CH 135

Today would be something known as a Blue Monday in the previous life. It was a gloomy Monday.

Yesterday was an exciting holiday when I had a good time making cookies with Sunny, so the difference felt huge.

On a day like this, I recalled what a senior at work often said in my previous life.

[“Monday is the day when we did our best to not do our best. We don’t include important work, meetings, or receptions and try our best to do the least stressful task at the end of the day. Like hell I could last the week if I go full throttle at the beginning.”]

I also agree with such an opinion and adjusted the schedule on Monday accordingly.

But there are times when we just couldn’t afford to do so, and today was such a day.

Now that I think about it, why did I accept the date of the meeting to be the beginning of the week? I think it would’ve been better if it was the end of the week instead.

Aah, the state of my mind is like going to war at the moment.

Ever since the previous experience with Alan-sama, I felt nervous to talk with the person who earned five stars, you see.

Perhaps due to nerves last night, I couldn’t sleep easily and was looking at the night sky from the arched window.

However, it was a cloudy night.

It was a dark night where neither the moon nor stars were visible.

I opened the window a little to change my mood, then the wind came in carrying the scent of grass and made my black hair flutter.

It felt like a thin cloud flowing in the darkness, and when I thought about it, I felt lonely for some reason.

I guess a night when you couldn’t see the moon or stars makes people feel lonely.

But as if to reprimand my frightened feelings, the moon showed up behind a thick cloud.

Little by little, the cloud flowed in the wind and the moon completely revealed itself, making my anxiety flow away with it.

When I looked at the big, shiny moon, the dazzling light it cast down on me seemed to empower me.

It’s alright, I should be able to do my best tomorrow. That’s what I thought—

“Alright! I made a nice sentence!”

Yep, it really is a lovely and adorable letter from a cute girl, nodded Sophie with satisfaction.

Even though she wrote that she felt nervous and anxious, Sophie didn’t actually feel nervous in particular.

She just felt a little tomboyish recently, so she tried to pretend to be a pretty girl through her bad poetry.

She didn’t actually look at the moon, and not only could she sleep, but she actually slept so much that she almost forgot what day it was today when she first woke up.

Indeed, the latter half of the letter was completely fictional.

But after all, it was a diary that nobody would read anyway. It was up to the writer how to write it. There was no need to be fixated on reality.

Sophie learned that as a makeshift method of hiding her unladylike behavior.

As she held the prepared document while humming, she left the room with light steps.

The building of the Institute of Medical Science that Sophie visited for the first time had the shape of a huge box.

The location of the laboratory wasn’t far from “The King’s Sword,” so Sophie just rode a carriage and arrived there soon after. However, the walk inside took a long time. Sophie had already walked through the wide corridor for fifteen minutes.

The place she was guided to was a room surrounded by dark brown walls on all sides.

There were windows in the room, but not only did the wooden frame have the same color, but they were also carved with elaborate geometric patterns, whose precision and thickness gave off suffocating feelings. Only the cream color of the ceiling provided any sense of lightness in the suffocating room.

Already in the room were the director of the institute, Lorenzo Forsell, and his subordinate Nert Barth, the deputy director.

Sophie’s memories of the first day’s introductions were vague, but now that she got a look at Nert’s face again, she remembered that he was the third person who introduced himself back then.

At first glance, the man seemed even younger than Lorenzo, but according to information Sophie heard from Firth, he was in the later half of his thirties. Although he was older than Lorenzo, he clearly didn’t look his age.

The two immediately greeted Sophie with gentleman’s greetings. Sophie greeted back and was guided to her seat at the round table.

The members who gathered this time were Lorenzo and Nert from the institute side, and Sophie accompanied by Lars of the gold star, Firth of the silver star, and Marcus of the copper star. Luca also came as Sophie’s escort and stood behind her.

Sophie briefly introduced the three students of “The King’s Sword.”

Both Lars and Firth were so nervous when introduced that their faces were stiff from beginning to end. They didn’t mind being present under the request of Sophie, but their complexions weren’t looking good, as they seemed completely swallowed by the atmosphere created by Lorenzo, who earned five silver stars, and Nert, who earned four silver stars.