Chapter 30
That day, Seria was in a particularly bad mood.
Because Senior Ian had not come to morning training. She did not know why. Given that it was Senior Ian, she could only assume there was some unavoidable reason.
She understood, but even so, she could not help feeling down.
It was the time she had been waiting and waiting for. It was one of the few moments when light shone upon Seria’s day, after she had spent all day enduring mockery and harassment.
Before she knew it, Seria’s day was measured not by the sun, but by Ian. Morning training with Ian marked the beginning of her day, and evening training with Ian marked its end.
The rest felt pointless. It was merely the same routine passing by as always.
It was the first time in her life that she had looked forward to spending time with someone and gone to bed with such an excited heart.
Her feelings were still faint, but Seria had lived a life more colorless than anyone’s. Like a colorblind person beginning to distinguish colors for the first time, she was gradually awakening to her emotions.
That was why Seria felt especially depressed today. She was displeased, and beyond that, even anxious.
If one went from eating food with salt and spices to eating unseasoned meat, one would be startled by its dry texture and distinctive gamey smell.
Seria was the same. If she had never known, it would not have bothered her.
But Seria had already tasted something exquisite. She was slowly becoming accustomed to the time she spent with Ian. And she wanted to become even more accustomed to it. That was how she had become.
The fact that Ian had disappeared from such a day tormented Seria beyond anything she could have imagined. An inexplicable urgency constricted her chest.
Seria recalled what had happened the previous day.
Ian, who had been quietly listening to Seria’s innermost thoughts, had suddenly sprung to his feet and left just like that.
He had looked extremely angry. Seria had been a little surprised.
First of all, she had been surprised that she had voluntarily revealed the story about her mother. Until then, House Yurdina had always regarded it as a disgrace, and so Seria had deliberately never told anyone about that day. It was a vulnerable spot of hers.
But when Seria had shown Senior Ian such a wretched sight that day, she had unwittingly confessed the memories she had kept tightly hidden. She could not understand it.
More surprising still had been Ian’s reaction after hearing the story.
Seria had expected him to pity or despise her. But Ian’s reaction had been neither.
He chose anger. When Seria said, “I’m all right,” he said, “You’re not all right.”
Not Seria, but himself.
Those words had left her utterly bewildered. Even when a weakness she herself had buried in her heart was prodded and she could do nothing but lower her head, admitting that it could not be helped, someone else had become angrier on her behalf.
It felt as though her chest were being squeezed tight.
She was even more worried about Ian.
Many people hated and harassed her. They were numerous to begin with, and some of them also possessed impressive family influence or personal abilities.
Seria entertained the futile worry that perhaps Ian, overcome by anger, had resorted to violence against them.
Even she knew it made no sense.
At most, she was merely a junior whom Ian was somewhat close to, was she not? Seria knew that too. She knew that although Senior Ian was the only person in the world to her, she was not the same to Ian.
That hurt, and even felt unfair, but it could not be helped. After all, Senior Ian was obviously someone who shone in the eyes of anyone who saw him.
He was capable of embracing even someone as inept at human relationships as herself. The Seria he thought of and the Ian she thought of could never be equals.
She only hoped that Senior Ian would not be hurt because of her.
Seria had already suffered far too many wounds, so she would not mind suffering a few more, but Ian was different. Before she knew it, she had come to cherish Ian that much.
What made Seria’s mood even worse was that she could still hear people mocking her today.
“Hey, that motherless bitch is coming.”
“Oh, that half-orphan?”
During swordsmanship practice, she heard the same snickering as always.
Half (half)-orphan? Was an orphan some kind of different race?
Normally, she would have pretended not to hear, but Seria was already anxious and unsettled because she had not seen Senior Ian.
Mockery and insults left even deeper wounds at times like this. She thought she had to endure, but Seria’s gaze grew cold of its own accord.
Her dark-blue eyes turned toward the source of the snickering. Three girls wearing brown cloaks were gathered there.
When Seria’s chilly gaze turned on them, they stopped snickering. Instead, they met her eyes with sickly smiles.
A look that said, So what are you going to do about it?
Her grip tightened around the hilt of her practice sword. If she made up her mind, knocking them down would be easy.
She was the top student in her year. Setting aside upperclassmen, there was no one among her peers who surpassed her. And those three did not even look familiar, so they were probably just mediocre nobodies who occupied the middle ranks at best.
They could draw aura and would be considered skilled outside the academy, but next to Seria, they were no more than trash.
Seria’s mana churned with the torrent of her emotions. A clean blue aura formed along her blade.
Killing intent. She genuinely wanted to swing her sword. But both she and the group mocking her knew.
That Seria could not swing her sword.
In the end, Seria bit down on her lip and extinguished the aura gathered on her sword. The aura vanished with a whoosh, like wind blowing out a candle.
It was proof not only of the amount of her mana, but also of her excellent control. If that blade danced, the group mocking Seria would be slaughtered in mere seconds.
But she could not do that. She needed a much clearer justification. Seria desperately hoped that one day, some of them would cross the line.
She did not love violence, but the excessive mockery and harassment of the past few days had gradually worn down her mind.
She had been enduring by looking only toward Senior Ian. But today, Senior Ian was absent. It was only natural that Seria’s patience had reached its limit.
Seeing Seria extinguish the aura, the three girls began snickering again.
An enemy whom they could not even begin to match in swordsmanship had to keep her mouth tightly shut despite their blatant mockery.
It was an incredibly enjoyable and amusing situation. At least for them.
The lowly pleasure of trampling a lofty being they could not even look at brushed along their spines. What a wonderful society this was.
No matter how powerful an individual was, they could not overcome the power of groups and rules. Their murky desires only fanned their mockery.
“Looks like she really didn’t receive a proper upbringing. Did you see the way she glared? Ugh, what an unpleasant bitch.”
“It’s not that she didn’t receive one properly; she only got half of one. She wouldn’t have gotten her mother’s share, after all, would she? Still, at least she held herself back at the end.”
More snickering.
Each word dug into a painful part of Seria. Memories of her mother, precious to her and just as much a nightmare.
Strangers who knew nothing about it were casually trampling those memories. And although they did not mock her directly, their sidelong gazes took subtle delight in it.
That baseless malice was harder to endure than usual today.
Seria’s body trembled. She wanted somehow to shake off that miserable feeling. She needed to focus her mind on her sword, but perhaps because her self-discipline was lacking, she could not make herself do so.
“She looks like she’s about to cry.”
“Let her cry. Looks like that rude bitch does have tears after all. But I guess she can’t stand hearing about her mother?”
“She’s gotten off easier thanks to Senior Ian, but he’s not here today. What’s she going to do now~”
Eventually, Seria’s cold gaze turned toward them again. She thought:
Even if she did not draw her sword, shouldn’t she say at least one thing?
Ignoring them was the wisest course.
They were the kind of people who took even more pleasure and delight the more one reacted. Having been mocked as lowborn since childhood, she knew them well—the ugly side of humanity that everyone possessed.
But reason could not always overpower emotion. Seria was in the worst mood possible, and she was sick to death of simply enduring and letting it pass.
Fine, she would say one thing.
She did not even know what she should say. Her unstable mind was commanding her to vent her anger to the fullest. Her speaking ability would not let her properly express even a tenth of it, but she decided to obey that command anyway.
Just as she, having made that decision, was about to take a step—
“……Stop it.”
A heavy voice rang through the swordsmanship training grounds.
The three women who had been mocking Seria flinched. Like children caught doing something bad.
That was how an atmosphere worked. No matter how bad an act was, if no one pointed it out, people treated it as though it were not wrong. But once someone began to point it out, everyone present finally realized
that it was wrong.
Everyone in the training grounds turned their gaze toward the place the voice had come from. The first to react were the three who had been mocking Seria.
Their brows drew together at once, and a harsh tone issued from their throats.
“What the hell do you think you’re…….”
The voice, sharp beyond measure at first, lost its edge.
Everyone’s expressions went blank. Seria was startled by the atmosphere sinking in an instant, and followed their gazes to find the source of the voice.
A man stood there.
Tean Aitri, a powerful figure from the Southern Kingdoms.
He was among the top-ranking third-year students. He did not match Seria, but even so, most of the students standing in the training grounds today could not defeat him.
That was why everyone could only stare wide-eyed in shock.
His face was a complete mess. It was swollen and covered in bruises; even those traces alone made it possible to guess how vicious the violence inflicted upon him had been.
With a face so battered that even his siblings might not recognize him, Tean sighed and scratched his head.
“You bastards got me beaten up for no reason, you fucking assholes…….”
As always, he spat out vulgar words.
The three women who had mocked Seria shuddered as goosebumps rose over their skin.