17 Chapter 17

After the ceremony was over, the professor guided the students to their own respective classes.

Unfortunately, Lucia and I were on different class.

I was in 1-A and she was in 1-B. I was hoping for a certain routes like in light novel and manga where the protagonist meet with his destined girl and went to the same class.

Well, reality is different from a story book. Although this world can be considered as a kind of story book, the world plots doesn't revolves around me.

Anyway, we did make plan to spend time together on lunch break.

I asked a lot of things about her and collected a lot of informations.

First off, the Celestia house came to the kingdom 200 years ago. They made contributions by helping the King at the time to built the Royal Academy and were given a Viscount rank as the reward. However, misfortunes and bad managements made them lost their property bit by bit until they almost lost everything.

Her father sold the remaining properties and use the money to find a cure for her mother.

However, even after they spent their entire fortunes her mother's illness was never cured. Her father went into a dungeon in hopes to find an elixir. Unfortunately, he died.

Her mother's condition worsen after her father death. She secretly hides a small amount of money for Lucia. However, it wasn't enough to pay her tuition and living expenses until she graduate. Her only wish was for her to graduate from the academy and live a happy life.

The academy heard about her situation and decided to pay for her tuition and living expense due to her family past deed.

Thanks to that, she doesn't have to worry about money and can focus on her study.

However, even with such background she didn't appeared in the story. No, considering her personality it won't be weird if she follow some weird guy and sold into slavery before the invasion even begin.

Fortunately, I found her first. I told her about a lot of things such as don't take anything given by strangers and things like don't follow strangers.

It's not that I like her or something. I'm worried that someone will corrupt or fool her because of her personality.

I mean, she told me her family situation even though we just met. Yes, I did asked her about it, but couldn't she just refused to answer? Moreover, she accepted the candies that I gave her without even checking whether it was poisoned or not. What if a guy gave her something spiked with aphrodisiac? Won't it ruin her life?

There is also the possibility of she will be killed in the invasion. Earlier, I asked her to channeled her mana to my arm. Judging from her mana flow, her strength is around level 14. I could be wrong, but she shouldn't be above level 16. Of course there is also the possibility that her power is far stronger than me and she adjusted her power to look weak.

At any rate, the average monsters in the invasion was around level 18-22 while the elite monsters were around level 27. It's not surprising if she was killed because of her low strength.

There is still 3 months left before the invasion, I will give her some items to help her raise her strength before the invasion. It took me one and a half month grinding monsters inside the premium dungeon to barely reached level 20 from level 12.

It's impossible to help her increase her level to 20 in the academy in just 3 months. The average levels of the 1st year students were around level 17. The 2nd year were around level 20-23 and the 3rd year were around level 24-25.

The strength of the protagonist party were an exception. According to the main story, they were around level 27 when the invasion happened. So my only options was to give her equipments to boost her stats.

As for why I'm willing to go this far for her? It's hard to say, but in short, I just couldn't leave her alone.

It's like I saw a little kitten drenched in the rain. I couldn't help but pick her up and give her shelter and warm foods.

I wonder what is she doing right now? Did she introduce herself properly?

Somehow, a picture of her drooling face floats inside my mind.

I let out a smile and shook my head.

Forget it. Let's look around and see whether there is some familiar face or not. I deliberately chose the seat on the back near the windows.

It's not because I wanted to be a main character or something. It's simply because this seat is the most ideal spot to observe the entire class while also lowering my presence.

I looked around to see the face of my classmates. I'm unfamiliar with all of them except one. 

A boy with wavy blue hair sitting in the middle rows. Auguste Ford, a member of the protagonist party in the future. I put him on my blacklist right away.

The Ford family was a household that has mastered the dagger. To put it bluntly, they are a group of assassins. Auguste Ford was a dual daggers-wielder with assassin class and ranger sub-class.

His sub-class allowed him to use ＜Track＞ and ＜Lock＞ to track down the enemy and uses his dark element magic to hides his presence inside the shadows with ＜Sneak＞ and then assassinate the target. His greatest achievement in the story was assassinating one of the four Heavenly Demons alone and loses one of his arm in the process.

Depending on the player choice, he would stay in the party until the end and get the title of "One-Armed Demon" or left the party after losing his arm and disappeared.

He would join the protagonist party in the second arc.

The Ford house was destroyed because of Eurasia sudden invasion. Auguste was the only survivors as he was studying in the Royal Academy.

Auguste decided to join the protagonist party expedition to guard the northern border for revenge. He was a butler-like figure who provides informations. 

Auguste was kidnapped by the Dark Society and used in an experiment to create an ultimate assassin.

The experiment was a failure, but his power became much stronger in exchange for his life force.

Auguste lost his mind during the experiment and only know how to kill.

He went on a killing spree destroying the laboratory alone.

After hearing the news, the protagonist party went to raid the laboratory.

They managed to find Auguste and defeated him who had lost his mind. On the brink of death, Auguste regained his mind.

The power of Ford bloodline will only awaken after they taste the blood of their own kin. It was a cruel and inhumane way to create the strongest assassin.

The reason why Auguste became strong was because he was injected with the blood of the Ford family that the Dark Society collected.

He also told them the reason why Eurasia Kingdom destroyed the Ford family was because they fear their hidden power. Auguste got this information from the Dark Society and learned about the cooperation between Eurasia Kingdom and the Dark Society.

The Dark Society helped the Eurasia Kingdom in exterminating the Ford family. And in exchange, the Eurasia Kingdom will create chaos and provides materials for their experiments.

I looked at his back with pitiful eyes.

As much as I wanted to have a reliable butler who could help me gathers informations, I don't want to throw myself into trouble.

More importantly, he was the one who spied on the villainess party and provides a lot of informations for the protagonist. He was also the main reason why the plans of my foolish sister Irina always backfired leading her to her death.

I have informations advantage, so I will change my fate and save her.

∆ ∆ ∆

Ring!

The ringing sound echoed throughout the academy, marking the ends of the first period.

I stretched my body to relax my stiff muscle. It's been a while since the last time I heard lessons.

The classroom became rowdy as the professor left the room.

"You're from the Scarlet house, right?"

A boy who was sitting in front of me suddenly called me out.

"How did you know?"

I looked at him with dubious look.

"It's because of your red hair"

The boy blinked his eyes as he said so.

This damn hair color! Although it was cool, it makes it easy for people to noticed me.

"We're going to have a welcoming party after this. Will you join us?"

"Thank you for your kind invitation. However, I already made plan with someone so I have to decline your invitation"

I politely declined his invitation. Well, this kind of gathering happens a lot during the first week. It was so the students could gather and build their connections.

The upperclassmens were the one who organized this kind of gathering. Most people would accept the invitations for benefits.

"I see, what a shame. It would be much merrier if someone from the Scarlet house could come"

He shook his head with disappointed look.

"I have to go, farewell"

I bid my goodbye and left the classroom before someone invited me again.

I hurriedly went to class 1-B. Although we already made plan, I'm worried someone would lure Lucia away with sweets.

Fortunately, she was still sitting on her seat when I arrived in her classroom.

"Rain!"

She waved her hand as soon as she saw me.

I feel relieved when I saw her. I ignored the surrounding look and walked to her seat.

"Did someone tried to kidnaー , errr invited you to go with them?"

I almost slipped my tongue.

"Yes. Some people invited me to go with them. They said it was a welcoming party or something? I don't really get it, but they said there will a lot of snacks and drinks"

Her eyes flickered when she mentioned snacks.

"Did you agree with them?"

I asked worriedly.

"No, I refused them. You told me not to follow strangers blindly. Also, we made promise to spend time together"

"Y-Yeah, we did"

Thankfully, she listened to my advice.

"So, what are we going to do?"

She looked at me with curious eyes.

"Let's have lunch in the garden"

"Alright!"

We left the classroom and went to the garden.

The academy have cafetaria that served food for the students. However, I'm already used to Mari's cooking so I asked her to packed me lunch.

The smells of plants combined with gentle breeze is the best.

We sat under a cherry tree and enjoyed our lunch. She packed me a bunch of sandwiches. Bacon, chicken, salmon, sausage, eggs and salads. Each one had different fillings.

The sweet and savory flavors danced inside my mouth.

"It's delicious, Rain!"

Lucia was munching the sandwiches with a happy look on her face.

Just seeing that face already made my stomach full.

"I'm glad you like it. I will ask my maid to make a portion for you everyday"

"Really? Thanks!"

Since I decided to picked up this little kitten, I have to make sure she is being fed well.

I took out a tea set and a bunch of cakes from my magic bag.

Her eyes lit up when saw the desserts.

"T-That looks delicious"

She licked her lips. I could see the overflowing desire in her eyes. If she had a tail, she probably would wagged it around in excitement. I wonder, if I stroked her head will she purr like a cat? 

"Feel free to eat it"

"R-Really? Thanks, Rain!"

She began to munch the cakes as soon as she thanked me.

I always bring sweets and desserts with me because Irina likes them. It seems like I have to bring more from now on since she also like sweets.

In manga, usually the protagonist will go to the rooftop to eat lunch.

Sometimes it makes me wonder what is so good about it? The burning sunlight will burn your skin and makes you sweaty, in high place wind blows stronger carrying dust and other things into your food.

If the sweats makes the heroine's clothes transparent then sure, it's a good thing. But considering everything else, it just didn't make sense to me.

As for why I chose the garden? First of all, the garden have lots of plants like trees and flowers which makes the air more refreshing. Moreover, I chose this place because an event was about to happen in here.

Not too far away, I saw a group of people were about to confronts each other.

A boy and a girl were sitting together in the bench. They were talking happily as they shared lunch.

They boy had a handsome look and tall stature with blonde hair and golden eyes. The girl had a pretty face with her pink hair combined with her emerald eyes. She had a friendly air surrounding her.

It was the protagonist, Leonhardt Elsword and the heroine, Lily Reisner.

A group of girls were walking towards the two of them, followed by a bunch of boys who doesn't dare to walked alongside the girls.

A black-haired girl was leading the group. Her purple eyes was mesmerizing. Her skin was white but not pale. She had a medium stature of around 160cm. She was a beautiful girl with graceful bearing.

Claudia Einsworth.

The villainess of the story and also someone who would become one of 4 Heavenly Demon in the future. 

My heart skipped for a beat when I saw her appearance. She was much more beautiful than the game illustrations.

Her followers followed behind her. My dearest sister, Irina was amongst them.

"Cia. Do you like watching a play?"

"A play?"

Lucia tilted her head and looked at me with puzzled look.

"Yes. Do you want to watch it with me?"

"Okay!"