Chapter 22: 22

I was told that Daibun created a lot of identities for people that had no origins. He took me to the Imperial City Bureau, so to speak, to a nearby district office. The person in charge looked tried as if he had seen Daibun many times, maybe even questioning why he had come again.

“You’re looking quite neat today.”

“It’s because I’ve brought a child this time.”

“Hey, I didn’t know you actually cared that much.”

Perhaps because Daibun played the role of my guardian today, he wore clean clothes and bathed today. I did the same. The person in charge didn’t seem to be all that fussy, as if this had already happened frequently except that we looked rather neat.

He didn’t have any suspicions or questions, completing the procedure swiftly.

When I received the Dreadfiend’s ring, I thought long and hard as to what to change my appearance to. Naturally I should have a lot of hair.

I shouldn’t be too handsome or too ugly.

I did want to live as a super handsome man, but I didn’t want to attract too much attention with my looks. That was the first thing Eleris told me.

So I tried to make myself look moderately good-looking. Blonde hair, slightly curly, blue eyes. Neither the hair color nor the eye color were especially rare. It was good enough to looks slightly better than average. I was a bit good looking, but not overwhelmingly handsome.

“Name.”

“I’m Reinhardt.”

“Where were you born?”

“I don’t know.”

“Whoa…. You don’t even know from what town you come from?”

The person in charge looked at me rather frustrated.

“Yes. I don’t really remember, because I was abandoned when I was very young.”

“…….”

He didn’t ask for much more information after that. He told me to put my hand on some mana stone in front of the table. He seemed to check something and then nodded.

“There’s definitely no data on you… You must have lived a rather righteous life.”

He suddenly spoke some nonsense, but I could roughly understand what that meant. This seemed to be something like a fingerprint reader, so if I were caught by the guards after I committed even a petty crime, my data would’ve already been registered.  Homeless children like me were more likely to commit crimes, but seeing that I did not have such records, he presumed that I lived a righteous life.

After all, my birthplace and address were unknown, but I couldn’t just leave it blank, so I just made up a date of birth with those two. The birthplace was set as a suitable city that disappeared a long time ago and my address was south of the Bronzegate Bridge.

It seemed like I owned the bridge, but I actually lived under it.

Due to the advanced nature of the empire, they had a magic tool with which I was able to get a photo for my ID card.

Daibun and I left the office, sent off with the reminder to periodically come around to renew the ID.

So.

It really was no different from a modern district office.

They were too expedient! To a shocking degree at that!

However, that was good!

“That was pretty easy.”

“We gave him some things after all, so of course our stay would have been comfortable.”

I assumed that the person in charge was provided with a variety of things. I did feel that he was too easy going. If he got caught doing things like this, the outcome would be pretty clear.

I checked my ID that was in the form of a metal card.

It showed a picture, my name, date of birth and identification number. It wasn’t much different from a modern ID card. The same went for the registration of biometric data.

Only its appearance fit into medieval fantasy, but its convenience wasn’t much different from the modern world.

Once again, it was medieval Fantasy.

Anyway.

To sum it up in a single sentence.

It was convenient.

The town was still in an excited frenzy as a result of their victory. That atmosphere would last for a very long time. The improvement event when the  war veterans returned would be on an even greater scale. 

A long festival would follow.

Now that I had an ID, I decided to smoothly proceed with my admission to Temple.

“By the way, does Temple just admit anyone who has money? Wasn’t there something like… They won’t accept commoners or something?”

While we were on the way to Temple, Daibun tilted his head..

“Well, I never heard anything like that.”

The tuition fees were just so high that it was almost impossible to enter the school unless one was a noble’s child, had wealthy parents or was part of a merchant’s family.

If one had the confidence to pay hundreds of millions of won a year, depending on what major one picked, one was free to go. If one wanted to pursue higher education one would have to expect to pay twice as much.

50 gold coins was the average. Depending on ones major, tuition fees could rise to unimaginable amounts. Of course, there was a scholarship system, and there were cases where children were exempted from the tuition depending on how much they contributed to the empire.

So, after the end of the war, a huge amount of medals would be handed out, leading the Temple to be crowded with more freshmen than usual starting with the next year.

Temple was so expensive because they reinvested that money earned from that huge tuition fee into talented children. Most don’t get that much education.

Daibun took me to the Eredian district.

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That would be where the Gwanak district and Seoul National University were located in Korea.

The only difference was that Temple was a much larger educational institution covering the entire Gwanak district. Therefore, it was only natural that the number of students was also astronomically high, meaning the money that went into this school was equally astronomical.

Not only that. In order to prevent non-students from wandering around the campus, Temple was equipped with physical barriers as well as large scale magic barriers that block those that weren’t students, faculty or people who had permission to enter. The Temple’s security, crime prevention system and barriers that I set up were exactly the same as the Imperial Castle’s.

There were children said to come from each country’s powerful family, so they created an environment in which they could fully focus on their studies without worrying about their safety. That’s why everyone was able to send their children off to a far away place with a peace of mind and it would be a big deal if any of the students were to get harmed or abducted while they were walking around the campus, so they put huge emphasis on the safety measures.

Of course, there were loopholes, because an incident had to happen after all.

If the defense and countermeasures were too perfect, incidents wouldn’t be able to happen. No one wanted that. Especially me. 

Anyway, Temple was practically a town’s name, so it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to say we arrived at Temple to begin with. The mana train couldn’t even go inside of Temple.

We arrived at the admission office outside Temple. Daibun couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“This is my first time coming here, so why are there so many people here?”

The admission counseling center on its own was already huge enough to be called a school, and what was even more surprising was the number of people waiting near the entrance.

They were people waiting to get admitted. They all pulled a number ticket, all of whom were children with their parents next to them.

Daibun just couldn’t understand that there were so many rich people out there trying to send their children to Temple.

I knew what this was about.

“Maybe that’s what it is?”

“What do you mean?”

“Children with special talents can enter Temple for free. That’s what they’re trying to confirm here.”

“Will there even be cases like that?”

“One could never know.”

I put it as if it was just a guess, however it was actually the truth. Even though it was difficult for them to pay the tuition, there were some parents who thought their child had special powers or was a genius.

Parents who couldn’t afford to pay the school fees would come here with their children, counting on that possibility.

Of course, most of them get sent back disappointed that there was no talent to be found, but they definitely did discover children with special talents, allowing them to enter the school.

The probability was just very low.

There were four forces in this world as a great whole.

Combat, Magic, Divine power.

And a power that was completely different from those three, a power that hadn’t been discovered even after a long time. Supernatural power.

Combat wasn’t just about being able to run well, but being able to display superhuman powers after one grew up. Such was the case with Artorius. The Knights of Duke Salerian who pursued me must have been those with similar powers. However, even on the side of the Demon Realm, there were monsters a lot stronger. There was a good reason why the Gargoyle was able to crush these veteran knights in a single blow. 

In any case, those that have the potential to develop superhuman powers will go on to learn martial arts.

Children who were unusually smart or were discovered to have magic-related talents would go on to major in magic.

Those who show talent in divine power would go down the path of a priest or paladin.

And very rarely, children sometimes awakened to bizarre abilities. These powers, dubbed supernatural powers, had not yet been fully elucidated, because it wasn’t an ability that could be learned and used like magic. Some people might not even be able to control them properly.

That was why the Empire was taking special care towards these supernatural powers. They weren’t used as resources in the Demon World War, but they could be very dangerous depending on the person. Depending on the level of danger, users with supernatural powers that were thought to be out of control would eventually be disposed of secretly.

For children with supernatural powers, Temple served as an institution to socialize as well as learn how to control and develop their abilities.

Of course, most of the children gathered here would most likely fall under none of these four classes.

Having talent was rare. Really rare.

“By the way, with so many people here, would we even get our turn today?”

Daibun seemed to be thinking about a much more realistic problem. I was rather sure that if we were to line up there we would have to wait for a really long time. Perhaps so long until they closed their doors, so we couldn’t know if we would even be able to get in today.

Of course, that was an unnecessary worry.

“We’re  here to apply for admission, not for consultation, right?”

We didn’t come here to try for the free admission, because we didn’t have enough money or something.

“Ah, that’s right.”

We proudly entered through the entrance to apply for admission, not into the admission counselation office.

Unlike the admission counselation office, the place to apply for admission was quiet. Of course, there were people there, but the place they waited in was decorated very luxuriously.

There were some parents who bawled their eyes out at the thought that they had to say goodbye to their children soon, perhaps because they came from afar, and some children who whined that they didn’t want to go.

No matter how good Temple was, you could always find people like that. What did they know? Just because they had to part with their parents.

“Ehm, this is the window for admission applications….”

Seeing me and Daibun, who looked rather neat but also rather penniless, the counter staff tried to gently guide us to the other side.

“U, uh…. That’s….”

Daibun froze by my side, perhaps because that was his first time coming to a place filled with enormously wealthy people. No, why would my guardian be scared, huh?

“I came here to pay the admission fee.”

On the contrary, when I spoke up calmly, the staff looked rather embarrassed.

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