“…Morning classes are now over. Class dismissed.”
Inside the classroom, Anima announced the end of the lesson to the students.
Everyone stood up from their seats, gathered their notes and textbooks, and prepared to leave.
But one person was stopped.
“Via, you’re not leaving!”
“Me?” Via blinked.
“Yes, you. Come to my office!”
“Alright.”
Via followed Anima to the faculty office.
As soon as Anima sat down behind his desk, he glared at Via, anger bubbling up uncontrollably.
“Via, what is wrong with you lately? Why do you keep skipping class!”
“I haven’t been skipping that often, have I?”
“Look at this attendance record!”
Anima pulled out the class sign-in sheet and slapped it in front of Via.
There were rows of glaring red X marks. At a glance, the entire column was filled with absences.
“So I’ve really been absent that many times?”
Via genuinely hadn’t paid much attention. Whenever something came up, she simply didn’t go.
“What on earth have you been doing? Do you even want to continue attending classes?”
Anima was extremely unhappy. Among all the skipped lessons, his were the most numerous.
He was, after all, rated as one of Avalon’s outstanding instructors. Was he being looked down upon like this?
“I… wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed in the dorm,” Via answered perfunctorily.
“That excuse has zero credibility!”
“Teacher Anima, actually… whether I attend regular classes or not doesn’t really matter, does it?” Via mumbled. “The academy cares most about exam results. As long as someone scores are excellent, it doesn’t matter if we study day-to-day. I remember the top students skip class all the time.”
“That’s completely different! Their grades and your grades are worlds apart!” Anima blurted out.
“In the last assessment, I got Excellent and placed in the top ten.”
“This…!”
Anima’s cheek twitched.
He was rendered speechless by Via’s retort.
Because Via’s results in the previous exam really did give her the capital to act however she pleased.
At Avalon Academy, ability was everything. If your grades were outstanding enough, you were indeed granted a certain degree of exemption.
As long as you aced the exams, skipping class was fine.
Conversely, no matter how hard you tried, poor grades meant eventual expulsion.
“Teacher Anima, is there anything else? I’m not feeling well and want to return to the dorm. I probably won’t come to afternoon classes either.”
Via’s words were pure provocation.
Anima swallowed his rage with nowhere to vent it.
“Via, you’d better pray your luck holds. I hope you can keep getting Excellent in the next assessment!”
“Thank you for the blessing, Teacher Anima.” Via smiled.
“Urk!”
Anima was so furious his glasses nearly slid off.
Via left the office in high spirits and headed toward Avalon Academy’s cafeteria.
She had finally started earning money. For the time being, she didn’t need to scrape together the cheapest meals. She could treat herself in the cafeteria.
Avalon Academy was, after all, the cradle of heroes. Besides lavish educational resources, nothing else was skimped on either. Even the cafeteria chefs were famous “magic cooks.”
If you were willing to spend a little extra, you could buy specially prepared magical cuisine, not only delicious, but also capable of strengthening the body.
“I’ll try the magic cook’s special magical dish today.”
Via decided on her lunch.
There were many things about humanity she didn’t particularly like, but when it came to food, they truly excelled.
At this hour, the cafeteria was packed. The corridors bustled with students chatting with their friends.
Via paid no mind to the oncoming crowd and simply walked past many people.
“…!?”
Suddenly, a girl brushed past her. A faint fragrance reached Via’s nose, causing her pupils to contract.
That scent she had smelled in the underground black market, why was it here at Avalon Academy?
What made the pink-haired girl’s heart race was the glimpse of long, ocean-blue hair in the corner of her vision.
There was no mistake.
It was the mysterious girl she had encountered in the underground black market.
Via genuinely hadn’t expected that girl to be a student at Avalon as well.
Though extremely curious, she forcibly suppressed the urge to turn around and look at the girl’s face.
Back then, neither of them had clearly seen the other’s face under those circumstances.
They were strangers to each other.
Any suspicious movement here would definitely draw the other girl’s attention.
Via did not want too many people knowing about her underground black market activities.
Even though I was grateful to you at the time, I hope we never meet again.
Thinking this, Via quickened her pace, melted into the crowd, and swiftly left the area.
…
Lucy entered Avalon Academy’s library alone, stepped onto the lift, and pressed the button for the highest floor.
The lift rose steadily, stopped at the topmost level, and opened its doors.
She stepped out, wove through the bookshelves like someone following a hidden path, until she reached a corner staircase that was easy to overlook. She climbed the spiraling stairs bathed in sunlight streaming through the windows, arriving at a hidden upper floor almost no one knew existed.
There, a girl in an Avalon Academy uniform sat quietly in a hanging chair, reading a book.
The girl had long blue hair the color of the deep ocean, emerald-green eyes bright as jewels, and sweetly beautiful features. Even without trying, she exuded an unmistakable aura of royalty.
The way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear was mesmerizing; it was hard not to stare.
“Stella, aren’t you going to afternoon classes?” Lucy asked.
“It’s you, Lucy?”
The girl named Stella didn’t even lift her head.
“Who else would come all the way up here to find you?”
Lucy sat down opposite Stella as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
However, her attitude toward Stella was completely different from how she acted around the other girls who usually flocked to her.
This was someone she had known since childhood. They could probably be called…
best friends?
Both had enrolled at Avalon Academy, and every so often they would meet like this to chat.
Unlike Lucy, Stella was almost always moved in secret, doing who-knows-what, and rarely attended classes.
Even so, she maintained Excellent grades in every assessment.
This created a peculiar situation: many people knew the name “Stella,” but almost no one in the academy had actually met or recognized her.
The name had practically become an urban legend at Avalon. Plenty of students doubted whether such a person even existed.
Yet there was one more thing, if others found out, they would be even more shocked.
In truth, Stella was,
the princess of the Saint Luo Empire’s imperial family.