Chapter 4 - Late Game Start (出遅れたゲームスタート)
translated by myonnie
Swayed by the horse-drawn carriage, I gazed at the unfamiliar scenery outside the window. Once again it dawned on me that I’d really come to a different world.
In the end, Julius didn't utter a word after that. He only stared at me with a smile. Is this a new type of harassment?
When we eventually arrived at the school, I jumped off the carriage to hurry away from my brother and looked around. I soon noticed that the people around me looked at me in surprise.
“Hey, three days ago, that girl...”
“Ah, she’s that F-rank...”
Apparently, my stair jump incident was quite well-known. Yet now I was completely unbothered, coming to the school even more dressed up than usual. ‘Surprise’ should be the normal reaction.
The stares I got were, of course, not pleasant at all. But Rene didn’t do anything wrong. I put on a smile on my mouth, stretched my back, and walked straight with dignity.
And I found him.
Shiny blond hair, an overly handsome face, and an overflowing aura of nobility. I knew in an instant that he was Prince Theodore.
“Wow...”
He wasn’t really my type at first. Yet it would be impossible not to get enchanted with that appearance once you look at him directly. Seeing the characters in the game alive and moving also caused a mysterious emotion to come crashing into me.
All the girls were too gazing at him from afar, captivated. I soon realized that I was in a trance and slapped both my cheeks, moving my feet to scurry toward him.
He was already hard to approach considering his status as the prince, and I was the lowest of the F-rank. Normally, I would be in a position where even talking to him would be presumptuous.
But this wasn’t the time to chicken out. I had to increase the amount of my magic power no matter what.
Anyway, I should be allowed with at least a simple greeting. Not to say, most heroines were usually brazen creatures. I convinced myself so, then I casually approached him with a smile.
“Good morning”
“......”
The prince only responded with a glance and walked away without returning my greeting. Would this one-sided greeting also count, I wonder? Eh, is this really okay?
At the same time, I remembered that Prince Theodore was an ultimate kuudere(1). There was almost no conversation in the first half of the game. Seems like I would have to repeat this one-sided greeting over and over dozens, hundreds of times.
If this was a game, I only had to hit the button repeatedly to skip it, but having to actually talk to him like this sounded like a pain in the butt. I let out a sigh at the realization that this would be a long, tough battle, heading towards the academy building.
“...Oh?”
Which was why I had no way of knowing that behind me, Julius had an amused expression on his face.
◇◇◇
“Excuse me, could you tell me where my seat is?”
“What?”
After walking through the spacious and beautiful school, I managed to get to my own class which I had researched beforehand, and called out to the male student who was close to the entrance. I mean, how would I know where was my seat?
The face of that student was too handsome that it surprised me. He was a good-looking guy with bright red hair that suited him well.
“Have you finally become that stupid...?”
“No, um. I hit my head and have memory loss.”
How rude, I thought as I explained. The whole class was soon in an uproar. Turns out everyone was paying attention to me.
The male student who I called out also seemed surprised. It was around the time I was losing my patience and wanted him to tell me where was my seat already.
“Your seat is here. Next to mine.”
“Oh, thank you!”
The person pointing to a chair with her long, thin fingers was a destructively beautiful girl with pretty silver hair. The brooch on her chest glowed in the same golden color as Julius’. The proof of an S-rank.
After saying that, she lowered her gaze to the book in her hand again. That elegant and noble aura alone was enough to convince me that she must be a noble lady with quite a high status. The so-called unparalleled beauty.
After sitting in the seat supposed to be mine and hanging my bag on the side of the chair, I looked around the class. I could feel some pity, some amusement, and of course, some contemptuous looks.
“You sure have the guts to show your face here. What's more, didn’t you try to greet His Highness Theodore earlier? Did you hit your head too hard and lose your mind?”
“Right? You’re about to get expelled anyway. Why bother?”
In the meantime, two flamboyant female students approached me. They kicked the leg of my desk hard and glared at me. The typical bullying.
“I decided to give it my all. I will never get expelled!”
“Huh?”
I declared loud and clear, causing their eyes, framed by long eyelashes, to widen open.
...In the first place, not everyone could get an S-rank just by improving their grades. Each rank had a fixed number of slots. That was why this everyone was enemies and rivals to each other.
And just as they said, F-rank students would be expelled from the academy depending on the results of the exam at the end of the term. The previous Rene would’ve definitely been expelled before the summer break.
In other words, a bad ending. Who knows what would happen to “me” after that? That’s why I definitely had to get out of the F-rank in the next exam.
As the teacher entered the classroom, they clicked their tongues and went back to their seats. From the color of their brooch, they were D-rank students. I swore to definitely surpass them and left them speechless.
“......”
I suddenly felt the gaze of the beautiful girl next to me, but I turned my attention to the teacher, fired up for my first class.
Apparently, we had a small quiz in Mamithonian today. It was the first time I’d heard of this mysterious language, but it seemed to be another compulsory subject. Because this country was at the forefront of magic research, or something like that.
I battled against the test handed out with a pen in one hand, even though I was already listless from the definite incoming zero points.
The test was eventually over, and the scores were graded in an instant using magic. Then, the whole class screamed at the scoring results that appeared on the wall.
But without a doubt, I was the one who was the most surprised.
── I confirmed last night that could read the language of this country by reading Rene’s illegible notes written in poor handwriting.
But I had never expected that I would be able to read even the mysterious language called Mamithonian without a problem.
“A student got a perfect store; Rene Wainwright.”
Perhaps I had the ability to read all the languages in the world. Or so I thought.
- "Kuudere" (クーデレ); often cold, blunt, and cynical. They show little emotion, and in extreme cases, are completely emotionless, but they may be hiding their true feelings deep down.
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more pretty men!!!!!! yet still no yoshida;-;