sleeping, huh?"

He is the only one I had told about my problems.

I didn't tell him what I was dreaming about. I only told him that I was having nightmares and can't sleep well. I would like to not scare away my only friend by acting like a mad man, thank you very much. I mean, dreams about your past life? That sounds ridiculous.

"Hey, you're going to have to meet with 'her' after class, are you going to be okay?"

Yermen ask me, his voice hitching a little when 'her' was mentioned. The female knight's reputation precedes her it seems. Even a timid magic nerd, who hadn't broken a single school rule since attending this Gods-forsaken school, had heard about her infamy.

"Yeah. I guess this is the last talk we'll ever have. Hic. I have always considered you my best bro. If - No, when I die, please send my ashes back to my home. I at least want to be with my family after I passed. Please tell them I died sacrificing myself to save you, and how heroic-"

"Alright, enough! If you still have the strength to joke around, then pay attention to class. Your score has always been abysmal. Dumb muscle head..."

"Oh shush. I know you like my jokes."

Chuckling to myself, I turned my attention back to the front of the class. Hmm. Nope. Can't understand a thing. I can't even remember what this class is about. I mean, all my life I had been training myself so I can be a knight. My entire house is all muscle heads, including me. At least I'm smart enough to know that. But not smart enough to be a mage.

"Hah..."

Thinking about it makes me mad.

On my 14th birthday, I was taken to the local temple in the barony to awaken.

I was so excited.

I had grown up seeing my dad and my big bros fighting in the frontlines as knights, protecting the people, and collecting treasure, and venture into the unknown, and... Well, when the priest at the temple said that I had awakened to external mana, my life was completely derailed.

If you want to be a knight, you must awaken to internal mana, and I got external mana. I can only ever be a mage.

With internal mana, knights can perform extraordinary feats of power by channeling it to their body parts or weapon. Lifting boulders, chopping trees in a single slash, wrestle with an Eldwind Boar the size of a carriage. Mages can't do that.

It's not that mages are useless. Mages can use their control of external mana to control the elements.

They can build houses in a single day, light torches that never fade, enchanting weapons, and armors so that knights can fight easier (we learn all about the cool stuff mages can do in 1st-year orientation). But their combat potential is bad. Their bodies are not any more durable than normal people's. So when a stray stone that hits you on the head can kill you, it's not very good for any Awakened.

But what about when knights and mages work together. Sure knights can try and protect mages, but magic is just too time-consuming.

You need to focus the surrounding mana in a specific way and will the magic to happen to cast it. Knights can just think about enhancing their bodies to be able to fight. Literally at the speed of thought. Hells, they might not even need to think. Their body is already charged with mana. Already their strength, speed, and endurance surpass any conventional means without actively enhancing. Knights are just more efficient in battle compared to mages.

And in the countryside, on the lands at the edge of the kingdom where monsters and beasts roam the wilderness, being weak is a death sentence. That is what I felt. Weak. Unsuitable. A disgrace. Mom's tears. Dad's hardened look. My big brothers' pitying gaze. It crushed my soul. In my first year at the Royal Academy, I was a wreck. I would cry myself to sleep in my lonely dorm. I couldn't really focus on anything. I was... hurting myself. Physically.

I gaze towards Yermen again unwittingly.

This guy. He saved my life.

I was angry and sad. My anger made me lash out. I fought, vandalized, made trouble. I was almost expelled.

We were strangers back then. I even hit him once. Thinking back now, he was just trying to help. He was asking if I was okay after picking a fight with some 3rd-year knight class senior.

Of course, I got trampled.

I was even madder that day, and there he was. This perfect student that all the teachers like.

I thought he was mocking me, so I hit him. His nose was broken. I guess dad was right. Men do bond better after hitting each other once. Or was it after they saved each other lives? Well, he did save my life. And I swear to myself that I'll save his life.

Because after my near-death experience, I began to have those dreams.

Dreams of a world not like this one. A world with no magic. A world where technology reigns supreme, and magic is just superstition.

And it is from that world that I learned about the future of this world. That is the end of the world as we know it is near.