Elqi was momentarily stunned. After avoiding Rosily’s gaze, she lowered her head and muttered with a trace of annoyance, “It’s a friend…”
“Is that so~?” A look of feigned ignorance appeared on Rosily’s pretty face. “Then they are my friends too.”
“……”
“Since we’re all friends, we can’t treat them differently, can we? Unless there’s another kind of relationship, one that goes a step further than friendship.”
“Friends can be different too!”
Elqi was truly fed up. She clenched her small fist and punched Rosily’s chest once before turning around to leave. Rosily quickly circled around to get in front of her. Seeing her blocking the path, Elqi knit her beautiful brows, looking quite displeased.
Rosily smiled and leaned in close, taking her hand again. “Come on, don’t be so unhappy.”
“Hmph…” Elqi turned her head away slightly.
Rosily saw that she really did seem upset, even more so than the previous few times. A glint flashed in her eyes, and she immediately leaned toward Elqi’s shoulder, whispering to her. “Elqi, don’t be mad at me anymore. I’ll give you a gift, okay?”
“……”
Hearing her sweet plea, Elqi finally softened. She took a deep breath and turned to look at Rosily beside her. “A… gi… gift…?”
Before she could finish her sentence, Rosily had already produced the item. It was a brown staff that looked incredibly familiar.
Wasn’t it her own?!
Rosily handed the staff to Elqi. Elqi took another deep breath, looking at the staff in her hand and then at the beaming Rosily beside her. Should she be angry right now?
Finally, she let out a helpless sigh and teased Rosily. “True to form, giving me back my own things as a gift.”
“Hehe~” Rosily gave a silly smile.
Currently, she only had a Silver Spatial Ring on her person, and inside the ring was a sword. Neither of those items could be given away. While “buying on credit” was an option, it would be a case of distant water not being able to put out a nearby fire. It wouldn’t work in time and might even have the opposite effect.
That was why Rosily gave Elqi’s staff back to her, choosing to act like a fool just to make her happy. The effect was actually quite good…
Furthermore, Elqi wasn’t the type of woman to be unreasonably difficult. She took the opportunity to forgive her and then said to Rosily, “Friends are divided into two types: superficial friends and true friends. You have to be very careful of those guys who seem to have a good relationship with you on the surface but might have some secret schemes behind your back.”
“Understood!” Rosily shouted loudly.
Beside her, Elqi couldn’t help but shrink her neck. They were still in a public place; don’t make such a loud scene! Elqi glared at Rosily and added, “Of course, you should also cherish the friends who are willing to show you their true hearts.”
“Yes, I do.”
“?”
Elqi suddenly knit her brows and stared at Rosily’s profile. She was looking into the distance as if she were watching something.
The place where Rosily’s gaze landed was exactly where Estelle was returning. The two sisters’ eyes met, but only for an instant before they looked away again.
Estelle wasn’t alone this time. Not far behind her, the people she had teamed up with were following her.
“Aren’t you going over to say a few words to your sister?” Elqi spoke up and lightly bumped Rosily’s shoulder, urging her to take action.
But Rosily showed little interest. When the two of them had ditched their teammates and flown off on their own earlier, Estelle had to walk back to the academy slowly. In fact, they could have gone straight home instead of coming back here. Coming here was more of a formality so they could take a carriage back.
Rosily pursed her lips and said, “No, she won’t say anything anyway. Her replies are always just ‘mm,’ ‘ah,’ or ‘oh.'”
“…”
Elqi didn’t think so. She felt that Estelle lacked communication; the less she spoke, the less she knew how to speak. Besides, Estelle was Rosily’s sister, so it was only right for her to get along with her, wasn’t it?
After a brief moment of thought, Elqi made a decision. She pulled Rosily along and walked up to Estelle.
Estelle stood in place, blankly staring at her younger sister and her sister’s woman. Their clothes were tattered and messy, as if they had done something… ‘Did they go into the woods?’
As an older sister, she had experience! After Estelle ran out, she spent plenty of time running around in the woods, and her clothes would get snagged and torn from time to time.
Rosily was a bit uncomfortable with the situation and shifted her gaze to the side. “Um, let’s go back.”
“Mm,” Estelle replied softly.
Upon receiving the answer, Rosily turned to leave. Estelle also started walking, but the sight left Elqi standing there dazed.
‘Wait… hold on… are those the only words you two have to say?’
“Ah, wait…” Elqi grabbed Rosily, and just as she was about to say something to Estelle, a hurried voice drifted over.
“Lord Rosily!”
Accompanied by that voice, a group of people ran over quickly, surrounding the three young girls. Leading them was a slightly fat boy. The expression on his face made it seem as if he were looking at the light of salvation; he almost burst into tears.
It was unclear if it was intentional, but the boy tripped and fell directly onto the ground when he got close. It looked like a painful fall, yet he acted as if it didn’t hurt at all, quickly crawling toward Rosily.
Seeing this, Rosily knit her brows slightly, scooped Elqi up in her arms, and jumped away.
Seeing that his hands, which were intended to hug her “thighs,” hit empty air, Pangzi immediately stood up from the ground, looking as if he had lost his own parents.
“Lord Rosily, you’ve finally returned! If you hadn’t come back, there would be no one left in our Crimson Academy. Those guys from Moonview City were going to stand on our heads and treat us like dirt!”
“……”
Rosily set Elqi down and looked Pangzi up and down. “Who are you?”
“Me? I am…”
“Wait, I don’t need to know who you are.”
“Uh, this…”
Pangzi had just begun to smile through his tears, planning to introduce himself, but Rosily didn’t want to know who he was at all!
‘Damn it, you can remember a senior sister you only met once. For a male classmate in the same class, even if you can’t remember my name, can’t you at least remember what I look like? My size makes me very easy to remember, right?’
Elqi looked at this fat boy. She naturally recognized who he was and what his family background was, but she was more curious about why these people had suddenly surrounded them.
Did they want to start a fight?
‘Wait, why would I think that? Tsk, it’s all Rosily’s fault. I must have been influenced by her!’
Elqi shook the strange thoughts out of her head and shifted her gaze from Pangzi to the other onlookers. She noticed that these people looked distressed, and all of them were looking at Rosily. Even though Rosily looked a bit disheveled now and wasn’t as bright and beautiful as they remembered, their eyes made it seem like they viewed her as a great savior.
And what did Pangzi say just now? Moonview City?
A trace of doubt rose in Elqi’s heart. Turning her gaze back to the flatteringly smiling Pangzi, she asked him, “What happened?”
Clearly, something had occurred at the academy while they were away for training. Elqi had heard some news before. Just today, a vanguard team from Moonview City, a border city of the West Wind Empire, was supposed to visit Crimson Academy.
Hearing Elqi ask, Pangzi said with righteous indignation, “Miss Elqi, you and Lord Rosily went to the training camp, so you don’t know what exactly happened. Let me explain…”
To put it simply, as the captain of the Moonview City vanguard team, that purple-haired Missy Ishumir had proposed a challenge. She wanted the people she brought to fight matches against the people of Crimson Academy to serve as afternoon tea snacks for her and Yelena.
As it turned out, the people from Moonview City were all ruthless experts. Dealing with the students of Crimson Academy was like adults bullying children!
After Elqi finished listening, she gave a cold laugh. “In other words, you all lost time and time again, completely throwing away the Lord’s reputation and the reputation of Crimson Academy.”
“Well, you can’t really say that… everyone did their best.” Pangzi gave a sheepish smile, his eyes constantly darting around. He wiped the fine sweat from his forehead, looking very much like he had something to hide.
‘Could he have placed a bet?’
Just as Elqi was about to turn and speak to Rosily, she was interrupted again. The group of people behind Pangzi grew excited.
“Lord Rosily, you are our Academy’s Strongest!”
“You will win!”
“We all believe in you!”
The voices rose one after another, growing more and more excited as they shouted.