<Previously on the story>


Donut Trumpet has only one wish—to be king!

After causing a huge accident at elementary school, Donut enters a military academy to become king of the world!

Burgers and time-leaps will carry Donut up the craziest staircase of his life!

……………………….

 

“Wake up!”


At the military school, the morning trumpet blasted every day at 6 a.m., jolting us out of bed. We had five minutes to get dressed, then it was cleaning duty—rooms, halls, even the toilets. We were treated like slaves.


But a king doesn’t scrub toilets.


Cramped into an eight-man room smaller than my storage closet back home, I quickly realized the guy in the next bed—Pickles—was useful.


“Pickles, you said you liked cleaning toilets, right?”


He was a scrawny, timid-looking guy with a nervous smile, but a decent fellow. Whenever I glared at him, he did whatever I said.

That morning, he dutifully grabbed a rag and hurried out while I combed my hair in the mirror. Then a drill instructor burst in.


“Trumpet! Toilet duty’s yours!”


“You’d have a king do a slave’s work?”


“A king? A slave?”


Apparently, these muscle-brained instructors weren’t quick on the uptake.


“I came here to command armies as a king, not to scrub latrines.”


“Run. Twenty laps around the yard.”


“Leave the horse work to the horses.”


The instructor’s face turned red enough to burst a vessel, but I didn’t care.


Classes were just as miserable—sweaty, all-male, and airless.

Afterward came muscle training, jogging, wrestling, and—worst of all—crawling drills.

Forcing a king to wriggle like a worm in the dirt?

Unthinkable.


While the other students worked themselves to exhaustion, I made up my mind: physical training was beneath a king.


“Such drills are for foot soldiers, not for kings.”


What I missed most were the cheers of the girls.

On the third night after enrolling, surrounded by the stench of unwashed boys collapsing into bed after training, I made up my mind to run—to Pakdonald.

I’d time-leap and skip this stupid school entirely.


$ $ $


When the others started snoring, I slipped quietly out of bed, crept down the dark hallway, and reached for the dorm door.


“Leaving already?”


I turned. A single instructor stood in the shadows.

I recognized his face—mid-thirties maybe, one of the few who didn’t yell or bark orders like the others.

I shrugged.


“A handsome guy like me’s wasted in a place full of sweaty dudes.”


“That’s true enough,” he said, surprisingly calm.


“Well, at least one instructor here gets it. What’s your name?”


“Dorian. Bulgaria Dorian.”


“I’ll remember that name when I’m commanding the army someday, Dorian.”


As I stepped toward the exit, his voice followed me.


“Shame. I thought you had a real shot at the Kings Medal.”


“The King’s… Medal?”


I turned back despite myself.


“What’s that medal with the perfect name for me?”


“It’s awarded each year to the top graduate. Winners of the King’s Medal are respected everywhere—military, politics, business.”


“You think I’m worthy of it?”


Dorian smiled faintly.


It was… too perfect.

Too right.


Something stirred deep inside my chest again.


—The King’s Medal.