Ariel Dalton Wants to Graduate

As I moved my gaze in the direction he was gesturing to, I was utterly shocked. Anais was tearing Brianna apart in earnest. ‘What about you!’ Anais huffed and scolded.

“What did I do!”

“Why don’t you say no to Walsh?!”

Brianna, caught off guard, stood wide-eyed and speechless. Anais had hit her weak spot. The spot that even I couldn’t easily touch—the spot she wanted to hide the most.

“Why are you doing his homework? Why are you letting yourself and your friends be deceived?!”

“Shut up, Anais Diandra O’Brien!”

“You said you wouldn’t know unless I spoke up. Yet you… .”

Before Anais could finish her accusation, Bree’s palm touched Anais’ cheek. Soon, Anais’ head turned with a crisp sound. The crowd of onlookers, including Kirkpatrick and Soto, suddenly became quiet. It was the same with Mia. Faulkner, on the other hand, collapsed as if she had fainted.

“Hey, is this how it is going to be resolved?”

I tried to rush in right away, but I couldn’t because Kyle was holding on to me so tightly. As I gritted my teeth and asked, Kyle teased, resting his chin on top of my head.

“Relax, Ariel. You always rush into things; that is why you get in trouble.”

Every time he spoke, my head bobbled up and down.

Brianna stood dumbfounded, still in the same position she’d been when she’d thrown her hand at Anais. It seemed like something she did impulsively. Anais, true to her title as the ‘Fitzsimmons’ Ice Queen’, had a cold expression on her face that made it hard to believe she was the girl who had been crying just a moment ago. With her back straight, I felt an intimidating aura that no one could match—Even with her messy blonde hair that is showing brown roots, her whole face wet with tears, and she’s even in her pajamas!

O’Brien’s Rose, the pinnacle of Illestia’s social world, didn’t slap back. Instead, she clenched her fist and struck Brianna’s jaw, making it turn bright red.

And then it was a full-on dogfight. The excited crowd was now chanting the names of Brianna and Anais. Only Faulkner intervened to try to sort out the chaos, but she only received a few hits.

After a while, Keran Illestia appeared, accompanied by Professor Humphreys. She looked depressed, like someone whose life had been weighed down by tragedy, but she quickly restored order by reciting the trash-sorting spell twice.

“I-If you… Hik.. promise to speak up, I will, too, Hikk…”

Bree said just before getting dragged by Professor Humphreys by the back of her neck. Her pronunciation was slurred from crying. It can also be because her jaw was pretty swollen.

Anais, whose cheeks were equally swollen, responded with a bright smile. The sadness that had always surrounded her like a decoration disappeared, making her look more beautiful than any Anais I had ever met.

“What do you think?”

Kyle asked smugly. I had an illness that made it impossible for me not to argue back whenever he did this—even if he was right and I was wrong—but after seeing Anais’ innocent smile, I held back.

After roughly agreeing with him, Kyle went wild with excitement. He did a strange dance and headed toward the gambling table. After chatting for a while with Kirkpatrick and Soto, who were cleaning up the mess, a bulging pouch was thrust into Kyle’s hand.

“My roommate made money with my idea, so I should have a stake.”

Apparently, Kyle Villard had a hand in Kirkpatrick and Soto making money off my friends. I glanced at my childhood friend as if he were pathetic, quickly reaching for his pouch. The jingling sound of gold coins hitting each other was delightful.

“Professor Humphreys, there’s a pickpocket here!”

“You are aware, Mr. Villard, that the draft of the pledge was provided by me, right?”

I was in the process of avoiding Kyle’s touch, aiming for his pouch, using the agility I had developed while being hit by Bolton and Jayden. Suddenly, the right corner of my peripheral vision began to shine. As I focused, paying no heed to Kyle’s personal  and tickling attacks, tiny letters started floating up.

[Possession: 52 gold]

What?

***

A few hours later, a short emergency response meeting was held in front of the ‘Spinning Wheel of Fate’. I still had Kyle’s bag of gold coins in my hand. I took out a gold coin and threw it on the floor, and [Possession: 52 gold] became [Possession: 51 gold].

“It decreased.”

As I muttered absently, Kyle’s face turned pale.

“No way. The ‘status window’ is supposed to be only visible to the main character.”

I realized that the ‘status window’ I was seeing was probably a phenomenon that had never happened before in Kyle’s long, boring life. I firmly believed that Kyle would have the answer to this, as he always has, but he did not, so I was left at a loss. I sighed and rolled my eyes around.

[□Power: □□] [Intelligence: 2LV] [□□: 5LV]…

Aside from [Possession: 52 gold], there were other things that followed me like flies in my field of vision. I shook my head, remembering the time when Professor Stafford was grabbed by a magic plant with zigzag leaves. Nevertheless, rather than disappearing, the letters clung to me more tenaciously.

“You know, when it comes to levels, is five the highest?”

“It’s 10.”

Damn it! I didn’t consider myself smart, but I’d always prided myself that if I had to convert intelligence into numbers, it would be higher than a two. Kyle jumped back in surprise as I suddenly swung my fist.

“You scared me, what’s wrong?”

He exaggeratedly clutched his chest. I was tempted to ask him if  ‘Intelligence level’ included ‘cunningness’, but it seemed too lame and Kyle would probably figure it out, so I gave a vague reply. Fortunately, Kyle didn’t dig too deep. It was because he has a lot to think about right now.

“Could Blossom have lost her power to me, like how I stole her ‘event’?”

“No, if that were the case, she’d have come after me already. Besides, your ‘status window’ is incomplete.”

“Yeah. I can only see part of it.”

“What exactly do you see? Is there a common factor?”

The fact that my intellect was a hopeless disgrace was a secret I would take to my grave. At least, it was a secret I didn’t want to reveal to Kyle Villard, a master of mocking in various ways. He was the second evilest Villard after Maverick and had a repertoire of dozen ways to taunt me.

“No, actually, it’s black as if ink was spilled here and there, so I can’t really tell what it is.”

I said, keeping a straight face. Kyle squinted at me suspiciously.

“You do know that it’s really obvious when you lie?”

I avoided the gaze piercing my temple and picked up the piece of wood that was at my fingertips. ‘Hey, what is this? It’s so amazing.’ A very silly voice came out.

Kyle’s brow wrinkled as he saw what I held out. ‘Give it to me.’ His tone was serious. I handed it over hesitantly; in a daze, he then turned around and headed towards the ‘Spinning Wheel of Fate.’

“What are you doing?”

“Just wait… There it is!”

The spinning wheel was extremely large and even spun slowly, round and round. Nevertheless, as Kyle walked around the spinning wheel, he happened to notice that one of the spokes had a slight tear at the end. He took the piece of wood he’d gotten from me and put it on there, and it fit perfectly.

“It wasn’t like this when I came here yesterday.”

“You mean it suddenly broke? That sturdy ‘Spinning Wheel of Fate’?”

Even with an intelligence level of 2, I knew that it couldn’t be a coincidence.

“The fact that I now have a status window…”

“It might be related. Hold on.”

Kyle spread out his palm to cut me off.

I pouted and mimicked him in a barely audible voice, like a pixie’s wings fluttering. ‘It might be related. Hold on. Trying to act sharp, psh.’ Then the quick-witted Kyle Villard spoke solemnly before coming to a considered conclusion.

“First of all, Ariel, you don’t have any talent for vocal imitation.”

I was angry, but I couldn’t refute it. He was the best vocal imitator among Fitzsimmons’ fifth graders.

“Next, is it possible that the system was confused about the main character?”

“Confused between me and Blossom?”

“It seemed possible. You’ve already experienced ‘events’ in her place, and… .”

Kyle quickly pinched off the next part of his sentence, sounding a bit grumpy.

“It didn’t seem like the target’s favorability towards you was low.”

“You mean, the student council? Yeah, we’ve gotten closer.”

“No, I mean…”

Kyle clutched his chest like Professor Cunningham’s pet monkey (its name was Marty, and it was furious that day. Professor Cunningham cherished Marty like his own child and firmly believed that it was laughing when it bared its teeth and squealed).

“Forget it. What would I gain by helping them?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I said forget it.”

Kyle used force to emphasize what he had just said. I could feel his irritation. I twirled my hair around my finger, imitating Brianna when she felt awkward.

“Anyway, the system is not as wise as you might imagine. It’s similar to a very complex magic circuit, and it only works as designed. I think you meet the conditions that the system uses to select the main character.”

“What happens then?”

“The system cannot accommodate more than one main character. It probably repeated the process of selecting the main character over and over again until it received the result of one. You know, right? What happens if you continue to supply mana to a short circuit without a mana overflow auxillary device?”

“The circuit explodes.”

I replied automatically and then gasped.

“The circuit will explode!”

“That’s correct, Dalton. But don’t get cocky.”

Kyle further heightened the mood by imitating Professor Houston’s voice, which he was most confident in. I couldn’t contain my excitement.

“Then, if only we could continue to flood the system with mana…”

“It wouldn’t be impossible to break the ‘Spinning Wheel of Fate’.”

“Oh my god, Kyle Damien Villard! You are the best!”

I was so overwhelmed that I hugged Kyle as much as I could. He played it off cheerfully, asking if this was his reward. However, contrary to his attitude of pretending to be nonchalant, his earlobes were red. ‘Oh, sorry.’ Embarrassed, I pulled away, apologizing. Kyle frowned and forced a smile. He looked a little hurt.

T/N: Helloo, It’s your translator, Choco. I know I’m not updating this as often as I do with my other project but there’s actually a reasons for that. First, is because school started again, making me busier than ever again. Second, the chapters of this novel is longer than TAGWF. Third and the most important reason is becasue I have editor for this project I don’t have one for tagwf. My editor seems busy like I do and we often have conflicting schedule. Other times, it is me who is not available to give chapters but when I’m available they are not. That is why some chapters that already been translated is stocked right now cuz Editor isn’t available at the moment. I wanted to do a flood update but was not able to, only 4 chapters were edited so really sorry about this. However, my hands are tied. Looking for a new editor that is as good as my current one and can adjust to my schedule seem impossible. So for the time being, updates for ADWTG will be slow and random. I hope you understand. 

To readers who are still reading this, I am really sorry and thank you for being patient and continuing on reading this. That is all. See you again soon hopefully lol 

Love, Choco <3

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