That was a man nearly two meters tall, with a hooked nose and small eyes.
On his feet were leather shoes gleaming with a ruby-like luster, and he wore a silk robe embroidered with faint pale-gold patterns.
He leaned against one of the academy’s marble pillars, his eyes darting left and right as if searching for something, trying to confirm something.
His eyes, squeezed into their narrow sockets, found Klein.
Then his expression froze, rigid, and tinged with some surprise, as if he hadn’t expected Klein to be here.
But that rigidity and surprise vanished in the very next instant.
His face shifted into a delighted smile instead, as though he were overjoyed to see Klein.
He changed expressions so quickly that, apart from Klein, no one noticed that fleeting moment of stiffness.
“My dear brother.” The man bowed to Klein, his gesture exceedingly theatrical.
“Last night you were terribly drunk, and it worried me greatly.
To see you safe and well truly fills me with joy.”
Cicero…
Klein recognized this man.
He was the scholar Cicero who had constantly dragged Klein’s predecessor to gambling houses.
They had met at Marcus Guilliman’s recruitment event.
After losing to Klein in the exams, he had been excessively warm toward Klein ever since.
He explained it himself as being overwhelmed by Klein’s scholarship, saying he could not bear to see such a wise soul as Klein’s confined within a rigid, stiff, conservative atmosphere.
“Since you are well, my friend, let us go together tonight to the Agathe Thermae.
Priest Lippo of the Church of Simonetta will be holding a great feast, one that will surely make you feel–”
“He will not be going.” Dita stepped in between Cicero and Klein.
Her voice was quiet yet firm.
Cicero seemed amused by Dita’s action.
“Little girl, if you are so uneasy about your uncle, you may join us as well.”
Cicero’s tone was thoroughly earnest.
He was deploying his oratorical talent, his voice turning utterly persuasive.
“I am sincere.
Have you read my ‘On the Soul’?
The soul should not be confined.
The soul descends into this world precisely to experience.”
“If you possess the worth to be enlightened, then you should understand that you ought not to obstruct your uncle’s pleasures.
You should join in the enjoyment yourself.”
As he spoke, Cicero advanced step by step toward Dita and Klein.
Dita spread her arms, shielding Klein more resolutely.
Dita was not short in stature,
but before Cicero’s towering two-meter frame, she seemed so tiny, so fragile.
The sunlight was almost entirely blocked by Cicero’s gaunt, elongated figure, his shadow spreading toward Dita like a venomous snake.
Dita’s body gave an involuntary shudder.
To drag Klein to the gambling houses, Cicero had once incited Klein to use violence against her.
Dita could only hope that Cicero would not dare to lay a hand on her in full public view.
Yet Cicero cared nothing for the gazes around him.
Smiling, he reached out his hand toward Dita, who stood blocking Klein’s path…
Dita clenched her teeth, the muscles of her face taut, but her body did not move.
For some reason, Klein suddenly found the scene before him eerily familiar…
A mortal protecting the Emperor…
A sharp pain flared at his temple.
Memories that belonged neither to the scholar nor to him surged forth…
The dim court aboard the Vengeful Spirit, the shrieking, laughing Ancient Four, and him…
Memory and reality intertwined.
In Klein’s vision, Cicero’s form swelled to monstrous proportions.
Black armor sheathed him from head to toe, and crimson eyes upon his breastplate blazed with blood-colored light.
Shadows became viscous gore laced with feathers, spreading to Klein’s feet.
A mortal figure, tiny compared to that black silhouette, stood before Klein, rifle in hand, firing resolutely at the near-divine black form…
The black silhouette raised the warhammer named Worldbreaker.
No…
By the time Klein shook free of the memory, his fist had already slammed into Cicero’s face.
At the same time, his leg shot up, driving a kick into Cicero’s abdomen.
Cicero twisted through the air like a long snake tossed skyward, then crashed heavily to the ground.
Silence fell all around.
Students and teachers nearby stared at the scene in shock.
Dita’s eyes went wide, her mouth falling open.
Just now, Klein had moved at a speed almost too fast for the naked eye to catch, stepping out from behind Dita in a single stride and smashing his fist into Cicero’s face.
As Cicero’s shadow dispersed and sunlight spilled onto Klein, Dita almost thought she saw golden light radiating from his body, his frame growing vast and steadfast, as if…
as if…
something touched by divinity.
Cicero clutched his aquiline nose, blood seeping ceaselessly through his fingers.
“What are you doing?” He had not anticipated Klein suddenly throwing a punch at him like that.
Klein looked at his own fist, at Cicero’s blood smeared across his knuckles.
Still immersed in the memory from moments ago, he spoke almost on instinct.
“Why did you hit my fist with your face?”
“Ah…
ah…
you…”
“Haha…
never mind, never mind.”
Cicero froze for a moment, then laughed as he held his nose, as though Klein’s punch were a gift bestowed upon him:
“It’s, after all…
a novel experience.”
“I’ll just say my face and your fist happened to collide.”
He got to his feet, brushing dust from his clothes, his body hunched from the pain in his abdomen, his face twisting several times.
Cicero could not help but stomp the ground fiercely a few times with his red leather shoes.
Then, smiling, he asked Klein, “Is this meant as a rejection?”
“Of course it’s a rejection!
Why are you still hanging around here?” Dita once again planted herself between Cicero and Klein.
“And what about your debts?
My good brother, if you don’t win them back, how will you ever resolve your debts?” Cicero smiled, putting on a sincere expression as he asked.
“You’d just end up owing even more if you went,” Dita retorted.
“But at least there’s a chance to pay them off, isn’t there?
And maybe even earn more.”
Cicero seemed amused by Dita:
“Besides, what does it matter if you owe even more?”
“When you drink, don’t your nerves surge with excitement from the alcohol?”
“When you gamble, doesn’t your heart pound furiously with euphoria?”
“When you kiss, don’t your glands secrete hormones from the writhing of tongues?”
“As long as you indulge, you’ve already won.”
With that, Cicero turned to Klein,
“My friend, you have a wise mind, listen to what I have to say.”
“An infant who dies at one month yet miraculously experiences everything the world has to offer, and an old man who lives a hundred years but repeats yesterday every day, who is happier?
“Which matters more: experiencing more, or living longer?”
“I choose to seize the day and experience more.
After all…
tomorrow, we might all be dead.”
As he spoke, Cicero sidestepped Dita, clapped Klein on the shoulder, smiled, and left the grammar school.
Klein watched Cicero’s departing figure and gently clenched his fist.
Cicero’s blood was still on it.
The memory just now…
seemed to be the memory of the Emperor himself.
Since transmigrating here, this was the first time Klein had seen a memory belonging to the Emperor himself.
Based on Klein’s past experience, as he saw the body’s original memories, he should gradually learn the body’s original skills as well, but…
But Big E didn’t seem to have provided him with any skills at all…
No psychic techniques, no Perpetual constitution, no emergence of the Emperor’s biological knowledge…
Don’t tell me he only inherited the Emperor’s talent for melodrama?
“Uncle,” Dita called softly to Klein.
She looked at Klein’s fist, still stained with blood, surprise flickering across her face.
“Dita, do I look like a god or a man to you?” Klein turned to Dita and asked with a serious expression.
Dita’s expression froze.
What kind of ridiculous question was that…
“God…
man…” Dita’s gaze at Klein grew strange.
She was now beginning to suspect that something had gone wrong with her uncle’s head.
Seeing Dita’s expression, Klein understood.
Indeed, the Emperor had not granted him any skills.
He was far removed from the Emperor, that god who walked among mortals.
In Dita’s eyes, he was at best a god-man, a weirdo.
Klein sighed.
“The debt.
I’ll help you with the first installment next month.”
Dita sighed as well.
She seemed to think Klein was worrying about the debt.
“The pension my father left behind is enough to cover the first installment.”
“…That’s your dowry, isn’t it?” Klein raised an eyebrow.
Macragge’s marriage customs were rather unique.
A woman married without a dowry would hold a lower status at home, the wife was essentially the husband’s property, with no independent personal rights, and only the husband had the right to divorce.
A woman married with a sufficient dowry, however, would hold a much higher status, with independent personal rights, a more equal marital relationship, and joint management of household affairs and property.
So most women from relatively well-off families still chose to bring a substantial dowry…
“I’m only lending it to you!” Dita emphasized.
“You have to promise me, no more running around with Cicero.
You must give everything you have to Lord Marcus’s interview and work hard to get hired as his family’s tutor.”
“Otherwise, never mind my dowry, you won’t even be able to repay the debts after that.
You’ll end up shipped off as a debt slave.”
Klein stared at Dita, frozen for a moment.
An impulse rose within him.
He wanted to go to the Golden Throne, find the scholar’s soul, and slap him hard across the face.
“I promise,” Klein said, looking at Dita.
“But can you do me a small favor?”
Dita blinked.
“What?”
(Translated by yourtl.app)