Ch.4343. Distrust, and Hatred (6)

The dark, dusty path around the dormitory that Academy students most want to avoid.

This place can be considered closer to a remote outpost, even worse than the garbage dump, despite being located within the Academy in the capital.

Junon is only using this route because he’s become accustomed to avoiding people’s eyes.

So here’s the question.

Why would a lotus flower be blooming on this path where one can avoid people’s eyes, ignore others’ voices, and go their own way?

A lotus is originally an aquatic plant that blooms in lakes or ponds.

They say it can also be seen in rice paddies or swamps, but the common feature of these places is moisture.

The place he’s walking is just a dusty ground that hasn’t been paved or maintained under the beating sun.

At best, the only place with any moisture would be the fountain he passed long ago.

A plant like a lotus couldn’t possibly bloom here. Yet the fact that this lotus is visible proves only one thing.

“Shit…!”

It must be someone’s magic.

BANG!!

A thunderous explosion erupted, and dry sand baked by the sun rippled like waves, covering his black hair.

Through the black smoke, pink hair as fresh as the lotus flower was swaying before his eyes.

‘Aris…!’

With a wave of hatred even more scorched than the sand that had just engulfed him.

***

Aris was certain.

From the moment Junon chose the dark and eerie path where no one walks, everything would end the instant he saw the lotus.

However, he had handled her magic quite well.

‘With that insignificant magic shield.’

-Rumble rumble rumble.

With a deafening explosion, a shower of sand fell from the yellow cloud that rose and engulfed him.

“So you noticed it.”

Junon’s body was unharmed after being showered by the sand rain.

Looking at Junon, Aris let out a small laugh as she realized something.

“You seem to know that lotus was my magic, don’t you?”

“…!”

“Heh, I didn’t expect you to remember.”

Of course, this situation made no sense to Junon.

As a regressor, he shouldn’t be in a position to face life-threatening attacks from someone he hadn’t even met yet.

However, he now realized he had overlooked one thing.

‘I made a mistake.’

Another Tembris party member.

Despite being warned by Erica that they would have memories from that time, his response was careless.

Thinking this, Junon could only blame both his current and past self simultaneously.

‘She probably knows too.’

The fact that Aris spoke like that meant she was like Erica. She must also know about the past.

However, the reactions of the two women showed differences as vast as between a fence and a solid fortress.

If Erica had pricked him with a needle used for mending—

“Then you must know well why I’m doing this, without me having to explain what you did?”

Aris was at the level of cutting him down directly with a blade.

As soon as she finished speaking, another lotus appeared. Multiple explosions erupted, and magic shields blocked them.

It wasn’t an exchange of offense and defense, but rather one-sided attacks and thorough defense.

Five minutes.

That was how long Aris had been facing Junon with all her might.

‘It would be dangerous to drag this out longer.’

She had planned to deal with him by causing explosions with the lotus and then intimidate him appropriately.

She had prepared to disguise the explosion as an accident using materials she brought, but annoyingly, it was taking too much time.

The problem was that Junon’s quick footwork and extremely solid defense were incredibly frustrating.

Even when she inserted feints, he dodged like a rat, so Aris had no choice but to use a big move, even if it was somewhat excessive.

“I didn’t want to use this because it’s too noisy.”

“…!”

As if openly declaring she would end his life with this one move, Aris made lotus flowers bloom in eight directions from where Junon stood.

And once again, the sandy ground was scorched, with firepower incomparable to what she had used until now.

-KABOOM!!!

‘This should definitely finish him.’

According to her memory, Junon could only use two shields at most.

While the essence of magic shields was effective at blocking magic due to their defensive focus, those two shields wrapped around his arms would be woefully insufficient.

Aris had precisely targeted his weakness by creating eight lotus flowers.

She predicted that Junon, standing at the center of the converging smoke and fragments, could not possibly be unharmed.

The uniform would block a certain amount of firepower, so his life wouldn’t be in danger, but it meant he wouldn’t have the strength to stand up again.

All that remained was to properly warn the man who had been thoroughly heated and messed up by the lotus.

Aris’s footsteps slowly approached the direction of the eight craters, blackened with soot and smelling of burning.

And Aris finally caught this subtle sense of incongruity.

‘Wait, the burning smell is too faint. That means…’

It meant he had withstood the eight lotus flowers she had detonated with maximum firepower.

As if confirming her suspicion, Aris saw with her own eyes that there was another person standing beside the male student through the black smoke.

Perhaps this was an even more troublesome situation than Junon blocking her attack.

“I’d like to know your intention in causing such a disturbance at the Academy, Miss Aris.”

“…Princess Ophelia?”

Everyone at the Academy, not just students but also graduates and border officials, unanimously says:

The Duke’s daughter Ophelia is already prepared to inherit the throne.

Her brilliant eloquence that sways and mediates nobles.

Her compassionate hand extended to all citizens without discrimination.

Her charisma that boosts morale by personally appearing on the battlefield.

She was a woman who embodied the virtues a monarch should possess.

Ophelia’s actions based on a sense of incongruity were founded on somewhat uncertain grounds close to intuition.

But despite the uncertainty, despite being subjective judgments close to conjecture.

Strangely, on the battlefield, her judgments based on these feelings of incongruity often proved correct.

That’s why Ophelia was led here after feeling a sense of incongruity about Aris.

“You’ll need to explain step by step why you two were battling in such a secluded place.”

And once again, Ophelia’s intuition was correct.

-‘Huff, huff… There are two people fighting over there… please stop them…!’

As if on cue, someone who had witnessed the scene came to testify.

A third-year female student named Hena had been frantically looking for someone, then rushed over here and asked for help before even catching her breath.

Considering Hena’s testimony and seeing the situation firsthand, Ophelia could quickly reach a conclusion.

Even at a glance, one side had unilaterally launched an attack, so this was likely a case of bullying happening away from watchful eyes.

She intended to issue a stern punishment and inform Goden as well. However.

“It’s nothing like that. Just a minor trouble.”

“…What?”

For someone, both Ophelia’s intuition and Hena’s testimony had to miss the mark this time.

***

“Then… I’ll take my leave.”

Aris bowed, and Ophelia gave a small nod.

Junon testified that he had provoked Aris’s nerves, causing her emotions to flare up, so the incident was handled as mutual under mediation.

But anyone could see that testimony was suspicious.

‘That bastard, what is he plotting?’

Aris, going her own way, nervously bit her nails.

Thanks to Ophelia’s appearance, her plan to give Junon a clear warning had completely fallen apart.

Moreover, Princess Ophelia and Goden were childhood friends who shared almost all information.

If this story reached Goden’s ears, she might be expelled from the Tembris party.

For Aris, everything was about to get seriously complicated with just one testimony from Junon.

She was racking her brain to figure out how to explain, but in the meantime:

-‘It’s nothing like that. Just a minor trouble.’

Junon had intervened and reset what had just happened.

At first, Ophelia seemed suspicious and wanted to question Junon about the truth, but it seemed difficult for him to answer easily.

Neither side had any convincing evidence left, and both had things to hide.

Perhaps, like Aris, it was related to memories of the past that were difficult to answer easily.

‘I’ll have to wait for another opportunity.’

Though unsatisfied, Aris couldn’t act rashly anymore due to Princess Ophelia’s appearance.

So Aris withdrew, leaving only the two of them behind.

“Now that the perpetrator is gone, how about speaking honestly?”

“About what?”

“The acrid smell of something burned by heat and the scorch marks everywhere. Comparing everything, you’re clearly the one who was attacked rather than Aris. Isn’t that right?”

Ophelia said she intended to give Aris an appropriate punishment, so she asked Junon to answer honestly without thinking of revenge.

However, Junon had no intention of answering truthfully.

“It’s just because I’m weaker. I provoked her first.”

“These kinds of incidents keep happening on campus. As a member of the disciplinary committee, I’ve been personally disciplining them, so you need to be honest.”

“This isn’t a situation worthy of your concern, Princess. I am not a victim.”

Really…?

That can’t be right…?

It wouldn’t matter if this was Ophelia’s first time catching such bullying on campus, but that was absolutely not the case.

From the day she discovered that professors were neglecting and giving lenient punishments, she had uncovered countless truths.

Thanks to that, she could now easily distinguish between perpetrators and victims to an almost excessive degree.

Yet Junon claiming he wasn’t a victim didn’t make sense. Especially since the student named Hena had rushed over urgently as if asking to save him, he must undoubtedly be a victim.

However, this was just her subjective feeling of incongruity. Since it was based on uncertain intuition, it was difficult to refute.

Hena’s testimony was also not that precise, merely asking to stop the fight.

In other words, it was a strange situation where if the person involved denied it, there was no solid evidence.

“May I go now? I look like this and want to wash up quickly.”

“I suppose so… Go ahead.”

Ophelia felt bewildered but had no choice but to let Junon go. For now, she only had suspicions.

Watching Junon’s back as he walked away, Ophelia observed the sandy ground scorched and carved out by the aftermath of the battle.

Judging from the evidence she had keenly spotted with the eyes of a commander who led expeditionary forces, it was difficult to say they had fought with equal strength.

That made it even more surprising.

“It’s definitely different.”

Ophelia’s hands touched sand that was thoroughly burned and sand that was not.

Especially that trace three steps further away. That trace made her surprised once more.

“No matter how I look at it… it wasn’t a power he could handle.”

The traces of explosions that erupted multiple times after the first surprise attack were like they couldn’t pass through some wall; the sand inside and outside the boundary had different textures.

As if some barrier had been erected to block it.

Ophelia was particularly looking at the place where those traces were prominently visible.

That place where only the terrain in the center remained intact while spreading in eight directions.

It was the position where Junon had blocked the eight lotus flowers at the end.

“How… did he catch all of them accurately?”

When Ophelia had just arrived, it was already too late to help Junon.

Just two.

She could only intercept two out of eight to help Junon suffer a little less damage.

Nevertheless, the direction of the explosions digging in from eight directions was cleanly cut off.

This could not possibly happen without calculating coordinates and power more meticulously for defense.

In other words, it’s fair to say that Junon himself had repelled all of Aris’s firepower. With precisely calculated power, no more, no less.

“How precise…”

In Ophelia’s experience, if this battle had continued, she couldn’t guarantee which side would have won.

***

The next day, something happened in Professor Muniher’s office that thoroughly irritated him.

“What are you saying?”

“As I told you.”

“So I’m asking what the hell kind of nonsense that is!”

The one who had come to Professor Muniher’s office was none other than Junon, submitting a withdrawal form.

‘I’ll disappear from your sight, just as you wanted.’