STARE STARE STARE…

Before Aesphyra had even finished speaking, three gazes simultaneously locked onto Vinny, staring at him without moving away and without saying a word. They just silently stared at him, as if unless he said something, they would stand there all day and go nowhere, burning time right here with him.

“Uh, hey, what are you all doing?” Vinny swallowed and said, furrowing his brows. “You’re not seriously believing this white-haired nutball, are you?? She’s obviously just stirring the pot—listen and let it pass, don’t actually take it seriously, okay? She’s a princess of the Tyrel Empire, what does she have to do with me? We just happened to get dragged into the same crisis this time, that’s all.”

However, Vinny’s explanation did not make the three of them shift their attention or move their eyes away. They continued to stare at him without saying a word, clearly not believing what he was saying.

“Classmate Vinny, if I remember correctly, the one who first fell into the Deeply Buried Secret Realm this time was Classmate Isatia alone. You did not fall in; it was only later that, because of a certain connection, you were also sucked into the Deeply Buried Secret Realm. Isn’t that right?” Aesphyra said with a broad, smiling face.

A certain connection??

Those words did remind Shicodale and Mirexia. Shicodale had heard Milian mention it in front of a crowd, so he had quite a strong impression and very quickly thought of a certain possibility.

[Virtue +60]

[Current Virtue: 4484]

Mirexia, on the other hand, did not react that quickly. She did not immediately understand what Aesphyra meant by “connection.”

“Hey, hey! Stop steering the topic again! That was just a coincidence, okay? Who knew the Marsmo civilization took contracts so seriously??” Vinny could not help spitting back.

“Contracts—what contract?” Mirexia pondered for a moment and asked.

“Mhm~ that, you’ll have to ask Classmate Vinny himself.” Aesphyra did not answer directly. She just hummed a little tune and smiled.

So, Mirexia and Shicodale silently turned their gazes back again.

“You nutball, stop saying things that make people misunderstand! That betrothal wasn’t made by me, it wasn’t made by my generation, it wasn’t even made by my father’s or grandfather’s generation—what does it have to do with me? I really don’t want to get dragged into it either, okay??” Vinny said irritably.

Just what had he brought back from this trip?

Besides suffering and hard labor, he had gained basically nothing. Well, at most he had racked up a lot more combat experience, but aside from that, there was nothing.

All the benefits had gone straight to the destiny heroine Isatia. You could only say there was a reason she was the heroine. Stand next to her, and any character who is not a destiny heroine will have their fortune siphoned away.

From the very beginning, if it weren’t for [Virtue], if it weren’t to become stronger, Vinny really did not want to get involved in these karmic messes.

“Be—betrothal?” At those words, Mirexia’s eyes opened slightly wider. “Whose betrothal?”

“Whose else? Naturally the betrothal between Classmate Isatia and Classmate Vinny~” Aesphyra teased.

In that moment, the expressionless face that Mirexia usually wore did not change much, but her eyes became even more empty and dull.

[Virtue +100]

[Current Virtue: 4584]

“Don’t listen to her nonsense. As if she doesn’t know?” Vinny shot Aesphyra a look. This girl clearly just wanted to enjoy the show and cause trouble for him.

“That betrothal was set by my great-grandmother, the last Saintess of the Dawn, Sophia Facilis. She said that in the future, if the Facilis descendant and the Lanteville descendant of the same generation happened to be opposite sexes, then they would form a marriage contract. This isn’t some secret—quite a lot of people at the Academy know about it, okay??”

With Vinny reminding her like this, Mirexia also felt like she had a vague impression. It did seem like House of Facilis and the Lanteville family really did have some kind of indescribable agreement between them.

“And that agreement has long since become a scrap of paper. No one cares about it at all. The Tyrel Emperor has gone out of his way to make everyone forget it; the nobles of the Tyrel Empire are the same. Most people in other countries have never even heard of it, and even if they have, they just think it’s a toad lusting after swan meat. Why are you even bringing it up?”

“Classmate Vinny, why are you so agitated? I was only explaining the course of events to President Mirexia and the others. These are all objective facts, aren’t they?” Aesphyra, sitting on the chair, had one perfect-proportioned black-stocking long leg crossed over the other. She tilted her head slightly, as if very puzzled by Vinny’s excessive reaction.

This girl.

Vinny pressed his lips together. “Sometimes I really want to crack open your nutty head and see what’s inside. Why do you always have so many weird, crooked ideas??”

“Is there even anything to say about me and Isatia having shared hardship together inside the Deeply Buried Secret Realm? At a moment that dangerous, any sort of posture would be perfectly normal, right?”

With Vinny’s explanation, Mirexia and Shicodale’s expressions finally returned to normal.

Vinny let out a breath of relief inside.

No, wait, why did it feel like, whatever he did now, he was walking a tightrope??

“Ahem, anyway, I’m more or less fine now, but I do need rest, ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) you see?” The intense low air pressure in the room made Vinny feel like he could barely breathe. Even if that low pressure was probably just his own illusion, having three girls in the room staring at him nonstop still made him feel extremely uncomfortable.

Damn it, had he poked a whole nest of destiny heroines or something? How come the three people visiting him were all destiny heroines??

The girls clearly still had things they wanted to ask, but seeing that Vinny had already said as much, and that the patient did need to rest, they could only give up for now. However, Mirexia and Aesphyra did not seem to have any intention of leaving the room right away. Only Shicodale, when she heard Vinny say that, stood there blankly to tell him to have a good rest, placed the food she had made on the table, and then left.

“Ahem, um, Mirexia, if you still have work to handle, you should go take care of it. There’s nothing urgent on my side,” Vinny said, seeing that Mirexia was still sitting in the chair, keeping watch over him.

“It’s fine. You just rest. Right now is an exceptional period. If anything comes up, just tell me.” Mirexia spoke like that. “You’ve just recovered from serious illness. You need someone by your side to take care of you.”

“Then… one person should be enough, right?” Vinny was a little at a loss for words. He glanced over at Aesphyra beside him. “Classmate Aesphyra, didn’t you say earlier that you wanted to go visit Classmate Isatia? You should go now.”

“Eh? That’s too much, Vinny. I came all this way with a fruit basket to visit you, and I’ve only been sitting here a little while, and you’re already trying to chase me out?” Aesphyra put on a deeply wounded expression.

Vinny’s face was expressionless.

Heh. This white-haired nutball really was an award-winning actress.

“Vinny, Classmate Aesphyra came to visit you out of sincere goodwill as a friend.” Mirexia suddenly spoke up on Aesphyra’s behalf.

“Exactly, exactly. Vinny is actually trying to chase me away, how cruel. President Mirexia is Vinny’s friend, and I’m also Vinny’s friend, am I not?” Aesphyra said with a smiling squint.

“…” Mirexia fell silent. She sat up straight and tightened her grip on the hem of her skirt.

She and Vinny were not just friends. They were childhood companions.

Even though Mirexia herself felt that thinking this way was not entirely fair, she could not help it. She just felt that her relationship with Vinny could not be put on the same level as other people’s relationships with him.

Especially when she thought of what had happened last time between Vinny and Aesphyra, an inexplicable sense of crisis stirred in Mirexia’s heart.

“Mm. Vinny and I have been friends since we were young.” And then, without quite knowing what had driven her, she said that out loud.

“Ah, that’s true. It really does make one envy the relationship between Vinny and President Mirexia~” Aesphyra said with eyes narrowed in a smile.

Uh, huh??

At first, Vinny had thought Aesphyra was probably coming to visit him mainly to get closer to Mirexia. Looking at it now, sure enough, she was indeed here to chat with Mirexia rather than to visit a patient.

Except.

Was it his imagination?

Even someone like Vinny could sense a faint hint of something off.

Although the gold-haired and silver-haired beauties in front of him were chatting, the atmosphere between the two of them felt extremely subtle.

It somehow did not feel all that harmonious.

Was that just his imagination??

It should be an illusion, right??

On the other side, once Shicodale left the room, she only then belatedly realized: why was she the only one who had left, while President Mirexia and Aesphyra were still inside??

Wasn’t Classmate Vinny supposed to be getting a good rest?

Had she… been a bit too obedient?

Just as Shicodale was struggling over whether she ought to go back in and keep him company, but also feeling that she had already walked out… a few people came down the corridor toward Vinny’s ward.

Shicodale lifted her eyes and saw that they were all wearing Carillian Academy mentor uniforms. They were clearly mentors from the Academy.

“Student, may I ask if this is the ward where Classmate Vinny is staying?” the mentor in the lead asked.

“Ah, yes.” Shicodale answered on reflex.

“All right, thank you.” After thanking her, the mentor led the mentors behind him into the ward together.

As the mentors walked into the room, the first thing they saw was Vinny lying on the bed.

“Sorry to intrude on your precious rest time, Classmate Vinny. We’re the Secret Realm research mentors of Carillian Academy. How is your recovery right now?” The leading mentor looked at Vinny seriously.

“Mentor, I’ve more or less recovered. I’m basically fine now. I just don’t have much strength yet,” Vinny replied, already more or less knowing what the mentors were here for.

With something this big happening, the mentors would definitely come to ask about how it had all gone, as well as what exactly existed inside the Marsmo Deeply Buried Secret Realm constructed from fragments of Divine Authority.

“Could the two students visiting the patient step out for a moment?” As he spoke, the mentor looked over at Mirexia and Aesphyra.

The two of them also knew this was routine business for the Academy, so of course they would not interfere with official matters like this. They could only leave the room one after the other.

Then, still tangled up about whether she ought to go back in or not, Shicodale saw Mirexia and Aesphyra come out of the room and close the door behind them.

“Eh?” Shicodale had originally been thinking that she should at least say hello to the two of them—after all, they both knew her, and both had helped her before, and she had been thinking that she had not greeted them when she went in just now.

Who knew that once the two of them came out, each simply took up a position on one side of the door, standing there in silence, no telling what they were thinking.

Shicodale stood there somewhat dazed, sandwiched between the two of them, once again completely unable to figure out her own current situation or what was going on.

“President Mirexia, you seem to have been rather free these past few days,” Aesphyra said.

“Why do you say that?” Mirexia asked after a quiet moment.

“Pff—probably because, according to President Mirexia’s habits, if you were very busy, you wouldn’t stay this long,” Aesphyra said with a laugh.

“…My habits?” Mirexia fell silent for a moment. “And have I really been staying here that long?”

“Well, that depends on what you’re comparing it to,” Aesphyra answered.

“If a friend runs into trouble, then no matter how busy I am, everything else naturally has to be put aside,” Mirexia said, turning her gaze away.

“Eh? Is that so?” Aesphyra nodded meaningfully.

“Eh, eh?” Shicodale was still stuck between them, but it was as if the two of them had completely forgotten she existed, leaving her feeling inexplicably awkward.

“Well then, Classmate Dale, and President Mirexia, see you later.” After glancing into the room, where the conversation had begun, Aesphyra brushed a strand of hair back from her ear and turned to leave.

“Mm.”

“Oh, okay, see you.”

Mirexia gave a calm little nod, while Shicodale, utterly confused, raised her hand like a beckoning cat and, out of politeness, called out a goodbye.

Mirexia watched Aesphyra’s departing back, a faintly obscure light flickering in her eyes.

Inside the room, once they were sure Vinny had basically recovered, the mentors began asking in detail about what had happened inside the Deeply Buried Secret Realm.

Vinny had nothing in particular to hide—other than the part where he became Vanessa. For that portion, he glossed over it and assigned the slightly larger share of combat performance to Isatia.

After all, if he did not say it that way, there would be no way to make the story hold together.

“There was actually a resurrected King of Marsmo inside the Divine Authority Secret Realm? Truly astonishing,” the mentor in charge of recording could not help exclaiming.

“Then, did you find any noteworthy items inside?” the mentor continued to ask.

“No. After we left, we don’t know what became of the Marsmo Secret Realm. Even now, we still don’t know whether the Marsmo Secret Realm has already turned to dust,” Vinny said, shaking his head.

“I see.” The mentor pondered for a moment, then had his subordinates continue taking notes. Once they had gotten a general understanding of things, he said that Vinny and Isatia were obviously the top contributors in this Secret Realm exploration. They would be given rewards later, and Vinny was to rest and recover properly. The Academy would arrange a period of vacation for him and Isatia over the next few days. Then the mentors left.

As for this incident, the higher-ups of Carillian Academy would no doubt have to conduct further research.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep