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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Eris left for the beastmen’s land, and peaceful daily life resumed.
“Did you hear that? They say there’s a ghost.”
“In the 4th-year dormitory? I heard. They say Senior Seria saw it?”
“But at that time, that senior……”
The conversation of the girls in Class E entered my ears despite my unwillingness to hear it.
From what I heard, there was a rumor that a female ghost had appeared in the 4th-year dormitory.
‘Anyway, kids at this age love such rumors.’
Even though there was magic and magical beasts in this world, there were no ghosts.
Even if they existed, ghosts couldn’t harm people.
How could I assert this with such certainty?
‘If ghosts had existed, Rin wouldn’t have been able to act so freely in her previous life.’
She had killed all of humanity on the continent, so if ghosts existed, they would have all clung to her and cursed her or something.
I wanted to take a nap during the break, but the classroom was too noisy, so I ended up waking up.
Tana and Eve had gone somewhere together, so I felt a bit lonely, but just then, I noticed Hayun passing by our classroom.
“Where are you going?”
Recently, excluding Eve and Tana, Hayun was the one I could be most comfortable with.
Especially in her case, she was like a mentor and collaborator in dating, so I could treat her even more comfortably.
“Hm? I received a request and I’m going to take some measurements.”
“What do you mean?”
Hayun seemed to have noticed that I was bored with just a few words, so she just shrugged her shoulders and told me to follow her if I was curious, and I followed her like a dog going to pick up a bone.
The place Hayun headed to was the music room.
She walked briskly towards the piano placed there, but Hayun’s goal wasn’t the piano.
She picked up the piano cover used as a dust cover on top of it and handed it to me.
“Spread it out, let’s measure the length.”
“You told me to follow you just to order me to do this?”
Despite saying that, I spread out the cover with both hands.
Since it was a bit longer than my outstretched arms, the ends drooped down, but Hayun grabbed that part and measured the length.
“Hmm, so it’s about this much? They said the piano is 150 by 35…… Okay, thank you.”
I thought it would be fine to roughly estimate it like this, but Hayun familiarly started writing something in the notebook she had brought.
“You’re still working these days, huh?”
“Huh? Of course. Even if I receive a scholarship, that’s just the tuition to attend the academy, not my living expenses.”
Wow, you’re working hard.
In Hayun’s case, despite her quite good looks, she had a slightly mature side to her, so if she wanted to take the easy path, she could have fallen into bad places like taverns, but seeing her live by utilizing her own abilities like this was admirable.
“If you have nothing to do later, come to me. I’ll teach you how to live in the forest.”
“Huh? What forest?”
“There’s something like that. It’s quite lucrative.”
In fact, just the gold coins I had collected at that time would have been more than the noble families known as conglomerates.
It was a place with limited uses for money, and I didn’t have much greed, so it just took up storage space, but…
Anyway, fighting, beggar girl!
I cheered for Hayun in my mind.
Not only did she diligently exercise even at dawn, but unlike me, she also got quite good grades on the written exams in the magic studies department, as far as I knew.
If she continued like this, she would surely be able to receive a scholarship.
“Ah, come to think of it, there are only two months left until the vacation, are you going to Yggdrasil again?”
“It’s already vacation time?”
No, what is this?
I didn’t think I had properly studied, but it was already vacation time.
“I said there are still two months left? And before that, there are exams and the competition, so it will be very busy.”
“What competition?”
Hayun looked at me as if asking if I didn’t know even that, and when she remembered that I had transferred in my 3rd year, she put away the notebook she was holding and started explaining.
“You know where our academy’s rival academy is, right?”
“It’s Pales, the complete opposite of Aios.”
While Aios Academy was located in Elgrid, the center of maritime trade, allowing for active exchanges, Pales Academy was the complete opposite.
I heard it was located deep in the mountains somewhere, so students who entered there had a hard time returning to their families even during vacations and just stayed there to study.
In fact, I heard there were a few students who stayed at the academy without returning to their families during the 5 years of attending the academy.
“Pales and Aios hold a competition at the end of the year. It’s a fairly old and traditional event.”
“Hmm?”
Honestly, I wasn’t very interested.
I had experienced so many incidents while at the academy that I didn’t want another event, but Hayun showed enthusiasm in contrast.
“If you do well there, it will definitely be a plus factor in receiving a scholarship.”
“I don’t think they’ll give you something just for standing out in such a thing.”
“No, right now, Aios Academy is thirsty for victory.”
“……?”
Hayun slightly checked the surroundings in case someone might hear and spoke as if complaining.
“We’re on a 13-game losing streak until last year.”
“We lost 13 times in a row?”
“We’ve been losing for a whopping 13 years.”
Anyway, I thought this damn academy couldn’t do anything properly, but they had been getting beaten up like that even from the outside.
How could they be the continent’s best academy while getting beaten up by Pales like that?
“Although they’re making excuses saying it’s just a temporary stumble because their past reputation was so outstanding, in reality, since last year, there has been talk from Pales about stopping the competition.”
“Not from us?”
If we just looked at the results so far, it seemed like our side would tuck our tail and suggest stopping.
“They said the competition wasn’t helpful for Pales students. Then our professors insisted on continuing the competition in order to get revenge somehow.”
“This place is really funny.”
From the outside, it only looked like a prestigious school, but once you looked inside, it was rotten like a rotten apple.
In the distant past, it might have been a place where only the noblest of nobles gathered to explore academics, but not anymore.
In the first place, could we even call them rivals?
If they lost 13 times, as far as I knew, they weren’t rivals, but just the resident bullies, right?
“Daniel! You were here!”
Look at that.
I talked about the resident bully, and the bully came running with a candy in her mouth.
“Maybe it’s because of kids like this that we lost like that?”
“You could say that.”
“What? Why am I getting dissed as soon as I arrive?”
May immediately glared at me and Hayun while linking arms.
Anyway, the kid’s senses had sharpened, so she immediately noticed when we said bad things about her.
I thought she would confront us right away, but May took the candy out of her mouth and pointed to the end of the corridor with her hand.
“Did you see that the Mayas family came?”
“Mayas……? Ah! Tana’s main family?”
The Mayas family, Tana’s main family.
A prestigious family among prestigious families that rivaled the swordsmanship-renowned Duratan family.
While the Duratans tended to focus on swordsmanship, the Mayas family had a good overall balance.
In a word, all-rounders.
I immediately thought of Belin Mayas, the 5th-year who had confessed to my sister and got brutally rejected.
I remembered his body was quite excellent.
“But why?”
It was a bit annoying that it was Tana’s main family, but I didn’t think their arrival had anything to do with me, but May immediately added.
“Our kids told me that they came looking for Tana.”
“Huh?”
What is this about again?
It wasn’t from Krista’s side, but the Mayas family came looking for Tana, a child of a branch family?
“Ah, what’s the matter this time?”
I haven’t even properly concluded the 1st Prince and Elise incident yet.
I wanted to definitely end it before this year was over if possible.
Feeling like a new incident had come again, my footsteps felt heavy.
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“They took Tana away!”
As soon as May and Hayun returned to their classes and I entered Class E, Eve, who had been waiting, immediately rushed to me and shouted.
“Yeah, I heard the Mayas side came. Do you know why they took her?”
“Yes! I heard everything when their servants barged in while Tana and I were eating snacks together!”
“I see…… Wait a minute, you were eating snacks? Weren’t you on a diet!”
“……”
Eve turned her head to the side as if slipping on ice.
So that’s why these girls left their seats during the break to snack without me!
Feeling a surge of betrayal, I immediately pinched Eve’s cheek.
“What did you say to me back then? If you got caught snacking?”
“Shtop it, it hurtsh…….”
(You said you’d treat me like a dog……)
“So you’re a dog now? Eve’s siblings will be so disappointed. Their eldest daughter became a dog. Is that why they’re taking Tana too? Because the Mayas family wants to raise a puppy?”
Although I was angry that my efforts to plan a diet menu for them had been in vain because of these girls, Tana’s situation was more important for now, so I let go of her cheek.
“Ugh.”
Eve rubbed her cheek with a tearful expression.
“So why did they say they were taking her?”
“……Woof.”
Eve suddenly made a dog sound.
“Hey.”
“Woof woof.”
Phew.
“Okay, I’ll let it slide, so tell me.”
“Ahem, they said they’re taking Tana to raise her as one of the 3rd Princess’s maids!”
“Maid? No, wait a minute.”
Usually, the maids of the kingdom’s princesses were mostly daughters of nobles.
Bertia, who worked as the leader of the king’s direct assassination unit and became a maid due to an injury, was a bit of a special case, but normally, children of unnamed nobles served the royal family.
Even if they were a branch family, they were a branch of the Mayas family.
They couldn’t treat Tana like that.
No, more than that…
“The 3rd Princess?”
Elise?
“Yes! Isn’t it surprising? The 3rd Princess, who had been veiled in mystery until now, is suddenly looking for a maid.”
Since Eve didn’t know Elise’s true identity, she naturally seemed to have fallen for the fantasy of the 3rd Princess being a noble and dignified woman.
If she knew she was a crazy bitch who would immediately take a submissive pose like a puppy, panting and asking to be put on a leash, she would be shocked.
“Anyway! We have to save Tana!”
“When Tana comes……”
“Did you call for me?”
Tana appeared right away, as if a tiger also comes when you talk about it.
We were startled, but immediately asked her.
“What? They took you away? Who should I beat up?”
“Tana! It’s best to escape at dawn! First, leave Elgrid and……!”
“No, wait. Calm down a bit.”
Tana pushed us away with her hand and calmly spoke to us who were angry.
That sight strangely felt like the scent of farewell, so Eve and I made eye contact and prepared ourselves, but…
“Yeah, they told me to quit the academy because I need to prepare to become Princess Elise’s maid.”
It didn’t take long to realize that the wistfulness was a misunderstanding.
Our friend was bolder and more passionate than we thought.
“So I told them to get lost. I asked them why the main family’s underling was carelessly wagging their tongue. I asked if they wanted to become a sacrifice for the critical strike.”
“……Wow?”
I wondered if she had always been this tough, but Tana winked and said,
“You guys are growing too, so I can’t just stand still.”
Is this the Tana who was bullied by May?
My heart feels grand.
If the current Tana had been bullied, she would have immediately gone and grabbed May’s hair and fought like a dog, that was how wonderfully the kid had grown.
Then, that aside…
“Is this how you snack in secret? Do you know how much I suffered yesterday trying to plan your diet?”
“Ouch! Ouch! It hurts!”
(It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!)
Tana, who hadn’t even blinked an eye at the Mayas family’s minions, immediately made a tearful expression when her cheek was pinched and shouted.
I said I’d let it slide, but when I thought about it again, I felt a surge of anger and glared at Eve next to me.
“Woof woof!”
She immediately became a dog.
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Best chapter
haha