The Academy's One-Armed Devil

The war is over, but Leonid Barhart never learned how to live in peace. He survived the battlefield by fighting in ways pampered nobles would never find in any academy textbook. Now the kingdom has thrown the one-armed survivor into the Royal Academy with a Black Badge, the mark reserved for failures, outcasts, and people meant to know their place. Leonid has no interest in rank, glory, or noble pride. He came for three things: a roof, a meal, and a way to stay alive. But the Academy reeks of the same things he smelled on the battlefield. Blood under polished uniforms. Conspiracies buried beneath etiquette. Sabotaged magitech. Assassins in the dark. And the shadow of a war that was never truly over. To the nobles, he is a cripple. To the professors, he is a stain on the Academy. To the enemies hiding inside it, he is the worst thing they could have overlooked. Because the Academy still believes pedigree, talent, and status decide who stands at the top. Leonid learned a different truth in the trenches. In the end, the one still breathing is the one who wins.