Chapter 53: Ouch!

“Did you pack the clothes?”

“Yes, but I didn’t find the red ones.”

“What?! I told you to sort them out before.”

Two maids could be seen packing up luxurious pairs of clothes.

“I did.”

The younger maid pouted.

The room they were in was a large room with a king-size bed in the centre, surrounded by decorations of varied types.

The windows were just open enough to let the sun peek through, the calm waves of the cool wind crashing against the curtains.

Every inch of the room screamed wealth, something which very few could afford.

And the Frosts were one of them.

“Surely young miss wouldn’t mind a cloth or two missing.”

The young maid tried to defend herself, but her pitiful attempts were met with a—

Smack!

“Ouch! What was that for?!” Rubbing her head, she looked at her senior with teary eyes.

“Young miss may be benevolent, but that doesn’t mean you should slack off on your duties.”

Smack!

Getting another hit on the back of her head seemed to have stopped her resistance.

The young one looked at her senior with moist eyes, trying to gain sympathy.

“…”

But failed miserably.

The young miss they were talking about was none other than the youngest child, Alicia Frost.

Similar things were happening all over the Frost Mansion, with the maids running through the hallways, trying their best to complete the tasks at hand.

Today was the day when the gates of the most prestigious academy on the planet were opened for new admissions.

A new year had begun, with the entrance tests of the academy being scheduled for today.

However, these tests were a ticket to the academy for the commoners, while the influential noble houses across the world had their own quota to send a selected number of their students to get admitted to the academy.

The test was to determine the initial rankings of the new recruits.

The interesting part being that these tests were a bonus examination for the nobles who were already admitted to the academy.

The commoners applying for the academy had to get a score above certain points determined by the academy.

If they passed the minimum threshold, they would become eligible to get selected for the academy.

Only eligible, not a guaranteed selection.

Even among the passed candidates, only the top students would be selected, as the quota of students that could get admitted to the academy through these tests kept on changing each year.

So it depended on the luck of these recruits if the quota was higher than the previous years.

If not, then they could only blame their origins.

That was how the world worked.

This system wasn’t invented for charity.

No.

It was for filtering the best talents among the masses and providing for their education. Though Namda Academy was wealthy by its own standards, it couldn’t simply fund the education of all the students who were applying for admission.

Hence, only a finite number of students among the commoners were admitted every year.

This year was going to be the same.

Alicia, being from the Frost dukedom, had already been admitted to the academy along with her brother, Kevin.

There was a general rule that only students who had turned eighteen could apply for admissions.

Though Alicia and Kevin were seventeen years old and still had a year before turning eighteen, being Frosts came with its own set of benefits.

Not only that, but both siblings were monstrous talents for their young age; hence, getting admitted wasn’t against the rules entirely.

Some exceptions were made every year.

“Aren’t they being late?” Alia kept looking at the watch in her hand, with impatience written all over her face.

“Calm down, it’s going to be fine. They are not going to travel by foot. They have a teleportation passage here.”

Castor said in his calm yet commanding voice.

But it didn’t seem to have eased her worries, as Alia kept pacing back and forth.

Currently, both the Duke and the Duchess were waiting near the teleportation passage for their children to arrive.

Today was their entrance test, which had only an hour left before it began.

Not quite.

It was an entrance test for the commoners, but for the Frosts, it was just a test to rank them in the academy.

Missing the test wouldn’t do much harm, but being a Frost came with its own set of expectations.

Both Kevin and Alicia had to rank among the top students to maintain the dominance of the Frosts in every place they had set their foot in.

And it wasn’t difficult for either of them.

Both siblings were once-in-a-generation talents, being admitted a year earlier to the academy.

At first, Alia was against the idea of enrolling them until they turned eighteen.

She wanted her children to enjoy their lives before being burdened with the expectations of the dukedom.

She didn’t want them to be crushed under the pressure of being a Frost.

A fifteen-year-old child’s face came to her mind.

It had been three years since the incident that day…

Remembering the past brought bitter memories and a regret so huge that no shoulders could bear.

Seeing the sudden downcast expression on his wife’s face, Castor seemed to have come to an understanding.

He placed a hand on Alia’s shoulder and gently squeezed it as a gesture of comfort.

Castor didn’t know what to say.

He had no words.

Before being a father, he was a Duke of the Veltran Empire, and considering that, he still couldn’t forgive Kael’s outrageous behaviour.

But he couldn’t say his thoughts to his wife and make her more upset than she already was.

Did Castor have regret for how he treated Kael?

That was something only Castor knew.

But one thing was sure—Alia regretted every word she had said at that banquet.

She knew it would break Kael, but had never anticipated the full extent of the damage it could do.

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