I Became the Maid of the Lout Prince

“…The duel isn’t over yet.”

That’s right, it wasn’t over yet.

Although I had lost all three daggers, I hadn’t declared defeat to Harold yet.

After all, for a mage, a sword was merely a supplementary tool, not the main weapon.

Harold might have thought he had achieved a ‘complete victory’ after sending all the swords I could use flying, but that logic only applied in a duel between swordsmen.

When a mage using their full power clashes with a swordsman, the criteria for complete victory changes.

Bang!

“…!”

With the propulsive force of a Shockwave used at my feet, my body shot towards Harold’s direction.

Harold, surprised by my sudden charge along with my last words, hurriedly adjusted his grip on his sword.

Still, living up to his title of Sword Master, his reaction to correct his posture, even from a relaxed state, was certainly swift.

However, no matter how much of a master one is, it’s impossible to take a perfect stance against a surprise attack. [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

Usually, he would have been prepared to respond to both sword attacks and magic attacks from me.

But with limited time, Harold took a ‘spell defense’ stance to deflect the incoming spell he expected from me.

‘Yes, that would be normal.’

I had already used all three daggers.

Throughout this semester’s duels against Harold, I had made sure to use only three daggers, firmly establishing this pattern in his mind.

It was nonsensical for a mage to engage in close combat with a swordsman empty-handed.

Moreover, I didn’t even make a gesture of reaching into my uniform jacket to draw a weapon, so he absolutely wouldn’t expect it.

My last trump card was a ‘spell to create a sword.’

Swoosh!

“…!”

I could see Harold’s expression stiffen momentarily as he saw my blade flying towards him at point-blank range.

There was no way he could have predicted this. It’s a spell that creates a sword on the spot.

But for a player of “Luminor Academy,” this was a skill they would naturally learn after playing as Lilith for a while.

Come to think of it, isn’t it strange? Among Lilith’s dagger skills, one of them is called Dagger Throw.

Anyone with half a brain could think of the risk of fighting while consuming weapons in the middle of combat.

Fortunately, the developers weren’t stupid enough to overlook this, and Lilith could learn a skill to resolve the dangerous situation caused by dagger throwing.

Dagger, First Enhancement Skill: Arcane Blade.

A magical blade that could be created on the spot at any time formed at my fingertips.

That shimmering blade collided in mid-air with Harold’s sword, who had let his guard down.

Crack!

“Ugh…!”

Harold blocked my Arcane Blade in mid-air, and the sword I created on the spot slightly caved in, shedding a bit of mana.

As expected, a blade made by compressing mana couldn’t last long against a real sword.

But that didn’t matter.

…Because this Arcane Blade, which I had prepared as a last resort, was a technique I had used with double casting in mind from the start.

“HAAAAAAH!!”

Creating a second Arcane Blade in my opposite hand with a very slight delay, I swung it towards Harold’s exposed side. [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

A surprise attack after another surprise attack, a final killing move catching him off guard twice.

If even this was blocked, it would be fair to say I had no way of winning a round against Harold.

With that thought, just as my Arcane Blade was about to barely touch his body…

A thin mana shield barely deflected my second blade.

Fizzle!

“Hah, hah….”

Even in a situation where both hands weren’t free, the instinct to protect oneself was truly at an animal-like level of sensation.

Of course, regardless of my sword strike not landing, this duel counted as me winning a round.

It was the moment Harold broke the initial condition of not using magic and energy for the handicap between a Sword Master and a regular student.

“You used magic, didn’t you?”

“…Yes, I had no choice.”

With those words, Harold slowly withdrew his sword, acknowledging his defeat.

Although it was a somewhat cowardly victory, it was undoubtedly my win.

“I didn’t declare defeat, Professor Harold. After all, a mage should fight with magic. My swordsmanship is merely a self-defense technique to induce the opponent’s ‘carelessness.'”

“…Indeed, then you utilized it perfectly to induce carelessness.”

It was none other than Harold who I had managed to catch off guard.

Even though it was just an exam duel for the semester course, the fact that I had caused him to let his guard down remained unchanged.

“You’re becoming more like Ethan in these aspects, too.”

“…Pardon?”

“No, never mind. I admit this was my mistake this time. Given your personality, I should have expected that you wouldn’t give up so easily.”

“Does that mean…”

“Yes, you’ve won a round against me, so you’re getting an A+. You’ve worked hard this past semester, Lilith.”

“Ah… Thank you, Professor Harold!”

Yes, this is victory.

Finally, finally… I had finally won a round against Harold.

It was such a great achievement that I was probably the only student from the Magic Department taking his class to secure a victory.

{Lilith, isn’t this a bit cowardly?}

[Master, that’s a bit unsightly….]

Shut up, what do you know?

As long as I beat Harold, that’s all that matters.

A week after the day I somehow managed to win a round against Harold, albeit in a somewhat cowardly manner…

With the final event of the semester, the end-of-term Hunting Festival, somehow finished and the rest of the lectures coming to an end one by one, it would be appropriate to start preparing to return to the Blackwood Estate. [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

Unfortunately, even though all lectures had ended and a few days had passed, Ethan and I were still at school, spending not-so-leisurely days.

This was because Seraphine’s ‘Student Council work,’ which had started this semester, wasn’t over yet.

The Student Council’s semester is a bit longer compared to other students.

It was the role of the student council to remain and perform duties even when all other students had finished their last classes and returned to their respective hometowns.

This included organizing application documents for students who stayed at school during the break for club or study activities and receiving and processing students’ complaints and requests from the past semester to improve the academy during the break.

They were in a position where they had to wrap up the semester a little later than regular students, though the difference was only about a week.

‘The work itself is much less compared to during the semester, so it’s quite relaxed.’

During my days as a player of “Luminor Academy,” I sometimes disliked the week-long delay due to Student Council work.

Given the game’s high degree of freedom, there were many things one could do during that week, such as item collection or event exploration.

But, well, I’m not in a position to do such things now, anyway. There was no need to move around busily for reasons like doing events.

I feel sorry for taking away the sub-quest after Ethan and I defeated the Kraken of the Abyss, but that was unavoidable.

In return, I attached a fire spirit to Agnes, so it was ultimately more beneficial for the combat strength of the Hero’s party.

Other than that, I didn’t touch any events or items that were obviously meant to be collected or approached by others.

‘If I meddle unnecessarily and end up interfering with the Hero’s Demon King Subjugation, that would be really troublesome.’

It would be the worst-case scenario if things went wrong to the point where Lilith had to join the Demon King Subjugation party.

Not only would it mess up my life, but it would also make it seem like I was the first to break my promise to Ethan.

With such thoughts, while leisurely organizing my work as the General Affairs officer…

A mysterious paper, presumably a list of candidate names for next year’s new students, suddenly caught my eye among the pile of documents.

“President Seraphine, what is this document?”

“Oh, you mean that? The students listed there are potential candidates likely to enter the academy next year. I thought it would be good for all of you to familiarize yourselves with them in advance, as they might be attending the same academy as us from next year!”

“I checked it earlier, too, and I had guessed it was something like that. There were already a few students that the August Trading Company was keeping an eye on.”

“Hmm, was that so? Do we really have to memorize this? I’m not confident in memorizing names without seeing faces in person~”

“Ah, it’s alright. The material I provided is just for reference. If that’s how you feel, Orion, you don’t have to memorize it.”

Although she was speaking casually as if it didn’t matter, in reality, it would probably be unconditionally advantageous to memorize it.

It was essentially an opportunity to build connections with influential first-year students. And that, too, legitimately using the name of Princess Seraphine.

Connections are certainly good. Someone of a princess’s stature even freely distributes this kind of information to her people. [Only on Galaxy Translations! / Axiomatic]

Of course, it wasn’t information I particularly needed to use right now, and I already roughly knew the information about the key figures, so it didn’t matter much to me.

Still, I skimmed through it just to check if there were any characters that could be considered as main characters.

‘Barbarian Lilia’ from the Spearmanship Department…

‘Kind Alchemist Tralia’ from the Pharmacy Department…

…and ‘Inventor Serdic’ from the Technical Department, is it?

It seemed that the key figures of the first year would enter as originally planned, without any particular changes, as there was no room for my intervention.

If I had to add one more to the previous three, it would probably be ‘Back Alley Fighter Caniel’ from the Martial Arts Department. It seems he didn’t make it onto Seraphine’s candidate list due to his background.

After thinking about this and setting aside the new student list I had looked through casually…

Just when I thought today’s work was wrapping up, Seraphine suddenly made this suggestion.

“Tomorrow is the last day of Student Council work for this semester, right?”

“That’s correct, President Seraphine.”

“Then, how about we all have an end-of-semester get-together tomorrow?”

…A get-together? Suddenly?

Was there such an event in the original game?

T/N

Hello! Axiomatic here.

Quick announcement! 

As promised, I will return to two chapters daily starting tomorrow. The set of bonus chapters sponsored by James B. will reset starting tomorrow as well, and the Google Sheets for the schedule has been updated to reflect these changes. As I have also mentioned previously, the cost for bonus chapters has now returned to $3 each! If you enjoy reading and are willing to sponsor more bonus chapters, see my Ko-fi link at the start of every chapter.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow!