I knew the feelings that Swanhaden had towards Shuraina. The feelings that he had were immense. That was why I didn't like him.
Let me fix that. I just didn't like Swanhaden, period.
He just had a pretty face. He had a bad attitude and was full of scars. You could see he had a tragic past in a single glance. Men with tragic pasts later morphed into obsessive men, and I didn't like that at all. If there was one person in the world who could obsess over Shuraina, it was only me. If there were two or more people obsessing over her, Shushu wouldn't be able to bear it.
I was sorry to Shushu, but I wasn't sure if I could allow her to date just yet.
Until there was a dragon with a great personality, the skills to back them up, and knew how to adore her…Shushu, no dating until then.
I frowned. No. Even a dragon like that wasn't good enough.
Ugh, whatever. Couldn't she just not date at all?
Chapter 8. An Unexpected Trespassing
After that bet, Hestia changed.
Now, after a year had passed, it wouldn't have been weird to see the current Hestia and thought she was a completely different person. She had shown an immense amount of growth during second year, and now, towards the end of third year, Hestia was using her skills to wield an incredible amount of power within the school.
I couldn't even fathom how short of a time span it took for her to do this after she decided to live the way she wanted to.
Hestia, who had written column in the school newspaper, caught the attention of a professor and began to learn how to write professionally. She had already had incredible writing skills to begin with, but grew even more skilled and now possessed enough skills to make you want to cuss out loud. I couldn't really explain how well you had to write to make someone cuss while reading it, but it was a lot. She just wrote well. Did I need to explain more other than that?
Anyway, the reason why Hestia got so much power within the school was mostly thanks to the professor who sponsored her. When that particular professor began to support her, a lot of the professor's supporters began to gain interest in Hestia's writing.
The attention that she gained only grew, and more than half of the teachers in the school began to support her work. And then, Hestia had ended up gaining power over the school as a whole.
For example, if she wrote an article about bathroom hygiene, the bathroom suddenly became cleaner than before, and if she wrote about a certain misbehaving student within the school, Swanhaden's punishments grew more strict.
Hestia didn't abuse the power she received, and tried her best to make the academy a better educational facility than before. She focused a lot on the school environment and improving the atmosphere of the campus. She seemed to focus on the things that helped a lot of students at once.
I watched as Hestia shot up in success with pride.
[
....except when she wrote things like this.
Hestia had an odd tendency to write articles like this ever so often.
My hands shook as I gripped onto the newspaper.
Last time, there was a swordsmanship special that talked about my sword skills, and next there was a club special that talked about our magic circle club, and sometime back there was some kind of thrifty student or something special that talked about me. And now I was the main subject of a student focus special.
The academy newspaper's focus articles usually came from student requests or reports. I didn't know who it was, but there were people who were reporting me.
"Isn't there some kind of Shunivalen special somewhere? I have a lot of info, should I request it again? But Hestia wasn't taking in any more reports. She said she had a lot of Shushu specials she wanted to write too."
"Oh, you can just write down what you want and submit it to the editor in chief. They promised to edit it and put up a small column on it, so I asked for a second swordsmanship class focus column."
I could hear some familiar voices coming in front of the bulletin board reading the focus article. Even without checking, I could hear that it was Cory and Hylli. I felt like they were going to start teasing me about today's article so I hid my face behind the newspaper.
"One, two, three, four. Five. Looks right."
Cory, who had walked in front of the bulletin board, collected all of the newspapers that had arrived in his name. There was a mountain of newspapers that were for Cory, so I was surprised. It was all the same thing, why did he need to get so many?
"I've always been curious, but why do you always order so many of the same newspaper?"
"One is for exhibiting, one is for reading, and one is for safekeeping. The others are replacements for any of the three. If there is a Shunivalen column next time, I'm going to order more to sell. But Hylli, what about you? Why do you have so many?"
Cory wasn't the only one who bought a ton. There were two or three newspapers that had arrived for Hylli.
"One is for reading, the other is for teasing, and the last one is in case Shuraina rips one into shreds."
Hylli had a satisfied smile on his face as he held on to the newspaper gently enough to not crease it. I could see in his expression that he was trying to figure out how to tease me to get a good response.
Hylli opened the newspaper and skipped the front entirely. He turned to the special article page. He read through the article and snickered at the picture of me on it. I looked dumb in it.
"Aren't you excited for the next special? The article that I wrote will be published! Hestia told me that the article will be published right after revisions. Shushu hates when I compliment her, so I just put in a load of compliments about her. Haha! She'll probably die of shame."
"…..I wonder why. Hylli, you just look really pitiful right now."
Cory smiled and looked at Hylli with a gaze full of pity. The crumpled newspaper remained crumpled after I took my hands off of it.
I folded the newspaper I used to hide my face four times, then stood up from the bench next to the bulletin board.
"....so you two were the culprits that reported me, huh?"
Newspapers seemed to pop up everywhere like cells multiplying...…and it was you two, huh?
I ground my teeth and put a hand on both of their shoulders, gripping them tight. A murderous aura began to spread around me. Their eyes grew wide when I suddenly popped up out of nowhere.
My eyes couldn't help but go towards the mound of newspapers in their grasps. They just said that it was for teasing right? And selling it was basically the same thing.
"Let's take care of it. Hand it over."
I raised a corner of my lips and began to draw a magic circle in the air with my fingertips.
"You can't! Shushu, not this! You came out so well here!"
"Eugh, you can't."
When I tried to burn all of the newspapers by drawing out a fire circle, Hylli and Cory both hunched over and ran for it.
Cory took off his uniform shirt as he ran and wrapped the newspaper in it. He just wore his white undershirt as he ran as fast as he could.
I'd never seen Cory run so fast.
Hylli watched Cory run away and took off his jacket, wrapped his newspapers with it, and ran away. It was obvious that Cory used his warp magic. I was looking left and right to see where they went when I saw Yves, who was approaching the bulletin board.
[Exclusive Sale and Supply Document_Augran Academy_Publishing Company]
When I saw the title of the papers in his hands, I couldn't help but rub my eyes in awe.
A chill ran down my spine. When I chased Yves to see what was going on, I thankfully saw Swanhaden snatch that paper away from Yves and burn it to ashes.
Yves swiped a newspaper while this was happening. Swan did the same. I rubbed my eyes from afar and stared dumbly at the scene. Then, I sighed deeply and headed to the student store. I bought some milk to drink.
There was a notice for an interview and test for the third royal order of knights in the morning. I wanted to take the test for practice, but I despaired after finding that I didn't meet the age criteria. I had thought that I would be able to take the test because I was an Augran student and a third year junior.
"Shu nuna, what are you doing sitting here?"
I was swinging my sword with more vigor than usual after seeing the knight interview notice. I was resting by myself after afternoon classes were over when someone suddenly began speaking to me.
When I raised my eyes to see who it was, it was my brother, Karim West.
Karim's eyes were bright when he saw me sitting on the bench. Crimson eyes stared right back at my own crimson eyes.
As soon as I became a third year, Karim entered the academy as a first year.
When both Harun and I headed off to the academy two years ago, Karim apparently told everyone that he could that he would follow the two of us and go to the academy. It felt like just yesterday when he was holding onto my skirt and crying and sobbing, begging us not to go…and for him to already join the academy.
I barely opened my sleepy eyes and gestured Karim to sit next to me.
Karim smiled beatifically when I told him to come closer, and sat right next to me.
When Karim took a seat next to me, I raised my arm to rest on his shoulder and hugged him closer. Then, I rested my head on top of his.
"Nuna, are you sleepy? Go to your room and sleep!"
Karim blinked his huge crimson eyes and looked at me. He even asked me if I was studying too much and fussed over my wellbeing.
I didn't respond to Karim's words and just rubbed his face with mine.
Karim just smiled shyly at my actions and told me to sleep with my head on his. He said that I couldn't sleep on his shoulder. Karim was still short, so if I rested my head on his shoulder, he said that my back would curve.
I felt the wind on my face with my head on Karim's head. The wind felt crisp because it was fall.
Just like that, I was enjoying my healing time with Karim. He suddenly pointed his finger at somebody from far away.
"Woow. It's Swan hyung. I wonder what he's doing?"
Karim had very good eyesight to see Swanhaden from so far away. Swanhaden was on a hill far away on campus.
Swanhaden was frowning in concentration as he held a thick magic book, probably Cory's. It seemed he was testing out some new spells. His entire body was surrounded by white magic, and that magic was heading towards someone next to Swan.
Looking closer, it looked like he was attempting a floating spell. Apparently, white magic was a lot more unstable than normal magic, and it was difficult to use normal magic spells with it. But seeing how well his floating magic was, it seemed like he had some incredible control.
'But I'd never studied white magic separately, how do I know this?'
I was slightly unsure, but I assumed that I had picked up this knowledge from somewhere and decided to forget it.
Anyway, Swanhaden was showing some incredible control as he floated another blue class student and moved him left and right.
That student was yelling at Swan and cussing angrily at him, but Swan didn't even pretend to listen. He just smiled evilly as if he was enjoying the whole thing.
I just stared at the scene in front of me and asked Karim. Didn't Karim just use an incredibly familiar name for Swanhaden just now?
"Karim, are you close with Swan?"
At my words, Karim stopped looking at Swan and rolled his eyes in concentration. Seeing how long it took for him to respond, I assumed he wasn't that close to him.