Chapter 12
Belver’s resolve not to cause any trouble crumbled almost immediately, even if it hadn’t been his own choice to begin with.
The one saving grace was that, once again, only Roho heard that chick-like squeak.
It was a problem that Roho had heard it at all, but since it had already happened once, this was a lesser offense.
Who could have expected someone to come in calling out that loudly?
Bellatrix had said there was someone who could be a bit noisy.
He’d just assumed that even a noble young lady couldn’t be all that noisy.
Thanks to that, he’d been startled so badly that he had to calm his pounding heart in real time.
His embarrassment at Roho, sitting in front of him with a hand over her mouth as she giggled, only made it worse.
“Why are you calling me?”
“The kid’s really gone off the rails. Want big sis to fix you up?”
Belver frowned at the sudden, rude remark.
He’d been rude first, sure, but he’d clearly just been acting like Bellatrix.
He’d even confirmed that this was normal for them, and that nobody actually minded.
So he couldn’t understand why she was making such a rude remark.
Belver knew almost nothing about them, aside from what Bellatrix had told him.
Tiel, the heir to the Yellow Tower who’d been eagerly searching for Bellatrix, confidently claimed a seat at the front.
She wanted to savor this rare sight for as long as possible.
After all, Tiel had graduated and could no longer see her at the academy.
“Seeing you react like that in front of me, you must be Salazar. But you’ve strangely lost all your bite. Is the rumor true?”
Belver understood what she meant as he listened to her continue.
Bellatrix always added something whenever she told him not to speak.
Your voice has no bite to it at all, so you’d be better off not speaking.
If you try to imitate me, it’ll come out so awkwardly that it’ll only backfire.
So Tiel had figured out that he wasn’t Bellatrix just by hearing his voice.
His entire body tensed in an instant.
He’d been told there was absolutely no chance of that happening, but what if they figured out they’d switched bodies?
He clamped his mouth shut and didn’t say a word.
“Seems like it’s true. Roho, what do you think?”
“I welcome it. You have no idea how hard I’ve worked for this.”
Tiel heard Roho’s answer and smiled, stretching her lips into a wide grin.
She’d seen Belver tense up at her words and decided the rumor must be true.
Naturally, the rumor was that Bellatrix had started dating a commoner and completely changed as a person.
It was a huge misunderstanding, but she had no way of knowing the truth, so it was half right.
After all, the person herself had changed.
Roho beamed at Belver, who was sitting with his mouth firmly shut.
He’d been talking just fine until then, but as soon as someone new showed up, he stopped speaking altogether.
His expression was so cold that, at a glance, he looked just like the Bellatrix everyone knew.
If that had been all, Roho would’ve thought it was just some ordinary false rumor.
If she hadn’t met that man in person, she’d still be unsure whether to believe it.
“What is it about him that you like so much?”
If only he didn’t flinch whenever she poked at him like this.
Even though Roho was being much gentler than usual, his reaction was so obvious she couldn’t help believing it.
She’d even seen him wearing such daring underwear the other day.
Roho decided to probe a little more.
There were only three people at this tea party, so she was sure it would be fine to press him a little further.
She knew Tiel was a good person who could keep a secret, talkativeness aside.
“I saw you wearing something pretty daring about a month ago. Won’t you tell us about it? We’ve known each other a long time, so surely you can tell us something like that.”
Clatter! The chair Belver was sitting in shook violently for a moment.
Unless someone had played a prank by shaking his chair, it could only have been Belver moving.
After hearing her out, he remembered that day—the one so humiliating he could never forget it.
The day he wore that scrap of cloth he could barely call underwear.
How on earth did Roho know about that?
He tried to calm his heart, which was filling with embarrassment and shame.
Roho, having pressed him boldly, was sure she only needed to push a little more.
His reactions were so clear that the answer was obvious, whether she wanted to know it or not.
Tiel, meanwhile, couldn’t follow the conversation at all.
She was simply staring in amazement, mouth agape, as Roho took control and cornered Belver.
The great Bellatrix was making such a girlish expression.
What could possibly have happened to change someone so much? And what had he been wearing to make his ears turn so red? She was bursting with curiosity.
“That black—”
“I’ll tell you, just stop.”
In the end, Belver opened his mouth, defeated by his own humiliation.
The memory of that dreadful day was fresh in his mind, and he felt like he could die of embarrassment.
He wanted to throw himself face-down on the table and hide his face.
‘It’s too late to protect Bellatrix’s image anyway. Maybe I should just do it.’
For a moment, an irresistible temptation came over him, but he held back.
If he did that, he wouldn’t be able to face the consequences when he got back.
Instead, he decided he’d talk now.
It was just too embarrassing to keep his mouth shut.
Ting. The moment Belver spoke, Tiel was so shocked she nearly dropped her teaspoon.
In her experience, this was about the time Bellatrix would unleash a stream of curses or keep ignoring them.
But by Bellatrix’s standards, the request that came out was impossibly gentle. It felt completely out of place.
Where had all the venom that seemed to fill her entire body gone?
Suddenly, Tiel wished she’d accepted that assistant professor position at the academy after all.
“Sorry. You just startled me.”
“Where should we start? Tiel, is there anything you want to ask?”
“No. I’ll just listen this time.”
“My, what a surprise. You two must both have something good going on.”
Roho had kept the conversation going easily, but she was actually surprised.
She hadn’t expected Tiel to say she’d just listen from the sidelines.
Tiel had always taken the lead at tea parties.
Of course, it was a good thing for Roho, who wanted to find out all sorts of things.
She licked her lips slightly, like a beast that had found its prey.
“What kind of relationship do you have with him? You said you weren’t lovers, right?”
Pfft! Tiel, who’d been quietly listening, interrupted the conversation again.
She hadn’t expected them not to be lovers, given the way things were going.
She hurriedly cleaned up the tea she’d just sprayed with magic, then waved for Roho to continue.
“So what kind of relationship do you have? Are you still getting to know each other? Planning to confess? Or maybe you have an illicit little nighttime arrangement…?”
“Indecent…?”
The moment Belver heard the word indecent, he thought of the usual Bellatrix and answered without thinking.
It was largely Bellatrix’s fault for always teasing and harassing him with indecent pranks.
Only after speaking did he realize what he’d done and frantically wave his hands.
“Oh my…?”
“No! It’s not like that! We’re still getting to know each other!”
“Am I dreaming right now…? That absolute disaster is hanging on some man…?”
“It really isn’t like that!!”
Regardless, neither of them had any intention of believing him.
His hurried retraction, his uncharacteristically frantic behavior, and his face turning bright red—
Everything about the situation pointed to it being true.
He was only hiding it because he was embarrassed.
However, Roho considered Bellatrix a close friend and genuinely wanted to offer some advice.
Advice that would help without getting too involved.
“You could end up having a child, so be careful. I recommend letting your relationship deepen emotionally as well as physically before anything happens.”
“You should hurry and win his heart, too, sis. No matter how much you love him, don’t give yourself to him physically first.”
Belver felt like he was going to lose his mind.
How on earth could he clear up this misunderstanding?
At this rate, they’d think Bellatrix had given herself to a man to win his love.
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with any other way.
It was the biggest disaster he’d caused so far.
But Belver, desperate to fix things as quickly as possible, couldn’t think of anything else.
“I’m a vi...rgin!!”
In the end, Belver clenched both hands under the table, squeezed his eyes shut, and shrieked it out.
He couldn’t possibly have said it without going this far.
These were people he’d only just met, and yet he was declaring his purity out loud right in front of them.
It was too much for him.
Of course, it was hard for the people listening, too.
They’d been tossing out little jokes like basic 0th-circle spells, and then suddenly a 9th-circle annihilation spell came flying at them.
The two women fell silent in the face of Belver’s desperate proof of his purity.
No, they couldn’t say a thing.
The shock was just too great.
‘Tiel. Please don’t say anything.’
At times like this, the most helpful thing was to stay quiet.
Roho knew that.
But she wasn’t sure Tiel would, so she silently prayed for her to keep quiet.
Unfortunately, Tiel wasn’t perceptive enough to know that.
In the end, she stepped right on the one land mine in front of her.
“We’re sorry…? How can we help…?”
“Aaaaaah!!!!”
At last, Belver realized what he’d done and let out a shrill scream.
He’d caused a major disaster.