Chapter 420 – Eavesdropping.

“That woman can’t keep getting away with it! Let’s go to one of the Professors. How about we inform Professor Imari? I bet she would clear it up with the Department which is sheltering her! Even her status won’t be able to protect her now.”

“N-no, it’s fine Margaret. I just did something I wasn’t supposed to… I shouldn’t have gone to the training grounds at night…”

A young girl with fire-red hair and eyes to match them continued speaking loudly while confronting another girl her age. The other one had her head slumped down while muttering replies quietly. She had neck-long golden hair and bright green eyes to accompany them. She was playing around with some bandages that were around both her arms to help cure her recently suffered injuries.

“You went to the training grounds? Unsupervised?”

“Yes, I was just trying to gather some ingredients for a class…”

“… If I recall correctly, you still haven’t made up for the last demerit… If I report this to the professors…”

“I will also get punished, nothing really happened, one of the teachers intervened, they also helped me get treated.”

“They did? They didn’t inform any of the professors?”

“I don’t think so.”

The girl with the fiery hair squinted her eyes as she realized that something didn’t add up here. Meanwhile, Roland stood frozen outside the room, absorbing the unexpected turn of events. The name Lucienne Arden brought back memories of his time in the Arden estate, and now he found himself eavesdropping on a conversation about her in this magical academy. The two girls inside seemed to be having a heated discussion about Lucienne’s recent actions.

‘I was expecting the possibility…’

He had known about his sister’s mage class and that she was probably going to be sent to this Institute to study. However, his plan was to go unnoticed by just sitting in the library for the whole day while doing his research. Because of some unexpected events, he was now forced to wander around the school grounds as an Assistant Professor and even take part in some lectures. The danger of his sister encountering him had been magnified and now by a stroke of chance, he had been made aware of her presence.

‘But now that I know that she is here, it will probably be easy to avoid her…’

While she was there, this wasn’t the end of the world. He was part of the staff in the academy and was also free to keep his armor on and hide his face. His helmet could mask his voice, and the two interacted with each other when she was just three years of age. However, there was another problem; his sister seemed to be in some sort of trouble. The way she was stuttering and evading questions was strange. The fact that the other girl was mentioning a third party made it a possibility that she was being bullied or targeted by someone of higher status.

‘Is she getting bullied by others or …’

Roland couldn’t help but wonder what this was all about. His ties to his old family were very shallow, and even Robert, who was aware of his existence, hadn’t contacted him in a while. This sister of his here was mostly a stranger, someone that he rarely interacted with. Yet, his intelligence stat made him remember her bubbly demeanor quite vividly. For some reason, the more he eavesdropped on the conversation, the more his fist was clenched as a feeling of anger washed over him.

“Let me look at those wounds at least, they really should hire some priests…”

As he was contemplating what to do, he witnessed a peculiar sight. The girl called Margaret, for some reason, was wearing a gown instead of the school uniform, and removed one of the long gloves she was wearing. The magical academy wasn’t just here to teach magic; the children that attended it could sign up for a various array of lessons, and apparently, ballroom dancing was one of them.

His eyes were drawn to the back of her hand as he could feel her activating mana. It didn’t seem to be an attack spell but something different entirely, and a strange symbol lit up. It wasn’t a rune, nor was it an enchantment; instead, it looked more like a glyph. Glyphs were an entirely different magical language, and it was associated with summoning magic.

The symbol continued to glow, and the spell effect started taking place. Mana gathered in one direction to produce something that looked like a large soap bubble, from within which a strange creature appeared. The bubble burst to reveal a floating ball that seemed rather fluffy. Soon, it revealed small wings along with a tiny horn under which rather large eyes were present. A summoning took place, and the strange monster that was created resembled a cute angelic plush toy.

“If you wouldn’t”

“Chuu!”

The creature responded in a rather cute sound before turning towards the injuries that Lucienne suffered. A strange aura descended on the afflicted part, somewhat similar to divine healing spells but somewhat different. However, the healing effect was still there, and while less potent than the ones used by clerics, it started working. It was rather slow-working, but it was helping with the wounds. As the two continued to be oblivious to his whereabouts, he took a glance at their statuses.

First was Lucienne again; her level was extremely low for her age, and she had not even reached a second-tier 1 class. Adventurers of a similar age would usually be in their second tier 1 class. However, for someone studying in a magic institute, this wasn’t that strange, as the children here were leveling up their skills first. The school believed that this was the best way of going forward, as more maxed-out skills in various fields allowed for better class choices further down the line.

It was the same for Robert, who attended the nearby knight academy. Every knight candidate needed to learn all the beginner weapons skills before they were allowed to fight monsters. Roland, on the other hand, took a faster route by highly focusing on rune-related skills and was now a rare tier 3 class holder in his early twenties. With the help of the Knight Academy or the Institute, leveling was rather safe and quick later on.

Within a few years, nobles attending these places could catch up to adventurer veterans and then surpass them as they built up a much better foundation. It wasn’t strange that his sister’s level was low, but it made visiting a place like the training grounds an odd decision. She clearly was not a capable fighter and would have maybe even died if a teacher didn’t intervene.

From what he knew, she had a hidden skill that was related to prophecies. It was a rare skill that would allow her to select a more specialized class later. Sometimes people were given such skills, which they needed to fully awaken, and in this case for Lucienne, it was called the ‘Lesser Clairvoyance’ skill. Her skills weren’t meant for battle but more for information gathering and support, things weren’t adding up and the bullying allegations seemed to be more plausible.

Roland wasn’t a stranger to such occurrences, as he had seen it happen many times in his past life. Kids could be quite cruel, and some of them went overboard without ever realizing the consequences. When he took this truth into account and coupled it with a world that had a caste system, which was even reinforced in this academy, it was a recipe for disaster.

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‘Hm? That’s strange…’

As he turned his eyes towards the girl named Margaret to examine her status screen, he noticed something strange. She clearly had a fake status screen; he had examined people for long enough to know. On her body, there was an item that was altering something about it, but without identifying the item and altering it, he wouldn’t know. Before he could do this, the strange flying creature turned towards the room entrance, as if it reacted to its master being examined.

“Chuu?”