CH 129

“I have received the report from Luca Forsell, but has anything changed in the last few days?”

“No, there’s nothing in particular.”

As they exchanged pleasantries, a chilly breeze flowed between them.

Gerald’s eye color was the same blue as Ferio and Christina, but it felt completely different. It made Sophie think there might be ice crystals buried within his cornea.

Sophie didn’t mean her words as sarcasm, as she truly felt there was nothing special to be mentioned, but it seemed the other party heard it as sarcasm, which made her tilt her head in wonder.

As a matter of fact, there really was nothing special. There might have been problems that emerged as she proceeded with the task she needed to accomplish, but she didn’t feel any inconvenience at the moment.

“…I have received a report from Keith Dudley that you said you didn’t need escorts from the black star, though?”

Aah, so he meant that one.

“That’s right. I don’t feel any need for such things.”

Sophie insinuated for Keith to just give it up, but it seemed Keith heard it as her refusal to have an escort from the black star.

It’s not like I bluntly said things like “I have no need of terrible watchmen who suck at tailing,” but is that still bad enough?1

As Sophie said that with her unchanging smile, Gerald looked at her with his usual cold expression.

Silence flowed for some time until it was broken by the paladin who guarded the entrance and spoke up with a gentle tone.

“Sophie-sama. A guest is coming, how do you want to treat him?”

The paladin who said that also had a handsome face, which made Sophie wonder if being handsome was also one of the requirements of being a paladin. There was no doubt this paladin had misled many hearts of maidens during his younger days. However, since the man looked older than Sophie’s father, her “screw you, handsome” sensor didn’t activate so she could greet him with a smile.

Guests are coming one after another today…

Today was equivalent to Saturday in Sophie’s previous life, so there were no classes held, but the gold stars would have to use that time for self-study and free discussion, the silver stars would have their individual research, and the copper stars would have competitive matches to spend their morning with. The holiday for the students began this afternoon in addition to the whole day tomorrow.

Sophie was in her room because she wanted to be fully prepared for the meeting with Lorenzo that was scheduled at the beginning of the week, but leaving aside Sophie and Gerald, who weren’t active students of this academy, the students of this academy should still be in their classes.

As Sophie wondered who was visiting at this time and asked him to enter, the guest turned out to be a silver star student.

His name was Firth Berendse. According to him, it seemed he snuck out from the self-study period.2 

During the day Sophie visited the silver star, she left the gold star classroom and arrived at the silver star class when the class was just about to begin and left midway so she didn’t get to hear the introductions of the students there, but he was the director who had earned one silver star.

When Firth saw Gerald standing in the hall, Firth’s body shook in astonishment. Apparently, the man who looked uselessly intimidating was still scary enough for a person of the same age and gender.

As Sophie made use of the guest to make Gerald leave, Sophie invited Firth to the guest room. Even if the guest was a well-identified student, there were paladins standing by the door, so there was no need for Gerald to prolong his stay. 

As Firth was relieved to see Gerald leave, he entered the room and suddenly bowed his head.

“Um, it might be late for this, but let me apologize first. I’m really sorry about Instructor Vincent!”

Sophie involuntarily leaked a stupid-sounding voice. “Heh?”

“Why are you apologizing?”

It might be one thing to hear the director apologize for other students’ rants, but Sophie had never heard of a director apologizing in the instructor’s stead.

“Well… Originally, Instructor Vincent was perplexed by how disappointing the current silver stars are. He had a prickly attitude toward us for a long time, and that lasted for a long time and ended up bursting into the things he said to Sophie-sama. We ended up being inconvenienced because of us…”

Sophie tilted her head in wonder to Firth who apologized.

“What do you mean by the silver stars being disappointing?”

Firth hesitated a moment when he heard Sophie’s question and opened his mouth while having a hard time answering it.

“It might be weird to say this, but not only the silver star, but ‘The King’s Sword’ has lacked a charismatic person to shine. It was especially the case for the black star after the graduation of Gerald Forsius. There might be the younger brother of Lorenzo-sama in the copper star, but he is a quiet person…”

Although Luca did have the potential for being a pretty boy and the youngest person to earn a star, he didn’t have the personality to lead people.

“During the era of Lorenzo-sama, there were charismatic people for each star, and interactions between each star happened actively.”

Oh my, so there was a time when they interacted with each other.

It was something Sophie noticed for the few days she was here, but basically, no people of one star would be close to people of another star.

Even when Lars of the gold star first visited the copper star, there was an awkward atmosphere at first.

Even so, Lars desperately followed the copper stars without whining and got taken care of at the end of it. Especially because Marcus was concerned about Lars, the other copper stars student began to act casually toward him as well.

However, their words of concern were worries about his relationship with women for some reason, like, “Young master, you better choose the girl you fall for wisely,” and “Don’t get caught up with a strange woman.” 

Lars, who received such concerns, listened to Marcus’ words with a dumbfounded expression.