Chapter 18. No One Is Born a Hero (4)
Now that I looked closely, Yan’s clothes—who must’ve been supporting the professor far longer than I had—were so soaked you could barely tell their original color.
Behind the tent we had just exited, there wasn’t even a single oil lamp. It was dark and silent.
Still, thanks to the moonlight, I could clearly read Yan’s expression.
I stared quietly at his face for a moment, then slowly turned my head forward and thought:
‘He’s pale.’
He must have been really shocked. His face was completely drained of color, as white as a sheet.
Well, it makes sense. His professor had been on the brink of death, and he had to come find the students alone. I nodded quietly to myself.
I took off my jacket, turned it inside out, poured water from my canteen onto it, and began wringing out the blood.
Seeing me do this, Yan, who had also been wringing blood from the hem of his shirt, suddenly looked at me with a horrified expression and turned his head away sharply.
“Good grief, Edith Crowell. You really…”
I wasn’t even completely undressed—why such a strong reaction?
I still had a shirt on underneath, but Yan’s flustered reaction made me chuckle a bit.
“What’s this? Are you shy?”
“No, but why would you suddenly take your clothes off like that?!”
“I have a shirt on.”
“Still, it’s startling!”
“You’re being overly dramatic, given the situation.”
When I raised my eyebrows nonchalantly, Yan seemed to realize he overreacted and took off his gloves, rubbing his cheek with a clean hand and clearing his throat.
“If you don’t care, then never mind… Anyway, something definitely happened, right?”
“Seems so, Sir Gardwin.”
“Ugh, no need for the formality. Just call me Yan.”
I’d been waiting for him to say that. I quickly nodded and replied.
“As you command, Yan.”
He looked at me with an incredulous expression, but not an annoyed one.
He didn’t seem like someone who insisted on formalities anyway.
“That quick, huh?”
“I call Camilla by her name too, you know.”
“…Now that you mention it. Do you not remember me or something?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you remember where we first met?”
I paused while shaking off my clothes and tilted my head at his unexpected question.
Let’s see…
“…Was it that scuffle in the training arena with that student… Tambourine?”
“You really don’t remember. His name was Chester.”
…Wait, that wasn’t it?
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall meeting Yan before that incident.
I cautiously asked,
“Have we met somewhere else?”
“…Would this jog your memory? The day your room’s mirror was broken.”
“Oh.”
That damn mirror.
When I returned after regressing, it was already shattered. Ethan said he broke it. I remembered yelling at him for entering my room without permission.
But the exact events of that day… I couldn’t remember.
Whenever I returned from death, it was always the day after the curse, so what happened before that was always a blur.
So instead of answering, I quietly raised my hand and smoothed my hair.
“…”
“You really don’t remember?”
Yan watched me with a look of disbelief.
“Hmm…”
Like I had the time to remember such trivial things across hundreds of regressions.
I gently tilted my canteen and poured water over his bloodied hands as I whispered,
“Sorry. My memory’s not that great…”
“The dean never shuts up about how you’re a genius magician.”
“That’s unrelated… Anyway, what happened that day to make it so memorable?”
I had pretended to remember it in front of Ethan, so I might as well hear the full story from Yan.
I slowly tipped my canteen back upright and looked him straight in the eyes.
Yan gave several short, incredulous sighs as he rubbed his now clean, wet hands across his face and then finally began to speak.
“Well…”
*
Yan Gardwin, second son of the Count of Gardwin, had never seen anyone like this freshman in his entire life.
‘She forgot? Really?’
After throwing a tantrum like she was going to kill someone?
He never knew a young girl could be that terrifying.
It had happened about a week ago.
This year’s academy had been especially chaotic.
And it was all because of just one student.
He had heard that she was someone to watch out for.
A girl of commoner origin who only barely entered the academy because she had been adopted into a minor baron’s family. The academy only accepted nobles, after all.
And yet her skills were so extraordinary that even the notoriously aloof dean was protective of her.
Among students, however, her reputation was the worst.
But Yan and Ethan, both seniors in swordsmanship training, were too busy to encounter this infamous freshman themselves.
So that day was the first time they met Edith Crowell.
Technically, they had gone looking for her.
“She’s insane. Isn’t she way too arrogant for a freshman?”
“Right? Ever since she got picked for the subjugation squad, she’s been acting high and mighty…”
“She’s just a commoner pretending to be a noble. We need to put her in her place.”
On their way back from sparring, they overheard murmurs that sounded far from harmless.
Yan exchanged a glance with Ethan and scanned the situation.
There was a tense, excited buzz among the students.
What’s going on…?
“Ugh!”
A scream rang out from the direction of the old dormitory, not far from the arena.
It was a deep voice—definitely not a girl’s—but Yan somehow felt it was related to that freshman.
“Let’s check it out.”
“Yeah.”
Apparently, Ethan felt the same. Without hesitation, they both ran toward the old dorm.
A crowd had gathered in front of a room.
“Excuse me.”
Pushing through, they entered the room—only to see a small girl with wild pink hair being held down by several students.
That must be the infamous freshman.
The atmosphere was dangerously hostile. She must’ve been scared—
“Let go of me. Or I’ll really kill you. I said get out of my room.”
Scared…?
No. Not even close.
Even surrounded and restrained, her golden eyes burned with rage.
As if she was ready to tear her enemies limb from limb.
“Tch. Anyone can talk tough. Look at her acting all high and mighty—”
And the boy standing in front of her had a badly swollen cheek.
“All this over a stupid letter? Typical of lowborns, hoarding what little they get…”
He sneered as he muttered, flicking a ripped envelope in his fingers.
The freshman’s eyes widened as they locked onto it.
“Take your filthy hands off my letter. Do you want to die?!”
…Ah.
Yan immediately understood the situation.
This was the freshman’s room. That letter was the cause of all this.
And the boy? The youngest son of the Marquis of Phellos.
Everyone at the academy knew his family had disowned him.
So he was probably jealous of the letter she received from her own family.
But still…
‘This is getting dangerous.’
There was no way words alone could calm this down.
There was only one option: go get the dean, who doted on her.
Yan turned to leave—
CRASH!
“……”
A loud crash echoed through the room, followed by silence.
All eyes turned to the shattered mirror.
And standing in front of it—no, the one who had broken it—was…
“…P-Prince Behemoth.”
Ethan Behemoth.
Yan had been friends with him for a long time, but even he sometimes thought Ethan was out of his mind.
Like now.
Who punches a mirror with their bare hand?!
While everyone else was frozen in shock, Ethan spoke calmly.
“What exactly is going on here?”
“I should be the one asking—”
The freshman dared to speak, but the boy who’d started it all quickly interrupted.
“Oh, it’s nothing serious. She was being disrespectful to her seniors, so we were just giving her a little lesson. Nothing for you to worry about…”
Ethan stared silently at him, then jerked his chin.
“Get out.”
“…What?”
“I said, get out.”
“Oh… You mean, you’ll handle her yourself, Prince Behemoth? No need, really—”
The boy chuckled awkwardly and rubbed his swollen cheek.
Ethan stared at him as if he were dirt.
Then he shook his head slowly.
“No. You misunderstood.”
“…Excuse me?”
“You all need a lesson. Come with me. Every one of you.”
“W-What?!”
There wasn’t a single student in that room who could defy Ethan Behemoth.
So the crowd of boys quickly filed out behind him, leaving the freshman alone.
Looking around, it seemed the crowd outside had also dispersed, thinking Ethan’s side of the story was more interesting.
Yan hesitated, then stepped into the room and spoke.
“…You okay?”
“…Ugh. What the hell…”
The pink-haired girl roughly pushed her tangled hair back and bit her lip.
Rough and disheveled as she was, her looks were undeniably striking.
“Damn nobles… are they thugs or what? I’ll freaking kill them…”
If only her mouth wasn’t so foul.
