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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Huh? What?”
Eris, who was caught off guard, tried to pull her body back, but since I was holding her hand, she couldn’t move as she wanted.
“W-Wait a minute! I! Um, this is a bit, no, I also……”
As soon as I let go of Eris’ hand, who had suddenly become flustered, she immediately turned her body and showed her back.
She fanned her reddened face with her hand.
Did I come on too strong?
Come to think of it, Eris was quite old.
Even if you added up the ages of all the students in Class E where we were now, we would probably lose to her.
Moreover, since she had never dated before, she wouldn’t be used to this kind of stimulation.
Eris, who glanced at me, puffed out her cheeks slightly.
It seemed she didn’t like the subtle smile on my lips.
“Where did you learn that from?”
“Huh? Well, here and there?”
“Don’t tease me.”
Somehow, it felt like it was the first time I was taking the lead in a conversation with a woman.
Come to think of it, it was true.
Girls like Rin and Elise had such a scary atmosphere that I couldn’t treat them carelessly.
With May and Eve, I felt like I was being swayed by them recently as they were subtly wagging their tails.
To think that this fresh and village girl-like feeling would come from an older elf!
“These days, I heard that being proactive like this works. It’s different from the old days.”
I tried to say it in a teacher-like tone, but Eris’ hand directly pinched my side.
“Ouch!”
“Are you saying I’m old?”
“……No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Your reaction was a bit slow just now!”
Eris, who was panting, pushed her face close to mine, but then she realized her body was leaning forward and pulled back again while clearing her throat.
“To go back to what I was saying, don’t misunderstand just because I said this. I want to strip away the someone who overlaid on me and see the real you who was excessively kind only to me.”
After saying that, Eris abruptly turned her body and left the classroom.
Since I knew she had nowhere to go anyway and was just embarrassed right now, I immediately followed her.
“Let’s go together!”
“…… Come quickly.”
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While Eris and Daniel were talking in the classroom, there were female students outside the classroom, hiding their bodies and watching the two.
Eve, Sen, and Rin.
“It seems like they’re having an important conversation, right?”
At Rin’s question, Eve and Sen nodded their heads.
“But it doesn’t seem like a very good atmosphere.”
“You’re right, Daniel’s expression doesn’t look good.”
Rin also agreed with their words and stared intensely at Eris.
Then, when she glanced at Daniel, he had a shocked expression on his face.
“……”
It hurt.
It felt like there was a hole in her chest where the pattern was written.
Why did Daniel like that elf?
Before, she had tried to respect Daniel’s feelings, but seeing him make that expression, she wanted to rush in right away.
“Hey, what are you guys doing?”
What stopped her from moving was a slightly light female voice coming from behind.
May, with a candy in her mouth and her hands in her hooded sweatshirt, approached the three.
It seemed she had also wandered here in search of someone.
They all understood each other perfectly.
The quick-witted May noticed that Daniel was in the classroom and immediately lowered her body and approached Rin’s side.
“What? He’s with that elf?”
May immediately frowned as soon as she saw them.
Rin momentarily thought she was right.
‘If May breaks in, I can naturally enter as well.’
Thinking that, Rin hoped that May would quickly open the classroom door and go inside, but May’s expression gradually became more serious, and she slowly got up from her seat.
“I don’t think we should intervene right now.”
“Huh?”
It was a perplexing statement, but May sighed while rolling the candy in her mouth back and forth.
“If we intervene now, we’ll most likely be hated by Daniel. One step back for two steps forward. Unfortunately, we’ll have to give our turn to that elf today.”
Then Eve, who was next to her, also got up, shaking her butt.
“You’re right. Judging from Daniel and the elf’s expressions, it doesn’t seem like a trivial matter, so let’s just go today.”
Eve had a habit of being considerate of others.
Even after she started liking Daniel and declared war on him, this aspect of her had greatly diminished.
If Daniel were to choose someone in the end, Eve would likely be the first to let him go and wish for his happiness.
After all, Daniel’s happiness took priority over her own happiness.
“Hayoon told me not to intervene.”
Sen, who had been advised by Hayun, who had been supporting Daniel and Eris, followed Eve with a slightly disappointed expression.
Rin slowly got up with her fists clenched.
She wanted to go right away and tear the two apart.
She didn’t want to see the two of them together.
However…
‘Ah……’
Until just now, it seemed like a serious atmosphere, but now Daniel was smiling.
He was smiling brightly, but he was hurting a lot inside.
‘You… don’t you know that Daniel is hurting like that?’
He’s smiling forcibly.
He’s trying hard to be considerate of you.
‘What the hell is making you so sad? What is making you so sad?’
Rin already knew that Daniel liked Eris.
As mentioned earlier, at first, Rin thought it was Daniel’s choice and tried to respect it, but something was strange.
Even before meeting Eris, he had told her on the rooftop that he already had someone he liked.
‘Because he saw the future?’
Knowing that her future self would become a bad person, Daniel was trying to keep her by his side and restrain her.
Then what about Eris?
‘In that future, what was your relationship with Daniel?’
Why was she losing out because of a future that hadn’t even happened yet?
‘In the future, I must have loved you too, right?’
Why did Daniel reject her own feelings because of an elf he hadn’t even met yet?
“Rin, aren’t you going?”
At May’s voice, subtly hinting at her, Rin slowly turned her head and looked at her.
It was the first time her feet had felt so heavy, but…
“……”
In the end, Rin followed behind them.
“But it’s damn annoying. That bastard, he seduced her and now he likes another woman.”
“Right! Right! He made her like him by showing his cool side! He made her open her heart and comforted her! And then he says they’re just friends? Isn’t this really infuriating?”
May and Eve started saying things one by one.
Rin’s expression, which had been switched off with no light coming in, suddenly became lively.
“That’s Daniel’s charm! You only know one thing and not the other two!”
As Rin subtly gained the upper hand by utilizing the advantage of being childhood friends, May and Eve glared at her with an annoyed expression.
“You like him just because you lived in the same village.”
“That’s right! What’s important is not the past, but the present and the future!”
Then Rin immediately got fired up and refuted.
“I know secrets and memories about Daniel that you don’t! I even took a bath with Daniel!”
No good.
If they competed with memories and experiences, Rin had an overwhelming advantage.
In the end, May and Eve joined forces.
“Hey, I’m his childhood friend, you know? Daniel and I weren’t at the academy. We would have already been living happily with two kids by now. At this time, we would have been putting the kids to sleep and making a third one!”
May competed with a very crude fantasy.
“Do you know? In the end, the childhood friend loses. That’s how it was in the numerous books I’ve read. In the end, the childhood friend gets the main character stolen by a newly appearing woman and congratulates them while crying. Rin, are you prepared?”
Eve brought up the romance fantasies she had seen in books.
“……”
Sen, who had lived in the Chokugen Faction and had no knowledge of such things, turned her head left and right, becoming an audience to the meaningless fight.
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Late at night.
A female student, Seria Deloa, was very cautious even when opening the door to her own room.
There was cotton sticking out of a torn pillow in her hand, which showed how roughly she had been hitting the blanket and pillow.
‘Daniel McLean!’
This was the first time she had experienced such a humiliating experience in her life.
Although she wasn’t a princess, she always made other women feel inferior with her lovely appearance and had men under her feet.
But today…
‘That elf’s name was Eris, right?’
The name of the character she had played in the play was Eris.
At that time, when he called Eris’ name, it wasn’t calling for her, but he was complaining that he wanted to see the elf!
“Argh!”
It was unbearable.
Seria absolutely could not bear this humiliation.
That’s why she had been hitting the bed all day, treating it as Daniel, and punching the pillow as if it were his crotch, and in the end, she had torn it apart, but…
In the end, unable to endure it, she came out.
‘That’s right, I’ll go directly to his room and pretend to be the victim!’
Coincidentally, she had heard a secret somewhere that Daniel McLean had almost been falsely accused of being a sexual harasser before.
There was no separate plan.
It was literally acting on emotions in anger, but…
In the darkness where students couldn’t wander around and there was no light, a deeper darkness rippled.
Even to Seria’s eyes, which were adapted to the darkness, it wasn’t clearly visible, but if she had to give a form to that ripple…
“Butterfly?”
A butterfly fluttering in the darkness.
Whether it was really a butterfly or something similar, anyway, it clearly had a destination.
The end of the corridor.
It was holding a parasol.
Colors were relative, so it looked as if it was blocking the darkness of the corridor with the parasol.
Because even this darkness seemed too bright for it.
No matter how much you paint black over black, it’s the same.
No other color comes out.
But it was different.
It had a different color.
Deeper, stickier, and darker.
If the word ‘fear’ were to be translated into a color, wouldn’t it be like that?
“Huh, huh?”
Seria Deloa took a step back, but before she knew it, the woman with the parasol was standing in front of her.
Really, even though she didn’t even blink…
The woman wearing a parasol and a dress slowly approached Seria, and…
“Aaaaaah!”
In the end, Seria had no choice but to scream while shedding tears.
In an instant, the lights turned on.
Not only the professor on duty but also the children who were sleeping in their rooms came out with their eyes closed due to the sudden scream, but the thing that had been standing there just a moment ago disappeared along with the darkness.
“Seria? What’s wrong?”
“Hic, hic! What? What was that just now!”
The professor approached and called out to her, but Seria just shook her head and trembled.
“Huh? E-Everyone, go back to your rooms! Seria, come with me for a bit. You’re now……”
The professor checked the damp floor and realized that what Seria was shedding was not only tears.
The other students also seemed to have realized the seriousness of the situation, and despite the professor’s words, they took in Seria’s unsightly behavior, but…
She had no time to care about such things and just kept shouting that there was a ghost.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t a ghost.
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