Chapter 18

"Are you going to teach me?"

Her steps stop.

"I may look like this, but I was the top student in the second-year written exams. So I think I can teach you well. What did you learn today, underclassman?"

There was such a setting.

Top student in the second-year written exams.

After a brief moment of thought, she sits back down.

Olivia is fine, but she's a tsundere, so being with her is tiring.

It wouldn't be bad to entrust a review to Kasumi once.

"···I'll believe you this one time, just in case."

"Okay!"

While listening to Kasumi's response, she takes out her textbook from her bag.

It's time to start the review seriously.

*

After the review, in the reading club room where Kim Deok-sung had left.

Kasumi is sitting alone.

"·····He said I was pretty."

A low voice escapes her lips.

Blush.

Her face turns red.

Feeling embarrassed for no reason, she covers her face with a book.

'Kim Deok-sung···.'

Kasumi had been mulling over the name of the underclassman who came to the reading club today.

It's not the first time a student has come to the reading club.

Hoshino Kasumi, the witch of the stars, the top student in the second year.

There are plenty of students in the school who want to befriend her.

She just pushed them away.

'I don't deserve to have friends, being a monster like me······.'

New World League.

As long as she is connected to them, Kasumi cannot genuinely interact with others.

Her only sanctuary is this empty club room.

Her only friend, who fell into their hands and she can no longer meet.

Kasumi was always alone at the academy.

She always struggled with guilt and self-loathing.

To her, friends were only books.

Until yesterday.

"Underclassman really······. went too far. Underclassman."

She recalls today's events.

When her true identity was suddenly revealed, Kasumi was flustered.

A secret no one knew.

Yet, the black-haired student from Korea recited her secret, and she couldn't even imagine him exposing her true identity.

Ironically, Kasumi felt a sense of relief when her true identity was revealed.

'I have been committing sins all this time.'

Kasumi knows that the excuse of doing it for a friend is a disgusting lie.

She has committed an unforgivable sin.

To the academy, to her classmates, to her homeroom teacher, to everyone in the world.

Paradoxically, she accepted her fate because she wanted someone to stop her.

'·····I am a monster.'

It might not be so bad to end it this way.

She thought so.

"Underclassman promised. He pinky swore······. that he would definitely save Rena and give me a chance for revenge······. He did."

Kasumi caresses her right pinky finger with her left hand.

"Underclassman isn't honest."

Holding a decisive piece of evidence, a photo, and instead of reporting it or making a move, he just suggested being a double agent.

No matter how she thinks about it, it doesn't make sense.

Even if he had reported her to the association with a curse, she would have had no words to say, even with ten mouths.

But he didn't.

"···Indeed, he is kind."

Kind enough to consider the situation of a mere monster.

If he hadn't, she would have already been taken to the association.

Kasumi thought she had read the sincerity hidden in Kim Deok-sung's brusque words.

If Kim Deok-sung had heard this, he would have been appalled.

Kasumi habitually touched her hair with her fingers.

"He even said my monstrous true form was, was pretty······."

Kasumi's face turns red like the sunset.

She still remembers.

Her childhood as an orphan abandoned by her parents.

The adoption family she followed without knowing was actually a secret research facility, where she endured unspeakable pain.

The physical pain was painful, but the mental pain was even more unbearable.

Kasumi remembers.

The words of the scientists who conducted horrific experiments on her, the villains of the New World League.

'Monstrous girl'

'You are not human.'

'Even if it was out of necessity, the combination of human and interdimensional being is disgusting. It's unbearable.'

A monster, not human.

An existence that should have been discarded long ago if it were useless.

She lived being treated like that.

In a world full of hatred, her only sanctuary was her friend Rena, who was also an experimental subject and a monster.

But cruelly, the New World League took the ailing Rena as a hostage and forced her to be a spy, leaving Kasumi alone again.

She thought no one would understand her.

She thought no one would embrace her.

So she kept her distance from others.

Because she is a monster.

A monster, neither human nor interdimensional being.

'It was a mistake.'

A delusion.

The not-so-honest but kind underclassman said her true form was beautiful.

Even though she thought it was a consolation, he seriously corrected her, saying it wasn't a delusion.

His words sounded so warm and kind.

So incredibly happy······.

A smile appears on Kasumi's lips as she thinks this far.

Kasumi caresses the chair that still retains his warmth and mutters.

"Rena. I'm not alone anymore."

You're lucky.

In the classroom right after the class ended.

Olivia sat with her chin in her right hand, watching the students leave.

Olivia sees Kim Deok-sung's back.

He leaves the classroom without hesitation, without even showing his face to her.

"Really, I can't believe it!"

Olivia pouts.

"How dare he ignore me like this after making me his exclusive maid······. It's unacceptable!"

His indifference is frustrating.

"Even when I, Olivia, suggested going out together for once······!"

Olivia fumes.

She had mustered the courage to send a text message suggesting they go out.

But he not only coldly rejected it, he left the classroom without even showing his face after the class ended.

"Idiot, fool······. Unbelievably the worst······! A ruffian who doesn't know manners!"

No matter how she thinks about it, she is irritated.

"Ugh······."

Olivia groans and turns on her phone.

There is still no reply from him.

Her face turns red.

"Leaving a lady alone like this is completely irresponsible and the lowest······!"

Olivia slumps her shoulders while looking at her phone.

"···Is it because of the White Flame Sword Style?"

Tomorrow.

The deadline he set.

If she is to respond tomorrow, she needs to decide by today.

The White Flame Sword Style is a secret technique of the royal family.

It cannot be passed on to outsiders.

But if it were exchanged one-to-one with the Black Light Sword Style, a lost royal technique······.

Olivia shakes her head.

It's confusing.

"Brother. What should I do······?"

She calls out to her deceased brother out of habit.

What would the Black Prince have done?

Would he have accepted the other's proposal to exchange the two secret techniques one-to-one?

Endless questions swirl in her mind.

There is no answer from her deceased brother.

His image comes to mind.

Ten years ago, at the Omega Rank interdimensional being Paphnir's extermination ceremony, he stroked her young head.

'If I don't come back, you will be the Black Prince from then on. My sister, Olivia. You must protect the homeland. Understand?'

She can still feel the touch of that time on her head.

The image of her brother, the black mana light, Durandal, and the Black Light Sword Style.

His image, who resembles him in every way, also comes to mind.

"No!"

Olivia shakes her head violently.

The Black Prince and he are different people.

Absolutely not the same.

It's absurd to think of him when she sees her brother.

Perhaps······. That's the case.

"Princess Bonaparte?"

At that moment.

A voice reaches Olivia's ears.

Olivia's cheeks turn red.

She raises her head, smoothing her platinum blonde hair, and says,

"Yes."

The image of the student who called her enters Olivia's field of vision.

A girl with orange twin-tails, a beauty so perfect that even other girls would envy, stands there.

Olivia's expression turns cold.

She knows who the girl in front of her is.

"What is it, Nishizawa-san?"

Nishizawa Eri.

Third in the entrance exam and the school idol.

She has fans of all genders in the school, and even a fan club on the internet.

But there is no connection between her and Olivia.

To her, a person with no connection is one of two things.

An enemy or a parasite trying to use her status and position.

Neither is a pleasant encounter.

Nishizawa Eri flinches under Olivia's wary gaze.

"···I have something to say to you."

Nishizawa says in a trembling voice uncharacteristic of her.

Thump.

Nishizawa's heart beats rapidly.

Olivia, the Platinum Knight Princess.

Since she overwhelmingly defeated Japan's top talent, Shinozaki Rin, in the academy entrance exam and took first place.

Nishizawa Eri has admired her.

The elegance and dignity that come from her noble status, and the innate talent and powerful strength that no man could even dare to challenge.

In every aspect, Olivia was Nishizawa's idol.

'You are the Platinum Knight Princess······.'

Nishizawa's lips tremble as she looks at Olivia.

She looks even more beautiful up close.

Yet, how dare a man, a mere C-rank student from a minor country, treat her like that.

Unforgivable.

Nishizawa's eyes spark with anger.

"Is it true? The rumor that you became Kim Deok-sung's exclusive maid as the price of your sparring defeat?"

Nishizawa's follow-up question.

Olivia's face turns red up to her ears.

"Th-th-that······."

After the previous relic exploration.

She knew the rumor about the exclusive maid contract was spreading.

But no student dared to mention it in front of the Platinum Knight Princess, the top student of the year.

Nishizawa Eri.

She was the first.

Thump.

Olivia's heart beats fast.

Her hands and cheeks tremble.

A princess of a country became an exclusive maid to a minor country's student.

A humiliation and a disgrace.

But even now, under interrogation, Olivia cannot deny it.

Because she is the princess of the Bonaparte royal family and the successor of France's greatest hero, the Black Prince.

"···Yes."

Olivia nods seriously.

Nishizawa's brow twists.

"It's true······."

Her voice trembles.

The rumor was true.

The noble and beautiful idol had fallen into the hands of the despicable and repulsive man, Kim Deok-sung.

Nishizawa couldn't accept that reality.

She couldn't let a mere man defile her noble idol.

"···Don't you want to get out of it? The exclusive maid contract."

"I don't know."

Olivia's shoulders droop.

Seeing this, Nishizawa's blood boils.

She takes another step forward and says,

"I'll help you. I'll challenge him to a sparring match and invalidate the result of your match with him. I will definitely······."

"There's no need. Nishizawa-san."

Olivia cuts off Nishizawa's words.