The 21st Century Grand Grand Duchess in the Royal Academy - Chapter 1

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

A Twenty-First Century Grand Duchess in the Royal Academy
The Dormitory
My heart kept leaping at the prospect of dormitory assignment. The Royal Academy upheld a tradition where students began dormitory life in the seventh grade at fourteen years old, and this tedious custom was as immutable as a royal decree. Refusing meant expulsion from school.
Dormitory life spanned six years from seventh to twelfth grade, and it had earned a notorious reputation for its strict and conservative rules—so much so that students regularly withdrew midway through.
Nothing unusual about it, really. At an age when blood ran hot, being controlled from one’s gait to bedtime was no simple matter. Moreover, most Royal Academy students came from noble families or had been raised in households of considerable wealth. Compliance was hardly inevitable.
Yet those who endured received tangible rewards: the pride of studying under royal patronage and classmates who shared that pride. They carried a collective consciousness of being elites cultivated by the crown, and they flourished throughout society—in politics and business, in medicine and law, in the arts and in shadowed depths far below.
Thus they supported one another in their respective domains, pulling and pushing each other forward. Some critics condemned such behavior as collective exclusionism, but the more they were criticized, the more impenetrable their closed academic culture became. After all, belonging is always strengthened through hostility toward outsiders.
In that sense, I longed for dormitory assignment. I wanted to understand what belonging meant—what it felt like to share kinship with someone other than myself, to win and lose together, to grow and falter as one.
Most people learned such things at home, but I could not. I had no mother, and my relationship with my father was strained. I had one half-brother, but….
“Better off without him.”
Furrowing my brow, I headed toward the Central Library. I passed through the unnecessarily ornate campus grounds, past the fountain where statues of the Four Divine Beasts stood, and as I climbed the marble steps, a jumble of voices reached my ears.
“Hey, where do you think Sung Hee-joo will be assigned?”
“Baekho Palace, obviously.”
“Baekho Palace?”
“She’s good at studying. And she has no manners.”
Laughter erupted among the gossiping students.
“If she goes there, she’ll definitely be ostracized. Where else are there kids as picky about bloodlines as Baekho Palace?”
“Right. That’s no place for a bastard.”
“If we’re being that way, where would even suit her? She’s a commoner and illegitimate.”
A male student clicked his tongue and shook his head as if it were absurd, and another chimed in.
“Well, she’s still loaded.”
“If money were all that mattered, why would the word ‘nouveau riche’ exist?”
The students’ expressions hardened not long after they began their mockery. It was the moment my small head appeared above the staircase. Then my dark eyes came into view, followed by the sweeping arc of my long hair, and someone swallowed hard.
….
One boy had tripped me and broken his foot. Another had mocked my illegitimacy and had his throat crushed. Learned fear was such a reliable thing. Each time, the school was thrown into chaos, but nothing came of it. Having money was good in that sense—I couldn’t avoid bowing my head, but I could prevent expulsion.
“Why, why.”
A male student raised his voice. He seemed eager to bluster despite not daring to meet my eyes. It was hard to hide that he was nothing but a terrified dog.
I smiled faintly and slowed my pace.
“Ryu Min-seok.”
“…Why, what.”
“Which dormitory do you want to be assigned to?”
“Huh…?”
“I’d like it if we were in the same dormitory.”
When Min-seok frowned instead of answering, I whispered softly.
“There are no security cameras in the dormitories.”
“…?”
“No one would know if I killed you there, would they?”
“…You crazy bitch!”
Min-seok cursed belatedly, but by then my footsteps had already carried me into the library, my long hair streaming behind me. Savoring their fear.
“Jujak Palace….”
Sung Hee-joo murmured as she checked the notice posted on the wall. She’d wondered if it might be Baekho Palace, as Ryu Min-seok had been rambling about, but her dormitory assignment was Jujak Palace. The guardian deity of the south, symbolizing fire and summer.
Wearing the crimson robe she’d received from the administrative office over her school uniform, Sung Hee-joo headed toward her dormitory. The dormitory locations were arranged according to the directions symbolized by the Four Celestial Guardians—Cheongryong Palace to the east, Jujak Palace to the south.
The further south she walked, the more students in crimson robes appeared around her. Though each possessed different faces, names, ages, and personalities, they somehow seemed alike. As if… they were siblings.
“Sung Hee-joo!”
At that moment, Sung Tae-joo’s voice reached her. Her older brother, three years her senior, shared only half her blood. The uncanny resemblance sometimes unsettled her, yet his complete differences in other aspects brought strange reassurance. Despite his refined and delicate appearance, his actions were so pathetically foolish that he was constantly facing suspension.
Belonging to Cheongryong Palace, he wore a blue robe, and since he even wore blue pajamas at home, it was impossible not to feel irritated every time she saw him.
“What.”
“What do you mean ‘what.'”
Grumbling, Tae-joo glanced at Sung Hee-joo’s crimson robe. His brow furrowed as if the red color bothered him, then his expression shifted into a smile that revealed his true thoughts entirely.
“Are you happy?”
“Huh?”
“Are you happy that I’m not in Cheongryong Palace?”
“Then what, you’d prefer we were in the same dormitory?”
Tae-joo’s voice rose indignantly as he seemed to realize something, his mouth falling open. Then, with characteristic obliviousness—
“Did you want to come to Cheongryong Palace?”
“Me?”
“I mean, well….”
“If you’re in a dormitory, it’s definitely going to reek, so why would I.”
“Fine, fine.”
Tae-joo shook his head irritably and headed eastward. Toward Cheongryong Palace, where idealists gathered.
After unpacking in her dormitory, Sung Hee-joo picked up her phone. Though it seemed he wouldn’t care which dormitory she’d been assigned to, she felt she should tell him anyway. After all, he was still her father.
As the dial tone began with the call button, Sung Hee-joo found herself standing without realizing it. Whenever she called her father, this level of tension always accompanied it. Even knowing his responses would be nothing but curt reactions and indifferent tones, she couldn’t help but imagine something different.
— Why.
“It’s me.”
— Speak.
“I received my dormitory assignment. It’s Jujak Palace.”
— ….
“I ranked first again this time.”
Anxious at her father’s silence, Sung Hee-joo’s eyes darted around. Should she mention how small the dormitory room was? Should she promise to continue ranking first? As she searched for topics, her father’s voice continued.
— So.
“Yes?”
— There must be something you want.
Sung Hee-joo’s heart twisted. Her father’s question wasn’t entirely strange. Whenever she accomplished something, she would say she wanted something—it was her habit. When younger, it was usually sweets her brother ate or the bicycle he rode, and sometimes it was her father’s fountain pen.
But those were merely excuses. What she truly wanted was her father’s acknowledgment. Even if she was illegitimate, even if she was unwanted… recognition that she was excellent, that she had done well.
“The watch that brother has is pretty.”
— ….
“Please buy me one too.”
Her pride prevented her from saying she wanted praise. She couldn’t bring herself to say she merely wanted her father’s recognition, because wanting that made her pathetic. So she simply played the role her father expected—greedy and spoiled, nothing but a base illegitimate child consumed by desire.
After ending the call, Sung Hee-joo sat on the windowsill, suppressing the desire to set down her heart that belonged nowhere, the longing to place it anywhere at all.
Royal Academy School Regulations
Article 5, Section 1: The Dormitory names shall be derived from the Four Sacred Beasts, and assignments shall not be altered once determined.
Article 5, Section 3: Dormitory assignments shall be based on comprehensive evaluations spanning all six years of study, including task performance capability, behavioral development, and faculty assessments.
Article 5, Section 4: Competition between Dormitories is permitted; however, mutual defamation and damage to reputation shall constitute grounds for serious disciplinary action.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————