The school was calmer than Xiao Xun thought. There were no incidents of bullying between the strong and the weak, most people simply avoided contacting them.
He thought about Edmund La Mort from the original plot, who was described as an ice-cold prince that his fan club followed him around all day and sigh, status really does add glamour.
"Ahhhh! The prince sighed! The prince sighed!"
"His troubled face is so handsome!"
"Shhh! Do you want the madman around him to hit us again?"
A group of girls huddled behind the bush, watching Xiao Xun from afar.
"That madman is such a jerk, hitting girls... Where did he grow up, in the woods?"
"Didn't you hear the rumors?" The voice of one of them took on a gossipy tone "I heard that the madman kidnapped our prince and raised him in the forest, and the prince is actually the heir to the duke who died of an illness a decade ago..."
The girl who stopped them earlier used the voice of reason again, "Where do you hear this nonsense? Be careful not to get involved not only with the crazy madman but also with Elisha's fan base."
At the moment the school is divided into two; The Elisha group, which consists most powerful nobles and the Danny group, which consists mostly of young girls.
The other two sighed, remembering unpleasant incidents from the past, "Although he does look so similar to Elisha... Ha."
***************************************
Edmond's fan group wasn't the only one to notice his resemblance to Elisha. Already on the first day, when Cecil saw the girl carrying the opening event's speech, speaks quietly with her pale blond hair and her calming gray eyes, he knew where Edmund came from.
He never forgot the fateful night in which he found Edmund, dressed in torn, bloody aristocratic clothes.
Does Edmund know? This is the question that has occupied his mind since day one. Is that why he insisted on being here? Does he want to find his old family again?
Fortunately, it seems that Elisha and her fan base tend to look down on those who are not in the right class, he has already forgotten his past regrets about getting them into a house of a higher rank. Now he couldn't be more proud of himself that he wasn't soft-hearted.
The academy as a whole oozed a strange aroma, he noticed it even before he stepped through its doors. Most vampires wouldn't be able to detect anything beneath the tangle of human scents, but his keen senses made him feel repulsed by the very place. At the end of the school year, he decided, he would convince Edmund to leave.
They can return to their old home and their previous life, this place was not suitable for them.
He couldn't help but notice that Edmund's expression was becoming more and more distrubed, and he continued to lay his eyes on this girl... Cecil was very close to his breaking point.
He even considered just taking Edmund by force and running away.
He didn't know much about normal human interactions -most of his information on the subject came from Edmund- but the people who were in the entrance exam and the entrance exam itself... he met people similar to them at school.
Dead eyes, lack of expression, mechanical performance of the same actions over and over again. Just imagining Edmund like this hurt him.
Cecil didn't know if it was a new sub-race of people or if people became like that after study too much, but he decided that the moment Edmund would have even a fraction of such an expression on his face he would leave, no matter how much Edmund cries.
It was very difficult for Cecil to keep Edmund away from these people. For some reason, Edmund kept trying to start a conversation with them.
He almost used his power to command Edmund as his master when he first saw it.
Maybe he is too lonely? While the thought that he alone wasn't enough for Edmund pained him, he decided to find Edmund a friend when they returned home in the summer. Someone reasonable and easy to manage who knows his limits well, maybe he'll make a new familiar for him.
Only in this way I can really make sure that no one touches his Edmund...
Meanwhile, Xiao Xun's investigation was not going well.
"I don't know what you're talking about, but as a student of this academy I advise commoners like you not to poke your nose into the business of higher-ranking nobles."
It would have sounded a perfectly normal (albeit condescending) answer- If he hadn't received the same answer in the same wording from three different people today.
It's like half the school has the same not-very-intelligent hive mind, the kind that doesn't bother to deal with the outside world.
'Did you notice? All the people who behaved strangely belong to a higher social class.'
The hypnotized people from the day of the test returned to their normal behavior on the opening day of the academy, from this Xiao Xun deduced two possibilities:
1. You cannot hypnotize a large number of people.
2. Hypnosis is a short-term thing.
The only way to confirm or disprove the second possibility is to simply wait, but the fact that the Mastermind mainly focuses on high-rank nobles made Xiao Xun worry, if the Mastermind is planning a major operation in the near future there is almost no way to prevent it.
The current prime suspect is of course his sister, who everyone swoons over in a way usually reserved for the main character wherever she goes.
The problem is that most of the people who swoon over her are, again, high-ranking nobles. There was no way for Xiao Xun to interrogate her without one of the princes or dukes pushing him away with disgust in their eyes.
His time at the academy affected his self-confidence, he was used to constant praise from Cecil. But here, everyone seems to think he's an ugly little bug.
He looked at his reflection in the fountain in the courtyard and pinched his cheek. Is his aesthetic wrong? He doesn't think Edmund looks particularly bad...
"Danny?" A voice behind startled him, "what are you doing?"
"Ahh, just-" When he saw that the speaker was the main character, he decided to be open. "Am I ugly?"
"No! Not at all! You're my favorite character, actually."
Ha, that's a relief - what?!
He remembered his character settings and looked at her, stunned.
"Listen, the game isn't going according to what it's supposed to be and you're the one who's gone through the biggest change, why don't I update you on what's going on?"