Originally, the evaluations for the head students were scheduled for one month after the start of the term, allowing candidates time to review their studies and practice magic at school. However, such a commotion had broken out during this year’s opening ceremony, with words like blasphemy even being spoken aloud. Even if Prince Eisen did not care about the Saintess’s reputation, he still had to care about the impact this would have on the royal family, so certain changes naturally had to be made.
Consequently, the evaluation period for the head student of each department this year was moved up to the second week of the semester.
Before the evaluations, everyone’s attention was focused on the two major front-runner candidates in the Department of Magic.
Especially when Saintess Betty entered the third-year classroom of the Department of Magic as a transfer student, the entire class, from the students to the course professors, was extremely excited. They watched with great anticipation to see Cynthia’s reaction and inwardly speculated on how things would unfold next.
They had all assumed that Betty would study as a first-year student and that, come evaluation time, regardless of whether she won or lost, the scene wouldn’t look too ugly. But who could have imagined that the Saintess and the royal family would be so rigid? Weren’t they afraid that losing would make them look unsightly?
If I were Cynthia, I would definitely feel this was bare-faced humiliation.
Cynthia’s reaction, however, was no reaction. She just lowered her head to read her book, not even giving Betty a single glance.
This wasn’t anything rare; she had already seen it all in her past life. As for the humiliation, between her past and present lives, hadn’t the royal family and the Saintess humiliated her enough already? Compared to those, this was nothing at all.
Unexpectedly, however, before class started, Betty actually took the initiative to walk up to Cynthia and said timidly, “Miss Cotton.”
Cynthia raised her eyes to look at her, maintaining her attitude at the absolute minimum standard of superficial friendliness: “You can just call me Cynthia, Lady Saintess.”
“Oh, Cynthia.” Betty repeated dryly, and then said, “Regarding the evaluation, I’m very sorry.”
“That really is surprising.” Cynthia gave a fake smile. “You are the representative of the gods. I originally thought that you could make your own decisions regarding anything concerning yourself.”
“It was Mita who said I had the strength and that I should give it a try,” Betty stammered. “But I didn’t know that was your seat, nor did I know about the evaluations.”
Hearing Betty put it this way, the surrounding listeners couldn’t help but complain about their crown prince in their hearts, thinking that Lady Saintess was just a fragile girl who had just arrived, so what could she possibly understand?
Who would have thought she would proactively come to Cynthia to seek a truce? She truly is such a kind and magnanimous girl.
“If I were a member of the royal family and heard your words, I would certainly be heartbroken.” Cynthia put down her book. “You must know that their choice of you as the head student is an expression of trust in your ability, as well as a measure to elevate your reputation. They were even willing to sacrifice the dignity of a high-ranking noble and the trust of some students for this, simply because they felt you were worth it.”
“Yet, listen to what you just said, My Lady. You have cast all the blame onto His Highness Mita who helped you, and shifted all responsibility onto Prince Eisen who has the final say, while you remain the poor, good girl who knew nothing about it and even came to apologize to me.”
Cynthia summarized with a fake smile: “If possible, I would rather you had come to declare war on me. At the very least, that would show you are willing to stand on the same front line as them.”
It was true that she hated Mita and those members of the royal family, but she hated Betty even more, someone who acted as a vested beneficiary while hiding behind Mita and pitifully playing the innocent.
Normally, if they stayed out of each other’s way and didn’t have to look at each other, that would be one thing, but Betty just had to crowd in front of her to say these hypocritical words.
It was utterly disgusting.
Stung by her words, Betty’s face turned alternating shades of green and red as she stammered in self-defense: “I didn’t. I didn’t mean to. I just thought you weren’t a bad person.”
“If this can keep you and the royal family of one mind, I wouldn’t mind playing the bad person.” Cynthia picked her book back up and shooed her away. “Class is already in session, My Lady. I imagine the professor and our classmates have been waiting for you for quite some time, and it’s about time you returned to your seat.”
As if only then noticing that everyone around was watching her, Betty’s face flushed crimson. She hurried back to her seat, keeping her head down and pretending to read.
The professor withdrew his gaze with a look of mild regret: “Alright, let’s begin class.”
The first direct friction between Cynthia and Betty was quickly spread around. By lunchtime, even Antcana, who was far away working as a teaching assistant in the medical department, knew about it.
“Wow, given the aura you had at the training ground yesterday, I thought you were going to beat her up directly,” Antcana said while biting into a sandwich. “But after listening to everyone’s retellings, I feel like what you did is way more vicious than beating her up.”
Cynthia swallowed the food in her mouth before replying, “That was in the middle of class; how could I possibly make a move against a classmate? I’d get expelled.”
“So doing it in private is fine then?” Antcana chuckled mischievously. “Just tell me when you’re going to strike, and I’ll go with you, lest the poor Saintess gets beaten to death by you.”
“How could I be that cruel?”
“You certainly wouldn’t be to anyone else, but it’s hard to say when it comes to the Saintess. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you hate someone this much.” Antcana finished speaking, then asked, “Where’s that child Lilica? I remember the humanities classroom is nearby; why didn’t she come over to have lunch together?”
“She isn’t feeling well and asked for leave.” Cynthia sighed. “And this is only the first day of school.”
“Then what about her classes?” Antcana asked with concern. “Didn’t they say the humanities curriculum is very heavy? It’s way too biased toward theory because there are no practical subjects.”
“I’ll go check on her after school. If she’s doing well, I’ll explain things to her.” Cynthia said with modest confidence, “It’s just that I haven’t received my textbooks yet, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to explain it clearly.”
“You shouldn’t, right?” Antcana disapproved. “Aren’t you still busy preparing for the head student business? Will you even have the bandwidth for that?”
“But she was brought here by me; I can’t just leave her hanging there and ignore her.”
“Then I’ll go instead. Anyway, I don’t need to participate in those matters.” As an official member of the Royal Healer Corps, Antcana’s identity made it inappropriate for her to participate in such school evaluations, so she had always stayed out of them. “I can give Lilica a treatment while I’m at it. Even if it can’t cure her, temporarily easing the pain is still a good thing.”
“Then I’ll leave it to you.” Before Cynthia could finish her sentence, she saw a few students walking toward them, their expressions and attitudes looking quite unfriendly. “Who are you?”
“Miss Cotton.” The leader was a ginger-haired boy holding a magic staff, who said sternly, “We heard that you had a dispute with Lady Saintess in class.”
Cynthia glanced briefly at his hair color, packed up her unfinished lunch, and asked again, “May I ask the purpose of your visit?”
“We hope you will publicly apologize to Lady Saintess and reflect on your disrespect toward her,” the ginger-haired boy stated. “This is an offense against the gods. If you refuse, we will challenge you to a duel.”
Antcana’s eyes lit up. Right there on the spot, she furiously inhaled half a sandwich into her stomach.
How bizarre; there were actually people coming to Cynthia to humiliate themselves. Even if these kids were freshmen, they should have at least bothered to check what level of person someone had to be to snatch the magic department head student position purely through strength right upon enrollment.
“Oh, I think I understand what you mean.” Cynthia placed her lunch basket beside Antcana’s hand, straightened her clothes, and stood up. “Private fights are not allowed in school. I am going to apply for a training ground for an honorable duel right now. Which one of you is stepping up from your side?”
The opposite side clearly hadn’t expected that Cynthia, a high-ranking noble, wouldn’t even offer a defense and would jump straight to action.
They exchanged bewildered glances with one another. In the end, the ginger-haired leader bravely raised his head and loudly declared, “I will fight for the honor of Lady Saintess!”
“Splendid. Then come with me, assuming you’ve also decided to give up your lunch.” Cynthia nodded. “The rest of you don’t need to follow. In the school, I won’t do anything excessive to him.”
“Instead of worrying about me, you all ought to go find the teachers in the humanities department to learn the etiquette commoners should observe when facing nobles. I appreciate your actions of fighting for your convictions and will not pursue accountability for your behavior this time, but that doesn’t mean other nobles are as lenient as I am.”
With that, she led the ginger-haired boy toward the training ground.
Left behind in their original spots, the remaining few looked at each other in dismay, none of them having any idea where they had gone wrong to deserve such a critique.
Antcana, having finished off her lunch, kindly reminded them: “The Cotton family belongs to the high nobility, and Cynthia also holds the title of the prince’s fiancée. According to etiquette, the vast majority of people are supposed to walk up and greet her first when they see her. It’s just that usually there are too many people in class, so nobody pays attention to it, but in private settings, it’s still generally expected to be maintained.”
One of them said dryly, “But the teacher said everyone is equal in the academy.”
“Sigh, you really should go find a humanities professor for some remedial lessons,” Antcana looked at this person with pity, “otherwise, you’ll die one day still feeling hard done by.”
On the other side, as Cynthia walked along the path, she asked the ginger-haired boy beside her, “You’re a freshman in the Department of Magic, right? What’s your name?”
“My name is Ray.”
Cynthia looked at him with surprise. “You must be very outstanding.”
“I am the top student among the freshmen.” Ray proudly lifted his chin. “The professors said that someone with my kind of talent is very rare.”
“If the professors say so, then it must be true.” Cynthia agreed, then followed up, “After I graduate next year, I will be forming my own team within the Royal Mage Corps. Are you interested?”
Ray clearly hadn’t expected the conversation to veer in this direction, so he stammered in response, “Even if you say that, I won’t give up on the duel! You don’t think you can win.”
“Rest assured, I have no intention of making you give up on the duel.”
During their conversation, they had already arrived at the training ground, where a few students from the swordsmanship department were still practicing overtime.
“I just think it would be an absolute pity if someone like you were to fall flat on your face and never recover from this.”