38. Studying

38. Studying

A few days remain until Priscilla’s tea party.

“Question 8: Describe the weaknesses of the following phalanx formation and the methods to counter them.”

The blue-haired girl, Ella. As the daughter of a Baron, she was, as always, helping Skadi study. This had been a daily occurrence for the past few days.

“Hmm.”

Skadi looked at the problem Ella was pointing to. It was a drawing of a phalanx formation, with dozens of soldiers, each holding a shield in their left hand and a spear in their right, tightly packed in formation, extending their spears forward to create a hedgehog-like appearance.

To counter this. It was an incredibly simple matter for her.

“You can just cut them in half with a sword.”

“That’s not it!”

Ella exclaimed vehemently.

Skadi looked at Ella with disbelief. Wasn’t it an obvious answer with no room for argument? If you split them all in half, the phalanx would naturally be broken.

“Isn’t that right?”

“… Sigh.”

Seeing Skadi looking at her as if she were wronged, Ella placed her hand on her forehead and sighed. Then, she deeply lamented inwardly how she had ended up teaching someone like this.

To understand the origin of this situation, we need to go back a little further in time.

It was the day after Skadi and Claire’s sparring match. After the sparring grounds were shattered and destroyed to the point where their original form was unrecognizable.

The Basic Swordsmanship class was originally conducted solely through sparring between students, but even so, it was impossible to conduct classes in the devastated sparring grounds.

The professor canceled the sparring, entrusted the restoration of the sparring grounds to the teaching assistants, and replaced the lecture content with a written exam. Since it was only a temporary measure, the professor posed questions only on basic swordsmanship and tactics, which were not very difficult.

However.

On the rain-soaked exam paper, a solitary score. After grading was finished, Skadi received her exam paper with trembling eyes. The number ‘0’ written in large letters was clearly visible even to Ella next to her.

As if to say, ‘If you’re upset, try beating me with strength,’ the students, not believing Skadi’s score was genuine, simply lowered their heads and trembled.

Meanwhile, Skadi sighed upon seeing her score.

It didn’t matter if her exam score was low. After all, this was a number she had seen often even in her past life.

But what if her sister saw such a score…?

With that thought, Skadi immediately grabbed the person next to her and made them her tutor. And that person next to her was none other than Ella, who was unfortunately present.

-P-please save me….

-Save you? Who’s going to kill you? You just need to teach me how to study.

The notoriously woman-chasing homosexual, the tyrant of the academy. Grand Duchess Skadi von Lyra. Ella, a weak noblewoman of a Baron’s family, had no choice but to help Skadi study, swallowing her tears without even being able to resist.

No, perhaps asking for help with studying was just an excuse, and her plan was to lure me out and devour me! Just like the second daughter of the Marquis Louer, whom the Grand Duchess targeted first!

‘… I thought so.’

At that time, I truly felt like I was going to die of fear. It felt like walking into the mouth of a lion. I even cursed the heavens for inflicting such a trial upon me.

Now, I felt like I was going to die for a different reason.

“Think about it, if you swing your sword, the formation splits in half like this. Then it’s over, right?”

“….”

In a situation where I couldn’t even figure out where to start refuting, Ella closed her eyes tightly and pondered for a moment. Finally, she reached a conclusion.

“Let’s skip this question.”

“I haven’t heard the answer yet….”

“Let. Us. Skip. It.”

Ella turned the exam paper over without further discussion.

“Question 9: The monster in the following illustration is covered in hard armor for most of its skin, making it difficult to strike. Mark the monster’s weak points on the illustration.”

“Ah, I’ve fought this one before, so I know it well.”

Skadi smiled and marked the illustration.

The monster’s neck, which was visibly covered in much thicker armor than other parts.

“Its neck is its weak point. If you cut its neck, it dies.”

“….”

Ella sighed again, a sigh she had already let out several times.

——

“Oh.”

Skadi received the exam paper graded by Ella. The clearly written score of ’10’ was visible.

“Thank you, Ella. My score went up.”

“Yes… It did go up.”

How did it go up? Ella looked genuinely surprised, even though she had graded it herself. Then, she fiddled with her hair and looked at her companion.

Skadi, holding the 10-point exam paper, was smiling innocently as if it were a treasure.

It wasn’t so much smiling-her face was still close to expressionless-but the vigorously wagging white tail clearly conveyed her emotions, making it easy to guess her feelings.

Skadi opened her mouth.

“Since my score increased by 10 points in just one week, if I study for another 10 weeks, I’ll get 100 points.”

“That’s not how you calculate… Never mind.”

Ella thought that the sparring grounds would probably be repaired before that happened, but she swallowed the words and kept them to herself. She was too tired to argue now.

She figured she could go rest now. Ella was about to get up to return to her dormitory, but….

“Ah, wait a moment. There’s still something to do.”

“Yes?”

Skadi’s hand on her arm thwarted that plan. Ella turned around, wondering what else there was to do… and immediately regretted it.

“Mmph-?!”

Something covered her mouth. With one hand around her neck and the other around her waist, Ella, who lost her balance and was embraced, widened her eyes.

Blue eyes looking at her, a straight nose. Breath.

It was only after realizing that the sticky, soft thing was wildly ravaging the inside of her mouth that she understood that what was covering her mouth was her tongue.

Skadi, a white wolf, forcibly parted her lips and invaded, ravaging the mucous membranes and rubbing against them. She stole the initiative by entwining tongues and unilaterally poured saliva into Ella’s mouth.

Slurp– Slurp!

The vulgar and suggestive sounds filled the room, which contained only the two of them. Ella struggled, but the difference in strength was too great, and her opponent didn’t budge. She couldn’t resist. Ella shed tears.

It felt as if her mouth had been reduced to a mere vessel for receiving saliva. She couldn’t even breathe properly. When she tried to breathe, Skadi seized the opportunity, inserted her tongue, cut off her breath, and violated Ella. Her breath grew short, and Ella’s breathing became ragged.

Ella couldn’t move her tongue freely either. When she tried to move it, something soft pressed and pushed against it, preventing movement, and when she tried to stay still, her tongue was entwined and pulled, forcing movement. Following her lost tongue, sticky saliva flowed down her throat.

Swallowing the liquid that reached her throat was one of the instinctive actions. A struggle to avoid suffocation, a reflex to maintain life.

Gulp–

Gulp–

Amidst the vulgar noises of mucous membranes touching, separating, and flowing down, the sound of swallowing saliva was clearly audible in Ella’s ears. Skadi’s saliva, which she was forced to accept, mixed with her own and flowed endlessly down her throat, violating Ella.

Perhaps it was because the room was quiet, or perhaps it was because she was so flustered. Every sensation of the bodily fluids sliding down her esophagus and violating her insides felt incredibly vivid to Ella.

Finally, as her held breath reached its limit and Ella’s consciousness began to fade like a candle in the wind, Skadi pulled her mouth away from Ella.

Phew–

To Ella, whose head was spinning from the aftermath of suffocation, Skadi whispered in a sweet voice.

“Thank you, Ella. Thanks to you, my score went up by 10 points.”

“Hic, hic….”

If you kiss when you’re thankful, then when you’re truly thankful, you give a deep, passionate kiss-that’s ‘common sense.’ Skadi did to Ella exactly what her sister had done to her.

Ella gasped for air. In her dazed and dizzy state, Skadi’s whispered words felt as if they were digging deep into her mind and violating her brain. In the crevices of Ella’s subconscious, beyond her consciousness, Skadi’s words became a wedge.

“-I’m glad you’re here.”

Peck.

As a finishing touch, Skadi kissed Ella on the forehead.

With Skadi’s suggestion deeply embedded in her heart, Ella collapsed limply, left alone in the room.

——

“Mmm….”

Ella woke up several hours later.

With hazy, deep blue eyes, Ella looked around and muttered blankly.

“I’m glad you’re here… happy…? Huh?”

It was a phrase that strangely lingered in her mind. She couldn’t remember who had said it, but there was something in the words that made her heart flutter strangely.

… Or perhaps she was just mistaking it.

“What is it…?”

Ella touched her suddenly flushed face and let out an inexplicable groan.