The day before the tournament.
A temporary wall and facilities were set up at the massive arena where the tournament would take place.
“Ugh, finally done.”
Dustyn, who had cleared the remaining wood, wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. The autumn breeze cooled his heated skin.
An upperclassman from the Department of Mage Engineering approached, wielding a hammer to check the sturdiness of the seating.
The upperclassman pointed to the transparent wall surrounding the arena. The wall gleamed softly as magic stone powder formed a light magic circle.
It was intended to prevent the battle from reaching the spectators. Although entering and exiting the arena became cumbersome since it was a type of castle construction technique, it was strong and safe.
“I’ll have to double-check in the morning, but there shouldn’t be any issues. We’ll be leaving now, so let us know right away if there’s any problem.”
“Yes.”
After the upperclassmen left, Dustyn continued to inspect the facilities as a member of the student council, confirming that everything was fine before exiting the arena. He scribbled down the details he had observed on the back of the report and tucked it away.
“Is Pastel in the student council room?”
Dustyn felt quite uneasy lately. There had been a lot of unwarranted rumors surrounding Pastel.
Just today, for instance.
“Hey, Dustyn!”
As he walked down the corridor, someone claiming to be Pastel’s friend’s friend called out to him. For reference, being Pastel’s friend’s friend did not mean they were Dustyn’s friend.
“Did you hear? I helped Pastel yesterday and saw a different side of her!”
The start wasn’t promising. What did it mean to help Pastel? Following Leonard around didn’t count as help.
Only a member of the student council could truly help Pastel, like Dustyn himself.
“I heard that Pastel single-handedly ambushed a demon’s scoff, so I asked a relative in the knight corps about that situation, and guess what!”
The friend’s friend exclaimed in admiration.
“They said something ridiculous, like, ‘A tool that has finished its role is disposed of.’ Wow! That’s so chic of her! I like Viscount Craft because of this thrilling turn of events!”
“So what?”
“What do you mean, ‘so what’? That’s just how it is! Are you going to do manual labor with the seniors today? The scent of labor and sweat!”
The friend’s friend threw an arm around Dustyn’s shoulder.
“Did you know? Pastel doesn’t smell even when she sweats! I haven’t experienced it, but Leonard says so! Hahaha! Work hard with the seniors!”
After laughing for a while, the friend’s friend patted Dustyn on the back and left.
“Just thinking about it makes me angry.”
Dustyn kicked a stone off the path. Then he wiped the sweat from his face unnecessarily.
Exaggerated rumors were circulating in the academy.
That Pastel subdued the sewer demons with poison gas.
That an academy coup was planned.
That even the demon terror was part of a grand scheme devised by Pastel.
To Dustyn, who spent the most time with Pastel among the boys, these rumors seemed entirely unfounded.
There was no way that innocent Pastel would carry around something like poison gas. The demons must have been inadvertently captured because they had used a paralysis poison from the demons themselves.
And planning an academy coup? Dustyn, who had helped Pastel right after the coup, clearly heard her tearfully explain.
“I just wanted to protect my friends! But I stood still, and this is what happened! You’ll believe me, right?!”
Faced with Pastel’s pink eyes, glistening with unshed tears from her indignation, Dustyn nodded instinctively.
“Of course! Just trust me!”
Eli, who was listening next to him, looked at him with a somewhat pitying expression, but that must have been a misunderstanding. Eli always looked at him that way.
And the rumor that Pastel instigated the demon terror wasn’t even worth discussing. No matter how much it came from the knight corps, it was too far from the truth.
That pretty and cute Pastel would never instigate a terror attack.
In truth, Dustyn understood why such rumors reached him, who had no friends. It was all due to envy and jealousy.
The only classmate registered in the student council.
The boy closest to Pastel more than anyone else.
Those consumed by envy and jealousy concocted ridiculous rumors and passed them on to him—targeting his weakness of having no friends.
Nasty people.
Dustyn noticed a pink flower in a flowerbed by the roadside and stopped walking. He approached and recited a poem.
“O you who have no tranquil days, yet the scent of today is gentle.”
He bowed deeply in a quaint manner and cautiously reached out his hand. But it didn’t smell of anything in particular.
What kind of flower is this?
Dustyn pulled his hand away from the flower, feeling a bit awkward.
As he turned his head, he spotted a girl’s silhouette.
It was Eli, the black-haired demon girl.
Embracing a tournament advertisement, Eli looked at him as if she had witnessed something extraordinarily disgusting.
Silence filled the air.
The demon girl’s gaze turned into one of disappointment.
Dustyn felt steam rising to his face.
“No, this is not—”
He pointed at the flower, then shifted his gaze back to Eli, pausing awkwardly.
“Hah.”
Eli brushed her ear. Her hair swayed.
“Boys.”
She approached and handed him half of the tournament advertisement.
“We need to fix this, so follow me.”
“Uh? Huh? Fix what?”
Dustyn accepted it reflexively.
Eli’s slender finger pointed at one side of the advertisement.
“The printed content is wrong, so we have to fix each one by hand. We can’t reschedule to have it printed again.”
After explaining, Eli turned coldly and walked ahead.
“Hey, wait a minute!”
Dustyn hurriedly ran after her. Once his stride matched hers, he walked alongside her.
“Where are we fixing it?”
“The student council room. I came to find you in case you took a different route.”
“I was going to the student council room anyway.”
“Then it’s before I find you—”
A group of classmates coming from the front collided with Eli. She swayed, and the advertisement fell to the ground, painting the street with its contents.
“Eli?”
Dustyn caught Eli before she fell. She felt light.
The classmates passed by, laughing.
—I don’t know what a demon is doing here. If they have any conscience, shouldn’t they drop out?
Dustyn was left dumbfounded.
“What’s wrong with them?”
Eli released his hand and stood up. She looked at the advertisement scattered on the ground and began to pick it up.
Dustyn followed suit but frowned at the shoe prints left on it. He stood up and shouted towards the ones who had walked away.
“Hey, you guys!”
“Leave it.”
Eli grabbed Dustyn’s arm.
“Don’t do anything unnecessary. Besides, you have no friends anyway.”
Suddenly realizing the harsh reality, Dustyn was taken aback.
Even when he tried to care, she disliked it.
After picking up the advertisement, they moved to the student council room without any incident. Then, they sat down at their respective places and began fixing the tournament advertisement.
It was a task of striking through incorrect sentences and writing down new ones below, which took time but wasn’t particularly difficult.
The faint scratching sound of quill pens echoed in the student council room.
Then, breaking the white noise, the door burst open. A pink-haired girl came in with a sulking face.
“Friends!”
Her arms flailed around.
“None of the kids want to play with me! What’s going on?! Why is this happening?!”
When the idol made her entrance, Dustyn put down his quill.
“What happened?”
“I was just greeting them! Just greeting them!”
Pastel dramatically swayed and leaned against Dustyn’s table.
“There are so many friends pretending not to hear me and running away! So many!”
This much! This much!
Pastel waved her arms to demonstrate.
“Three whole people avoided me!”
Dustyn, who was going to empathize, hesitated.
That’s it?
You greet everyone you meet from the start.
But only three people avoided you?
Having been bullied for calling out to Pastel without permission and then driven away, and now condemned for being close to her after joining the student council while still having no friends, Dustyn couldn’t fathom Pastel’s shameless worries.
“Well, that makes sense.”
Eli finally put her quill down.
“Eli!”
Pastel swayed and moved to Eli’s table.
“Eli, listen! Listen! I greeted the kids, you know!”
Ignoring her, Eli opened the drawer of her table and took out a bundle of crude newspapers. The bundle was handed to Pastel.
“Three whole people! Huh?”
Pastel read the newspaper.
“Wait?!”
Her pink eyes widened.
“What does it say?”
Dustyn moved to look at the newspaper. It was printed on cheap yellow paper, probably handed out cheaply by the newspaper club.
The provocative headline immediately caught his eye.
[Confession from the newspaper club, “We acted as accomplices for the black money from that person.”]
It didn’t specify who that person was, but no one would be confused about the content. It contained details explaining that they were confessing to content they couldn’t use until now, revealing that person’s true intentions.
It accused them of instigating a coup for terrorism. There was even an analysis stating the poison gas used to subdue the demons in the sewers was identical to the poison gas that would be used in pollution terror attacks.
“What kind of fabrication is this?!”
Dustyn pointed at the article.
He could tell it was a fabrication instantly, without needing to read more.
Of course, there was no way that Pastel would use poison gas. She had merely captured them accidentally, possessing their paralysis poison.
Yet Eli gazed at Pastel with a strange expression, seemingly having different thoughts.
Pastel, receiving suspicious glances, gasped.
“I didn’t do it! There’s no way good me would instigate something like the pollution terror!”
A glass bottle emerged from her arms, containing a suspiciously yellow liquid that sparkled. The liquid gradually vaporized into an even more suspect yellow gas.
“This is just a paralysis poison…!”
Pastel is safe!
A safe friend!
Dustyn hesitated.
Why would that be coming out from her arms?
In a non-combat situation, what were the odds that someone could always carry such a dubious glass bottle and not be manufacturing toxic substances?
Eli shot an even more intense suspicious glance.
“Ugh! Why are you doing this?! I really didn’t do it!”
Pastel floundered in her indignation.
Then she stumbled, causing the glass bottle to slip from her hand.
Oh no.
The dropped bottle fell with a swoosh. It collided with the ground, and a yellow paralysis gas erupted.
Dustyn and Eli screamed as they were engulfed.
Pastel’s eyes went wide.
“Guys!”
Her friends staggered and fell.
Thud, thud.
The innocent Pastel was shocked to see the scene.
“Ugh!”
This can’t be happening!
This can’t be happening…!
Pastel pressed her cheeks in horror.
Her friends had collapsed!
Because of the bad article from the wretched newspaper club!
Ugh!
“I can’t forgive them! I’ll take revenge!”
Pastel rushed out of the student council room to rescue her friends.
I will correct the bad newspaper club, turning them into a good one!
In the name of the Craft family’s honor…!
