Chapter 16 – Classes are stressful and potentially dangerous
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It was Tet holiday and I was kinda drunk all the time, sorry. I revamp the status screen a bit. It looked like I has been neglecting it too much.

Update: fixed the status picture not showing.

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After the Royal Academy was burned down, Elena stayed kinda low for two weeks. The mess she had helped a hand in was bigger than she expected. A bunch of students from the Empire were called back and replaced with new ones. Most of them were inconsequential pawns that were low in Court rank. In their place was one new Princess of the Empire, the thirty-something daughter of the Emperor. She didn't have the information and she wasn't too curious about them either.

Those two weeks were like a vacation. Elena just relaxed herself, taught Emily some of the easiest spells like [Telekinesis] and [Lightning], walked around here and there in secret, visited the library and some places outside the city.

Her favorite location was a lake in a nearby forest. The water was somewhat special as it absorbed more mana than a lake should be. So it had a nice coloring of elemental spirits here and there reflected on sunlight. She also found a fancy key that radiated a bit of mana at the bottom of the lake. She took it, of course. There could be a treasure somewhere to open with the key. Although she didn’t know where to use the key she wouldn’t mind ‘keeping it safe’.

Having found her secret chilling spot, she often brought books from the library there to read. What she read was only about myths and legends of the old gods like the Dragon God or the Mountain God, ect... because high-level spellbooks and magic were not available in any library. Those were in mages' and wizards' private possessions. They still had some elementary spells but she didn’t want them since she had already known most of those and the theory behind it was just willing the lesser spirits in simple ways.

Elena also discovered the existence of dungeons. Those were never a thing in her world so she was very interested in going in. But alas, nothing could just go her way. There were guards and she wasn’t allowed to go in. Permission and all. She couldn’t force her way in either. The entrance was closed but there was just a rock wall behind it, she had checked with [Vision]. That meant the gate was some kind of portal so the sudden activation of it would alert people. Once again she met something with teleportation and she couldn’t touch it. She left it be because it wouldn't run anywhere.

She also visited the Adventurer guild but it was just a hub for drunkards so she didn’t enter. Instead, she had Mari and Lionel fight each other in the forest for entertainment.

Her personal guard Lionel had also followed her here but he couldn’t stay in the Royal Academy. So he was stationed in the perimeter and watched over things in the city. Their mansion in the capital was destroyed by a ruckus of some monsters. That was not her business, Lionel was the one who took care of the rebuilding by her father's order. In other words, he was currently homeless.

Overall, her two weeks were very satisfying. No nuisance found her except Finn. But she avoided him easily. His hair had become thinner so she was happy.

Mari had also completed her examination recently. The nobles had agreed to skip this year's entrance performance. However, the Academy couldn't break its tradition. In the end, only students of ranks below a Count had to take their test in groups of five privately. It was so that there would be more instructors than students at any time.

Elena was disappointed that this would end up making Mari's performance impress only a few people. What Elena forgot to account for was their actions in that messy event. Everyone was already aware of the amazing Lady in white that had subdued the crazy Empire's noble even if they had no idea how strong she was. So the person who had tested Mari was a retired royal knight captain, someone that was very strong among the Kingdom's army.

Mari, who had no skill still sent the old man flying with brute force was nothing but impressive in everyone's eyes that was present. She did as Elena had instructed and bashed away the old man with an ultra greatsword while standing in one place. If he was the old butler, she wasn't so confident about being able to do that. This set her up as the most sought after student in her course with her tyrannical strength.

Today, Elena attended her first class after two weeks. Everything had been fixed and returned to normal. She woke up early this morning to avoid the rushing of students out of the dormitory. There were quite a number of people here.

Mari and her were not in the same class. Something about status and craps. While Elena was put in the elite class one, Mari was in class four. It was a normal class for nobles.

"Emily should go to the garden and find a good spot for us to have lunch later. You are free but don't forget to practice alright?"

"Don't worry! I will be diligent!"

"Good. Mari, let's go."

"Yes, master."

The two of them walk out of the dormitory and head toward the main area with the learning facility. It was a big rectangular building that had four stories in the middle of the Academy. Each year occupied one entire floor starting from the top down. Since she was a first year student, her class would be on the highest floor. The ground floor was a big lobby with many openings along the walls. There was a cafeteria at the far end that provided food and drink using only gold coins.

The ceiling was just high enough for three men standing on each other's shoulders. The walls were light yellow and were decorated with colorful flowers. Chandeliers and statues were placed here and there too.

Ugh, the tastes of nobles.

Elena hadn't even gone up the stairs yet and she was already complaining. This was not the kind of flashy that she liked.

She quickly moved up to her classroom and parted ways with Mari. Her classroom had a stair shape arrangement with five rows of tables and chairs. Each row raised a bit higher than the last.

Five rows, three tables each. So thirty students huh.

Her seat was arranged based on her family's rank. Due to foreign nobles joining in, she was placed at the middle table of the third row.

Currently she was sitting in her seat with a few other students behind her. Low ranking nobles seemed to like to be early.

Elena spotted the girl with the long blue hair again. Her green eyes watched over Elena from the back row intensely.

It looks like she reveals her motive when she thinks I am not aware. And somehow a Baron's daughter managed to get in the top elite class huh? Neat.

She came over to her and changed her expression in a split second.

"Hello, Lady Elena De Heuser. Good morning."

"Oh, good morning to you too, Vanille."

Elena tested the water with the disregard for her noble status and called her name only. The girl paused for a second, and didn't know how to react. But she quickly resumed smiling, ignoring the matter entirely.

So, she will take it huh? No use hiding from me anymore. No student here should be able to tolerate that small slight.

"Getting in this class must be tough, right?"

Elena kept looking around the room while saying something mean to the poor teenager. She was abusing [Vision] as usual to observe both the inside and outside of everyone. She just nodded and responded with short words. The Vanille girl was just trying to make contact after all. Time flew as more students filled in. There was Finn again. He came over to her seat slowly while doing some deep breathing.

"Um, good morning Milady. Are you doing fine these last few weeks?"

"Well, yes. Good morning to you too. Finn."

He flinched a bit at the way she spoke his name. He was aware that he had lost all the respect she had for him. Still, Elena wasn't sure if he realized his mistakes or not. Someone who had so much pride would bend their faults into something lesser and different in their mind. Either way, she would bully him if he went near her anyway.

Vanille pulled away silently in the presence of such a high ranking person. This was not a fairytale so offending the young Prince of a Ducal House was more likely to happen than gaining his interest. And that would be bad for her family.

"What's the matter? Do you need anything from me?"

"I… well,..."

"Hmm? By the way, did you change your hair? It looks a bit different."

He instinctively touched his hair with both hands. His face turned a bit red. Elena chuckled to herself in front of him. Right at the moment she couldn't do much except for some petty things to keep people uncomfortable.

"Hey! It's Elena!”

“Lily, don’t be rude!”

Two other people with blond hair came to her seat, one had a twintails and the other just had a normal short cut. They were the royal children. The Princess seemed to be an energetic girl and hated court etiquettes. Royalties her age should already be versed in courtly education if she wanted.

Well now, all the hot potatoes keep gathering here. I can't chew you all at the same time, you know?

This was what she had wanted. To be mingling with those noble youths and making trouble. Pretending to be a proper Lady was tiring but she could get some slack here in the Academy. Probably.

And the little Ladies in her Kingdom seemed to be fed some info from their parents so no one had touched her yet. Which was not cool in Elena's opinion. The reasonable thing to be done here was to be offensive to everyone, giving them some reason to bitch out to her and hold some grudges.

For Elena, this was not a hard thing to do as she was natural at being rude. She had just been too into the role of a noble daughter recently.

"Huh, His Highness and Her Highness are coming here. How graaacious and majestic."

"Y-You…!"

The young Prince was stunned at the sarcasm. This was his first experience being at the receiving end of such vile behavior even if it was nothing vicious. He had witnessed Nobles doing such to each other but never to him. The Princess was none the wiser. She didn't understand hidden ill will at all.

"I am majestic? Hehe, stop praising me, it's embarrassing!"

She started fidgeting and playing with her twin tails. Prince Melvin was trembling with uncertainty in the back while looking at Finn with a questioning face as if asking him 'That's your woman, right? Do something!'.

Elena sensed some tiny malice from the surrounding girls too. The boys were still keeping themselves neutral though.

That's more like it. Keep up the good work.

There were certain things she couldn't just do, like outright insulting the higher nobles or royalties. She still wanted to maintain the facade of a noble lady. While kicking the legs of the two royalties before her could be a bit much, she still found it acceptable since they looked like pushovers to her.

Her objective of destroying all the noble houses above her status was still there and with all of their kins gathering in one place like this was a convenience. She could now leisurely pick them off one by one at her pace.

Even though she was not well versed in court politics and underhanded trap, she was practically invincible to those people so there was that. Furthermore, causing conflict and joining in it was kind of in her nature. Intentional or not.

“So, what do you need from me? Your Highness?”

“W-Well, my sister just wants to meet you.”

The mentioned Princess was still tiptoeing on her feet. Elena hadn’t actually planned anything for those two yet so she also didn’t know what to do with them. But the Princess was still a rarity of a human, Elena couldn’t pass up the chance to look into her.

“Princess Liliana De Agava, please have a seat.”

She used [Telekinesis] to push the students away and pull their long seat from the table in front of her then arranged it opposite her table with a raised platform to make it even. The students that lost their seat didn’t complain because of the royalties. And Elena’s glare.

“Whoa! That’s awesome! Teach me, teach me!”

The Princess clapped her hands and jumped in place after seeing the casual way Elena exerted her magic. Finn and Prince Melvin were just looking astonished at the magical prowess. While Finn was in the martial art course, Prince Melvin was more of a scholar so he joined the magic course. Witnessing the magical power of Elena was disheartening.

When both of the royalties sat down, Finn also sat with them. She narrowed her eyes a little but remembered that he was their cousin or something so she dropped the thought.

Wait, he is their cousin but his sister will marry their brother? What?

Elena tilted her head unconsciously at the weird revelation. As a Demon, she didn’t notice such things before but she knew the humans were kind of having a taboo about this.

No use thinking too much. I will just ask them.

“Before anything though, I want to know something.”

“Yes? What is it?”

The Princess was easy to talk to while the two boys kept calculating something with their constipated faces.

“Is Lady Cecilia De Dovantine marrying His Highness the Crown Prince?”

“That’s right. Cecilia will be my sister, right brother?”

“... yes.”

Elena continued the question with a fan she pulled out of nowhere covering the lower half of her face. The three wanted to ask about the fan that unassumingly appeared out of thin air but her question interrupted them.

“You all are cousins?”

“Yes, we are. Right, brother?”

“... yes.”

“Hoh… is that so?”

They were silent for a while then it dawned on Prince Melvin what this was all about. He was quickly clarifying things to Elena and all the students who had been listening in.

“I-It isn’t like that! It is but it’s not!”

He wasn't helping much with that answer. Finn looked around, just realizing why Elena asked that. He took it to himself and explained, less the rumors ran amok.

"Milady, the bloodline runs far back. Our ancestor was a royalty. Our grandmother was also adopted into the royal family. It was complicated but the Agava and the Dovantine are technically unrelated."

"Well then. Excuse me for being rude just now. It was merely a curiosity."

The two boys let out a long breath they didn't know they were holding.

"Your Highness, are you raising some pet?"

Elena looked at the small Princess without reserve. Asking her straightforwardly if she was part-dragon would work as well. But she would bear the risk of antagonizing the King. This was almost certainly a national secret so she revealing it was like putting a target mark on herself.

"No, I'm not. I wish I had one though."

"I guess it must be my imagination then. I thought I picked up some strong lizard smell lingering on you."

There was a spike in malice around her. Her last sentence could be inferred as an insult. It was unintended because she could literally smell the draconic mana.

"By the way, Princess. I was surprised that you are so strong. How did you become so powerful this young?"

"You are one to talk."

She ignored the whispering of the two boys and focused on the Princess. The corner of her mouth raised up a little to make herself seem friendly.

"I eat meat everyday! Uncle brings me his meat everyday!"

"Um, she means the Court Wizard designed her diet."

A small sweat rolled down Prince Melvin's face as he fixed his sister's speech. Today he learned that innocence could be dangerous too.

Elena understood the inner workings of this Princess a little with that information.

So she needs to take supplements regularly. Her flesh is partially converted to dragon flesh. I have never thought of a halfway transformation before so I have no idea about this girl's condition.

"Hey, sister Elena! How did you move the bench? Teach me! Teach me!"

The Princess was too excited about magic. Elena didn't hate that. Magic was her sweet spot.

"Got an interest? Fine, I will tell you. Whether you are able to learn it or not depends on your ability."

Seeing the girl nodded vigorously, Elena decided to talk about one of her basic original spells, [Telekinesis]. Her version was very different from the normal spell back in her world. It was the force of arcane built with mana and will that was sustained by the energy flow of the body. While the normal variation of the people was just a packet of mana doing the lifting with an invisible mana hand. Her spell needed a lot more mana to kick start but it held more efficiency in extended usage.

"This is the basic wind spell [Breeze]. I just modified it and controlled the wind directly instead of letting it flow in one direction. Like this."

A stream of tiny pebbles moved around in the air like a little flying snake appeared out of the ground and circled around them.

While the Princess was clapping, the two boys and a few students that were watching were mustering quietly about 'no chant' and 'too many elements'.

To cast a spell without chanting needed an extremely deep understanding of magic. Only the like of experts and masters in this field could do one or two spells chantlessly. She was unintendedly showing her dominance.

"The caster exerts their will in the air and controls its flow freely. This is just a basic spell but it's great for almost everything. Just need a little bit of effort."

Elena filtered out the origin and nature of the spell. There was no reason she should teach her spells for free. While glancing at the magic was enough for her to come up with some theories, the same could not be said for others. So she didn't mind using her spell for conversation topics.

"... You make it sound so easy."

"Hmm, it is really easy for me so… I don't know."

A small wave of discomfort spread out the whole class. It was like a personal attack to their pride.

When things started to look bad the door was opened. A beautiful girl with silver hair and purple eyes skipped in and swirled around. The atmosphere in the room transformed into one that was like a flower field immediately.

"Hello everyone. It's nice to meet you all! My name is Aizakti. Please take good care of me!"

The bubbling girl was the brightest thing in the room at the moment. She had everyone's attention without effort. The boys were blushing looking at her face and body while the girls were just narrowing their eyes.

"Who's that? I have never seen her before."

"Looks like she is from the Kane Empire based on the name. But why didn't she introduce her full name? A commoner?"

"Of course not! Commoner doesn't get to be in this class. And the Empire has different customs than ours. They use names freely."

Listening to the discussion of the students was useless. They didn't know any better than her. Elena looked at the two royalties before her to see if they knew anything.

"She is the thirty-third Princess of the Empire."

"Ah, so that is the replacement. Another disposable huh."

Prince Melvin winced at the remark. It was true but he didn't expect anyone to say it out loud.

"What does disposable mean, brother?"

"Lily, do not mind that word. It is a hard word to use, okay? If you study as much as I do then you will know."

"Uu, forget it! I hate books!"

Thirty-third huh. Just had to remind me of the Hero again. Her demeanor irks me somehow.

The bubbling girl danced around each table and made small talk with all the students. The reactions were quite positive to Elena's surprise. But there was still nothing interesting for her yet. She ignored the girl and continued to converse with Princess Liliana.

"So, anyway, your Highness, do you want to join me later for lunch? I am quite interested in your magic."

"Really? That's wonderful! I can't wait!"

"I can't wait either."

Elena answered with a chuckle. There was so much she wanted to do to this Princess. Since she shouldn't perform a dissection on a royalty in broad daylight, Elena settled with just some scanning formations for now. Luckily, the Princess took an interest in her, she could utilize this chance to pull the unique dragonoid to her side. Then she could analyze the craftwork in detail later.

"Ne, ne, Elena sis, your test was amazing! How did you do that?"

"That? Oh, the [Wind Blade]?"

"That ridiculous spell was really [Wind Blade]? Not an intermediate spell?"

Prince Melvin couldn't help himself to voice that out, he even ignored his sister's etiquette. Many students that were listening in were feeling the same as him. The power and scale of destruction were too large to be just an elementary spell. Not to mention that graduated students had to master at least one intermediate level spell to qualify. And she had done it chantlessly. The apprehension Elena had put on the students was way bigger than she had intended. After all, only the principal could perhaps do something similar to her at his best.

So hearing it was really just an elementary level spell took off some weight on their shoulders. 

"Well, your Highness the Princess is powerful. You can do that too when your control of mana improves further."

"Really? That's awesome! Elena sis, show me another magic!"

"Hmm…"

Elena didn't hear Lily as the bubbling air moved near them. The foreign Princess made a beeline toward her table.

Hell no! I don't want to deal with your type!

Elena flicked the bell in the clock tower at the center of the Academy with her [Telekinesis]. A loud gong resounded a portion of the capital indicating the time for students to start their classes. Although it was a bit earlier than usual.

Seeing the disappointed look on that Princess satisfied Elena greatly.

"Aw~ I want to talk more."

"Come on Lily. Let's get back to our table."

"Okay. See you later, Elena sis."

"You too, your Highness."

All students returned to their tables except for two. The two boys just looked at Elena timidly without saying anything.

"Fine, fine, fine. Here you go."

She flipped the bench in front of her and returned it to their table. The ground was also flattened back to their original form. All of this with just a wave of her hand like an annoyed act made the boys even more timid. Higher rank or not, they didn't feel like going against her at all.

Elena didn't do this out of kindness. She could let the boys deal with it themselves but she needed the extra good impression from the instructors when they came in. Being viewed as a bad student by them was unwise in the long run. She didn't want the instructors to interfere with her in the future so getting them on her side would do good.

After a while, the door was opened again. This time was the Prince of the Empire and the instructor. Prince Kordan was still shaken so he had waited till the last moment to step in the class less anyone tried to talk to him.

Some boring introductions later and Elena started to tune out everyone already. History was just not her thing. The morning would continue with mathematics, literature and some social things. It was just too much for a Demon King that was naturally antisocial. Truly a test of patience for the impatient.

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"Ah hahaha! Unlimited, powah!"

There was a maid standing in a corner of the garden of the Academy with a wide stance and two hands forwarded. Lightning was coming out of her hands and it was burning the root of the tree before her slightly while she had a mad crackle on her face.

"Haa, haa… this… is fun."

She was no one other than Emily who was just playing around with her newly learned spell. She had overdone it and become exhausted despite her enormous mana pool.

"Ah, my lightning magic reaches level 5!"

 

 

Emily looked at her status with glee. She had a pretty good result for just two weeks. She noticed that she had gained the [Acana] skill when she practiced [Telekinesis]. So whatever that [Acana] was, it had to be a school of magic or some sort, like [Lightning Magic]. Although when she used [Lightning] it also increased a little.

Because she learned directly from the Demon King so it had to be good. She strongly believed so.

Sitting down under the tree she had just burnt, Emily tried to meditate to regain mana faster. Based on her experiments, yoga's breathing method worked best in mana recovery. Still, she hadn't acquired the skill [Meditation] yet despite her boosted exp gain. She knew it existed because that reincarnated Cecilia, the Duke's daughter, had it. She ought to have done something wrong or that skill was some high-tier stuffs.

Anyway, now that she could perceive mana somewhat, she could tell the rapid movement in the air due to her absorption. Pure mana was colorless, mana emitted from creatures had a varying array of colors. Emily believed those were the colors of auras she had seen in anime. Why anime? It was because she hadn't seen anyone having an active aura yet so she just swung it.

"I want a blue aura. Maybe it will be spiky like DBZ? Should I make a K*meh*meh*? Oh, that would be cool…"

It was no wonder that she couldn't get [Meditation]. The optimism was overflowing and there was no inner peace at all.

After a while, her whole ten thousand units of mana were full. This was a ridiculous feat but being clueless as always, she presumed all mages could do the same. On the bright side, seeing how fast she regained mana, others would also misjudge her reserve to be a small one. That was an advantage in combat and information warfare.

"Yes! Fully charged!"

There were other maids in the garden beside her too but they kept their distance from the most-likely crazy person. Being a maid and being able to use magic were not always together so Emily was a rare servant. Instead of gaining fame, she accidentally gathered infamy through her excited weeby inner self.

"Now onto the task! Let's build a picnic site with~ the powah of da dark side!"

Utilizing the only two spells she had, Emily burnt the grass to make the borders of a square area under the tree and then flattened it out with [Telekinesis]. The groundwork was quick and cost-efficient since there was no finest needed. The Academy would not approve of her modification to the grass garden but in her mind, she had only made the earth even, and the grass wouldn't die that easily either. With a humming tune on her lips, she arranged the table, chairs, and food with the same spell now that the earth was flat and solid. Everything was training for her after all.

"Huh? What's that?"

When she was done, it was nearly the time for her Lady and Mari to come. But she caught sight of a shadow on the roof of the administration building nearby. The silhouette looked human but she wasn't sure. Emily narrowed her eyes with a hand above her eyebrows to have a clearer view.

"A maintenance worker? No, can't be. Ah, it disappears!... Shit, I should tell Ms. DK about this."

Her face started to pale a bit remembering the assassins. Although many things had changed for her, she was still the old scaredy-cat Emily and not a real protagonist at heart. No way she would investigate such a suspicious thing.

"Please come quickly, please come quickly,..."

She sat on a chair and started fidgeting while looking here and there as if someone would stab her in the back at any given time. Her actions just made her all the crazier to the other maids in the area.

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End of chapter 16

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