Chapter 124: A Jacket Swap, Lingering Suspicions, and a Hidden Penalty

Unlike yesterday, I was leisurely preparing to go out with Celian in the room, even after all the other friends had left to run errands.

“How is the Heavenly Casting Festival? Are you enjoying it?”

Following Anne and Yuri, today was my turn to stroll through the festival streets with Celian. In fact, I had promised to go with Presia tomorrow and Mariel the day after.

I felt strange, like a playboy Casanova who was changing women every day, but after all, I was just another woman.

Still, I should be satisfied with this much, as I was able to indirectly experience the feeling of a successful man for a while.

“Of course, it’s fun. There are so many foods I’ve never seen before, and so many amazing sights…. It’s my first time experiencing a festival like this, so everything I see is fun.”

I had no memories from before entering the Assassin’s Guild, and since then, I had lived as a prospective assassin where festivals were nothing more than a luxury. So this was the first time I was enjoying being a part of a festival like this.

“Hehe…. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. What did you do to enjoy the festival with Yuri yesterday?”

There were many things I did with Yuri while walking through the festival streets, but what came to my mind first at Celian’s question was not the festival streets, but what happened inside the dormitory room, specifically in the bathroom.

“Uh, yesterday? With Yuri?”

I was momentarily flustered and stammered instead of answering the question, and asked back in a voice that was unnaturally loud.

There was no way I could tell Celian that Yuri had discovered the mark of the Master-Servant Seal on my lower abdomen.

Celian, who also seemed to have noticed that I was hiding something in my voice, narrowed her eyes and looked at me with suspicious eyes.

“El? What, did you, do, with Yuri, alone, yesterday?”

Celian, who had been sitting on the bed putting on her socks, stood up and took a step towards me with each word, stuttering and cutting off her words.

Celian’s expression, who had come right up to my face, was definitely smiling, but I felt a chill as if the surrounding temperature had dropped by several degrees.

She was forcing me to answer with her expression without saying anything, but it was too big of a secret to succumb to the pressure and blurt out the secret.

“Oh, nothing? There’s nothing that could be called a special event.”

The important thing when a person is lying is not to avoid the other person’s eyes.

Of course, there are people who avoid eye contact even when just talking, but in the case of a person who is lying, that is even more severe.

That’s why, if you brazenly go out without avoiding the other person’s eyes while lying, the other person is likely to think, ‘Oh? Is it really not?’

How long did I have an eye fight with Celian while looking into her eyes?

Eventually, Celian sighed first and declared surrender by stepping back.

Phew. Thanks to the acting skills that fooled Yuri, I was able to overcome the crisis once again.

I should seriously consider living the life of an actor later when I have no other way to make a living.

It’s hard for me to say it myself, but I’m a very pretty beautiful girl, and I’m good at acting, so probably every theater group will want to take me.

Rules, huh. Did Celian think that Yuri and I violated school rules or laws?

“Hey, would Yuri and I do something that violates school rules or laws? Celian is so good at worrying about strange things.”

You shouldn’t misunderstand that I’m a former assassin, so I break rules like eating meals. Except for secretly leaving the dormitory on the first night of enrollment, I haven’t broken any school rules.

I have never committed any illegal acts, even more so.

I’m a model student and a model citizen. Ahem!

“…That’s right. I was just kidding. Forget about it…. Huh?”

“What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s just that the uniform you’re wearing looks like someone else’s. No matter how I look at it, it’s definitely not El’s jacket….”

When I took off the jacket I was wearing after hearing Celian’s words and looked around, I couldn’t see the frayed or unraveled parts that I had gradually developed while using it.

I didn’t know when I wasn’t paying attention, but when I concentrated and looked at it after hearing Celian’s words, I could definitely tell that it wasn’t my clothes.

However, there’s no reason for the uniform jackets to be switched….

“Ah, maybe it got switched when I went to the bathroom with Yuri yesterday.”

Since I went into the bathroom first, I should have thought that the one at the bottom of the jackets I threw on the sofa was mine, but I just grabbed the one on top without thinking.

If it’s tight clothes like underwear or shirts, I wouldn’t notice the difference unless the jacket is sized loosely, and I even received this jacket from Yuri.

Yuri probably went out without knowing that the jacket had been switched.

Even I, who was wearing it, didn’t notice it, but Celian, who has a good eye, managed to find it and point it out.

“Huh…? Together in the bathroom…?”

It’s cold.

It’s so cold that I feel like all the blood is draining from my body, so cold that even what I felt cold before can be treated as coddling.

Ah…. I dug my own grave. Very deeply….

All this time, I had been making excuses and avoiding it whenever my friends tried to come into the bathroom with me or tried to take me to the bathhouse.

But now that Celian had found out that I went into the bathroom with Yuri yesterday, there’s no choice but to have a limit to making excuses and avoiding it.

Yesterday, I made a stupid mistake of not locking the door while going into the bathroom, and as a result, I ended up washing with Yuri, and the catastrophe of having the mark of the Master-Servant Seal discovered occurred, but I made a mistake again, giving Celian a chance to discover the Master-Servant Seal this time.

If Celian asks one day why she’s not allowed to when Yuri washed with me in the bathroom, I have no way to refuse.

“…You didn’t do anything weird in the bathroom, did you?”

“Hey, what is there to do in the bathroom? I just washed a little because I was sweating a bit. Yuri came in together because she was trying to save time.”

“Sweat…?”

“Yeah. I was working out a bit hard from the morning, so I sweated a bit.”

There’s no way I can afford to be relaxed against a Sword Master.

Rather, I should go all out, as I have a lot to gain by sparring.

“You worked out…. Hard…?”

“I moved a little harder than when I went to Yuri’s mansion during summer vacation.”

When I sparred with Craig during summer vacation, I was much less skilled than I am now, so Craig was very lenient with me, but in yesterday’s case, Craig pushed me without being lenient at all, so I had a hard time. Of course, I gained a lot as well.

“Yuri, what in the world did you do when we all promised…!”

Celian, who was somehow indignant.

Celian, who had been stomping her feet for a long time, suddenly stopped, and then took a step and opened her underwear drawer and started rummaging through it.

“Since Yuri broke the rules first, I can do this much too….”

It pricked my conscience to peek at a girl’s underwear drawer, so I turned my head away. I could hear Celian mumbling something incomprehensible.

After some rummaging, the noise stopped, as if she had finally found what she wanted.

As I used ‘Technique – Blurred Focus’ and turned around after a long silence, Celian was sitting quietly with something in her hand.

“Um…. Celie?”

“Hot!”

Celian hurriedly put what she was holding into her pocket, as if it was something that shouldn’t be seen.

“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

“…Huff. Still, this is too much. I guess I’ll just confiscate Yuri’s turn for a week.”

“Th…. I don’t know what it is, but even if Yuri did something wrong, please don’t be too angry? It seems like it’s related to me, so I’ll apologize instead.”

Of course, friends can fight each other.

But even if they can, it doesn’t mean that I want to see my two favorite friends fighting each other.

Rather, if you’re a friend of two people who have a conflict with each other, isn’t it a true friend to mediate between them so that they can reconcile?

“Don’t worry too much because I’m not angry. It’s just that Yuri broke a promise, so I’m just giving her a penalty.”

But I guess I went too far.

I looked closely at Celian’s face, wondering if she was lying to me, but she didn’t look like she was lying.

Phew, that’s a relief.

“But what’s that thing you put in your pocket?”

Once I took a sigh of relief, I changed the subject to turn Celian’s attention from Yuri to something else.

“What!? P, pocket? Hey, El, you must have seen it wrong.”

Celian was somehow changing the subject, but a sensible man, no, a sensible woman, should pretend not to have seen this.

“No, nothing. By the way, it’s already this late, shall we go out soon?”

Celian also sighed with relief when I showed an attitude that I didn’t care.

It would be safer to stay calm if you want to hide it, but as a genius actress, I find Celian cute when she takes on a look that she’s relieved.

Well, I don’t do the tactless thing of pointing it out to Celian.

Celian looked back and forth between her pocket and her underwear drawer, wondering if she should hide what she put in her pocket deep in her underwear drawer again, but fortunately, she didn’t do the clumsy thing of hiding it in her underwear drawer again in front of me.

Well, Celian isn’t stupid and wouldn’t do such a stupid thing.

Of course, it doesn’t matter because I’m not a rude person who would secretly peek at something that Celian wants to keep secret.

“Then shall we go now? We should stop by Yuri’s place to hear the details and deliver the penalty.”

Unfortunately…. Whatever the penalty is, good luck, Yuri! I also gave you a shield, and I’ve done as much as I can!