Chapter 65: Rumours

I glanced at her uniform. She was wearing the standard Magic Department robes, but they looked brand new. On her silver name tag, there was only one word written:

[Emma]

’No family name? Is she a commoner?’

Her appearance and posture were impeccably noble, but the lack of a surname in Merchen Academy usually meant commoner status or an unacknowledged bastard. I racked my brain, trying to recall the game’s lore. I didn’t recognize her. Was she an extra?

Emma suddenly grabbed my right hand with both of hers and shook it vigorously, her golden eyes shining.

“Oh, you don’t have to explain the reason right now! I was just so glad to see you looking so healthy! And… I’m also a Magic Department student now!”

“A Magic Department student?” I echoed, a piece of the puzzle clicking into place. “Wait. Are you the transfer student?”

I remembered Professor Cassandra interrupting Leonard’s class earlier to discuss a “transfer student” paperwork issue.

“Yes!” Emma beamed, puffing out her chest. “I just transferred today! So, for now, we’re classmates!”

“Sir Alex! Ah, would you like to go to a separate place to talk? I’m sorry for keeping you standing in the hallway!”

“I’m actually quite busy,” I said smoothly, pulling my hand back gently.

“Oh~” Her ahoge (the little cowlick of hair on top of her head) visibly drooped. “Then let’s just exchange simple greetings for today! By any chance… do you remember me? It’s me! Emma!”

She looked at me with such overwhelming, puppy-dog excitement that I almost felt bad. I was curious as to why she was showing such extreme closeness to a guy known as the Academy’s trash.

However, since I didn’t inherit the original Alex’s memories regarding random childhood friends, it was impossible to say exactly what our past relationship was. I decided to play the amnesia card.

“To be honest, Emma… I suffered a magical backlash a while ago. I can’t remember my past very well.”

“…Ah! Ah!”

Emma gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth. She raised her head abruptly.

Our eyes met. Her golden eyes, shining like polished mirrors, reflected my face.

I expected to see resentment for forgetting something important, or crushing disappointment. I thought she would feel devastated.

But she didn’t.

Instead, a dangerously wide, almost manic smile spread across her face.

“Sir Alex!”

’Huh?’

Contrary to my thoughts, she lunged forward and hugged me again, burying her face in my neck.

“Don’t worry!” she cheered, her voice muffled against my collar. “Since you forgot the past, it just means I’m here to help you make brand new memories! Just the two of us!”

She pulled back, looking at me with even more sparkle in her eyes than before. It was bordering on a yandere level of devotion.

Perhaps the original Alex had saved her life or granted her some massive favor in the past.

I calmly peeled her off my chest. “…Help me?”

“Yes! I will be your official aide!” Emma thumped her chest confidently. Each time her fist tapped her collarbone, it made her voluminous breasts bounce aggressively.

“Besides,” her angelic smile suddenly vanished, replaced by a dark, terrifying scowl that made the temperature in the hallway drop. “There was a nasty rumor circulating in the Capital that someone in the Magic Department signed a contract with demons. That’s the real reason I transferred!”

’What?’

“How can they be so foolish to spread such filthy rumors about you?!” Emma hissed, her golden eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. “I will find whoever is spreading those lies, cut out their tongues, and feed them to the wild dogs behind the slaughterhouse!”

’…She is terrifying.’

I didn’t care about the dog-feeding threat. My brain snagged on the first part of her sentence. I immediately grabbed Emma by the wrist and dragged her around the corner, out of the main hallway.

“Euh?!” she squeaked, a blush returning to her cheeks as I pinned her lightly against the stone wall.

Right after hearing that story, I pressed my index finger firmly against Emma’s soft lips, silencing her. I quickly scanned the corridor.

Even though I didn’t fully understand her backstory yet, I knew that uttering the word “Demon” inside the Academy walls right now was practically a death sentence.

Fortunately, the surroundings were empty. I looked down at her, my expression dead serious.

“Explain the demon rumor. Now.”

Emma nodded eagerly against my finger. I lowered my hand.

“Yes! Well… you don’t know because you’re isolated here,” she whispered quickly, looking up at me with adoring eyes. “But everyone in high society is talking about your sudden change! You went from the weakest freshman—the fainting boy who couldn’t even cast a low-tier spell without collapsing from mana exhaustion, the so-called ’Shame of the Edelhart Family’…”

She paused, blushing. “Not that I ever called you that!”

“Keep going.”

“Right! Well, you suddenly changed. You became incredibly strong. You defeated Lady Ariana, you topped the Freshman Expedition, you fought off a mutated Boss…”

Emma leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a grim whisper.

“The change is so drastic and impossible for a defective circuit that rumors are going around the noble factions. They’re saying the only way Alex Edelhart could gain that much power overnight… is if he made a contract with a Demon.”

My blood ran cold.

’What the fuck?’

’What the fuck?’

’Are these people insane? Spreading rumors about signing a contract with a demon?’

In this world, signing a contract with demons didn’t just mean dabbling in dark magic. It meant betraying humanity itself. It was the absolute vilest crime anyone could commit, punishable by total eradication of one’s bloodline.

And they were spreading rumors about it. Not about some rogue hedge-mage, but about the Heir to the Edelhart Duchy.

Were the noble factions completely out of their minds? If the Inquisitors caught wind of this, it wouldn’t just be an Academy scandal; it would be a political bloodbath.

And more pressingly… who the fuck was this girl acting so intimately familiar with me? Why was she addressing me as “Sir Alex” with such terrifying devotion? What was our past relationship that she would literally transfer schools just to hunt down people spreading gossip about me?

But a public hallway, even an empty one, was not the right time or place for a Q&A session about high treason.

“Emma,” I said, keeping my voice low and authoritative, dropping my hand from her lips to her shoulder. “We’ll talk about this in detail later. Just the two of us. In private.”

Her golden eyes practically turned into hearts.

“Okay~!” she squeaked happily, her fluffy blonde hair bouncing. “Just the two of us… Sir Alex and me! In private! That’s wonderful!”

That was when it happened.

Clatter.

The sharp sound of something hard hitting the stone floor echoed from the corner we had just ducked behind.

Standing there, looking absolutely furious, was Alicia Raven.

At her feet lay her Trivia tablet. The screen was still glowing, displaying a chaotic, heavily modified circuit diagram of a Fireball. I immediately understood why she was here. She had been trying to reverse-engineer the kinetic compression technique I used during Professor Leonard’s evaluation.

But unlike the timid girl in the original game’s draft who would tremble at being caught eavesdropping, Alicia was not flustered. She didn’t cower.

Instead, she crossed her arms beneath her chest, pushing her impressive cleavage up defensively, and glared at me with crimson eyes that looked ready to shoot lasers.

“’Sir Alex’…?”

Alicia murmured the title, her upper lip curling in disgust. Her gaze darted from Emma—who was peeking out from behind my back with a bright smile—to my face.

“Since when did you get knighted, you lecherous dog?” Alicia sneered, though the slight twitch in her jaw betrayed her irritation. “Or is that just the roleplay title you make your little groupies use?”

Emma broke the tense silence, stepping out from behind me with her hands clasped together like a saint.

“Oh! Who is this? Ah, is it a friend of Sir Alex?” Emma beamed radiantly. “If you’re Sir Alex’s friend, I’m so glad to meet you! I’m Emma, his official aide!”

Alicia’s eyebrow twitched so hard I thought it might detach from her face.

“Aide?” Alicia practically spat the word. “You mean his newest toy. I was wondering why you bolted from the training ground so fast, Alex. Couldn’t wait to go pin another girl against a wall in the middle of the hallway?”

I smirked, leaning against the stone archway. I let my eyes slowly, deliberately drag up and down Alicia’s figure, lingering on the way her tight uniform hugged her waist.

“Were you following me, Alicia?” I teased, letting my voice drop to a low, flirtatious purr. “If you wanted a private lesson on magic compression, you just had to ask. You didn’t need to stalk me.”

“I was not stalking you!” she snapped, her cheeks flushing with anger, not embarrassment. “I was walking to the library! You two were just being so loud that I dropped my tablet!”

“Sure,” I chuckled, stepping closer to her. She held her ground, refusing to back up. “Or maybe you’re just jealous. Did seeing me with another beautiful girl ruin your afternoon, Princess?”

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