The entire austrbraun Academy roared in cheer
Hundreds of students stood shoulder to shoulder in the grand awakening hall, the air electric with anticipation. The ceiling stretched endlessly overhead, carved from obsidian stone and laced with golden runes that pulsed in rhythm with the System's activity. Massive crystalline screens lined the walls, displaying each student's awakening in real time for the families watching from the elevated gallery above.
It was the most important day of their lives, a day were centuries of family names, honour and legends had formed who would be the future of liones, the system was gift bestowed by the constellations after the first great war
System windows appeared across the room as students cheered during their awakening
[System Awakening Complete] [Class Assigned: Assassin]
[System Awakening Complete] [Class Assigned: Elementalist]
[System Awakening Complete] [Class Assigned: Healer]
.Students from countless noble families big or small, embraced each other, some crying, some laughing and engaging in banter, some already boasting about their gifts to anyone who would listen. Parents in the gallery above leaned over railings with proud smiles and smug gleams already thinking of the future of their courts, Family emblems glowed on banners overhead
The dozens of children from these families had their own special sections for this day, it had been tradition for centuries the next step to cementing your legacy
It was a celebration.
Except for one corner of the room that had gone very, very quiet, very thin with air and tight with tension dozens of students turned to see he was surrounded nowhere to run, or cower or hide, they could all see his shame
Josen Malkador stood at the centre of his awakening platform, wrist crystal still warm from activation. Around him, the System's familiar blue light flickered once, twice, then died completely. The crystalline screen above him buzzed with static before the words appeared, cold and mechanical.
[ERROR: Student is not compatible with a System]
A beat of silence.
[ERROR: Student will be classified as — DEFECTOR]
The silence lasted exactly three seconds, before whispers drowned the audition, both fellow students, teachers and even noblemen, some had looks of worry, disappointed, sneers and even pity he felt like an already executed lamb
It began at the edges, nervous and disbelieving, the kind of laughter people use when they don't know what else to do. But it spread fast, feeding on itself, growing crueler with every second. Mocking glances dug into him from every direction. Whispers became words. Faint but he could make them out, he began to sweat his fingers dripping and his brow furrowing
Josen's knees hit the floor.
He didn't choose to kneel. His legs simply stopped working. The weight of the notification pressed down on his chest like a physical thing, crushing the air from his lungs. His lips trembled.
No. No, this can't be happening.
His mind clawed for something solid to grip. Any explanation. Some mistake in the System, some glitch, some error that could be corrected. His family were the Malkador's, he was a future heir for damn sake. Summoners for generations. The blood that ran through his veins had produced hunters who commanded beasts, mages who represented Liones in the oldest of traditions, elders whose names were carved into the walls of this very academy.
He was supposed to be next.
He had trained for this since he could walk. His father's voice had been his alarm clock every morning for as long as he could remember.
Sharpen yourself. Honor the family name. You are a Malkador. Show it.
He had given up sleep for those words. Given up friends, distance himself from others for those words, given up his childhood, piece by piece, year by year. He had bled on training grounds before sunrise. He had memorized summoning theory while other children played. He had done everything right.
God, no. Please, no.
He pressed his fist against the floor, knuckles white, trying to force himself upright. His breath came in short, ragged pulls. The laughter around him felt distant and close at the same time, like being underwater and hearing the surface.
Then came the voice.
Smoothly brash and satisfied.
"my oh, my."
Julian Drosmore stepped forward from the crowd, arms folded across his chest like a general surveying a battlefield he had already won. His awakening crest still glowed faintly above his platform across the room. He moved with the peculiar ease of someone who had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
"If it isn't the cocky llittle prick, Josen."
He stopped directly in front of him, close enough that Josen could smell the overly polished rebellious leather of his uniform. He tilted his head, expression caught somewhere between mockery and genuine curiosity, his shiny sharp teeth in a mocking glint as if Josen's failure was an interesting puzzle worth examining.
"How does it feel?" he said quietly. Almost warmly. "To be... well. You know."
He let the word hang in the air unfinished, which was somehow worse than saying it outright.
Then he slung an arm around Josen's slumped shoulders like they were old friends reuniting, his grin laced with venom.
"Weren't you going to be the future leader of the death games party?, Didn't you tell brag, hit your chest and run your mouth to everyone at the winter assembly you were going to awaken a legendary summoners gift?" He clicked his tongue softly. "How's that coming along? Oh, wait."
Laughter again. This time louder. Crueler. Students who barely knew Josen's name joined in, eager to align themselves with the Drosmore heir, knowing a knew dominant summoner had risen calculating even in their mockery.
Josen and julian had always hated each other and so had their families, both were summoners who ruled over different things they had different ideals, and morals,
"julian stand down, step away from him" a teacher rushed pushing through the swallowing crowd of students to seperate the two boys
"yea, yea teach, i was just leaving, you know, saying goodbye and all" Julian drew out his words, making sure each word carried as much venom as possible
Julian stepped back, raised his wrist crystal, and pressed the activation point with two fingers. A blinding interface erupted above him, crystalline and immaculate, filling the air with gleaming system data that the entire hall could read.
[Class Assigned: Necromancy] [A-Rank Gift: Soul Consultant]
The gasps were immediate and genuine. Even the instructors at the edges of the hall exchanged glances. The highest recorded gift among newly awakened students from the major families had been S-rank, and that had happened only ten times in the last hundred years.
The irony was so perfect it almost felt staged.
Julian glanced down at him one more time, expression shifting into something that resembled pity but wasn't.
"Better luck next time, Malkador."
He walked away without looking back. The crowd parted for him naturally, the way it always parted for people who had just proven they belonged.
Josen stayed on his knees.
His chest had caved in. His breath had shortened to almost nothing. The notification above his platform still glowed, patient and indifferent.
[A DEFECTOR]
He stared at those two words for a long time.
Not an heir. A defect someone not worthy of the systems gift
Somewhere deep in the back of his mind, beneath the humiliation and the panic, something else stirred. Something small and unfamiliar. He couldn't name it yet. It felt almost like a pulse, faint and steady, unaffected by everything happening around it.
He didn't know what it was.
He wouldn't know for a long time.
He pushed himself to his feet alone.
The Malkador bloodline had always been one of the giants of the world . Filled with legendary heroes, businessmen and rulers who left major impression on the past of liones as a country
Even among the seven ruling families of Liones, the name carried a particular weight. Their summoning bloodline stretched back further than most families dared to trace, producing hunters who led the most feared guilds in the nation, mages who bound creatures most people only read about in textbooks, and elders who had personally stood as Liones' representatives in the Death Games held once a decade by the Constellations themselves.
Being a Malkador meant you were born for greatness. It was in the name. It was in the blood.
someone like Josen, a boy who awakened as nothing, who carried no class, no gift, no recognition from the System at all, was not simply a disappointment.
He was a disgrace.
SLAM.
The great oak doors of the council chamber sealed shut behind the last elder.
They had not wasted a single hour. By the time Josen had been escorted from the academy grounds, the emergency session was already in progress. He stood in the corridor outside and listened to the low rumble of voices through the door, unable to make out words, only tone it was cold and smooth like fresh paved cement it was quick and decisive
They had already made up their minds before they sat down.
The doors opened.
A steward stepped out dressed impeccably, holding a sealed envelope, josen had known him all his life from when he was an infant waddling across the estate floors but today, He did not look at Josen with contempt. He did not look at him at all. He simply held out the envelope and spoke.
"You have five hours to collect your belongings and sever all formal ties to the Malkador family. You will take the six o'clock train to the address inside. Do not be late."
Josen took the envelope with shaky fingers and broke the seal with a sharp impatience to see his
Go to the barn estate at St. Peter Square. There, you will meet your grandfather.
He stared at that line for a moment. He had heard the name Augustus Malkador exactly twice in his life, both times in whispers. The family did not speak of him. He had pieced together fragments over the years — that he had left, that he had been asked to leave, that whatever he was had embarrassed them.
The steward added one more thing, quieter this time, as if it had almost slipped his mind.
"Your grandfather was also a Defector; he is whole you will be leaving with."
The door opened again before Josen could process that.
His father walked in.
Joseph Malkador moved like the room owed him space, shoulders squared, jaw set, he was on the larger side, with a short trim falling to the sides, the familiar blood-red flush of anger already rising in his face. But Josen had seen his father angry before. He had seen him furious, disappointed, coldly critical. He had catalogued every variation of his father's displeasure over sixteen years of trying to avoid it.
This was different.
This was something that looked like anger but felt like relief.
Like a man discovering an exit.
"Useless," Joseph spat, smacking josen across the face, it stung terribly; His voice was flat. Almost bored. "How dare you disgrace the Malkador name, your stupid defect."
Josen stood frozen.
Tears built behind his eyes before he could stop them, he had tried his whole life to not cry it was weakness, a vulnerability, but now it was overwhelming the feeling of failing, the tears spread, blurring the face of the man he had once worshipped completely. He had done everything for this man's approval. Everything. He had bled on training grounds before dawn. He had swallowed loneliness whole and called it discipline. He had worn the Malkador name like armor even when it felt like a cage.
Honor the Malkador name. You are a Malkador. Show it.
He had lived by every word.
Now they cut from the inside.
"F — Father, I—"
"Enough."
The word landed like a closed door.
"Be silent. Leave immediately." Joseph turned away, already moving toward the elders at the far end of the room, already done with him. "Your grandfather will teach you whatever worthless things Defectors know. Perhaps then you'll be of some use."
He paused at the doorway. Did not turn around.
"Prove yourself one more time. Or the Malkador family will discard you completely."
He left.
Josen stood in the empty corridor.
Somewhere down the hall, behind a door that had almost certainly been closed before the session even began, Mrs Adams sat with her hands folded in her lap and her face turned away from the window. She had not been permitted to speak. Her tears had been silent and private and completely ignored.
Josen picked up his bag.
He had five hours.
He intended to use four of them walking, because walking was the only thing that felt real right now, and he needed something real.
The sixth train left at six.
He would be on it.