Chapter 60
I clicked my tongue as I watched Kairen’s stiffly frozen back.
‘At this rate, he’ll punch a hole through his notebook.’
Kairen wasn’t writing down the lesson right now. He was writing down his family’s honor and his own pride.
The northern faction, in particular, had an unpredictable element.
Elysia, sitting right beside Kara.
As the heroine, getting caught up in trouble was practically part of her job description.
‘She needs to behave if she wants to preserve our score.’
I felt a strange sense of sympathy as I looked at Kairen’s shoulders.
In any case, we planned to attend for only a year before taking a leave of absence or withdrawing because of childbirth and childcare, but I had no intention of obstructing Kairen’s future in the meantime.
'Right. We just need to behave and avoid losing any points.'
With that resolution, I turned my eyes back toward the blackboard.
Whoosh-.
While Professor Mess was looking at the blackboard, something came flying through the air.
The white object traced a parabola straight toward the back of Kairen’s head.
Tap.
“......”
The room was silent.
There was no major commotion.
The white object caught in Kairen’s black hair.
Perhaps sensing something strange, Kairen rubbed the back of his head, and the white object fell limply away.
It was a wad of crumpled paper.
There had been no noise, but since Kairen was sitting in the very front, many undergraduates had witnessed it, and the atmosphere in the classroom instantly turned icy.
Every student who had been taking notes turned their gaze toward Kairen.
But Kairen....
Didn’t turn around.
‘He endured it?’
I was secretly impressed.
If he had still possessed his original personality, he would have jumped to his feet and loudly confronted the culprit, but all he did was tremble while gripping his pen and endure it without turning his head.
He had grown so much.
With Karl by his side and the sense of accomplishment from banishing the shadow over his family through his own efforts before enrolling, Kairen had become even stronger.
However....
Kara and I, barbarians to the very marrow of our bones, couldn’t hold back.
We both frowned and traced the paper’s trajectory.
At the starting point of that trajectory was a familiar face.
Rainer, the eldest son of the Roider marquisate, who had been trembling in fear at the entrance ceremony unlike in the original story.
‘That bastard....’
Rainer was covering his mouth and snickering.
He had taken advantage of the fact that I was sitting far away from Kairen and launched an attack while he had the chance.
And he had done it very shrewdly.
‘He’s turning the president’s faction-based competition assessment against us.’
If Kairen reacted and caused a commotion, he would lose points for disrupting class.
Even if Kairen endured it, Rainer could keep harassing him from the very first day, causing those around him to lower their guard toward Kairen and eventually disregard him instead.
Moreover, Kairen was younger than the other freshmen, making him an easy target.
Even if he was the Grand Duke’s second son, the other undergraduates were also children of powerful families.
And if Rainer invoked the excuse that this was a strategy within the framework the president had established, Kairen alone would be made to look like a fool.
Either way, it was a loss for Kairen.
‘What a pathetic little man.’
It was an utterly underhanded scheme.
In a way, he was carrying out a strategy of covert maneuvering from the very first day of enrollment, under the framework the president had laid out.
The hand that had been fiddling with my thigh suddenly stopped.
“How irritating....”
The sweet atmosphere instantly turned murderous.
“Are all the Empire’s men this underhanded?”
“Endure it, Kara. If we move now, Kairen will lose points too.”
I hurriedly pressed down on Kara’s shoulder.
If we stepped in here, Rainer would get exactly what he wanted: the northern faction would be deemed to have disrupted class.
Rainer knew that too.
Seeing that we couldn’t move, he seemed to get even more excited and pulled another wad of paper from his desk drawer.
Then he aimed it at Kairen in full view of everyone.
“Hng!”
‘Hm?’
Just then, a small battle cry came from beside me.
It was Elysia’s battle cry.
Though it had been a one-sided conversation, she apparently couldn’t bear to keep watching Kairen, who had listened to her story at the entrance ceremony, get bullied, so she blushed and attempted a timid revenge.
A wad of crumpled paper flew from her hand toward Rainer.
‘Wait, it looks like she threw it without even checking whether the professor was watching...? More importantly....’
The wad of paper lost its momentum before it even reached Rainer.
Then it curved along an absurd trajectory that seemed to defy physics....
Plop.
It landed on top of Professor Mess’s glasses as he passionately wrote on the board.
‘She’s unbelievably bad at throwing...!’
“......”
Silence descended over the classroom.
The chalk stopped on the blackboard.
A vein bulged on Professor Mess’s forehead.
Then, very slowly—so slowly—he picked up the wad of paper caught on his glasses and turned around.
“During class... which bird—no, who is throwing trash onto the sacred lectern...?”
The professor’s gaze turned precisely toward our group, where Elysia was sitting.
“Ah.”
Elysia hid behind Kara’s back, but it was already too late.
The professor’s eyes narrowed sharply.
“The culprit is in the northern faction.”
Then Kairen’s shoulders, seated in the very front row, visibly jerked before....
They slumped limply.
"The northern faction is docked three points."
As I watched Kairen’s bowed back, I quietly made the sign of the cross.
I’m sorry, Kairen.
I can’t do anything about the heroine....
* * *
Ding.
“We’ll take a ten-minute break.”
The bell announcing the break rang out.
But the air in the classroom remained heavy.
The atmosphere around the northern faction in particular was like that of a funeral parlor.
“......”
Kairen rose from his seat.
With not a single movement out of place, he walked to the lectern.
Professor Mess clicked his tongue and held out a sheet of paper.
【 Faction Representative Deduction Confirmation Form 】
- Reason: Throwing a foreign object during class and causing a disturbance.
- Subject of deduction: Kairen von Northgard, representative of the northern faction.
- Score: -3 points.
He was too ashamed to raise his head.
He had lost points from the very first class on his first day of enrollment.
Worse, it was collective responsibility for a mistake made by the imperial princess, not by him.
Scratch, scratch.
Kairen picked up the pen and signed without saying a word.
The sound of the nib scraping across the paper seemed unusually loud.
Watching him, Elysia approached the lectern with a miserable expression and hesitant steps.
She knew she was at fault too, and her fingertips were trembling.
“Um, excuse me... Kai... ren....”
Elysia spoke in a tiny, timid voice with her head bowed low.
“I’m sorry... It’s because of me.... I lost my temper for no reason....”
Tears looked ready to spill from her eyes at any moment.
Laughter came from the students in the other factions around them, especially Rainer’s group.
The imperial princess bowing her head while the Grand Duke’s second son received penalty points.
The western faction had scored a major coup from the very first class.
“Raise your head.”
Without stopping his signature, Kairen spoke in a steady voice.
“Yes...?”
“Do not bow your head in front of everyone, Your Highness.”
Kairen drew the final stroke, then set the pen down with a sharp click.
He slowly turned his head and looked at Elysia.
“Points are nothing. We can earn them back. I can’t stand seeing one of my people, especially Your Highness, being looked down on over a few numbers.”
“Ah....”
“And....”
Kairen lifted the corner of his mouth slightly.
It was faint, but it took the shape of a smile.
“Thank you. For getting angry on my behalf.”
Elysia’s eyes widened.
“B-but....”
But Kairen immediately hardened his expression again and added,
“Next time, be a little more tactical. Acting on impulse will only cause trouble.”
“......What?”
“If you’re going to throw something, at least hit your target, or make sure no one catches you. I’ll teach you next time.”
Kairen gave Elysia a light bow and returned to his seat.
His back looked somehow a little sturdier.
I smacked my lips as I watched Kairen fondly, seeing that he knew how to protect a subordinate who had made a mistake.
‘He’s grown so much.’
If he had been the Kairen from the original story, he would have gotten angry at Elysia or blushed with embarrassment.
But the Kairen of now knew how to build a fence around those who were his people.
In that case.
“Kara.”
I lightly tapped Kara’s shoulder as she stared daggers at Rainer, having forgotten all about touching my thigh and now having a fire in her eyes.
Kara was still glaring at Rainer while cracking her knuckles one by one.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to touch my thigh next class.”
“Hm? Why? It’s warm there, Varg. I like it.”
“Because I’m moving seats.”
“Seats? Where?”
Instead of answering, I rose from my chair.
Boom-.
The classroom floor trembled faintly with a heavy sound.
The chair screamed as it reveled in its liberation.
When a man nearly eight feet tall stood up, a shadow fell over the rear of the classroom, muting its colors.
I cracked my neck from side to side with a series of pops and walked toward the middle row where Rainer was sitting.
Thud, thud.
A bear was coming their way.
At that simple yet terrifying realization, Rainer’s snickering slowly died.
‘W-what? Is he actually looking for a fight...?’
Rainer’s eyes wavered.
He tried to sink deep into his chair and avoid my gaze.
Was I actually going to hit him?
With the professor still watching?
Those thoughts must have flashed through his mind.
But, surprisingly, I hate violence.
More precisely, I hate the kind of violence that means going out of my way to step on ants bent over their hard work.
Or hunting squirrels with barely any meat on them.
I passed by Rainer.
Then I stopped in front of the desk in the row directly ahead of him.
Swoosh.
My shadow completely covered the desk.
“Hic!”
The two male students organizing their writing instruments looked up, then were so overwhelmed by the grandeur of my chest muscles that they hiccupped.
“Excuse me.”
I gave them the most benevolent smile in the world.
Of course, because of my facial scars and enormous build, that smile might have been interpreted as meaning, ‘You’re lunch today.’
“Would you mind giving up your seats? I can’t see the blackboard very well from the back. My eyesight is poor, so it’s difficult to concentrate on my studies.”
“......What?”
The students looked back and forth between my eyes, my forearms, and Kara approaching from behind.
Poor eyesight?
With eyes like these, I looked as though I could gut a rabbit from a kilometer away.
But perhaps because they were all children of well-off families, they were sensible.
Their survival instincts whispered to their reason, telling it to come to its senses.
“Ah, yes! Of course! I wanted to move to the back anyway!”
“Here! Sit here! Shall I wipe down the desk for you?”
They hurriedly gathered their belongings and stood up.
The moment a seat became available, I plopped down into it.
Screeech.
This chair screamed too.
“Huh? W-wait! What about me? Can I sit beside you too?”
Elysia, quick to read the situation, came running over.
Then she gazed at the student sitting beside Rainer—one of his followers—with sparkling eyes.
“Ah, please, go ahead....”
That student, too, couldn’t withstand the imperial princess’s overbearing gaze and moved aside.
Our formation was now complete.
I leaned back in my chair with a satisfied expression.
Creeeak.
My enormous back filled the entire front of Rainer’s desk.
It didn’t just fill it; it overflowed beyond it.
“......”
I heard someone behind me inhale sharply.
Without turning my head, I merely strained my ears.
‘I can’t see anything....’
I could hear the despair in Rainer’s thoughts.
He couldn’t see the blackboard, let alone the crown of the professor’s head.
The only things filling Rainer’s vision were my massive back and my trapezius muscles, bulging as if they might burst through my clothes.
To throw paper at Kairen....
He would have to throw it over my head, which meant launching it almost vertically.
Even if he tried throwing it sideways, my shoulders completely filled the space on either side, leaving him no angle.
Above all, whenever Rainer fidgeted, I leaned my chair farther back, crowding him.
Boom.
“Ugh.”
The backrest of my chair pushed against Rainer’s desk.
Rainer’s desk pressed into his solar plexus.
Now Rainer couldn’t even breathe deeply.
“Wow, honey. I can see the blackboard really well now, can’t I?”
Kara giggled as she clung to my arm.
She deliberately raised her voice and called toward the back.
“Thank you, classmates! Thanks to you, my husband can study now!”
I could hear Rainer grinding his teeth, but I magnanimously ignored it.
‘If he hit me once, I’d be grateful.’
That would put the western side at a disadvantage.
Because then the western representative would lose points.