episode_0078

“Hey everyone, long time no see!”

“You too! How have you been?”

The classroom was abuzz with student voices.

It was natural for the energy to be higher than usual, and some were even embracing each other and jumping up and down in excitement, so happy to see each other.

I, who had been indifferently ignoring the commotion, felt a familiar gaze and turned my head.

There, I saw beautiful purple eyes.

“Ruan, long time no see. You’ve been well, haven’t you?”

Deborah smiled, her eyes crinkling.

It was a face only I could see, as she usually played the role of a mature and chic woman.

Of course, she had shown a considerably clumsy side to Abel’s group before vacation, but that situation was so unusual that I’ll exclude it.

I responded to her with a smile.

“I haven’t been well.”

“What?”

Her eyes widened.

Her surprised expression reminded me of a rabbit.

Her reaction was so rich that I couldn’t resist teasing her.

As I smirked, Deborah’s lips pouted, realizing it was a joke.

“That’s too much. Ruan is mean.”

“Why am I? It’s true I haven’t been well.”

“Liar.”

Deborah adamantly denied it without a moment’s hesitation, as if determined not to be fooled this time.

That was a clear mistake.

I mentioned an incident she could never ignore.

“Do you know what happened at the academy two weeks ago?”

“…Surely you’re not talking about the Dark Cult’s attack? Right? Surely Ruan wasn’t involved in that?”

“…”

I remained silent, donning a melancholic gaze and a bitter smile.

Then Deborah’s face turned pale.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Answer me quickly! I get it! You’re just kidding again, right? Nothing actually happened, you’re just teasing me! …No? Were you really involved? Please, say something!”

If I let this pass, Deborah would become trash for treating someone’s difficult experience as a joke.

At her desperate appearance, I bit my lip tightly and said in a mournful voice.

“Actually, it’s a lie.”

“…Huh?”

This was the real lie. I had actually been involved. But since it was already in the past, I didn’t want to bring it up and worry Deborah.

It was more fun to see her throw a tantrum from being teased than to see her sad.

Anticipating that reaction, I grinned, and anger surfaced on Deborah’s momentarily blank face.

“Hmph! Grr…”

She was so angry that she even made a sound with her mouth, despite having communicated telepathically until then.

Her tightly clenched fists, as if she wanted to punch me immediately, were impressive.

“Is it fun to tease people?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t do it next time— What did you say? What did you just say?”

“I said it’s fun. It’s fun to tease you because you react like that every time. This feels more addictive than gambling, you know?”

“Tsk…”

At my utterly shameless reply, Deborah seemed speechless with exasperation, merely huffing and puffing.

I continued to tease her for a bit before quickly apologizing before Deborah got truly sulky.

“Sorry, sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“Liar!”

“At least I’ll stop for today. So, cheer up. Okay?”

“So you’re saying you’ll just tease me again starting tomorrow! Do you do that to Teacher-nim too?”

“The Gray Tower Master? No way.”

Even as I answered, I was puzzled.

‘Why is Roxana coming up now?’

My only interaction with Roxana had been unilaterally observing her from afar at the entrance ceremony and the end-of-semester ceremony, so why would I tease her?

It was a bit strange, but I decided to just assume Deborah was excited and made a poor analogy.

I wasn’t such a terrible man to pick on even such a mistake.

“Anyway, I’m sorry. I don’t tease you that often, do I? Think of it as something that’s accumulated since we met after a month. It’ll take a while to ‘recharge’ now.”

“‘Recharge,’ my foot! If you do it again, you’ll be in big trouble, you hear me? Hmph!”

Deborah snorted and looked away.

But it seemed hard for her to completely ignore me, as she kept glancing at me from the corner of her eye.

‘How cute.’

At her utterly adorable actions, a warm smile unwittingly spread across my lips.

It was then.

That the voices of the female students reached my ears.

“Look at that. They seem to be talking about something!”

“Seriously! Do you see those eyes? They’re completely filled with love! It seems the rumors are true!”

“Oh no! It must be true that he broke off his engagement with Skadia because of Deborah!”

My face instantly stiffened.

When I subtly glanced at the female students, they let out small squeals and pretended to be chatting among themselves.

‘What happened?’

The rumors about Deborah and me should have vanished without a trace by now, a month later, but for some reason, they were still going strong.

I focused on the latter part of what they said.

‘Broken engagement. Is it because of that?’

It seemed that the fact of the broken engagement had become known during vacation, creating a synergy with the rumors about Deborah that had spread just before vacation.

Logically, a relationship with Deborah couldn’t possibly not affect the broken engagement.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance and looked at Deborah.

She, too, seemed to have heard the girls’ conversation, fidgeting in embarrassment and nervously fiddling with her hands.

Just then, a female student who couldn’t contain her curiosity approached Deborah.

Her name tag read ‘Lugia’.

‘A dildo enthusiast, huh.’

She was the girl who had debated about self-pleasure devices with Deborah in the girls’ dorm bathroom on the first day of the training camp.

“Deborah. Can I ask you something?”

“…What is it?”

Lugia glanced at me and whispered softly.

“Is the rumor true, by any chance?”

At Lugia’s words, the surrounding female students perked up their ears. An ordinary person wouldn’t have heard that whisper, but everyone here knew how to handle magic.

Deborah flinched slightly at the sudden attention, then quickly shook her head.

“Oh, no. It’s not like that. It’s just a baseless rumor.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was a rumor that spread before vacation, remember? Don’t you remember other rumors about other kids spreading back then too? Ruan and I are nothing more than acquaintances.”

Deborah quickly regained her composure and rebutted logically. Even amidst that, it was typical of her to glance around, wondering if she’d said too much.

However, despite her clear explanation, Lugia showed no sign of believing her.

“Oh, come on, you don’t have to lie to me. How far have you two gone? If you were dating before vacation, you must have done everything already, right?”

“D-done what?”

Deborah pretended not to understand Lugia’s words, even though she knew what she meant.

Normally, if she did that, people would just let it go.

But Lugia, who could casually bring up such explicit topics even to a classmate, was no ordinary person.

She whispered with clear enunciation.

“Why are you pretending not to know? I mean sex. Sex.”

“S-sex…! N-no, we didn’t do that.”

Deborah’s voice trembled.

It seemed difficult for her to lie, as it was true they had sex, even if they weren’t dating.

Fortunately, Lugia didn’t notice her agitation.

“Really? After dating for a whole month? So how far did you go? Fellatio? Or just foreplay?”

“H-hahhh…”

At the endless sex jokes, Deborah’s face turned so red it looked like it would explode any second.

Her purple eyes spun dizzyingly.

‘She’s going to faint at this rate.’

It seemed her sense of shame was that great.

For me, Deborah’s reaction was a bit hard to understand.

She had acted composed and mature right after I assaulted her, so I didn’t know why she was so embarrassed by a mere question about having sex.

I was eavesdropping on the conversation, feeling like I was watching a fire from across the river [a proverb about watching a problem unfold from a safe distance without getting involved].

Creeeak!

The door opened with a creak, and Sara appeared.

As she entered the classroom, she looked around, and when our eyes met, she flinched. Then she turned her head away towards Lugia, who was standing as if ignoring her.

“Lugia. Sit down. All of you, stop chatting. The opening ceremony is about to begin. First, I’ll call attendance, so everyone pay attention.”

Sara, opening the attendance book, slowly began calling names from number one.

‘She’s not looking at me, by the way.’

Except for the very beginning, Sara didn’t make eye contact with me even once.

Even while calling attendance, she unnaturally avoided looking in my direction. When calling the student seated in front of me, she didn’t even lift her head.

“……Ruan… Friuli.”

“Yes.”

She even called my full name now.

Considering that she usually only called me by my first name, the changed distance between us was keenly felt.

And unlike the majority of students, those who were connected to me or were a bit sensitive noticed this fact and tilted their heads in puzzlement.

Deborah even sent me a worried gaze.

“Ruan, did something happen?”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

To still act the same way after almost being misunderstood from having a conversation like this just moments ago.

Being too kind can be a problem [a proverb meaning ‘too much of a good thing is bad’].

“Nothing happened. We just had a bit of a fight.”

“With the professor? Isn’t that a bit thuggish?”

Just thuggish?

I was a heinous criminal incomparable to such things.

Deborah couldn’t possibly imagine that it wasn’t just a verbal argument, but a physical one, and that I had even committed assault.

“Anyway, that’s how it is, so don’t worry about it. If you keep doing that, even stranger rumors might spread, you know?”

Rumors are like an elusive mirage.

They appear and disappear on their own, and sometimes, they are impossible to change with human effort.

If you keep getting entangled with me, your own image might be damaged.

Then, even stranger individuals, drawn by the strange rumors, might cling to Deborah.

Surprisingly, Deborah didn’t flinch at all despite my warning.

“Hmph! I don’t care. Next time, I’ll just tell Teacher-nim. Then everything will disappear, won’t it?”

Disappear, she said. What could that mean?

Though it was nothing much, her imagination-provoking remark sent a chill down my spine for no reason.

“You’re a scary kid.”

“You just realized that? If you know, then behave!”

It seems I should probably refrain from teasing Deborah for a while.

Because if she were to tell Roxana, my life could become difficult from that day on.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

I answered as if making a firm resolution, then turned my head to look out the window.

The warm sunlight streaming in hit the windowsill and scattered. Its reflection illuminated Deborah and Sara, respectively.

Within my chest, warm comfort and icy coldness coexisted.

In such a situation, time continued to flow, and the opening ceremony began.

A magical hologram appeared on the blackboard, projecting Gion Cruise’s face.

[Hello, everyone. I hope you all had a good vacation?]

Gion, who started with a light greeting, finished his address very concisely and disappeared.

Having to guard the depths 365 days a year without rest, he had no time to waste on unnecessary things. Thanks to this, though unintentionally, he received fervent support from students who didn’t need to be bored.

Just when everyone thought the opening ceremony was over.

[Hello, everyone! This is Saint Iris!]

The Saintess appeared, her large breasts jiggling.

At her rather sudden appearance, questions and curiosity arose in everyone’s eyes.

‘What is this?’

And I was startled. Because this kind of development wasn’t supposed to happen. In the game, the opening ceremony was merely a brief text passage.

What variable had caused this, I wondered?

The Saintess, who had been silent for a moment in tension, pointed a finger at the screen and shouted.

[There are several transmigrators among you!]

At the same time, my face stiffened completely.