NOVEL NEXT Chapter 47: Always Read the Fine Print.
Chapter 47: Always Read the Fine Print.
*Celia’s POV*
Luckily, I was way older than my body would have you assume. Lia just met me, and going how prim and proper she is, there is most likely a reason behind her asking me this. I am not THAT lucky, after all.
Celia: “We just met, though?” I say with a raised eyebrow.
Lia: “I know, but you seem to be really powerful. Even if you aren’t, just you being that ancient witch’s student, is enough.” She replied.
Celia: “Enough? So, I take it that you don’t actually have any feelings for me, right?” I ask with a sigh.
Lia: “C-Correct! I was almost assassinated. The reason such a crime could be carried out in this academy, was because one of my siblings ordered it.” She said with a sigh of her own.
Celia: “What would us two being fake lovers even do?” I ask with one of my hands on my hips.
Lia: “You aren’t from a noble family, so there is no way for me to inherit any position of power within my family.” She explained.
Celia: “So, you just want to use me to stay safe?” I ask with an annoyed expression.
Lia: “That’s… yes, I guess that was my goal... But I can help you out!” She exclaimed.
Celia: “How?” I ask.
Lia: “I had already planned to ask you this, so I joined the same classes as you. Anything that you need help with, I will do my best to help you with whatever it is.” She said with a serious tone.
Celia: “Why not just kill off your siblings? If I get taken out of the picture, then you will go back to being a target.” I ask with a raised eyebrow.
Lia: “Trust me, I would love to, but they have too many people backing them.” She said with a regretful tone and expression.
Should I accept her request of me? Do I really have anything to gain from this? Sure, she is cute, but I haven’t known her long enough to have any affection toward her… Not to mention, if we’re fake dating, then I can’t get into a real relationship at all… Probably seeing that I was about to say no to her idea, she had a desperate look on her face.
Lia: “A week!” She yelled after she grabbed my hand.
Celia: “A week?” I repeat.
Lia: “Just give me one week to prove that I can be useful to you! I will even completely take the fall for when we can break up!” She said with a pleading tone.
Does she mean in society’s eyes? I don’t really care that much about my reputation, but I guess that Lia would care about hers.
Celia: “Fine… come on, we’ll be late for class if we don’t hurry up.” I say with a sigh.
Lia: “Okay!” She said, before wrapping her arms around one of mine.
Celia: “…What are you doing?” I ask with a puzzled expression on my face.
Lia: “If we’re to be girlfriends, then we must act like it, right?” She said in a nonchalant tone.
Celia: “If we start acting intimate right away, people will think that we’re faking it. We should start slow.” I explain with a sigh.
Lia: “Ah, of course…” She said with a sad tone, before releasing her grip on my arm.
Ria already gave me a rundown on where my classes will be taking place. As each one of my classes will take a long time, each is separated by a day. For the first day, it is combat class. Despite how cute Lia looks, I could tell that she was somewhat strong.
As much as I would love to peep at everyone’s Status, from what I know so far, some people can tell when I do it. Following Amelie’s advice, I shouldn’t inspect someone, or something, unless I know that I can get away with it, without anyone finding out about me being able to use a System.
Regardless, Lia is more than she seems. Why does she even need my protection anyway?… Oh well, I’ll just add it to my large pile of things that I’ve put off for later.
*Much Walking Later.*
Combat class… well, I can’t say that it went bad, but it certainly didn’t go well… Why? Oh, our instructor, he suggested for us to start with using standard swords. Since I already have a pretty high Swordsmanship Skill, I went with a practice dagger instead.
Though I haven’t checked my Status in a while, I am sure that most of my Stats, and Skill levels, went up a decent bit. Considering that whole life and death situation that I was involved in a while back. Plus all of the training that I managed to sneak past Ria.
Right, anyway, the problem was that our teacher, was a bit uppity. He felt that me choosing to practice with a dagger, rather than a sword, undermined him. So, he “tried” to chew me out, but I wasn’t having it. I justified myself by saying that I already knew how to use swords quite well.
He took this as a challenge and requested a duel between him and me. As he greatly pissed me off, I didn’t mind putting him in his place, so I agreed with the duel. I even had my sword in my handy pouch, so I didn’t need to get a weapon.
This is where a problem occurred… What? Did I lose? Nope. Then what happened? Well, I beat his ass with ease, but he refused to give up. The man seemed to be in his thirties, so he still had energy to spare.
But even after I beat him several more times, he kept trying to attack me. It got to a point where he was no longer just sparring with me, he was absolutely trying to kill me. So, I ended up killing him…
Wait! Before you condemn me, please hear me out. After losing to me in a duel over twelve times, he took a random female student hostage, and demanded that I drop my sword, and let him kill me.
Lia used this as a chance to shoot an ice spear at him. When she did that, the girl was able to escape his grasp. Rather than just disarm him, I cut off his arm and then stabbed his heart. Animals should be put down, you know. Wow… that was edgy… Anyway, I mean that he had seemingly lost his mind, and I just put him out of his misery.
So, as you would expect, all classes were canceled for today. I mean, I did end up killing a teacher after all… Currently, Lia and I are waiting in the principal’s office, while they investigate what happened. I’m not going to get put in prison, on my first day of school, right?…