Chapter 88 October 3, 2022
Chapter 88 – Daily Life After Exams (2)
Lynne was just confused with the situation.
It was true that she’d been in danger after encountering the Santoni gang, and it was also true that she’d had the thought that she would like someone to help her.
However, if the someone who helped her was a person that she had never thought of, she was bound to be surprised.
Freuden Wolfsburg…
The legitimate heir to one of the three great dukes of the empire.
An aloof wolf leader who, even at his young age, led a faction and stood above the other aristocratic students within Sören.
Of course, Sören was full of eccentric people and those with superpowers who were not controlled by anyone and solved everything by themselves, but that did not mean that the light that the name Wolfsburg possessed would fade.
Freuden was staring at Santoni with a cold stare.
‘Senior, just like what has been rumored, you’re a really scary person.’
Rumors regarding Freuden were also famous among the commoners.
So when Lynne had first come across him, she’d been afraid.
She’d been surprised to find out that he was an unexpectedly easygoing person.
But Lynne was realizing that the rumors about Freuden were never wrong or misrepresented.
The energy that he radiated proved it.
“Why don’t you answer? Did I ask a difficult question?”
His languid voice began to be irritated.
Santoni felt the crisis of his life; he was sweating a lot and hurriedly opened his mouth.
“I-I was just educating a haughty commoner.”
“Haughty commoner, huh.”
Freuden’s gaze turned to Lynne as he muttered like that.
Uht.
Lynne trembled her body unconsciously. She froze up without even thinking about getting up from her spot.
Come to think of it, she wasn’t in a particularly welcoming situation.
The other person was Freuden Wolfsburg.
He was the head of the aristocratic students. On the contrary, she was just a commoner.
No matter how they had met before, wasn’t it that they’d only met once accidentally?
Between Santoni and her, it was obvious whose hand Freuden should hold.
“So?”
Freuden opened his mouth as he understood the whole situation.
“Right now, all of you, the four of you, want to educate one person?”
“Y-yes. Of course.”
“You, what’s your name?”
“My name is Santoni Oatmouth.”
“Oatmouth, hmm. Alright. Oatmouth count family, huh? I think I’ve vaguely heard of it.”
He couldn’t believe Freuden had heard of a family as big as a count’s only vaguely.
Santoni, who was likely to feel insulted, accepted that fact as if it was an obvious thing.
—Because the other person was someone who was in the position that made him able to do that.
“So, the son of the great Oatmouth count family was in such a remote place where the four of you gathered and bullied one commoner girl?”
“Wh-what do you mean ‘bullied’?”
One of the Santoni gang members, a female student, hurriedly made an excuse.
“It’s not like that. We were just educating her. Yes… We just wanted to educate her.”
“You call that educating?”
“Y-yes!”
Freuden was popular among the ladies not only because he was the head of an aristocratic faction but also because of his handsome appearance.
That was why the two ladies who’d gone along with Santoni also made desperate excuses in order to look good in front of Freuden.
—Without knowing that their actions bothered him even more instead.
“It’s all the fault of that commoner because she dared to block the path of aristocratic students and ignore our words.”
“Right! We were just trying to severely teach such a haughty commoner a lesson!”
At some point, Freuden frowned at the sight of the four people who believed that their actions were justice and started to get noisy.
“You’re noisy.”
“Sir Freuden?”
“It’s not enough for you to be loud, you’re disgusting as well.”
“P-pardon?”
The four people could not understand why Freuden was so blatantly hostile toward them.
Also, why was he staring at them with that kind of gaze?
Why on earth? They were just punishing one commoner. Why was he so angry?
Come to think of it, why was Freuden there without the aides who constantly assisted him?
“Sir Freuden. Is it because we interrupted your rest?”
They thought it would be possible if he was angry because he was deprived of his personal break time.
However, Santoni was far off the mark.
“You really don’t know?”
“P-pardon? What do you mean we don’t know? Or perhaps, is it because we’re doing something toward that one commoner girl…? Ha, hahaha. Impossible.”
Since he thought that it didn’t make sense, Santoni laughed tactlessly.
Freuden Wolfsburg was angry at the situation because he was worried about a commoner girl?
The head of an aristocratic faction? A dog that was walking by would laugh as well.
Ah. He knew why Freuden was like that… He was in a bad mood because they showed him a dirty commoner in front of his eyes.
Santoni bowed his head as he jumped recklessly to a conclusion.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your break time. We’ll take care of her in a quiet place.”
“…You really don’t seem to understand my words. You still don’t know why I’m angry?”
“Pardon? If that’s not the case, then what on earth…?”
“I can’t believe it.”
Freuden clicked his tongue and released his folded arms.
“It can’t be helped.”
“Pardon? What does that—”
It was the moment Santoni was about to ask something.
The atmosphere became many times heavier, pressing his body from top to bottom.
“Aargh!”
Santoni tripped and fell to the ground.
He looked ugly exactly like a frog.
Freuden looked down coldly at Santoni, who couldn’t even raise his head as he was laying with his face on the ground.
“S-Sir Freuden! What are you doing?”
Santoni’s friends stepped forward and asked Freuden as if they were quibbling over it.
But their protest was easily extinguished just like a candle in the wind when they faced Freuden’s gaze.
Freuden’s eyes went beyond him to the two aristocratic ladies who were watching the situation from behind.
The noble ladies shuddered at the sense of their skin getting cold due to his gaze.
“You still don’t know why I’m being like this?”
“P-pardon? We don’t know why Sir Freuden is doing this.”
“Nevermind. It’s not worth telling you too, anyway.”
Freuden blatantly clicked his tongue, and he lifted the spell that weighed on Santoni.
As he was barely freed from the pressure, Santoni gasped and raised his body.
His face was in tatters. His face had been stuck in the dirty ground, so it was covered with dirt, and his saliva and runny nose were all flowing out because of the pain.
His gaze toward Freuden was a mixture of anger, embarrassment, and fear.
“Leave the girl alone and go.”
“A-are you defending a commoner right now? Sir Freuden?”
“Commoner? What a joke.”
Freuden laughed while rolling up one corner of his mouth.
“I just didn’t want to see the faces of trash who are not noble-like. Why? Are you angry? Are you angry because you were suddenly beaten up?”
“N-no.”
Santoni immediately bowed his head.
No matter how he was the son of a count, his opponent was the legitimate heir of a duke.
Freuden’s greatness was not simply exaggerated, but he felt bitter when he was under Freuden’s spell.
There was no spellcasting process that could be seen—he was really beaten up without knowing anything.
He was also angry, but more than that, fear came first.
“Get lost. I won’t say it twice.”
Freuden hated repeating the same words.
Santoni and the ladies, who realized it from the occurrence, ran away in a hurry.
It was simply an ugly appearance that suited the defeated troops.
Lynne couldn’t even close her slightly opened mouth, and she was stuck watching the scene.
Freuden approached Lynne with a sigh as the Santoni’s group disappeared completely.
Lynne finally came to her senses.
“S-senior?”
“Get up.”
Freuden said so and stretched his hand out to Lynne.
Lynne looked at his face and hands in turn, and soon she got up using her own power as if saying she didn’t need the help.
Freuden shrugged his shoulders while pulling back his hand.
Lynne bowed her head to Freuden.
“…Thank you for helping me.”
“No problem. I just did what I had to do.”
“Th-then I’ll take my leave.”
Lynne sighed as she looked at her lunchbox that was scattered on the ground.
She had been spending a lot of money on textbooks those days, so she couldn’t believe the food she was barely able to prepare had rolled around on the dirty ground.
“Was it your lunch?”
“Yes.”
“Tsk. It’ll be hard to eat it like that. What are you going to do?”
“No, no! I’m okay! The potato here can still be eaten if I shake off some of its dirt.”
“…It fell to the ground, though?”
Lynne smiled awkwardly and immediately covered it up as if she didn’t actually mean what she said.
“Hehe. It’s a joke. I should just skip lunch. It’s good. It’s perfect to think that I’m on a diet.”
“You don’t seem to have any more fat to lose.”
“Thank you for looking at me in a good way.”
Lynne laughed bitterly. She was even grateful that Freuden was being considerate toward her.
Freuden, who was looking at Lynne for a moment, turned around and spoke.
“Follow me.”
“Pardon?”
“Because I was going to have lunch right now as well.”
“Oh… If it’s lunch, will you probably have lunch here, senior Freuden?”
“I like to eat in quiet places, you know.”
“Ah. Inside that park?”
“Yeah. And I basically pack my meals with my own hands.”
“Pardon?”
She had never heard of that before. Freuden asked her whether she would come or not.
Lynne was indecisive and thought that there was no use crying over spilled milk, so she followed Freuden.
The place that they arrived in after she followed him was the small garden that she had visited before.
Come to think of it, it was near that garden that Santoni had forcibly dragged her. Maybe that was why Freuden had come to check after hearing the fuss.
“It’s here.”
Freuden picked up a small bundle on one side of the vacant lot.
Inside it, there was a lunch box. Judging from its luxurious cover, it seemed that it indeed belonged to Freuden.
But the food inside it was more than that.
—Because it was full of luxurious-looking dishes that she couldn’t even imagine.
The food was even decorated to look good, so just looking at it made her mouth water.
“Is… is this your lunch?”
“Yeah. If it’s okay for you, we can share the food.”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t think I can eat it all by myself. When I was making it, I got too excited and made too much food.”
“Pardon?!”
Lynne had no choice but to shout.
He made it, he said? Was Freuden saying that he made this lunch box by himself?
“No way, did you make all of these?”
“Yeah. The cooks in my family are not that trustworthy. I’ve been reading books since I was seven, and I’ve always made my own meals.”
“S-since you were seven?”
Lynne’s head felt dizzy.
What did she do at that age?
Lynne tried to recall the past, but nothing came to her mind.
—Because she was an orphan with no parents and no home in the first place.
From what she could remember, she had grown up in a church, and when she grew up, she was noticed by an eccentric wizard, then she was taught miscellaneous magic.
And thanks to their preferential system, she was able to enter Sören.
“Now. Eat.”
“C-can I really do it?”
“Hurry.”
“Ah, yes.”
It was hard to refuse it since it was hard for her to endure being hungry, and even refusing it seemed impolite to the person who had saved her, so Lynne nodded.
And as soon as she picked up a piece of meat with the prepared fork, Lynne opened her eyes wide at the kaleidoscope of taste that burst in her mouth.
‘Oh, my Gosh. It’s very delicious!’
She enjoyed eating anything since she was a woman that wasn’t picky, but she wasn’t someone who couldn’t tell when food had sincerity in it.
Lynne realized just great Freuden was.
His family was nice, his appearance was cool, and he was even a nobleman who could cook dishes like that.
He was like the main character of a romance novel that was very popular among young ladies those days.
Lynne wondered why that kind of person took such good care of her.
Probably?
Lynne, who was having a secret expectation, shook her head.
‘Eii. Someone like me? He just did it because he’s a good person. Let’s just eat my food.’
As she ate something delicious, she felt like all the bad things that’d just happened were being washed away.
Freuden stared silently at the sight of Lynne eating her food.
***
Night had come.
The street lights lit by magic shone and lit the way, and lights that had not yet been extinguished leaked through the windows in various buildings.
I walked in the darkness that couldn’t be reached by such light.
The entrance of the Forest of Fantasy Dreams…
I’d made an appointment to meet in that place.
‘They still haven’t come yet.’
I arrived at the vacant lot where Professor Selena and the students had signed a contract with spirits back then, but I could feel no signs of presence in the surroundings.
Sometimes the faintly shining spirits appeared in the dark, but when they saw me, they ran away in surprise.
I was going to be facing the other First Order for the first time.
What kind of person they would be, and would they notice that I was not really Ludger Chelysie?
I was there in that place to confirm that.
[You came early, huh?]
A voice floated from the darkness.
At the same time, flames flashed through the air and soon turned into a fireball the size of a human fist.
I stared at the flame with a calm gaze.
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