Let us return to the time when Lisbeth had just entered the school.
Claudia Winston handed Lisbeth a brass key engraved with delicate runes, her face brimming with unconcealed satisfaction and appreciation.
“All right, Lisbeth. This will be your home for the next few years.” She pointed to the thick wooden door of Room 301 in Oak Hall as she spoke.
“Later on, the academy will give you a more detailed ability assessment, to evaluate your practical skills and knowledge base.”
Claudia added this, and upon seeing Lisbeth’s expressionless face, assumed she was nervous and gently reassured her, “But there’s no need to worry—it’s just a routine procedure.”
She adjusted the monocle perched on her nose, her tone bordering on boastful as she said:
“With your current magic proficiency, in my estimation, you could start your coursework directly from the fourth year.”
“Bear in mind, the Royal Academy of Magic generally has six years in total—you’re saving yourself a huge amount of time.”
Claudia glanced at the sky, as if something urgent demanded her attention: “I still have some matters to take care of, so I can’t accompany you any further. You can take some time to get familiar with the place. Your roommates will be arriving soon—one of them is that little sparrow, Mia, from before!”
Before the words had even finished leaving her lips, this whirlwind of a mentor had already become a fading afterimage, vanishing down the corridor.
The vast apartment was instantly so quiet that only the sound of Lisbeth’s heartbeat remained.
She pushed open the bedroom door and gazed at the brand-new surroundings. Her heart was utterly unmoved; she even found herself missing her mother’s fruit tart.
Her first impression of Mia and Claudia Winston was… well, hard to put into words.
The pair of them were exactly what her mother, Tulia, would call textbook cases from the Suspicious Persons Prevention Manual—Suspect No. 1: Overly enthusiastic, as if injected with chicken blood. Suspect No. 2: Always fishing for information, prying into personal affairs.
Yet, she couldn’t believe that the girl called Mia was truly a bad person.
If anything, Mia seemed simply pure-minded, though sometimes she lacked a sense of boundaries.
She was like a golden retriever who’d just been let out of its cage, pumped full of excitement, and still gulping down espresso—a walking bundle of “play with me or I’ll tear the house apart” energy.
Lisbeth found it hard to deal with such a creature.
Just as she found it hard to deal with that grown-up troublemaker Tulia, who loved to pat her head and tell dirty jokes she couldn’t understand.
As Lisbeth’s thoughts drifted away, calculating how many Tullias would equal the trouble of one golden retriever, someone arrived—not with their presence, but with their voice.
A voice so familiar it made her temples start to throb, like a guided sonic missile launched from the far end of the corridor:
“Li——sb——eth——I——’m——he——re——!”
Lisbeth sighed in resignation, stepped out of her room, and prepared to meet her inescapable future.
Just as her fingertips were about to touch the doorknob—
The apartment door didn’t “open,” but was “blown open.”
“Thud!”
A figure, completely defying Newton’s laws, burst in like a human cannonball, trailing a wave of “knowledge is power” energy.
The intruder had a short, lively chestnut bob, oversized glasses askew on her nose, arms full of enough books to build a fortress, her face completely buried behind a mountain of them, and dragging behind her a suitcase that clattered as if packed with a truckload of iron ingots.
It was none other than Mia, who brought her own BGM wherever she went.
Inevitably, Mia—who hadn’t seen the person behind the door—and Lisbeth—who was just about to open it—collided in a dramatic, earth-shaking crash.
“Crash—!”
An academic avalanche began.
High-level Potion Analysis, Introductory National Language… countless bricks of knowledge rained down from above, striking the floor and their feet alike, composing a dull and painful piano piece.
“Ah! Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry, so sorry!”
Mia landed hard on her rear, stars spinning around her head.
But she ignored her own pain, immediately scrabbling through the wreckage of her precious “bricks,” apologizing incoherently all the while.
Lisbeth had been knocked back two steps by the force, only coming to a halt when her back hit the wall.
She looked down at the messy “ocean of knowledge” scattered across the floor, then at the “culprit” flailing in the middle like an overturned turtle, her expression—which was always calm with everyone except Tulia—for the first time ever, showed a clear crack.
Staring at Mia, still wrestling with her heap of books, Lisbeth’s temples throbbed twice.
She sighed in resignation—a gesture she’d learned from her mother Tulia, reserved for the sentiment, “Oh God, spare me.”
She stepped forward, bent down, and extended a hand to Mia, who was still on the floor.
Mia was rubbing the back of her dazed head, trying to reboot her brain after the recent “knowledge explosion.”
She looked up in a fog, and in that instant, the world seemed to freeze.
Lisbeth was standing with her back to the window.
Afternoon sunlight poured down upon her, gilding her beautiful silver hair with a sacred golden rim.
The dazzling brilliance shrouded her features in a gentle shadow, so Mia couldn’t make out her expression—only the graceful lines of her pale, delicate jaw, and the hand extended before her, as if it radiated holy light.
In that moment, in Mia’s concussion-addled vision, the scene was automatically layered with 800 levels of soft focus and divine music.
A single word burst forth from her soul, as if by revelation:
“Kami——!” (God——!)
Lisbeth: “?”
“Ah, my Goddess!” Mia’s eyes instantly sparkled with stars. She grabbed Lisbeth’s hand without hesitation, as if she’d been handed a ticket to heaven, and excitedly tried to stand up.
Yet fate’s stage is always full of dramatic pitfalls.
The academic avalanche had left thick tomes scattered across the floor, now lying in wait like the cruelest of tripwires.
Mia’s foot landed squarely on the glossy hardcover of Introductory National Language, her ankle twisting at an impossible angle—
“Ow——!”
With a shriek, Newton claimed another victory in the world of magic.
Mia not only failed to get up, but with her excessive strength, managed to drag the utterly unprepared Lisbeth down with her.
“Thud!”
After a muffled crash, the world fell into strange silence once again.
The two of them ended up sprawled on the cold floor in a position so awkward, so embarrassing, so… open to misinterpretation.
At this moment, Lisbeth was straddling Mia. To steady herself, her hands instinctively braced against the floor.
One of her hands, as fate would have it, landed firmly and squarely on… a sizable, soft, pillowy bun that Mia had brought along with her luggage.
The sensation of that white, supple, elastic skin left Lisbeth’s mind utterly blank.
It was the first time she’d ever squeezed a bun that wasn’t made by Tulia.
Meanwhile, all that tumbling had left Mia’s already loosened uniform shirt riding up halfway.
“Are… you all right?” Lisbeth finally regained her senses, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. She hurriedly asked, hoping to break the awkward silence.
But Mia, lying beneath her, seemed to have left her body—her eyes unfocused on the ceiling, her cheeks flushed suspiciously, and her lips curled into a dopey, blissful smile.
She hadn’t heard a word Lisbeth had said.
Right then, in Mia’s clever little mind, more wild ideas began to take shape!
—Things seem… to be taking an unexpected turn.
—On my very first day, I got this close to my “Goddess”…
—Just a bit further… just a bit further and I could go straight to home plate!
A sense of excitement she’d never known before, mingled with a maiden’s unique shyness, made her heart race uncontrollably.
Her eyes darted slyly as she came up with a plan.
—If last time was an “accident” caused by an irresistible force… then why not create another “accident” myself, and take our relationship one step further?
Plan complete. √