I'm Not a Thief

Morning, Piltover University.

Lina arrived at school early, but not for class. She was there to go to the library. And not to read, either, but to queue outside the library for free notebooks and fountain pens—

Every month, Piltover University regularly handed out free notebooks and fountain pens to its students.

This tradition was said to date back three hundred years, to when the university had first been founded.

Back then, the administrators' original intention had merely been to distribute cultural souvenirs bearing the crest of Piltover University, items that could showcase the status of these favored students.

But later, as the Twin Cities split apart and the gap between rich and poor widened, the students of Piltover University gradually divided into two clearly distinct camps: Piltover locals and Zaunite exchange students, the rich and the poor.

The poor wretches from Zaun naturally would not pass up free paper and pens.

And the wealthy Piltover students naturally did not wish to lower themselves for such trifling benefits by lining up alongside the Zaunite mudfoots they looked down on.

Thus, without anyone quite noticing, what had originally been a campus cultural program for all students became a targeted poverty-relief project for Zaunites.

At that moment, the morning mist had only just dispersed, yet a long line of students had already formed outside the library.

They all wore Piltover University uniforms, dressed in suits and ties, each of them looking quite respectable.

But everyone knew they were Zaunites.

Only Zaunites would line up here.

"Honestly, can't they hurry up?" Such muttering occasionally drifted through the line, thick with resentment and embarrassment.

Everyone was embarrassed.

Lina was no exception.

Students and teachers constantly passed by the library entrance.

Standing in this "Zaunite" line made Lina feel deeply awkward. Even when the passersby were not looking at her, she always felt as if countless eyes were watching.

And besides, many eyes really were watching her, watching all of them.

"Lina?" someone called her name in surprise.

Lina reluctantly lifted her head and looked toward the voice.

It was an upperclassman she had run into a few times recently.

The upperclassman had always been quite polite during their previous meetings, but she had never known that Lina was from Zaun.

Now, though, she certainly knew.

"Lina, you... why are you lining up here too?"

She looked Lina up and down, taking in her delicate features that fit Piltover's aesthetic so well, then glanced at the line full of Zaunite students. Her expression shifted from shock to something complicated.

That complexity was hard to describe.

But it was uncomfortable, no matter what.

"Se-Senior." Lina forced herself to respond. "Did you need something from me?"

"No, no." The upperclassman smiled and shook her head without saying anything else.

She simply left with that smile still on her face.

It was a little like the faint, almost imperceptible smile on a top student's lips when a poor student came to ask about an absurdly simple question, leaving the top student wanting to speak but holding back.

Only this smile held far more malice.

"That snobby bitch! If you had nothing to say, why the hell did you come talk to me? Nobody stuffed your face-hole shut. If you need to take a dump, just do it already!" Lina viciously cursed in Zaunite.

But after cursing, she felt a wave of helplessness.

She looked at the fellow Zaunites around her, all lined up to collect "relief supplies" just like her. They all kept their heads lowered, terrified that an acquaintance passing by might recognize them.

But no one left.

A Zaunite's dignity was worth no more than a fountain pen and a notebook.

"Hurry up already... sigh." Lina only wanted this torture to end sooner.

Fortunately, she had arrived fairly early.

She endured and endured until she finally reached the front of the line.

At the front, two middle-aged women who did odd jobs around the university were responsible for handing out the pens and notebooks.

They were both Piltover locals, though clearly among the lowest rung of local society.

Their bloated bodies, fattened on cheap fried chicken; their tasteless outfits; and their "trendy" permed and dyed curls, copied poorly from fashion magazines, made these two Piltover women look even more hopelessly tacky than the Zaunite students in line.

Their job was supposedly to distribute the fountain pens and notebooks, but in reality, they merely piled the free stationery onto the table and let the Zaunite students waiting in line collect it themselves.

Then they sat there cracking sunflower seeds and gossiping about campus news.

"Hey, hey, did you hear?"

"Professor Jayce last night—" Jayce was Piltover's biggest research star, and anything involving him spread through campus at lightning speed.

Not to mention that Jayce, with his overflowing hormones and muscular good looks, was exactly the sort of man these women dreamed about.

"...recruited a new student into his research group. This seems to be the first student Professor Jayce has ever accepted!"

"Who was it? Who could catch Professor Jayce's eye?"

"Kaya Ferros. Ever heard of her?"

"Ferros? That Ferros?" One of the women clicked her tongue in admiration. "People from great families really are different."

"What are you guessing for? Miss Ferros is a genuine genius, no question about it."

"I heard Professor Jayce personally set the test last night. Out of dozens of the academy's strongest students, only Miss Kaya solved it. And she's only eighteen!"

"Look at her. Born better than everyone else, smarter than everyone else, works harder than everyone else. No wonder House Ferros got so rich. They deserve it!"

"..."

The two women were deeply engrossed in their discussion, but Lina found it hard to listen to.

Kaya Ferros truly was capable. The young lady's grades were not inflated, and even Lina acknowledged that.

But what did they mean, "only Kaya solved it"?

Lina had solved it too, and she had not done any worse than Kaya!

Why had the rumors turned into Kaya Ferros's personal showcase after only one night?

In the story, Miss Kaya was hardworking and brilliant, completely independent of her family background. She made Professor Jayce fall for her talent at first sight, prompting him to declare, "This girl's talent is in no way inferior to mine. She will surely accomplish great things."

If Lina had not seen that young lady's true colors herself, she might have ended up admiring her after hearing all that.

"Wait."

Lina could not help recalling the biographies she had once believed without question, stories about Piltover's tycoons and noble houses, its councilors and scholars, and all manner of great figures.

Those great figures' stories were also full of tales of childhood genius.

The Divine Axe of Falling Blossoms, the Light-Gathering Magic Mirror, Heimerdinger's Little Stool.

It was as though great people had been different from ordinary people since childhood, and their success had always been inevitable.

"Could these stories... have all been embellished and polished up, just like Kaya's story?" Lina could not help questioning everything she had previously accepted.

But there was no use thinking about it now.

Kaya had won. No matter how indignant Lina was, she could not change that.

Her only hope now was Professor Viktor. Viktor had said he would take her paper back for everyone in the research group to look over. A night had passed, and she had no idea whether there was a result yet.

Maybe...

In a little while, Viktor would appear before her and happily tell her that she had been accepted too.

Thinking of that, Lina's heart filled with hope for the future.

Being stared at while standing in line, the women's praise for Kaya—she no longer cared about such trivial matters.

She could endure them. If she endured, they would pass.

Lina silently reminded herself of this, and before she realized it, she had reached the very front of the line—at last, it was her turn to collect a fountain pen and notebook.

But then—

"Th-There's nothing left."

The free stationery on the table had already been taken by the students ahead of her.

There was actually plenty left in storage. The pens and notebooks were simply stacked behind the table, blocked from view by the two broad, heavyset Piltover women. They only needed to bend down and bring another stack onto the table.

But the two of them were still eagerly gossiping, discussing Kaya and House Ferros's various legendary stories, paying Lina no attention at all.

Though they sat right behind the table, it was as if they could not see that there was no stationery left on it, or that Lina and the long line of Zaunite students waiting for supplies were still standing in front of it.

"Um... ma'am?" Lina hugged her schoolbag uneasily and quietly reminded them, "The fountain pens and notebooks on the table are... are all gone."

The two women did not hear her at all.

"Ma'am?"

Still no response.

They were like teammates who could not see the signal.

"Ma'am!" Lina finally could not stand it any longer and reached out to tap one of them.

The Piltover woman immediately frowned, stopped gossiping, and turned to glare at her.

"Who are you calling ma'am?"

"Can't you tell how old I am? Do you have no manners?"

"S-Sorry." Lina apologized nervously. "Sister, um..."

"Um what? Spit it out!"

"The stationery is gone." Lina pointed at the empty table in front of them, something anyone who was not blind could notice.

"If it's gone, then it's gone! Just say so!" The woman glared at her impatiently, though she finally bent down unwillingly and brought up a stack of notebooks and boxes of fountain pens.

"Thank you." Lina swallowed her anger and thanked her.

But just as she was about to reach for them, the other woman spat out a sunflower seed shell, raised her brows, and looked at her suspiciously.

"Wait, you look a little familiar."

"Say, you didn't already collect some and then sneak back into line to collect them again, did you? Hey, hey... I'm warning you, that counts as theft!"

"Huh?" Lina froze slightly.

She had not expected to be accused of something like that for no reason.

Though perhaps she should not have been surprised.

Whenever something went missing in class before, she and the other Zaunite students were always the first ones called in for questioning.

"But I didn't!" Anger surged up inside Lina. "I-I'm a student of Piltover University too. How could I possibly steal?"

"If you didn't, then you didn't!"

"Why are you shouting so loudly?"

"Feeling guilty because you're a thief?"

Lina: "..."

Endure. She had to endure.

If she endured, Professor Viktor would bring her good news.

If she endured until graduation and found a job, she too could become a respectable Piltover citizen.

But Li Wei's article surfaced in Lina's mind. It had clearly been nothing more than a dispassionate historical analysis paper, yet somehow it could stir up a Zaunite's anger.

It made her want to point at these Piltover people's faces and curse viciously:

"Fuck you!!!"

"I'm not a thief!!!"