“Welcome to the Royal Knight Academy!” the director began, greeting all the new students and their servants present in the auditorium. Then he continued his prattle about how everyone here should do their best to learn and become stronger so that they could defend the country from the impending demon invasion. To make matters worse, his speech was so laden with unnecessary noble and political jargon that it was hard for anyone from the common class to understand him.

Even Rina and the usually well-read Marianne had trouble connecting the director's words. However, while Marianne was just too inexperienced to do that, the reason as to why Rina didn't really understand the director's words despite her experience from her past life, was that she didn't really pay attention to what he was saying. She was too preoccupied with the fact that the man standing on the podium was Duke Thalas Lumiére.

“Now I get what he meant,” Rina muttered under her breath, recalling the spy's words about the Duke using his power to revamp the Academy's curriculum a few weeks ago. After all, the Duke had become the director himself, so it was naturally not hard for him to change and organise the content of the lessons.

Despite the Duke's speech, or maybe because everyone was silent due to that, Clara was able to pick up Rina's quiet words, which wasn't meant to anyone to hear. So the blonde turned around and whispered, “Rina? Is something wrong?”

Shaking her head, swaying her hair left and right, Rina answered, “No, I was just surprised to see him as the direc...”

At this moment, Rina noticed a small object flying towards Clara out of the corner of her eye. So, she reflexively got up, grabbed her dagger from under her skirt, and slashed at the object to prevent it from hitting her mistress. Picking it up from the ground after it had fallen from the loss of momentum, Rina realised that it was just a small, very light ball. Even if it had met its target, Clara, she wouldn't have been hurt anyway. Still, Rina was not comfortable with the sudden attack, so she started to look around for the culprit, only to be stopped by the Duke's loud voice.

“You there. I'm in the middle of my greeting. Be Silent!”

Clara, who was slow to react but had noticed that Rina had blocked the ball for her, stood up against Thalas' demand and said in a confident voice, “Excuse me, Director. But someone here has just thrown something at me.”

“Naturally,” he snorted condescendingly. “It was because you were whispering instead of listening to me.”

Hearing that the academy's director, or rather his men, would resort to throwing objects at people who were the heirs of their respective noble families, the entire hall erupted into whispers. Apart from the attendants, almost everyone present was a noble. Of course, they wouldn't be pleased to hear that they might be subjected to minor violence during their stay at the prestigious Royal Knight Academy. After all, as aristocrats, they considered themselves to be at the pinnacle of society.

Then, as if to voice everyone's thoughts, a young woman stood up at the other end of the hall, quite far away from the trio, and spoke in a calm, but questioning tone. “Duke Lumiére, no, Director Lumiére. Could you please explain your actions right now? Throwing objects at future heads of other families will not and cannot be without consequences, even for some of your standing.”

Almost every student nodded in agreement to this statement and, therefore, turned their attention towards the podium to hear the director's response. He, however, just shook his head in an exaggerated manner to show his disappointment and said, “Princess Yamerli, no, Miss Yamerli is more correct at the moment, as you've lived your entire life safe from demons far in the east, you probably don't know this. But we are facing difficult times. Everyone here is trying to get stronger so that they can defend the country and therefore need to harden up, future heir or not. If someone can't live with that or can't listen to authoritarian figures, they might as well leave. Now, sit down.” Having said that, he turned back to Clara and Rina. “Miss Dragonherz, you too. Additionally, meet me at my office after class.”

After that, he continued his speech for another hour. The only saving grace for Rina was that the stares she had received earlier due to her actions diminished with time, as no one wanted to disobey the Duke's order and displease him.

Once the greeting was over, anyone who wasn't here to attend the academy was sent away, leaving the noble students, their personal attendants, and a few commoner students behind. The rest was then divided into twenty classes of around thirty people each. This meant that there were around six hundred new students each year. With two grades, the total number of pupils was around 1200.

Initially, Rina was quite surprised at how high the number was. After all, the Royal Knight Academy was currently almost exclusively for nobles. Having six hundred of them join every year was quite a feat since there couldn't be that many nobles at this age. But when she thought about it a bit longer, she realised that not all of them were nobles, as there were still quite a few commoners who still managed to join. Moreover, not all of the personal attendants were lower-ranked nobles, since quite a few of them were commoners, like Rina.

Apart from that, there were also many nobles who came from all across the Valkyria Kingdom to attend the academy. And that was not all. Like the young woman who stood up for her and Clara earlier, some came from other countries to learn and even to help with the impeding invasion. So, in the end, the high number of pupils at the academy wasn't that surprising.

While Rina was thinking about all of this and comparing the numbers of students in her old world, different names were called out loud by teachers reading out their class lists. So, when her name was announced, she involuntarily twitched in surprise. Luckily, it wasn't that obvious, so nobody noticed it. Well, except for Clara, who giggled lightly, enjoying her reaction.

As Rina looked at new classmates and saw that Clara was in the same class as her, she subconsciously brightened up, even though she already knew that they would end up together. After all, the academy would never dare to split up higher ranked nobles and their personal attendants, as they would ideally stick together for life. Learning and growing together would only strengthen the bond between them.

Approaching her mistress and new classmates, she noticed that the male to female ratio was quite high, approximately two to one. Additionally, it seemed that she was by far the youngest in the class, which naturally drew the attention of the others to her. Luckily, she was already used to it from her previous life, so she just stood nonchalantly diagonally behind Clara, where she belonged as Clara's personal attendant.

And even if those stares had bothered her, she wouldn't have had to endure them for long anyway. The reason for this was that Clara noticed it and therefore shot a sharp glare at all those people staring at her maid, causing them all to look away in an instant to avoid conflict with the lioness.

A while later, when every new student had been assigned to their class, they were all led to their classrooms by their respective instructors. Though, when they arrived, Rina found that the term 'lecture hall' would be more accurate, as it was many times larger than the classrooms she was used to from her past life.

But that wasn't really surprising. After all, the aristocracy cared about appearances, which was reflected by the luxury and size of the chairs and desks. Therefore, the classroom had to be large enough to accommodate the luxurious furniture.

Most of the desks were big enough to be a dining table for a large extended family and had two chairs. One was cushioned and had an armrest, while the other was plain and wooden. It wasn't hard to guess which chair was for whom. This showed that the leading nobles were supposed to share the desk and study space with their personal attendants.

Additionally, there were also smaller desks that belonged to those who were alone because they were either commoners or nobles with no personal servants yet. Needless to say, the furniture of the former were simple, while those of the latter was much more luxurious.

While everyone was still busy looking around, Rina tugged on Clara's sleeve to get her attention and led her over to the desk with the nameplate 'Lady Clara Dragonherz' on it. Then, just like she had learned from her etiquette instructor, Rina pulled out her mistress's chair and signalled her to sit down.

Clara naturally knew what she had to do. After all, she had also learned how to behave in an official setting. And this was an understatement, for she was famous for her exceptional manners, even among the higher nobility. She didn't like it, though, because she hoped to be able to be intimate with her maid even in public. This, of course, was under no circumstances possible, so all she could do for now was puff out her cheeks in disappointment and annoyance.

Seeing Clara's hamster like expression, Rina had the urge to poke it so that it deflated, but for Clara's and her own sake, she managed to hold it in. Instead, she sat down in her chair next to Clara and tilted her head in confusion, wondering why her blonde mistress was in such a bad mood in the first place.

'Have I done something wrong?'

While the mistress-maid duo were taking their seats in the lecture all, the others looked at them in amazement, especially those who had their own personal attendants. What they had just witnessed was the perfect master-servant relationship they had all longed for. After all, who wouldn't want to have a young, beautiful, and attentive servant who even had the manners and graceful movements down to a T.

Unfortunately, it was quite rare for higher-ranked nobles to have such a harmonious relationship. More often than not, the usual relationship between master and personal servant was like a contractual employment without much genuine care for each other. This was normally either because the employer, the high-ranking noble, was too demanding or aggressive, or because the attendant was only in it for the money. Being a personal attendant of a noble was quite a high-paying job, after all.

Either way, almost everyone who had an attendant looked enviously at Clara for having such an intimate relationship with her maid. And even if what they were currently witnessing was just a show, most of them had seen how the duo had acted in the auditorium earlier, when the director had given his speech, with the red-haired attendant protecting her mistress, and the mistress standing up for her attendant's actions.

So, almost everyone who had a personal maid or butler unconsciously looked at them and thought,

“I wish they were her.”

Naturally, for most of the young masters, the redhead's exceptional appearance played a major role.