Chapter 54
Inside a villa built with high-quality wood.
Elined stood in front of the mirror.
Reflected in the mirror was a female student wearing the Yggdrasil uniform.
Beneath her violet hair, a golden badge glittered on her chest.
As she fiddled with it, she fell into thought for a moment.
……What on earth is this even worth.
When she first wore this badge and went to a banquet at the age of eight.
Even as a little child, she could notice that the way adults looked at her had changed.
Perhaps she felt exhilaration at those gazes filled with surprise and respect.
So that was it. Just by wearing this badge, even old men with bent backs would bow their heads to her.
From that moment on, Elined developed the habit of always wearing the Finjer Family badge.
‘Though I am not respected within the family.’
The fate of a collateral line.
Pushed down in the family hierarchy, she was never pointed to as Finjer’s successor.
‘But it’s different outside.’
When she showed this golden badge, countless people would serve her as the young lady of the Finjer Family.
Even the Royal Academy Yggdrasil, where talents and nobles from all over the world gathered, was the same.
Seeing them, Elined made a vow once again.
To reach the peak in Yggdrasil, to earn her grandfather’s recognition.
To surely crush the eldest son Heidel and become Finjer’s successor.
To do so…… she had to secure promising talents in advance.
The kind of people who would one day influence the Empire.
‘He’s alone again today.’
Elined’s gaze, while sitting in the lecture hall, had already turned toward Villed.
Just a few months ago, he enjoyed hanging around with low-class cadets.
Now it seemed he was all by himself.
‘In a way, it puts me at ease.’
It meant no rival had yet discovered his talent.
Elined sat down next to him with a faint smile.
“Good morning.”
He too was of the Four Great Families, just like Elined.
She thought he might feel a sense of kinship with her.
“……Yeah.”
Villed answered without even glancing at her.
As if bored and annoyed.
As if he had no intention of continuing the conversation.
Receiving such treatment for the first time, Elined looked momentarily flustered.
‘……Did he oversleep or something?’
He looked tired.
Surely he wasn’t ignoring her.
The Dedenkman may be ahead, but Finjer was still superior.
Moreover, Villed too was not the heir, but the second son.
They stood on equal footing.
He had no reason to ignore her.
Yes, of course that must be it.
Elined opened her mouth again without caring too much.
“The exam is now less than a month away.”
“Right.”
Elined tried to continue the conversation.
……But.
As time passed, she realized Villed had no interest in her at all.
In the end, she could not have any meaningful conversation with Villed.
She let him go and sat in the library, lost in thought.
‘……Is he just pretending not to be interested in me?’
Why was that.
In the past, Villed enjoyed showing off and mingling with nobles.
‘At the entrance ceremony too, he approached me first. It was funny how hard he tried to win my favor.’
Back then, it was Elined who looked down on Villed and refused to associate with him.
In the early days, Villed had desperately gestured and begged for her favor.
Recalling that memory, Elined let out a hollow laugh.
‘……Don’t tell me, is he sulking because I didn’t accept him then?’
Was Villed such a narrow-minded man.
If it were the Villed of the past, it was plausible to think he could sulk over such a trivial matter.
But now she was half in doubt.
‘In these last few months, it feels like he’s become a different person.’
His usual vulgarity and sly nature had disappeared.
It felt as though he had laid down all his burdens and gained a calm composure.
‘I also heard rumors that he was abandoned by his family. Perhaps that’s what made him mature.’
The reason Villed had changed.
Elined wanted to know that.
‘And what exactly he’s plotting in the livestock shed.’
Could the environment have been the factor that changed even his personality.
While pondering how to recruit Villed as her ally, time passed, and it was soon the weekend.
“I will prepare the carriage.”
“No need.”
Elined rejected the butler’s offer and went outside alone.
This was the villa owned by the Finjer Family, built on Yggdrasil grounds.
If one were royalty or of the Four Great Families, they were permitted to have a villa within Yggdrasil.
‘But that Villed.’
He didn’t even have a small villa and was even expelled from the dormitory.
It was said he lived and ate in an unsanitary livestock shed.
For someone who had lived as a son of a high noble, how could he possibly survive in such a lowly place.
She wanted to see it with her own eyes.
‘Even the road to it is…….’
Elined let out a sigh.
The road to the farm where Villed stayed was unpaved, overgrown with weeds, and rough.
Her feet hurt with every step on the stones.
‘It’s so inconvenient, could he really be living there?’
Before she knew it, she arrived at the livestock shed, where an unfamiliar stench pricked her nose sharply.
“What is this smell…….”
Elined pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and covered her nose.
She was a high noble with no ties to livestock sheds.
She had never been exposed to the smells of the countryside in her life.
That was why her nose only grew more sensitive as she approached the shed.
“……”
Elined, as if bewitched, arrived at the livestock shed and could not speak for a while.
Moo.
It was a farm in every sense of the word.
Could it truly be that a noble lived here?
‘Villed, a high noble like me?’
While Elined belonged to a collateral branch, Villed was of the main family.
He must have lived a more affluent life than she had.
‘And yet…… he adapted to this situation?’
Unless he was someone with remarkable patience, it was impossible.
‘He even threw away his pride.’
What if Elined herself had been given the punishment of managing the livestock shed?
Setting aside the harsh environment, her pride would have been shattered.
Surely, she would not have lasted a single day before applying for expulsion.
Just imagining it was dreadful.
‘But where is Villed?’
She would rather have seen him working.
Even when she looked around the shed, no one was in sight.
Then, he must have been resting inside the building.
That one-story storage building just ahead.
‘Is that where Villed lives?’
When she stepped inside, Elined’s eyes widened.
“You people……?”
Villed was not the only one in the storage.
A red-haired cadet.
‘Keirin.’
One of the people Elined sought to recruit.
Though boisterous in personality, she was an unprecedented talent in Yggdrasil.
‘But why is she with Villed?’
No matter how sociable Keirin was, there was no reason to come all the way to this smelly place to play.
……Could it be.
‘Keirin too has recognized Villed’s talent.’
Like attracts like, they say.
The skilled naturally gathered around the skilled.
‘I know that person too.’
The crimson-haired woman, Rupina.
Though now employed as a low-level staff member in Yggdrasil.
She was an honor graduate who nearly became the runner-up last year with high marks.
One of the figures with promising potential.
She too must have recognized Villed’s talent.
‘……As expected, my eyes were not wrong.’
It reassured her, yet at the same time, she grew anxious at the thought of losing Villed to them.
‘But what about those two?’
Lapin, quietly eating cake, and Karin, avoiding her gaze.
They were just ordinary cadets with nothing remarkable.
Elined looked at them as though they were people who should not have been there.
‘Now that I think about it, at the final stage of Rekorox, those two followed Villed as well.’
They felt like attendants…… servants whom Villed brought along.
A few months ago, all the companions who hung out with Villed were nothing more than his underlings.
That, she could accept.
“Oh, isn’t this Lady Finjer? Nice to see you! Did you come to hang out too?”
Keirin greeted her with a bright smile.
“……Hello. Would you like some cake?”
Rupina bowed politely and suddenly offered cake.
Now she saw, they were sharing cake together.
‘……A cake party?’
Cake at a farm.
Elined shook her head.
“Don’t be like that, just have one bite! It’s really good! The best cake of my life! I’m not exaggerating!”
Keirin eagerly urged her.
‘…….’
It would not hurt to go along.
If she refused too many times, Keirin might come to dislike her.
“……Fine.”
As Elined agreed, Rupina handed her a plate and cake.
‘There isn’t even a proper table.’
They were using a wooden crate as a table while eating cake.
But Elined would not do the same.
It would lower her dignity.
Elined stood, holding the plate.
She cut the cake with a fork and placed a small piece in her mouth.
……Her eyes widened.
She wanted to exclaim, but too many eyes were watching.
She suppressed the words rising to her throat.
“Delicious, right? That unnie baked it herself. She said she’ll make a booth and sell them during the Victory Festival. Ah, but you’ll be attending the capital’s Victory Festival, so you won’t be able to come. That’s a pity, eat plenty today before you go!”
Keirin was chattering away, but her words did not register.
All her focus was on the astonishing cake.
‘……What was this made of, to be this delicious?’
The cake melted and disappeared in her mouth.
It was richer and smoother than the premium cheese of Longjeble, the land of cheese.
It surpassed even cakes made by five-star bakers using high-quality Alpine ingredients.
As Keirin said, it might indeed be the best cake of her life.
……If only the dining place were not a livestock shed storage.
“Ah, it’s already gone. There’s one piece left, here, have it too!”
“No. I’m fine.”
Ah.
Elined instantly regretted those words.
‘The truth is, I want another piece…….’
It was her habit to refuse in unfamiliar places.
Because Keirin and Rupina were looking at her with overly intense gazes, she got flustered and made a mistake.
‘Quick, ask me one more time.’
If Keirin offered again, she would reluctantly nod.
Elined gazed at Keirin with yearning eyes, waiting for her response.
“Really? That’s a shame. Then it can’t be helped. Unnie! Please give me the last piece!”
“…….”
Elined’s pupils shook as though struck by an earthquake.
Keirin took the cake and devoured it at once.
“I never get tired of it, no matter how much I eat. Unnie! I’ll definitely stop by your booth at the Victory Festival! Ah, though the student council might call me away, but if I can, I’ll go!”
Elined put down her plate and looked at Keirin with cold eyes.
She said it would be sold at the Victory Festival?
Yes, she would have her servant buy it for her.
She had to buy plenty and eat to her heart’s content…… no, wait a moment.
Elined caught her breath.
‘That wasn’t why I came here.’
It was so delicious she had lost focus.
Elined turned her gaze to Villed, who had been sitting quietly all along.
He too looked straight at Elined.
……As they kept their eyes locked, a few seconds passed.
Villed silently left the storage.
Elined quietly followed after him.
After walking some distance, it was Villed who spoke first.
“……What’s there to see in a shabby livestock shed.”
He turned back as he spoke.
“Why did you come here?”
His eyes, clear as a midday afternoon, were fixed on Elined.