Nice we're still playing turn-based, right?
So what the hell is going on here? Winnie felt that with his current processor level, he just couldn't understand it. How did things suddenly turn into an exchange of attacks??
Although in the original work, these two often acted as if attacking each other while actually flirting, competing for dominance, it was sowhat reasonable, perhaps??
One could only say that master level fights were completely incomprehensible to Winnie. After watching, he had only a few thoughts: What are they doing? Why are they fighting? Why did their words suddenly beco so sharp and laced with hidden anings? Where exactly did this sudden tension co from? Why does it feel like each of them is speaking with double anings?
No way?
Winnie suddenly had an odd thought, that perhaps, once again, he'd beco part of a ga between Aesphyra and other fated heroines, just like in the original story.
Wait, Isatia never speaks directly, that's true, but she really is using to flirt with Aesphyra, isn't she?!
Damn it, it's the second ti already, stop making this young master part of your two-person ga, will you?!
Winnie couldn't help rolling his eyes.
"Cough, Isatia, I'm kinda hungry. How about we go eat quickly? Let's not waste ti." Seeing Aesphyra and Isatia standing with arms crossed, staring silently at each other, though neither had moved, Winnie felt as if their 'Soul Armant Forms' had already clashed in midair for three hundred rounds, as if they'd keep standing there until one erged victorious. He had no choice but to break the silence first.
"Let's go." Isatia agreed, giving Aesphyra one final deep look, locking eyes one last ti with those similarly-shaped, faintly smiling purple eyes.
"Sorry, Aesphyra, Winnie invited to eat. We'll be going first." With that, she left with Winnie, leaving Aesphyra behind to watch their retreating backs.
Later, Winnie took Isatia to the upscale steakhouse that Mirexia had taken him to before. After all, when soone treated him at such a high-end place, he couldn't very well treat her at a lesser one. Although Isatia certainly didn't lack money or the al itself, this was about attitude, about how much sincerity he wanted to show in expressing his desire to be friends.~
Upon arriving at the restaurant, Winnie originally intended to sit across from her, but after he sat down, Isatia moved to sit beside him on the outer side, preemptively shutting down his original plan.
"What's wrong?" The black-haired, purple-eyed girl, with her artistic hands holding the nu, looked up at Winnie, who seed about to speak but hesitated. Her eyes, like dazzling gemstones, shimred with ambiguous aning.
"Ah, nothing. I just thought I'd sit across from you," Winnie scratched his head.
"But during tutoring, we always sit like this, don't we?" Isatia tilted her head, a few strands of silky hair sliding over her shoulders and cascading down. "Do you think there's sothing inappropriate about it?"
"Ah, no, no, but this is eating now. Tutoring and eating should be different, right?" Winnie explained.
"So, you don't want to sit beside ?" Isatia's beautiful eyes, calmly and seriously locked onto Winnie's.
"No way! How could that be?" Winnie instantly broke into a sweat. After being asked like that, how could he possibly answer 'I don't want to'?
Besides, the Empire's Crown Princess, second-ranked top student, and long-haired beauty was willingly being this proactive with him, what reason did he have to refuse? That'd be incredibly ungrateful.
Sitting together is fine. She's right, during tutoring, we always sit together. What's the big deal?
"Isatia, take a look, see if there's anything you'd like to eat," Winnie said.
"You choose. Our tastes are quite similar. I'll probably like whatever you pick." Isatia sipped the coffee that had just arrived.
"Ah? Uh, okay." Winnie didn't know what to say, so he simply took the nu, which seed to still carry the faint warmth of the girl's fingertips.
What he didn't know was that, at the sa ti, outside the steakhouse.
"Hey, Aiden, how'd your exam go?"
"Not bad. Yours?"
"Pfft, look at your face, it's like the sky's fallen. And you say it's not bad? Tsk tsk, not being honest with your brother now? Act like I just t you yesterday."
"You're the sa! You definitely bombed it and ca to for emotional balance. You think I don't know?" Outside the steakhouse, two male students joked and shoved each other.
"Alright, alright, though none of us did well, it's lunchti, and we're all starving. Where should we eat?"
"I don't know, but you're treating . I totally flunked the exam."
"Get lost! Act like you didn't flunk too. I bombed it as well, okay? Why isn't anyone treating ?"
They bickered their way to the window of the steakhouse.
"Whoa! When you're sleepy, soone brings a pillow. Perfect! No need to think about where to eat, Aiden, let's have lunch here."
"But this place is quite expensive, isn't it?"
"Tsk, why so many excuses? You failed, can't you splurge and enjoy a fancy al?" The other male student grumbled.
"Well, that's true. Hey hey, let's go!" The two begin heading toward the restaurant entrance.
"By the way, turns out we're not the only traitors in the Card Player Alliance, huh?" Aiden sighed. "After that, I checked, so many comrades got caught. They all got exposed joining various beauty fan clubs. Even Brother Fred was seen wearing a fan badge for so Beauty Pageant champion."
"Tsk, first ti I've heard soone call themselves a traitor. Is that even betrayed? The path of a Card player is a lonely one, we're just finding soone to admire on this lonely journey," John said solemnly.
"Still, Brother Winnie's a real man, he never joined anyone's fan club."
"Yeah."
As Aiden spoke, he suddenly froze.
"What's wrong, Aiden? Why are you standing there like that? Did the exam fry your brain? Not even hungry anymore? You've lost it?"
"No, no, it's not that, John. I think I just saw your goddess!"
"What goddess? What're you babbling about?" John looked puzzled.
"Your goddess! Didn't you join Isatia's fan club?" Although Aiden and John had been playfully arguing and exposing each other, they were actually roommates, and like-minded ones at that. Their close friendship was exactly why they'd done the mutual exposure thing in the Card Player Alliance.
"Yeah, so what? Didn't you already expose ?"
"No, I just ant, I think I saw your goddess. And... she seems to be having a private al with so guy." Aiden said uncertainly.
"What?!" John, overwheld by the sheer information density, blanked out for a second before reacting and following Aiden's gaze.
"Am I seeing sothing wrong? That should be Isatia, right? And next to her is... wait, Brother Winnie?!" After peering through the glass and confirming who sat beside Isatia, both froze like they'd been struck by lightning. John, in particular, was completely stunned.
After confirming the two inside were indeed Winnie and Isatia, and that they were sitting side by side, the two stood silently outside, utterly disoriented.
"Aaah?!" After a long silence, John exploded first, staring in disbelief at the couple sitting side by side inside.
"Uh, John? You... okay?" Aiden hesitated, watching John's reaction.
"Actually, you don't need to react like this. Maybe Brother Winnie just helped Isatia with sothing by accident, and she's treating him to lunch. Hahaha." Aiden forced an explanation, though he didn't believe it himself.
"Ah, y-yeah! That's right! Aiden, you're a damn genius! How didn't I think of that before? Yes, that must be it!" John frantically nodded.
"Yeah, that's exactly it. There's no other possibility, right?"
"Uh, John?" Seeing John's increasingly erratic behavior, Aiden beca uneasy.
"But... but." John struggled to calm down, but as he lifted his head again, he beca hesitant once more.
"But what?"
"But... would a simple 'thank you' involve personally feeding the other person?!" John pointed at the restaurant, his eyes hollow.
"What?!" Aiden jumped, turning to look, and seeing the long-haired black-haired beauty pick up the dessert cake in front of her, take a spoonful, and calmly feed it to Winnie.
Both fell silent, speechless, utterly defeated.
"Aaaah! So the real traitor was here all along!" John, his face twisted in agony, he was dragged away by Aiden.
If he didn't pull John away now, and let him keep watching, John would definitely suffer a ntal breakdown.
This contrast was just too painful, like discovering your adored, acknowledged goddess acted like a completely different person in front of her crush.
Pain. This was just too painful!
Fortunately, the restaurant's glass had excellent sound insulation, so neither Isatia nor Winnie noticed this little incident.
On the other hand,
"Ah, as expected, excellent quality as always." At the back street of the academy, inside an alchemy shop nad "The Great Cauldron," a tall, pale-skinned, long-haired woman wearing a witch's hat sat on her chair, inspecting the glowing potion in her hand.
"Even when not at her best, Aesphyra still maintains a high baseline." The long-haired woman shook the potion bottle, watched the liquid swirl, and smiled.
"Ah, if it wasn't for these potions, I wouldn't have noticed, you're in a bad mood today, huh? Hehe, since we're old acquaintances, I'll listen to your complaints for once." The woman with the pointed witch's hat propped her chin on one hand, giving the silver-haired girl before her a aningful look. "After all, this kind of thing doesn't happen to you often. I'm curious, who could possibly make you unhappy?"
"Miss Christine, I'm afraid I don't know what you're referring to." Aesphyra calmly picked out her next batch of alchemy ingredients without turning around, her voice as composed as ever.
"Though I really want to satisfy my curiosity, after all, I've never seen you in such a poor mood, I know my rationality tells that if I keep prying, our cooperation ends here." Christine smiled. Her witch's hat was tilted, whether it was personal style, intentional, or simply worn crooked, no one knew.
"Is that so? Miss Christine is a smart woman. She should know what to do." Aesphyra speaks normally, still carrying that faint, elusive smile as always.
If it wasn't for noting that the batch of potions Aesphyra had just made were noticeably inferior to her usual submissions, Christine wouldn't detect anything.
She'd been running her alchemy shop at Carillian Academy for years, definitely decades. This silver-haired girl was the only student she couldn't read.
Logically speaking, it was incredible. These kids, barely grown, raised in ivory towers, lacking worldly experience and cunning, they should be the easiest to understand. Even if they tried to hide things, they wouldn't be very good at it.
Yet from the mont she first saw Aesphyra, she realized this overly beautiful silver-haired girl was an exception. In those purple eyes, she could only see her own reflection, nothing more.
People like that were usually once-in-a-generation alchemy geniuses, Christine's intuition and experience told her so.
Thus, their cooperation began. After all, even Aesphyra sotis couldn't obtain certain rare ingredients, precious ingredients that couldn't be bought with money alone.
And Christine was willing to provide them, in exchange for Aesphyra regularly crafting magical potions for her.
Honestly, after nearly a year of knowing Aesphyra, this was the first ti Christine had felt emotional fluctuations in her, and that she could actually feel displeasure over certain matters.
Understood.
Christine stared at Aesphyra as she worked, as if discovering a new continent, her gaze opened and unashad.
"Ah, never mind, never mind. Even if I'm curious, you won't tell anyway." Soon, seeing Aesphyra show no further reaction, Christine yawned lazily.
"How about this, I'll trade five Dragon Whisker Grass for your secret?"
"Miss Christine always cos up with questions that make no sense," Aesphyra chuckled.
"Ah, forget it. If you're going to be stubborn, there's nothing I can do."
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