Chapter 281
The Third World.
The day of the duel is just one day away.
Now, the Academy is buzzing with people discussing who will win.
It’s amusing that the fight that divided foreigners and locals has come to a standstill for a moment.
Of course, if the confirmation faction wins, they’ll separate the foreigners and locals to fight again, and if the separatists win, it’ll become a life where everyone pretends not to know each other.
It feels like the day of a sports match at an international tournament. It’s packed with excitement, so will it remain peaceful until then?
I hope the peace is shattered quickly.
Right now, it’s lunchtime.
When I entered to have lunch with Victoria, there was still a line, which is unusual.
Why is it so long? By this time, the line should’ve nearly disappeared!
Oh! Now that I think about it, there was a duel right around the start of lunchtime.
I guess everyone got delayed after watching that.
If I had known, I should’ve come a bit earlier.
“Where should we sit?”
Victoria asked me. She’s also holding her tray and looking around.
There are plenty of empty spots, but there aren’t many where we can actually sit. For students with low ranks and who don’t belong to any faction, the only spots available are on the edges of each faction’s territory.
So those places are usually uncomfortable, with people frequently passing by, or there’s a draft coming straight in.
But it’s packed over there.
I spotted a familiar face in that area. Conveniently, there’s a seat available. Since I came over a few times from that side before, I can approach this time.
There’s a girl who seems to have purposely arranged her long black hair in a casual manner.
I went over and sat in front of her.
“Excuse me.”
“Uh? Ah, yes! Please sit, Bell!”
At that, Victoria also sat down beside me. She glanced at me and the girl alternately before asking me.
“Do you know each other?”
“Yes.”
If we’ve exchanged names, we must know each other. There’s a suspicion that she might be like Maleficent, but the expression on the girl’s face looking at Victoria shows nothing but pure curiosity.
“Hi, I’m Victoria. Victoria Bet. Second year.”
“Hi, I’m Mogrei Laksha. First year, yeah. That’s right.”
It sounds a bit stuttery at first, but there are no commas of hesitation.
If someone stumbles because they’re shy, you can usually hear the anxiety creeping in at the end of their words.
But Mogrei isn’t like that. She just seems awkward because she doesn’t use that kind of speech often.
And then she almost introduced her clan but held back. Last time, she elaborated on being from the Laksha family.
From cutting it off this time, it looks like she was being cautious about Victoria’s rank.
If the Laksha family has no power, they’re at the bottom of the Royal Academy, but in reality, they hold quite a high position, and many commoners dislike speaking to them without realizing it.
However, she shows no hostility towards commoners trying to engage. Both Kanna and even Polaris reveal almost instinctive hostility when they see someone breaking decorum.
Let’s simplify it.
Let’s assume it’s a shared meal.
When someone at the table sees the person in front of them eating with chopsticks gripped by their index finger, middle finger, and thumb, instead of holding them like a fist, that’s the kind of unpleasant feeling you get.
It’s not wrong, just different, but you get a faint sense of aversion, right?
Mogrei doesn’t have any of that. She might be someone who meets commoners often, or perhaps someone who routinely interacts with them.
“How did you meet?”
“I’ve had lunch together a few times.”
Victoria asked me, looking at me. After hearing my answer, her expression quickly changed several times.
Confusion, surprise, comprehension, embarrassment. Sympathy. And then anger.
She probably recalled the times I had lunch with her and realized when it occurred. It was during a brief period when things were tense between us.
After saying a quick greeting, we had lunch together.
A conversation?
There wasn’t one.
Mogrei didn’t initiate any talk, and I generally only respond if asked.
Victoria is good at conversation, but the topics she can lead are mostly about mechanical devices.
So throughout the lunch period, unlike the wind-up engineer school where everyone talked and ate, the Royal Academy is usually pretty quiet at lunchtime.
Now that I think about it, it’s about Victoria and mechanical devices…
I wonder if she still likes them.
Now, there’s not a single item related to mechanical devices in her room. I’ve seen her avoid anything to do with wind-up machinery even when we were at the countryside.
Morris and Beatrice understood that as well.
Victoria cried to her parents about the incidents in the capital.
After that, she initially followed her grandmother but eventually roamed the village with her grandfather due to the usefulness of her psychic abilities.
She purposely distanced herself from mechanical devices.
And that continues even after returning to the capital.
Hmm.
It’s unfortunate to lose a dream. But honestly, I don’t care about wind-up machines, so I’ll ignore it. Encouraging someone to do what they want isn’t equivalent to telling them to fulfill their dreams, you know?
It’s expecting them to do whatever it takes to pursue their desires.
And as people grow up, dreams tend to crash down to reality.
Once there was a time when they dreamed of doing something; later, they start looking for whether that job makes money and what they need to do to earn the most money.
Do children wish for well-paying careers?
That’s a failure of education and a failure of adults. An adult who can’t show a child their dreams isn’t a proper adult.
They’re just big-headed beasts.
An adult who calls Santa Claus a lie to a child and brings in a foreign temp worker dressed as Santa to show them is being a real adult.
I can assert that adults who can’t even show dreams to children lack the qualifications to be human. What do you think happens when those children grow up?
Beasts emerge.
And I like those beasts. Because they easily trample on others’ lives and acquire what they desire.
Because that’s how they learned, and that’s all they know how to do.
They shut their eyes to a child exploited abroad. They criticize those who donate to unfortunate children as hypocrites. They denigrate those who perform good deeds and ultimately bring them to ruin, turning them into beasts like themselves.
The more that happens, the more people who fall through the cracks and removed from society die.
Then, warmth seeps into me.
Hehe.
That’s the right society for me. A society that fills me with warmth.
Harsh for humans to survive, though!
While having such thoughts, I had lunch watching the dreamless Victoria.
After we finished eating, the three of us stood up from our seats. Even if it seems awkward, the parties present don’t seem to have any thoughts about it.
Neither Victoria nor Mogrei are feeling uneasy or uncomfortable.
As for me?
Well…
Yeah.
It’s a bit better to have a conversation with them.
As we left the cafeteria, I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in a while who was in the same class.
“Laksha, the daughter of the clan, huh?”
A girl with dark purple hair and sharp, triangular ears protruding from above her head. Her piercing eyes make her look much scarier than her actual personality. And with her long limbs, she emanates an unusual pressure.
Freesia Tabakian Shekal.
She scrutinizes Mogrei with a displeased expression. Victoria looks back and forth between Freesia and Mogrei with a puzzled face.
Then she stepped back a bit.
“Are you two acquainted?”
“It’s none of your business.”
Her tone is prickly. But there’s still an air of suspicion on her face. From a distance, it would look like a playful student is bullying a nerdy student.
In reality, she’s just confirming what she doesn’t know here and there.
Because there’s no hostility or contempt involved.
“I’ve heard the rumors, but I thought your father was the same. So you’re actually a stepdaughter?”
Stepdaughter.
“Do you have business with the Laksha family?”
Mogrei asked back in a low voice. Surprisingly, she seems more hostile.
“There is. But that’s not something to discuss here. My apologies for intruding.”
Freesia shook her head left and right.
This person has quite a strong personality. If I put it bluntly, she’s like a hunting dog guarding the house. Especially with the ears on her head, it reinforces that idea.
She turned her body and came right in front of me. The height difference has shrunk. It used to be significant, but now it’s much closer. This body is quite tall, after all.
…Choseol and Soo-oh aren’t short either.
Still, Freesia is a head taller than them.
“Anyway, since you’ve met the Laksha family, Temrane will definitely call for you. Be prepared.”
Freesia said that and slightly bowed her head to Victoria before heading back into the cafeteria.
“I’m sorry. It’s a difficult situation because of me, isn’t it? I’ll handle it, no, I promise to solve it.”
Seeing the emotions rising and cutting it in front of her mother, she seems like someone who usually speaks rather boldly. Plus, her phrasing seems a bit off.
“It’s okay. If it’s Kanna, we are well acquainted.”
“Even if Tabakian seems scary, don’t worry, she’s not angry.”
Victoria added from the side.
Huh?
“Hasn’t Victoria never talked to Freesia like that? How does she know?”
As far as I know, Victoria doesn’t know Freesia well enough to read her face, right? She’s only said hi a couple of times when I was called by Kanna.
She hasn’t completely avoided talking, but if I asked whether they were close, I would shake my head.
To that, Victoria looked at me and replied like this.
“She didn’t have any killing intent, you know?”
What are you, a general who just returned from the battlefield?
No, it’s kind of similar. She’s probably killed more people than most humans have with her own power. You.
I nodded and stood before Mogrei, looking at Victoria with a strange expression.
“Don’t worry.”
“Yes. I understand.”
With that, we ended this moment and parted ways to return to the classroom.