CH 180

“My Lady.”

I lost my focus due to someone calling me.

As I looked behind me, Dana was looking at me with a quizzical expression.

“It’s time to go to the academy.”

Only then did I realize a lot of time had passed since I woke up.

It was certainly around dawn when I woke up, but the sun was already high in the sky.

“What kind of book are you reading so deeply?”

“It’s nothing. This is just for the lecture today.”

Glossing it over, I closed the book and hid it.

Dana looked like she didn’t think much about it.

She then began to nag me.

“You have to quickly take a bath and prepare. What’s wrong with the one who usually didn’t act like this? Are you really in confusion due to the wound in your heart like what Young Duke said?”

“Do I have to become a wandering soul due to the wound in my heart just because I overslept once?”

Speechless, I refuted Dana, who was gradually becoming more and more similar to the workers in this mansion, and she laughed.

“Hurry up and get ready.”

The rest of the book that I hadn’t read yet haunted my mind.

The content about the three families blessed by God and the construction of the Empire by the Emperor was the same as I had learned.

However, locking away God due to the wariness of God’s power?

The story I heard for the first time continued on after that and it added to my confusion.

Who on earth was Mikel Jayhorn, who wrote this book?

Why was he always being chased in my dreams and why did Mom look like she knew well those who chased him?

The dreams and reality kept being mixed up by now.

Every time I checked for it despite thinking it was nonsense, the fact I didn’t know of kept popping up and gave me a headache.

“If he wrote about the myth of the founding of the Empire . . .”

He was surely a scholar who studied ancient history, and would Grein, whose major was history, know about him?

The moment I had a faint hope, I heard Jeremy’s bright shout from afar.

* * *

The boy with a very excited expression finished off two plates of his breakfast.

While shocked gazes poured over him, I opened my mouth.

“Congratulations, Jeremy.”

“Thank you. From a parent’s point of view, the growth of a child is truly overwhelming. It’s a really new feeling.”

“. . .”

He might have to change his choice of words.

It felt weird to hear ‘it’s a new feeling’ and such from the mouth of a boy who was only twelve.

“Sometimes, I also wondered if this child couldn’t grow because I was lacking. Yet she finally grew next to me.”

It stung in my heart, but I feigned innocence.

Wouldn’t it be fine to let him be, since he was happy?

The truth seemed to be too cruel for the young prince.

“I’m thinking of having a small congratulation party with my friends in the academy.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

The point was that he finally had something he wanted to try.

What was important was that the prince, who questioned why he should try something when humans were bound to die the first time he arrived in this mansion, had ‘a desire to do something’.

“I’m thinking of borrowing a club room in the academy and holding a tea party. You should come, too, Marianne.”

“I will.”

I was planning to stay longer and seek counseling from Professor Grein anyway.

I didn’t want to spoil Jeremy’s joy as he tried to fully enjoy his academy life.

The eyes of Orion, who was next to us, turned to be so melancholy.

“If I graduated a bit later, I would be able to enjoy a lovely academy life with my sister.”

“No. It’s not that lovely.”

What was he talking about now when my academy life was in survival mode?

Ever since I entered, I’d been busy surviving from Samuel Bolton and his sword as well as Mago Philip’s ridiculous trap.

Orion’s eyes turned sharp.

“If only I received an invitation for a special lecture like that bastard Bolton . . .”

“I never run into Young Duke Bolton anyway. We’re also not in the same department. It would be the same even if you come, Orion.”

Wouldn’t it be impossible for Orion, a knight, to come as a professor teaching history, administration, or political science?

“It’s also hard for me to meet my friend, Zen, in the academy.”

At that, Orion reluctantly turned his face practically dripping with regret.

“Besides, what excuse will you use to come as a special lecturer? You never teach students, Orion.”

Even Young Duke Bolton was only there temporarily in the name of recruiting Imperial talents.

“I’m the teacher who trained the second prince, am I not?”

I shook my head as I saw Jeremy stare at Orion.

I couldn’t help warning him.

“Jeremy, don’t let yourself be used as an excuse so easily.”

“Sister Raynia said this. It is natural for a person to make a false excuse to achieve a goal. And the most important thing is to not get caught.”

“. . .”

“In fact, Marianne’s friend acted as a professor because he wasn’t caught, and wasn’t Sister Raynia okay even though she did something wrong because she didn’t get caught?”

“. . .”

“Being shameless is also a skill.”

Jeremy really needed a proper teacher.

Rather than that, why did Jeremy address Rany so highly?