Isolde’s Morning

Isolde’s morning begins in the bed at the temple.

With the wake-up time ingrained in her body, she opens her eyes at 6 AM, wakes up by looking once at the sun that hasn’t fully revealed itself yet, and Isolde heads to the bathroom.

“Hapu…!”

The first thing she does is wash her face.

In the Demon Realm, she would have had to do this while working on paperwork from the morning, but since coming under Aria, she had time to leisurely wash her face in the morning.

There was so much time to spare that she could even take a shower if she felt like it.

However, since Isolde always showered at night before sleeping, she finished just lightly washing her face, wiped off the moisture with a towel, and changed clothes.

She hung her pajamas in the closet and put on her usual underwear, robe, and wide-brimmed witch hat.

As Isolde only had one set of clothes, she wore the same clothes every day, keeping them clean with purification magic.

Of course, since she went around in a single set of clothes, Aria had offered to buy her clothes before, but Isolde flatly refused.

‘If I have many clothes, I’ll spend time choosing what to wear and have less time to read books. That won’t do.’

Isolde always divided her time efficiently to read as many books as possible.

If she had needlessly many clothes, her reading time would decrease, so without needing to deliberate, wearing only one set was the best Isolde could do.

At this, both Aria and Mu looked at Isolde with disgusted expressions, but at least Isolde thought they weren’t in a position to say such things to her.

“They’re always in single outfits too, yet they nag.”

After all, they too were in single outfits like Isolde.

Isolde thought this way because she had never seen their clothes change, only their appearance changing.

“Ah, it’s already time. I should go to the dining hall first…”

However, her complaints about the sudden thought were brief, and Isolde left the room, letting out a short sound at the time shown on the clock she looked up at.

It was already 6:17. She had wasted time on useless thoughts.

Isolde, who had left the room, was about to head to the dining hall for breakfast as she had always done, but she stopped in her tracks at a sudden thought.

‘Since it’s still a holiday and I don’t have to go to the academy, should I skip one meal?’

Due to the incident in the underwater kingdom, there was a five-day holiday, and there were still two days left of the holiday.

If so, it wouldn’t be bad to skip one meal and go to Aria’s room to read books during that time.

Moreover, she was more inclined to do so because there was a book she had read about half of before closing it due to drowsiness and regular sleep time yesterday.

“The food is delicious, but…”

Aria’s meals, which she made in her Yeonhwa form, were truly supreme in taste. It was so delicious that meals had become a hobby for Isolde, which even she acknowledged.

However, even those supreme meals weren’t a big problem to skip once if she could eat them every day.

Though it was a bit regrettable, fulfilling her current desire to read was her greatest desire now.

And by the time she finished that thought, Isolde’s mind had already decided on reading.

“Then I’ll go to her room.”

Once she made up her mind, she would only act on it.

Isolde turned her stopped feet towards Aria’s room instead of the dining hall and started walking, and after about five steps, she floated up using magic and sat on her staff.

“Oof.”

If you can fly, there’s no need to walk around, is there?

Although there was the drawback of physical abilities weakening if she only flew around, it was more comfortable to fly than to endure the greater annoyance, so what could she do?

Isolde nodded at her own reasoning, which she thought was valid, and after flying quickly through the temple’s corridors for a few tens of seconds, she slowly lowered her altitude in front of Aria’s room, which she had arrived at in no time.

“I’m here.”

Since Isolde’s room and Aria’s room were not that far apart, she could arrive in less than a minute.

Muttering softly that she had arrived, Isolde lowered her altitude and lightly knocked on the door while still sitting on her staff.

Knock knock──

The dry sound of knocking echoed in the corridor.

Not long after the knocking sound echoed, Aria’s voice was heard from inside.

“[Come in.]”

“Okay, I’m coming in.”

At the voice granting entry, she simply turned the handle to open it and entered the room.

“Sniff… Haa…”

And upon entering the room, Isolde deeply inhaled and exhaled the scent of musty books she always smelled but still found exciting, and the not-yet-faded smell of new books.

It was truly exciting to the point where her brain tingled with the curiosity of gaining new knowledge.

Because of this, Isolde’s lips were full of smiles that formed naturally, but only for a moment. She perked up her ears at a sound that suddenly came.

Scratch scratch──

The pleasant sound of a quill pen moving and scratching paper.

Isolde slightly turned her head to look at Aria, who was the source of the sound, sitting at her desk writing something.

‘She’s here at this time too.’

She didn’t know because she always came to Aria’s room after eating breakfast, but even though it wasn’t even 6:20, Aria was working in her room.

At the sight of her being quite diligent, Isolde erased the smile she had been wearing and carefully approached Aria, who was concentrating on writing, getting off her staff.

“You’re working quite early? If you’re working at this time, from what time did you prepare the temple’s breakfast?”

“I usually start at 5 AM and finish everything around 5:30 AM. Moreover, I hurried even more today because it’s a holiday. Time is finite, after all.”

“Hmm, I see.”

5 AM. At the time Aria mentioned, Isolde nodded with a sour expression and slightly retreated towards the bookshelf.

Even when she was an executive in the demon army, she was still sleeping at 5 AM, so this level was not just diligent but could be called addicted to work.

‘I don’t know what she’s being chased by, though.’

Isolde tilted her head while taking out the book she had been reading yesterday from the bookshelf, thinking about what she always thought when looking at Aria.

Although she usually seemed to live leisurely, at times like this, it looked as if Aria was living urgently, as if being chased by something.

She kept moving forward, looking only ahead, as if there would be no after if she didn’t do it right away.

Although such appearances had decreased quite a bit since returning from the underwater kingdom recently, they stood out when seeing her alone early in the morning or late at night.

‘…It’s not really my business though.’

But it wasn’t something for Isolde, who had been defeated by Aria and kidnapped to work under her, to care about, so Isolde soon put aside needless thoughts and opened the closed book.

Where would she have the leisure to care about Aria when there wasn’t enough time just enjoying her own life, which had become much more affluent than when she was in the demon army?

“Hmm~”

Isolde, who had cut off her attention from Aria, uncharacteristically hummed a tune that Idea had sung to her when she was young and started reading the book while lying on her staff.

The title of the book she started reading was ‘The Correlation between Magic and Memory’.

It was a quite interesting book dealing with how to control humans’ consciousness and memories, so Isolde’s mind was instantly absorbed into the opened book.

Although her empty stomach growled because she hadn’t eaten breakfast, and the sound of Aria scratching something while writing lingered in her ears, she pushed all of those aside and concentrated on the contents of the book.

Until she fully understood and ruminated on the contents of the book, sucking out all its essence.

“……”

Isolde’s eyes moved only following the letters in the book, and the movement of the staff, which had been swaying slightly until some point, seemed to stop as if frozen.

As she concentrated on the contents of the book while reading like this, even time began to pass in an instant like flowing water.

And in that time flowing like water, Isolde slowly enjoyed the contents of the book with her eyes and turned the pages.

Whoosh───!!!

“Huh?!”

Before she could even read a hundred pages, Isolde rolled onto the floor with the book she was holding due to a sudden strong wind blowing from Aria’s direction.

Kudangtangtang───!!

The wind was so strong that she fell off the staff, which normally wouldn’t fall even with considerable impact, and rolled on the floor several times.

Her head felt dizzy from the rough physical exercise after a long time.

“Why did you suddenly create wind…?”

In a state where she seemed to hear ringing in her ears, Isolde immediately tried to get up and protest to Aria, but that cry couldn’t be fully completed and had to change into a question.

“I apologize. I didn’t expect it to change so noisily either. I’ll apologize.”

Aria lightly bowed her head and apologized to Isolde, who had rolled on the floor. However, Isolde let Aria’s apology go in one ear and out the other and focused her gaze on her appearance.

It wasn’t a problem that she apologized. The problem was the pitch-black armor moving on Aria’s body with a clanking sound.

The pitch-black armor with gold and red appropriately mixed in was wrapped around Aria’s entire body except for her face and hair.

The armor looked like it would be recognizable as a top-quality item at a glance. Isolde was blankly staring for a few more seconds at the armor that looked like it would pierce the skin and draw blood just by touching it, then finally came to her senses and asked her.

“Wh-What is that armor…?”

“Hm? Ah, you mean this armor. Right, you must be seeing it for the first time today. It’s my first time taking it out too.”

At Isolde’s question, Aria looked over the armor she was wearing once and made an understanding expression.

Then Aria, who was letting out a small sound as if pondering her answer, spread her arms lightly to show the armor well and said:

“I usually cover it with cloth armor, but this is the armor I wear during battle originally. I put it on after a long time, but I didn’t expect such a strong wind to blow.”

Aria scratched her cheek awkwardly and said that, then walked in front of the full-length mirror placed on the wall as if to look at her armor again.

And Isolde, who had been watching this whole series of actions, burst into empty laughter and looked at Aria admiring herself, thinking at the same time:

‘As expected, it would be better to take down big sister somehow.’

Because she felt like she would be trampled to death like a bug if she didn’t take down someone who was already strong and had become even stronger.

This was the thought Isolde had while looking at Aria in armor on the morning with still two days of holiday remaining.