Chapter 1. First love is like a spring breeze.
‘…What’s going on?’
Emily Adesio blinked her bright, green eyes nervously at the silent tension of the three people surrounding her, unconsciously swallowing her dry saliva.
Have you ever seen people entangled in a love triangle? Perhaps this could also be called a political battle. Witnessing this for the first time in her life, Emily was flustered, her eyes shaking.
There was even an Imperial family member among the three! Emily glanced up. Around her, the second prince, the Count’s daughter, and the commoner girl formed a triangle.
Emily Adesio, who happened to be standing close to them and eventually became the center of their triangle, slipped back to leave quietly when no one was looking at her.
But at that moment, Emily’s sudden movement turned the eyes of the three towards Emily, and she stood still. The three turned their eyes back on Emily as she smiled clumsily in a cold sweat.
‘C, Can you leave me out of this?’
We need to go back in time a bit to find out how Emily, who only stood still, got caught up in such a bloody love triangle.
It was this morning, the day of the academy’s entrance ceremony.
* * *
“Oof–”
As Emily picked up her luggage and stepped out of the magic circle, the recoil caused her long, brown hair to flutter around her waist.
As she put down the heavy luggage on the floor and pulled her white hat back, bright green eyes were exposed under the sun, gleaming like the greenery of spring.
Emily smiled broadly, her eyes slightly drooping.
“Phew, we’ve finally arrived.”
There was a crowd of teenagers around Emily’s age.
Everyone seemed to have arrived in time for today’s academy entrance ceremony.
Emily looked around, stretching her body from the long journey. Beyond was a white and magnificent building, which seemed surprisingly distant.
In the center, a wide road paved with flat stones stretched out, and grass fields spread out on either side of it.
As the chattering students, who got off from the east, walked down the central road, Emily also dragged her luggage and moved along with them.
In the distance, she could see a student in a school uniform standing in front and guiding the way.
“What a beautiful building.”
The admirable white clouds in the blue sky, and the Academy, which shines brightly underneath it, was truly a building as magnificent and beautiful as its long history.
As Emily walked, she took her Academy Certificate out of her pocket and unfolded it again.
Due to so much fiddling, the acceptance certificate’s edges were worn out. When she opened the envelope with trembling hands, she remembered the moment when she screamed with joy as she saw the word “Pass” in the middle of the paper.
It was a moment in which the achromatic world turned upside down in an instant.
“Freshmen, please get your dormitory room key here.”
As they moved, they arrived at the garden in front of the academy building.
Everyone hesitated because they didn’t know where to go, but the student in uniform, who just guided them in front, raised both of his hands and beckoned them to come.
As Emily approached quickly, there were three or four desks side by side, and students standing in front of them were handing out the keys while checking the names of the freshmen.
“What’s your name?”
“Emily Adesio.”
As Emily approached, a female student checked her name on the list and handed her a small key.
“If you go to the right, there is a red brick building. That’s the Magic Department’s women’s dormitory.”
“Thank you.”
Emily nodded as she received the key. She, then, made her way to the dormitory, moving away from the crowd.
The dormitory was a three-story red brick building, with a fairly neat exterior wall.
Emily checked the key number and went up to the second floor of the building.
As she climbed the old wooden stairs, she could see the freshmen, who arrived first, unpacking their luggage with their doors open.
“Where is Room 207?”
Emily, who was walking in the middle of the noise while looking for her room number, found Room 207 at the end of the hallway.
– Knock, knock.
“Excuse me.”
Her roommate might have arrived first, so she carefully opened the door, but there was no one in it.
In the neat room, two desks were placed side by side at the front, and on each side were a bed and a closet.
– Thud.
Emily put down her luggage in front of the bed on the right and opened the window in front of her desk.
Then, a cool breeze blew through the window, fluttering the white curtains.
After checking the shower room inside the room, Emily sat down on the bed and took a breather.
“Haa, I’m tired.”
The Adesio Viscounty had no real estate. As a result, she was not wealthy, but she was not poor either due to the skills of her father, Viscount Adesio. However, the academy tuition was quite expensive, so Emily knew how much her parents sacrificed to send her to the academy. She knew that it would be impossible for her to pay her tuition for more than a year.
“Oh, that’s right. They told us to change into our school uniform and go down…”
Emily got up from her bed after remembering the instructions of the student guide.
After taking out the school uniform from the luggage and changing into it, she looked at her reflection in the mirror, gently stroking the new uniform.
Emily, who had an ordinary appearance, would have married into a family of similar status and have children if she hadn’t been accepted into the academy.
This pass was her only chance to change her life.
Above all, being a mage allowed her to choose a better place to look for marriage, so Emily’s parents sent her to the academy without hesitation.
– Rustle.
Emily was tying a ribbon over the collar of her school uniform shirt when suddenly, the desk shimmered and a letter fell. It was a magic letter.
[Freshmen, gather in the auditorium on the 3rd floor of the main building in 30 minutes.]
After picking up the letter, Emily put it on the desk and finished dressing up.
Looking in the mirror, she neatly tied her straight, brown hair together and left the door.
Finally, it was the beginning of her academy life.
* * *
The main building of the academy was the white building that she saw when she first arrived. When she followed the moving students into the building, the interior was all white.
As I walked through the hallway lined with arched windows and entered the auditorium on the third floor, the auditorium was crowded with students.
Emily also stood among them, looking around the auditorium, when suddenly, a girl standing nearby greeted her and spoke to her.
“Hello?”
“Oh… Yes, hello?”
“Are you a freshman? I also got admitted this year.”
The girl was quite a beauty with wavy, light blonde hair and skin as white as jade. Especially her sapphire blue eyes made it hard for Emily to take her eyes off.
“Oh, I see. My name is Emily Adesio. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you. My name is Kira.”
Emily greeted her with a smile. She paused when the girl said her name. It was because she didn’t say her last name.
As she looked at the girl who had introduced herself as Kira, she noticed that the students around them were glancing at where she was standing.
No, to be precise, they were looking at Kira, not at her.
“Oh… I see.”
Emily smiled vaguely.
Come to think of it, she heard that one commoner scholar student is selected for each academic year.
In all honesty, Emily wasn’t very interested in ideas or concepts such as equality between commoners and nobles.
It was because she lived in such a secluded area, and Emily was also a noblewoman from birth.
Emily, who did not feel the need to mingle with commoners among these overflowing nobles, decided to sneak away.
But at that moment, Lady Astina of Millet County, who was passing by, found Emily and approached her.
“Oh, Miss Emily. Long time no see. By the way… Do you get along well with commoners?”
“…Miss Astina, it’s been a long time.”
Emily looked back in surprise at Astina’s sudden greeting. Astina Millet, who has colorful red hair, was the youngest daughter of a wealthy Count Millet.
Astina Millet has recently been in the spotlight after rumors of her engagement to the second prince circulated.
The two had met several times at the academy’s examination hall during the entrance exam, so she recognized Emily and talked to her.
“Oh my, you seem to be having a hard time fitting in well with a commoner?”
Astina smiled gracefully as she held her student notebook close to her lips like a fan.
Emily tried to convince herself that she didn’t criticize her, but Astina, who stood still next to her, in a clear voice.
“What are you talking about? You seem to be demeaning me, don’t you know that discriminatory remarks are prohibited inside the Academy?”
At that moment, Emily was startled. The commoner student, who had greeted her a while ago, spoke back to the Young Lady of a County.
Emily looked around, her eyes wide open. It was the first time she had seen a commoner talking back to a noble, so Emily was in shock.
And so did Astina and the students standing around her.
“Oh my…”
“Just now… The commoner talked back…”
“…Did you just hear that?”
“I’m scared…”
Astina and her group were speechless and as startled as Emily, who stood next to them. Soon after, anger arose within them as the silence stretched for a while.
“…How dare a commoner.”
The silver-haired Young Lady, who stood next to Astina, uttered words as if full of energy.
Then, the students around her began to whisper and pay attention to this side.
“Shall I say it again? Discriminatory remarks are prohibited in the Academy.”
Kira, bravely calling for equality, overturned the hearts of the young ladies who have lived as nobles all their life and frowned at her remarks.
And Emily, who unintentionally got stuck between them, was deeply burdened by the situation.
No, Emily had no intention of getting along with commoners, nor did she want to discuss the idea of equality with them.
Emily, in distress, slowly stepped aside to sneak away from them when suddenly, a voice intervened between them.
“What is everyone doing here?”
At the sound of his voice, the gathered students retreated to the side, and a blond, orange-eyed male student emerged from the middle.
As soon as he appeared, everyone bowed and curtsied.
As he was greeted naturally, two male students followed him. One was an expressionless boy with black hair and a beautiful appearance, and the other was a boy with short auburn hair and a slightly sleepy expression. Both were wearing the uniforms of the Swordsmanship Department.
“I greet the Second Prince.”
Emily also looked at the three young men, who suddenly arrived without notice, but soon got startled and bowed her head in a hurry at the words of Astina, who was next to her.
‘That’s the second prince who is said to enter this year.’
It was her first time to see the Imperial family in person, so she stood there nervously. Suddenly, the prince approached Kira, who stood at Emily’s right side.
“You’re Miss Kira, who entered as a scholarship student this year.”
“…Nice to meet you.”
Kira, who was grasping the situation around her, glanced at someone’s greeting and tried to imitate it, but the second prince raised his hand to stop her.
“No, we’re all from the same academy. You don’t have to be so formal.”
Emily, who had her head bowed at the words of the smiling second prince, flinched involuntarily.
Wouldn’t it seem like he’s criticizing Astina? Emily glanced up to her left, seemingly confused by Astina’s position.
Sure enough, Astina looked at the prince, who had ignored her greeting, with a shocked look.
Astina wasn’t the only one who was confused by the sudden situation.
It was an open secret that she was going to become the second prince’s fiancée, so all the students gathered there looked at them in surprise.
However, despite the concentrated gaze, the second prince spoke to Kira without even turning to Astina.
Astina, who looked at the second prince with a perplexed look on her face, Kira, who tried to figure out what’s going on, and the Second Prince, who smiled with an unreadable face, were unintentionally standing around Emily.
What a perfect timing.
‘…What on earth is going on here?’
Emily stood between them in a cold sweat with her head down.
Emily, who could not get out of her seat by chance, was deeply flabbergasted.
As if a hurricane swept through her surroundings with ferocious force, a shattered fantasy flashed in front of Emily’s eyes, and she herself had broken into pieces in the whirlwind and became powdery dust.
‘C, Can you leave me out of this?’
Of course, Emily’s internal screams in cold sweat did not reach anyone in the place.
