Ch.6Lustila (1)

Academy.

Seti sipped her coffee and spoke.

“Unni, do you think there’s a monster who could solve this workbook right away just by looking at it?”

She turned her head. Next to her sat a girl with blonde hair in a ponytail, studying.

Her face was as white and beautiful as flour, and her aquamarine eyes radiated a mysterious energy. Her lips were light pink like a ripe peach.

She was a beautiful girl. Just like a princess from a fairy tale.

“Well…”

The girl responded curtly. There was no energy in her tone at all.

Rustila Kersil.

The only daughter of the Kersil family, quite famous in legal circles.

Rustila was always tired. Seti understood her.

Excessive parental interference, studies that didn’t match her aptitude, and the boring daily routine that repeated itself every day.

Rustila was living a life that was more than enough to turn a person into a wreck.

It had been worse lately. No matter what Seti said, it was all the same. Rustila couldn’t show any reaction beyond moving her lips.

‘At least she has a contract with a constellation…’

If not for that, wouldn’t she have gone crazy by now?

Seti asked with concern.

“Um, unni. Are you okay?”

“……”

Rustila quietly nodded.

“It’ll be okay after four months. Let’s hang in there until then, okay?”

Nod, nod.

Seti secretly sighed.

It was sad.

When they first met, she wasn’t this lifeless, but now she had changed into something like a doll.

But there wasn’t much Seti could do. She had no grounds to interfere in the Kersil family’s affairs.

Still, she wanted to help her friend and unni by any means necessary.

‘I guess that’s the only way…’

Seti bit her lower lip.

“Unni… no, Rustila. Do you want to come to my house this week if you have time?”

“…?”

Rustila, who had been working on physics problems, looked up. Intelligence returned to her previously dull sea-colored eyes.

“…Your house?”

“Yes. Come to our house and let’s do homework together. Honestly, today’s homework is too difficult to solve alone, right?”

This week’s assignments were about 30 Korean passages, 150 math problems, and 200 physics problems.

In terms of quantity, it was more than enough. It was the amount that students aiming for top universities would handle every week.

However, the difficulty of this assignment was insanely high, making it likely to break one’s mental fortitude if done alone.

Seti suggested they study together.

“But…”

Rustila hesitated.

“What?”

“…My parents. I need to get permission from my parents first.”

“……”

Seti pressed her lips together.

Everything was parents, parents, parents!

It wasn’t Rustila’s fault. It was the fault of the overprotective Kersil couple.

Seti couldn’t understand Rustila’s parents.

At sixteen, one knows everything and can be careful about everything, so why?

Seti’s own parents had raised her with neglect since she was five. Yet Seti had grown up just fine.

But Seti had no right to dictate how the Kersil family should handle their family affairs.

“Talk to your parents and let me know. If they say yes, I’ll prepare delicious snacks and wait for you.”

“O-okay…”

Rustila nodded and turned her gaze toward the window. There stood an android in business attire, staring blankly. The android’s gaze was fixed on Rustila.

“Haah…”

Rustila sighed.

The robot beyond the window nodded its head.

***

I had a dream.

– Mom, I got a perfect score on the test again!

– Really? Our son must be a genius. We should have you skip a grade right away!

In that place, I was only studying.

Study, study, study. And more study. I studied so hard that there was nothing left in my life except academics.

– Mom, I passed the qualification exam!

– That’s to be expected. Let’s keep going straight through to the college entrance exam.

The thoughts continue.

However, they gradually lose their color.

The mental image that was initially brilliantly rainbow-colored gradually turned ashen.

– Mom, I got a perfect score on the college entrance exam.

– Great! Apply to medical school.

– Physics department.

– Jinsoo, what are you saying?

– Physics department.

– Are you sick? What nonsense is this?

– Physics department.

– Jinsoo! No!!

A world with only brightness, without saturation.

Eventually, the world turned black as ink. In that darkened world, tentacles appeared and disappeared as if flickering.

It was a very, very terrible nightmare.

[— The God of Wisdom and Curiosity is shocked by the dream you had.]

“……”

I got up from bed.

By my pillow was a water bottle that Sonia had left. I grabbed it like catching a fish and gulped it down.

“Whew…”

I need to study.

Clank!

“…What’s that?”

I heard the sound of a small spaceship docking at my home. Someone seems to have come early in the morning.

“Sonia!”

“Did you call, sir?”

Sonia came running as soon as I called her name.

“Who’s outside?”

“I was just about to check, sir.”

I reviewed what I had ordered recently.

I received the books yesterday, and I hadn’t ordered anything else. At least, whoever was at the dock wasn’t my guest.

Still, I decided to go out and check, just in case.

At the dock were people dressed in neat suits. Judging by their attire, they looked like security guards.

“Who are you…?”

When I asked, a tall man with a dandy haircut approached and bowed his head.

“Are you from the Rheinland family?”

“Yes, but…”

“Pleased to meet you. I am Jermel, the head of security for the Kersil family. Our Lady Rustila has received an invitation from the Rheinland family, and we are escorting her here.”

“…Rustila?”

Wait a minute.

If it’s Rustila, surely…

“Ah, just a moment!”

At that moment, Seti came running in with a clattering sound. Her shimmering silver hair danced past my eyes.

“I, I invited her!”

Seti clicked her tongue at me and began talking with Jermel.

“You are…!”

Jermel seemed to have deduced Seti’s background and bent his waist at a right angle. Seti waved her hands at the sight.

Seti was smiling brightly as if excited. It was quite different from her attitude toward me.

“Miss, you may come down now.”

As soon as Jermel’s words fell, another person descended from the spaceship.

She might be around my age now.

Her hair was golden like a wheat field, and her ponytail hung down to her waist. Her eyes were blue. She looked weak with her expressionless face.

Suddenly, our eyes met.

“…!”

Soon, the girl’s eyes widened. Her complexion didn’t look good.

“…Ha.”

As I searched my memories, I was startled. Something seemed to have gone wrong.

Just then, Seti was gesturing toward me.

Is she telling me to come or go?

She’s probably telling me to get lost. Good timing. I nodded and turned around.

“Let’s go, Sonia.”

“Yes, young master.”

Sonia returned to the room with me without a word.

“It’s good to see you studying as soon as you wake up.”

As I opened the workbook, Sonia brought down snacks as usual.

“At first, I thought it would only last three days, but you’re working harder than I expected. Excellent.”

“I’m going to pass.”

Sonia nodded and clapped her hands.

“I, Sonia, am impressed by your determination, young master.”

“Yes, yes.”

It’s already been three weeks since I started performing the first quest of the Outer God.

During that time, I’ve gone through 100 workbooks with the help of the ‘thought acceleration’ skill.

However, even this seemed insufficient, so I ordered additional past exam books.

That’s when it started.

When this maid android’s attitude completely changed.

“I hope for good results. Who knows? Perhaps the young master, who has reflected through this incident, will enter the academy and lay the foundation for raising Rheinland in the future.”

“It’s not good to have too much faith in people.”

“In truth, I am quite satisfied as long as you continue as you are now, young master.”

I nodded my head and picked up my pen.

However, today I couldn’t concentrate as well as usual.

Why?

It wasn’t hard to guess.

It must be because of the blonde ponytailed beauty I saw very briefly earlier.

Her name is ‘Rustila Kersil’.

She is one of the important supporting characters in ‘Outer God Killer’.

Rustila has a contract with a constellation. Because of this, she can read others’ intentions.

In other words, she can judge whether a person has bad intentions or good intentions.

“Ha, damn it.”

She was like rat poison to me right now.

It’s dangerous. If I encounter her wrongly, the existence of the Outer God in my head could be completely revealed.

People who contract with Outer Gods are classified as monsters by the country. They are taken to internment camps without question.

Of course.

Apart from that, she is also the character I want to meet more than anything. At the same time, she’s also a pitiful child.

“…She is kind though.”

I muttered as I turned the pages of the social studies workbook.

There were less than ten books left.

I had no intention of leaving my room today.

***

‘Ah, damn… Why did that guy leave when I gestured for him to come?’

Seti grumbled inwardly while stomping her foot.

There were two main reasons why she invited Rustila to her home.

One was to give her some breathing room from her overprotective family.

The other was to subtly check on Eidel’s psychological changes through the power of her constellation.

The latter wasn’t difficult. Just one eye contact with Eidel would be enough.

Eidel’s violent personality had mellowed considerably after he got hit on the head, so she thought there wouldn’t be any problems.

In other words, Seti had originally planned to just introduce Eidel and Rustila and be done with it.

But.

‘That bastard just ran away…?’

Eidel had not only been into gambling but also women. One could say he was true to his instincts.

And yet, such an Eidel saw Rustila, who was nothing short of a world-class beauty, and instead of flirting, he returned to his room with Sonia!

‘…Could it be?’

Did he really change as a person after getting hit on the head?

Into a model student with no interest in women, giving up gambling, and only studying hard?

‘No way…’

She still didn’t know.

Even if that were true, as long as he kept spending money recklessly, Seti had no intention of forgiving Eidel.

Besides, the grudges from the past hadn’t dissolved either.

“Sigh.”

Seti sighed and turned her head.

“Rustila unni, let’s go to our room…”

…now.

Seti’s words were cut off. She narrowed her eyes.

The security guards, who were only focused on Rustila’s safety, didn’t seem to notice, but Seti, who had been with her for many years and had seen her face, could tell.

“Ah, ah…”

Rustila was trembling with fear.

As if she had seen a monster.