‘I thought maybe; of course.’

That man clearly had no interest in Camilla.

His sister dragged Camilla around doing all sorts of things, and look at that reaction. He didn’t seem to know any of it.

“Why all of a sudden...?”

Petro asked again.

Contrary to Camilla’s expectation, Petro did have some idea—he knew his sister was playing pranks on Camilla.

He had only thought about it simply. Camilla always indulged Elisha’s pranks.

And he also knew the reason she indulged them. Because Camilla was interested in him.

Then why the sudden change? Why try to be at odds with Elisha?

“Because it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“...”

“Because I don’t need to look good anymore.”

What is this? Why does that make my chest ache?

At the words of a woman coolly closing out her relationship with him with a blank face, Petro felt a sudden tightness.

“Camilla.”

A voice cut between them then—the very Elisha who had fled the party hall moments ago.

“I’m sorry, Camilla.”

Her eyes were damp. Red and bloodshot as if she had been crying for a while—anyone would find her pitiful.

‘What now?’

Of course, Camilla wasn’t fooled. She only laughed inside at the fact Elisha had approached her again.

The Elisha she knew was not someone who would admit fault this easily.

Not to Camilla, of all people.

“My friends want to apologize too. They think they made too big a mistake just now...”

“Do they?”

“Would you come with me?”

“Of course.”

Camilla gave a light nod. Whatever it was, she was quite willing to play one more round.

“I’ll be going, then.”

After offering a calm farewell to the still-silent Petro, Camilla followed behind Elisha. She felt Petro’s gaze but ignored it.

Step.

Told they were waiting in a room, Camilla set foot on the stairs to the second floor.

Watching Elisha walking ahead, a laugh slipped from Camilla before she knew it.

‘Says she’ll apologize.’

What’s with those fists?

‘How about unclenching them first?’

With both hands balled tight and her lips clamped shut, Elisha looked not like someone coming to apologize, but like someone barely holding back her temper.

“Pfft.”

At Camilla’s sudden laugh, Elisha’s steps stopped dead.

“Why, Camilla?”

“I was just curious.”

“About what?”

“What you’re plotting this time.”

“...What?”

Elisha’s face twisted hard. She failed to keep her expression.

‘Sorry. For calling you a fox.’

Seeing you now, you don’t even make it to a cub.

‘Getting flustered over a line like that?’

Honestly, someone should give you acting lessons—this is embarrassing to watch.

Clicking her tongue softly, Camilla went on.

“Well, what dunces with heads full of crap plot is obvious anyway.”

“Ugh!”

Elisha’s expression collapsed again. With eyes full of rage and teeth clenched, she looked ready to spit a curse any second.

“Vulgar!”

As expected, out came something coarse. For a young noblewoman who’d lived her whole life as such, that was probably the harshest thing she could say.

“Sorry.”

Not that it did any damage to Camilla.

“When I humor vulgar girls, I end up getting vulgar without noticing.”

Instead, she grinned.

“Y—you! Really!”

Elisha ground her teeth.

She was right. Calling Camilla aside like this wasn’t to apologize.

A false act for a false act. She meant to pay back exactly what had happened in the hall.

At the moment, all of Elisha’s friends were waiting with clothes torn here and there and with each others’ cheeks slapped a few times.

Elisha planned to go up, do the same, and then point to Camilla as the assailant.

She would tell people that even though they had sincerely apologized, Camilla had made a scene.

But it was getting too hard to keep acting. Her head was ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) spinning from Camilla’s words that lightly scraped her.

Camilla, smiling and never yielding a line, was infuriating.

‘Has she gone mad!’

She wasn’t the girl of before.

There was no trace of the old her who would grovel at a word.

Which only stoked her temper and sent her anger boiling up.

That thing! How dare she!

“Do you even know who I am!”

“The Jevillan house’s spoiled brat.”

“...!”

“A duke’s daughter who still acts like a child, not even living up to her age.”

“Ca—Camilla!”

“Oh, and 117th in the midterms?”

“Y-you!”

Thud!

Finally exploding, Elisha shoved Camilla with all her might. And not just anywhere—right at the edge of the second-floor stairs.

Camilla could easily have dodged, but she didn’t. If she did, Elisha would fall instead. That’s exactly where they stood.

She didn’t care if Elisha got hurt—that would be her own fault—but the chance of a needless misunderstanding was far too high. They would say it happened because Camilla pushed Elisha.

Elisha was not someone who would tell the truth. She would seize the chance to make trouble with a lie.

‘I’ll get hurt if I must.’ 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

I have no intention of taking that kind of false blame.

‘Look at this empty-headed girl.’

Doesn’t it occur to you that if you push me here it’s over? There will be no room to explain, you little fox.

Even as she fell, Camilla kept clicking her tongue.

Elisha, only now realizing what she had done and panicking, looked so pathetic.

‘That’s weeks of recovery at least, isn’t it?’

Camilla squeezed her eyes shut. Please let it be no more than a hairline crack in an arm or leg.

‘...Huh?’

But even as time passed, no pain shot through her body.

Instead, firm muscle and a fresh scent received her.

“Are you all right?”

It was Petro. Somehow, he had come and caught her as she fell from the stairs, failing to hide the alarm in his eyes.

“...Thanks to you.”

At Camilla’s words, his face let out a short breath and then changed in an instant. Petro’s face hardened, very frightening.

“Elisha!”

His shout burst out.

Faced directly with that fury, Elisha trembled all over at her brother’s angry face, a face she was seeing for the first time.

‘Told you—you’re still far off.’

Watching her, Camilla clicked her tongue inside.

Chapter. The Sword of Protection

Scolded so harshly by her father, the Duke of Jevillan, that it wrung the tears out of her, Elisha was put under discipline.

Thanks to that, there was no chance of running into her at the Academy for a while, and even her friends lost their nerve and started keeping their distance from Camilla.

But mental compensation and material compensation are separate matters.

To the Sorpel house—more precisely, to Camilla Sorpel and the Duke of Sorpel—official letters of apology from House Jevillan and a flood of extravagant gifts arrived.

On top of that, a rumor circulated that the Duke of Jevillan had, with tears in his eyes, handed over a prime business to the Duke of Sorpel, but only they would know the truth.

[...have been completely excluded.]

“Very swift action.”

Munching a cookie, Camilla listened to the recent mood in House Jevillan and the updates on those who had tried to brand her a liar in the hall.

A result that satisfied her to the core, plus Derrin’s neat briefing—very nice.

[It was a situation they couldn’t deny. They must have decided it was better to admit it quickly and focus on the cleanup.]

“True...”

They had shoved a duke’s daughter who had come as a guest down the stairs—what could they possibly say? There was no room to argue.

And someone had seen it clearly.

‘Petro.’

The fact that that someone was Elisha’s brother, Petro, was no problem at all.

Petro was not the sort to cover for injustice just because it was family.

In the end, Elisha had to take her punishment with no escape hole left.

Of course, the Duke of Sorpel still complained that the measures against Elisha were far too light.

‘What was with that man, anyway?’

It was truly unexpected to see Petro—who laughed even while committing murder—get that angry.

The fact that the target was the cherished younger sister made it all the more surprising.

Ordinarily, when it came to his sister, he fawned no less than the Duke of Jevillan.

Elisha herself went around saying that the one who filled their mother’s absence for her was her brother, Petro.

‘For that Petro to get angry at her for the first time.’

It must have shocked her badly.

“Well, none of my business.”

Camilla walked on at an easy pace. With classes over, the Academy was very quiet.

The reason she remained until sunset was to resolve a single curiosity.

‘If I get curious, I can’t sleep.’

Since visiting House Jevillan, a question kept circling her head, and in the end she decided to do something about it.

She headed for the Academy practice yard prepared for sword training.

At this late hour, the practice yard, as expected, had not a soul in sight.

‘But that doesn’t mean no one is there.’

Camilla stopped for a moment and fixed her gaze on a large tree growing inside the practice yard.

And there, as always, sat a certain presence.

A man’s ghost in his early twenties, a sword thrust through his chest, staring blankly toward the practice yard.

He was still keeping his post.

“As I thought.”

Looking properly at his face for the first time, Camilla nodded. The sword stuck in his chest was unmistakable.

Step.

Camilla strode up to the man.

Unlike before—when she took care to avoid meeting his eyes whenever she passed the practice yard—she walked straight at him.

Tap.

Stopping right in the path of his gaze, Camilla looked at him without a word.

[...]

Then the man lifted his head and fixed his eyes on her.

Meeting his eyes head-on, Camilla opened her mouth slowly.

“You are Zeno Jevillan, aren’t you?”

Zeno Jevillan.

The subject of the portrait she had seen at the Jevillan house. The one who had established Jevillan’s swordsmanship.

[You know me?]

“...”

[Yes. I am Zeno Jevillan.]

And there he was—Zeno Jevillan—sitting before Camilla now.

With what looked like the Sword of Protection thrust through his chest.

‘As expected, Young Master Zeno is incredible.’

‘Truly. Such an achievement at that age.’

‘Heavens! Young Master Zeno found the Sword of Protection!’

‘That legendary blade?’

‘Truly a man fit to lead the house in the next generation!’

Remembering some day in the past, he smiled gently at Camilla.

All this time, she had tried to avoid getting involved with ghosts—she hadn’t even looked them in the eye—so at first she wasn’t sure.

And when she realized that the subject of that portrait was the very same man’s ghost who camped out at the Academy practice yard, a large question arose.

‘Why the head?’

Why would the head of House Jevillan, of all people, be haunting the Academy practice yard?

‘With a sword stuck in his chest, at that?’

Just in case, she had done some digging.

He was high nobility, even the head—maybe he had died at someone else’s hand.

Even with a Guardian, that doesn’t mean you’re protected a hundred percent of the time.

‘Hersel was like that too.’

He had been a former head of House Sorpel. How could he have known he would be poisoned so easily?