CH 44

Shushu’s particular shade of orange was a warm color. When I hugged her, it felt like a small campfire lit deep within my heart and warmed my whole body through. I liked her emotionless crimson eyes as she looked up at me, and I really liked the smiles she often shot my way.

My original plans to destroy the leader failed halfway, but I was surprisingly okay with it. As I watched Shuraina carelessly throw her body at the leader as she fought, I suddenly started to question myself. Was this revenge worth Shushu having to even look at the disgusting mug of the leader? My happiness was right in front of me. I wondered if continuing my revenge was worth throwing away everything I had already had.

When the leader grabbed Shuraina by her hair and tried to attack, I lost most of my senses right there and then. I had a new choice in life that wasn’t revenge. Driven by emotion, I didn’t even hesitate as I gave up on my revenge. From that moment on, I wasn’t entangled in the disgusting, irritating relationship that I had been in with the leader.

To fail something that I had planned for years, no, my whole life, because I couldn’t control my emotions. When I ended up killing him I felt a sense of loss, but I recovered more quickly than I thought. That felt very strange for me.

Moreover, when Shushu shed tears for me when she thought i was dying, I saw how my plans had burst into bubbles and had thought, “So what,” like a lunatic.

I, who had spent my entire life trying to kill the leader, had begun to think that spending my time thinking about him in anyway was a waste of time.

Once I had killed him, my mood wasn’t good or bad. I was just more tired than usual. I just wanted to go back and rest, then be with Shushu like usual.

I might have wanted to get away from the shadow of the leader and wanted to enjoy my days. Like how when I worked with Shushu I played around, worked, and enjoyed the little things in life. That kind of life.

Once he disappeared, earning money became easier than breathing.

I could do whatever I wanted to do with the money I had earned.

I wanted Shushu to stay by my side, but would that child let herself be tied down to me? There were lots of different ways, but young Shushu seemed to find complicated relationships to be a hardship. And I was honestly kind of scared. Our lives up until now had been completely different: I was worried that Shushu would be bored of me.

Honestly, it didn’t matter how. I just wanted to keep having a good relationship with Shushu.

For now, her older brother role seems to be good, but Shushu was difficult as expected.

At first, she seemed to accept it out of pity, but now she was like an angry orange furball. I began to wonder if I needed to act pitiful again.

Now, she had begun to stop me from hugging and being in contact with her, my only joy in life. She was seriously the strongest person out of all the others that I’ve known.

When I finished drinking my juice, Shushu’s video had finished playing. I thought about replaying it one more time, but turned it off right away when I heard somebody enter the classroom.

I wondered who it was, but it was my least favorite person these days: Harun.

Harun saw me and immediately raised his hackles, then looked at me if disgruntled. Of course, I couldn’t even dare to compare, but….. Shushu was extremely lovable, but Harun was just gross.

Harun scowled as he stared at me, then nodded at the device next to me.

“W-What were you watching?”

Harun asked, stuttering. I debated telling him and not telling him before responding.

“Just, something cute.”

Harun seemed at a loss for words at my response and went back to his seat. He was usually someone with a lot of friends, but he was alone for today. It felt like he was going to ask for a duel at any moment.

I hoped that he wouldn’t come closer to me, but he slowly approached me and spoke.

“Hey! Yvnes, you, you! I’m Shushu’s oppa, so! So….”

I glared at Harun. Harun flinched and hunched slightly, then continued to speak.

“Eeeek! Anyway, I’m Shushu’s oppa! Don’t even try it!”

He had come over, seemingly prepared to fight, but that seemed to be it. Okay, sure. But what do you want me to say?

I rubbed my ears for a moment, then happened to see the sword on Harun’s waist.

I couldn’t help but be shocked. The sword had an ostentatiously large jewel and uselessly delicate carving. The sword had to be as expensive as a commoner’s house. I stared at Harun, shocked. The West family didn’t have enough money to buy that sword. Where did he get it?

A foreboding feeling swept past me.

I decided to ask Harun about the stupidly expensive sword he carried.

“Oh, this? Mother bought it for me so I’m using it.”

“………”

“……..?”

He looked completely innocent, as if he had no idea what was going on.

The West family’s finances were probably mostly taken care of by Shushu. She probably worked to pay the debt off for that sword. A seething rage began to fill me.

He was supposed to be Shushu’s older brother. How could he be so ignorant? As the person who was next in line to take care of the family line, how could he be so uncaring of his family’s finances?

Harun was definitely a bit young to take care of things like that, but to me, it was more important that Shushu was his younger sister.

If he wanted to be Shushu’s older brother, he had to be leagues better than me. Even though that kind of person didn’t exist.

“You, come over here. You need some proper education from me.”

But I did think he needed to fix that relaxed, casual mindset of his. He needed to be aware of the circumstances he was in. He needed to act like a proper eldest son so Shushu would be able to breathe easier.

On the other hand, thinking of how much Shushu had struggled because of stupid Harun made me so angry that I couldn’t handle it.

I’m going to fill your brain full of numbers, calculations, rates and percentages.

Harun seemed puzzled by my sudden burst of enthusiasm.

I also used the school dormitory. Normally, I had to return to the guild before I could even think of using the dorms, but the school had some nice facilities so I used it once in a while now.

I took a light shower and lay down on my bed.

My roommate wasn’t here yet. There were a few boxes of their belongings, but the person wasn’t there.

I turned my head to look towards the door of our dorm. On the blue door of our room, the names of the students who lived in the room were listed.

[Yvnes Lunaasha (3)]

[Swanhaden Blanche (1)]

He said that he was going to transfer in a year from now, but had already signed up for the dorms. It seemed like he really wanted to come to the academy. Because he was the son of a duke, the academy seemed to enthusiastically welcome Swanhaden.

Anyway, he said to pretend not to know him but we were roommates.

I thought about the boy who was white from head to toe. He looked pretty so people thought he was going to have an equally pretty personality, but Swan was, out of all the people that I had ever met, the worst of them all. His nickname was ‘Angel’, but everybody who knew him knew that he was much closer to ‘Devil’ instead.

My relationship with the little duke, Swanhaden, started a long time ago. The leader had ordered me to get close to him to create some sort of connection with him, but he had approached me first.

With a bright smile on his face, he threatened me, saying, “If you don’t put that fake smile of yours away, I’m going to beat you up.” At those words, I realized that he wasn’t just your regular, run-of-the-mill little lord. And that was true. He really didn’t have a fake bone in his body.

The little lord tried to make a deal with me. He seemed to hate fake people so I tried to be pretty honest, but Swan had known about my past in detail beforehand.

At that time, he had told me that he would take care of the poison and the contracts, which had been a thorn on my side at the time. Something about how he could make the antidote. Then, he said that he could treat all of the injuries that I sustained on a daily basis and suggested a deal. For information instead.

The information he wanted was about the academy and the activities of the nobles, and what was happening within the kingdom.

He was currently on a pilgrimage to become the successor of the dukedom, so he wasn’t in the kingdom often. So I made everything into documents and sent them to him.

We hated each others’ voices too much for us to use the communication devices, so there was nothing we could do other than documents.

Anyway, for my roommate to be Swan. I should probably take care of his belongings.

Chapter 5. I Don’t Want a Little Duke

A year had passed since I first began attending Augran Academy.

In that short year, I accomplished a lot of things.

First, I was second in the swordsmanship class, right behind Hylli, and received second place. It seemed that the only reason Hylli had lost to me in the beginning was because he was surprised by my use of magic. After getting used to my magic because of our daily practices, he ended up surpassing me.

Damn it, but I had also grown thanks to Hylli so in the end, it was a win-win situation.

My club was also a success.

The project that Cory and I had worked on gained the personal interest of the monster environment professor, and we began to receive regular funding from him. He even told us that he would use the reports for his thesis.

Thanks to that, our club was ranked within the top 10 clubs. Apparently there had never been a club with only two members that had ranked that high. Thanks to the club, my income became that much sweeter.

After attending the school for a year, I began attaining some kind of popularity. I had begun to be recognized because of the various activities I participated in. The titles like ‘Swordsmanship Class Poopypants’ was long gone, and new nicknames continued to arise and became titles.

‘Singing Advisory’, ‘Wild Beast Tamer,’ ‘Shameful Past Collector,’ and etc.

I couldn’t figure out why some of those nicknames came to be. The others were whatever, but what the heck was ‘Wild Beast Tamer’ supposed to be? When I asked the people around me, none of them would tell me.

Anyway, I finally ended my colorful first year and moved on to second year. Our classroom went up by a floor.

Oh, also, unlike last break when I was super busy, I didn’t meet anybody during winter break. I just stayed home and kept reading books and practiced my magic.

That was because I was absolutely exhausted after basically running through the year. Moreover, the Yves situation, dance situation, song situation…. There was just too much stress.

Moreover, Harun had suddenly matured and I was able to focus less on our family finances. I didn’t have a lot of requests either, so I was able to spend a bunch of time for myself during winter break.

Of course, the people around me made a fuss about wanting to play. Hestia had come over my house to play. Hestia called for me as desperately as she could, but I ignored her. I needed some time away from others that I spent for myself.