The morning of the Inspection arrived with the kind of oppressive sunshine that felt like a personal insult to Moha's soul. The town square was transformed into a theatrical stage of gender politics. Rows of young boys, dressed in their finest silks, lace, and velvet, stood like prized cattle under the gaze of the Academy's scouts.
Moha's "father" had spent three hours fussing over him. "Keep your chin down, Moha! Look modest, but not bored! Remember, the scouts look for 'vibrancy' and 'receptivity'!"
Moha stood in line, flanked by other boys who were visibly shaking. Some were weeping with nerves; others were practicing their "gentle smiles" in hand mirrors. Moha did none of that. He simply stood, a statue of alabaster and dark intent, his violet mana—now a cold, invisible thread—coiling tightly around his heart.
Then, the scouts arrived.
They were a phalanx of women in sharp, obsidian-colored uniforms, their Mana auras so thick they distorted the air behind them like heat off a summer road. At their head was High Inspector Valerius, a woman with silver hair and eyes that pierced through bone.
She walked down the line, dismissing boys with a flick of her wrist. "Too jittery." "Poor posture." "Common features."
Then she reached Moha.
The air in the square seemed to freeze. Valerius stopped dead. Her nostrils flared, her Mana reacting instinctively to something she couldn't quite define. She reached out with a gloved hand and tilted Moha's chin upward.
Moha didn't flinch. He didn't blush. He performed the "Divine Gaze"—an expression he had mastered by staring at the sun until his retinas burned. His eyes were wide, clear, and possessed a depth that felt like looking into a bottomless, beautiful well. He offered a smile so fragile, so heartbreakingly "pure," that the woman actually took a half-step back.
"By the Stars," someone whispered in the crowd.
The silence was absolute. Mouths hung open. A scout in the back dropped her clipboard, the paper fluttering to the ground like dead birds. It wasn't just that he was handsome; he possessed a "presence" that defied the biological laws of the world. He didn't look like a boy waiting to be chosen; he looked like a masterpiece waiting to be worshipped.
"His... his mana conductivity readings are zero, as expected," a junior scout stammered, checking a crystal sensor. "But High Inspector... look at the symmetry. Look at the clarity."
Valerius lingered for a long moment, her eyes narrowing. For a second, Moha let a tiny, microscopic sliver of his psychopathic malice leak into his gaze—a flash of a predator's eye behind a sheep's mask.
The Inspector's breath hitched. She didn't feel fear; she felt an inexplicable, primal attraction to the danger she couldn't see.
"This one," Valerius commanded, her voice cracking the silence. "He doesn't go to the domestic servants' quarters. Send him to the Aegis Academy. The Co-Ed Pilot Program."
A gasp rippled through the square. The Pilot Program was a new, controversial initiative where a handful of "exceptional" males were trained alongside the elite female sorceresses—not to fight, but to act as "Mana Batteries" and personal attendants in the heat of battle. It was the highest honor a male could achieve, and the most dangerous place he could be.
Moha bowed, his movement as fluid as water. "I am honored, Great One," he chirped, while internally he was screaming with a laughter that would have curdled milk.
The Gates of the Aegis
The Aegis Academy was a fortress of marble and floating towers. As Moha walked through the gates later that afternoon, he felt the weight of a thousand stares. In the courtyards, girls in combat uniforms were sparring, hurling bolts of lightning and conjuring shields of solid light.
The "Male Wing" was a small, secluded annex. Here, the few boys who had been accepted were taught "The Art of the Support"—essentially how to be a footstool with a pulse.
"Alright, listen up, pets," a drill instructor barked as Moha entered the main hall. She was a scarred veteran with a prosthetic arm made of enchanted bronze. "You are here because you are the best-looking, most compliant tools the state has to offer. You will learn to cook, to heal minor wounds with herbs, and to stand perfectly still while your Mistress draws from your spiritual essence. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Ma'am!" the boys chimed in unison. Moha joined them, his voice a perfect, melodic harmony.
But the real test came during the "Integration Hour," when the male students were forced to walk through the main courtyard to the refectory. It was a gauntlet of ridicule.
"Look at the new one!" a tall girl with a jagged scar over her eye laughed, leaning against a pillar. She was surrounded by a clique of girls, all radiating the aggressive, hot-blooded energy of Tier 3 mana users. "He looks like he's made of sugar. I bet he'd melt if I even touched him with a spark."
They surrounded him, cutting off his path. The other boys with Moha scurried away like mice, leaving him alone in the center of a circle of predators.
The leader, a girl named Cassandra with hair like spun copper, stepped forward. She was the daughter of a Duke, and her Mana aura was a suffocating, pressurized gold. She reached out and grabbed Moha by the collar of his frilly Academy shirt, lifting him until his toes barely touched the ground.
"You're the one Valerius was raving about?" she sneered, her face inches from his. "The 'Angel of the Square'? You don't look like an angel to me. You look like a doll that needs to be broken to see what's inside."
The girls laughed, their faces twisted into masks of arrogant superiority. This was the "Hyper-Comical" cruelty of this world—expressions so exaggerated they border on the grotesque. One girl's eyes practically popped out of her head with glee; another had a grin that stretched from ear to ear, showing too many teeth.
"What's the matter, little doll?" Cassandra taunted, a spark of golden electricity dancing on her fingertip, hovering just an inch from Moha's eye. "No tears? No begging? Are you broken already?"
Moha looked at her.
He didn't cry. He didn't tremble.
Slowly, his mouth began to move. It wasn't a frown, and it wasn't a grimace. It was a smile—but not the "pure" smile he had shown the Inspector.
This smile was wide. It was too wide. His cheeks pushed up until his eyes became thin, dark crescents. His head tilted slowly to the right—crack—a sickening sound of vertebrae adjusting.
"You have very pretty eyes," Moha whispered. His voice had lost its "chime." It was now a dry, rhythmic rasp, like a snake moving over dead leaves.
Cassandra's smirk wavered. The golden spark on her finger flickered and died. "What... what did you say?"
"I said they're pretty," Moha repeated, his smile widening until it looked like his face was splitting in half. "I'd love to see what they look like when the Mana stops flowing. Would they stay gold? Or would they turn... dull? Like lead?"
He reached up—not to push her away, but to gently, almost lovingly, wrap his small fingers around her wrist.
Deep within Moha's chest, the pool of mercury-mana surged. He didn't release it; he used it to create a "Void-Sink." For a split second, the golden aura surrounding Cassandra was sucked into the palm of Moha's hand.
It was a momentary lapse in her defenses, a cold shiver that ran down her spine, making her feel utterly, terrifyingly vulnerable. For that heartbeat, she wasn't a powerful sorceress; she was a girl holding a ticking bomb.
"You're... you're a freak," Cassandra hissed, dropping him. She stepped back, her breath coming in short, jagged gasps. Her friends, who had been laughing a moment ago, were now silent, their "funny" faces replaced by expressions of genuine, sweating unease.
Moha landed lightly on his feet. He smoothed out his apron and adjusted his collar, his "Angel" mask sliding back into place as if it had never left.
"I'm just a boy, Mistress Cassandra," Moha said, his voice back to its sweet, melodic pitch. He looked up at her through his lashes, his eyes shimmering with fake tears. "I'm sorry if I frightened you. I get... confused when I'm scared."
He pulled a "Scared Face"—lips trembling, eyes glistening, hands clutching his chest. It was so perfectly executed that the girls around Cassandra began to feel a wave of misplaced guilt.
"Leave him alone, Cass," one of the girls muttered, rubbing her arms. "He's just... he's just weird. Let's go to practice."
Cassandra stared at Moha for a long time. Her hand was still shaking. She couldn't explain the coldness she had felt—the sensation of a predator looking at a piece of meat.
"This isn't over, brat," she spat, though there was no conviction in her voice.
As the girls walked away, Moha watched them. He stood in the center of the courtyard, the sun shining off his beautiful hair.
He waited until they were out of earshot. Then, he looked down at his hand—the one that had touched Cassandra's wrist. A faint, golden wisp of her stolen mana was still clinging to his skin before being absorbed into his violet veins.
"Step three," Moha whispered to the empty air, his face twisting into a silent, manic grin that would have sent the entire Academy into a state of emergency.
"The taste of a goddess..."
He licked the spot on his wrist where her energy had lingered.
"Needs more salt."
He turned and headed toward his first class: Advanced Embroidery and Household Management. He walked with a spring in his step, humming a tune that sounded remarkably like a funeral march.
The first day of hell was going exactly as planned.