“Black tea? Coffee?”
“Black tea.”
“Anything’s fine.”
“Okay.”
Pastel rattled the teapot.
Melissa stared at it intently, hesitating for quite a while before reaching out.
“I’ll do it.”
“Don’t worry! It’s a tradition in the student council for me to serve the guests myself!”
Elshire looked puzzled.
“Since when did that tradition start?”
“Just now!”
“That’s not a tradition.”
“Hormone Friend, this can’t be happening.”
Pastel was surprised and activated the magic circle. The water in the teapot began to boil.
High-quality black tea from the academy’s president’s office was dropped in.
“Oh.”
Melissa’s mouth opened slightly. Every time the tea leaves fell into the boiling water, she moaned lightly in shock.
Pastel felt triumphant.
Of course, it’s Melissa.
She immediately recognized how rare and expensive these tea leaves were.
But even so, Pastel was a friend who generously poured them in for her guest.
I should pour in even more, just as generous as my heart!
A handful of tea leaves went into the teapot.
Splash.
Melissa took a shallow breath, her hands shaking slightly as she hid them under the table.
Wow, looks like she’s really moved!
With this, could I double the intimacy?
“Hmm.”
The Demon let out a sound.
“Young Craft, tea leaves should not be put into boiling water. They should be steeped gently at a lower temperature.”
Oh?
Pastel looked down at the teapot. The water was vigorously boiling, and the leaves were fluttering around. It looked like vegetable broth was being made.
Wow, shabu-shabu.
It looked like it would be fantastic with some meat.
“If you put the leaves in boiling water, all the good aroma evaporates. The bitterness also becomes intense.”
The Demon suddenly self-deprecated.
“I forgot to mention such common knowledge. I suppose I was negligent, given my circumstances. Have I been too careless lately?”
Feeling like a complete fool.
But I really couldn’t argue against that.
Pastel hesitated, holding the ruined teapot.
Caught between a shocked Melissa and a puzzled Elshire, she was on edge.
The guest reception was a total fail.
A tense moment passed.
Just as Elshire was about to ask, “Don’t you know common sense?”, Elly, who had been watching from the corner of the student council room, approached with a new teapot and a bundle of documents.
The teapot was casually replaced, and the documents related to the Knight Order were handed over.
“Supplementary materials.”
The Demon Girl coolly returned to her seat to finish up paperwork.
Pastel looked down at the new teapot. Somewhere, an appropriate amount of black tea leaves floated in water that wasn’t boiling.
The aroma of the completed black tea wafted up.
Whoa.
Proudly, she lifted the teapot.
Ta-da~!
Success in serving the guest!
Oh yeah.
“Everyone, have a cup!”
She shared it out and added a handful of sugar before drinking.
The black tea was delicious!
Pastel was really pleased with the black tea.
It was so clear that even without gemstone powder, it didn’t make her vomit. Juice tended to react when it was too concentrated!
Pastel’s sophisticated taste~.
She stirred the spoon a few times to mix in the sugar.
Gulp.
More to my taste!
“If you’re going to taste the black tea, stop adding more. At this point, it’s just sugar water.”
Whoa.
Was it that I actually liked sugar water?
Shock.
After finishing the black tea reception, they began discussing serious business.
“The Knight Order is really incompetent.”
With a serious expression, Pastel distributed the reports. The documents lay in front of Melissa and Elshire.
“I’ve drawn up some key performance indicators for the Knight Order, and there are more than a couple of items falling short.”
“Key performance indicators…?”
Melissa glanced over and looked confused.
“It’s difficult to access confidential information and quantify it, so there’s a lot of subjectivity involved, but there are definitely issues with the Knight Order.”
They’re barely maintaining the current situation and not doing anything right.
“Uh, yeah, it seems that way.”
The reports were quickly flipped through.
“But this document is remarkably systematic and refined. Do you always work this way? Is the student council usually like this?”
“Right? It’s work after all.”
The existing system was completely chaotic, and they had struggled to gradually improve things without clashing significantly with the academy’s administration.
Elly merely looked on with a complex expression but accepted the unusual way of doing things without much objection.
Dustin was just a field worker.
“The North really is lagging behind…”
Elshire muttered while reading.
“No, it seems like it’s not a problem with the Duke of Bellamont, but rather something peculiar to the Empire in this area.”
Pastel tilted her head.
“By the way, check this out too.”
She handed out another document.
“When I requested that they not hide the internal reasons for not acting during the recent terrorist attack, they refused again.”
It was a content that said not to interfere with the Knight Order.
Melissa’s expression turned serious.
“Hiding even the reasons does seem suspicious.”
“Right? It’s completely dubious and utterly incompetent.”
“Isn’t it Craft’s cause that they tell us not to interfere?”
She looked pointedly at Elshire, who seemed to take that for granted.
“Since Craft, having obtained the administrative power of Sky Island, now seems to want to encroach on the military rights of the Knight Order, it’s only natural for them to resist.”
Pastel suddenly felt wronged.
“I never had such ill intentions?!”
She hadn’t even wanted to gain anything from the academy; it had just fallen into her hands by accident.
Elshire was staring at her blankly.
“Then are you going to let the Knight Order be as it is?”
Pastel tapped her chin in thought.
Hmm…
Brightly, she said.
“No!”
She was going to show them who was boss!
Bam bam!
Elshire stared blankly.
Pastel suddenly became more aggrieved.
“This is different! This is not the same!”
She waved her arms.
“The order of events! The order of events is different!”
It’s not the good Knight Order doing its job being meddled by greedy Craft but the bad Knight Order getting a well-deserved reckoning from Pastel, who cares about the students!
Whoa.
In the end, she was still giving them a reckoning.
Pastel rolled her eyes and looked back at Melissa.
Melissa!
My best friend! My dear friend!
You’ll trust me, right?
Melissa looked at her skeptically.
“You’re not secretly instigating the Knight Order, are you? Maybe as a pretext for justifying this?”
Ugh!
That’s totally something the Craft family would do!
Waved her arms intensely.
“In any case, the order of events is different! Just one time, based on my pinky-pink exterior, please believe me!”
Elshire immediately rebutted.
“That’s a typical Craft tactic.”
“That’s true.”
Even Melissa began to look more dubious.
Ugh!
Pastel flailed about, hurriedly shoving documents aside. She quickly pulled out a new one.
“Anyway, the academy has resolved to topple the Knight Order! We’re going to strike while their hostility is still incomplete and hit their weaknesses!”
Wow!
“That’s a really malicious plan-”
Ignoring Elshire, she shouted.
“The only reason the Knight Order is still showing only passive resistance is that the academy’s president has died and they have tons of free time! They likely also can’t form a unified front internally.”
So, they’ll quietly bypass administrative procedures and secretly select an acting president while preparing a dagger to stab the Knight Order from behind.
Once the acting president is chosen, they’ll strike before the Knight Order can even feel it.
“The president of Sky Island has to be appointed by the Emperor, and since that hasn’t happened yet, the professors have decided to meet and elect an acting president for now.”
This procedure was being prepared by Professor Horace, a senior in smuggling.
“What we need to do is create a dagger for the acting president.”
Months ago, ancient ruins were discovered on Sky Island. They had a massive scale and various monsters, so they had left it to the Knight Order to conquer.
Yet, there had been silence with no proper news of conquest since then. Although they had protested that the ruins were the academy’s jurisdiction, the Knight Order lingered in an odd situation. It was even before Craft’s ambitions became well known.
“Given their silence during this recent terrorism, there’s a high possibility that there’s a spy from the Cult within the Knight Order. The ruins would definitely pique the Cult’s interest.”
It might not be true, but it was worth checking out.
“We’re planning to sneak into the ruins with a small elite group without the Knight Order knowing. And if there’s something suspicious, we’ll strike inmediatamente!”
Boom! Boom! Bam bam!
It’s a quest for justice!
“Is this elite group of yours…”
Melissa looked back and forth at Pastel and Elshire.
“Yup! Just the three of us!”
The basic principle of information control is to minimize personnel.
Elshire was a victim of the Cult terror, so she could be trusted, and Melissa was just Pastel’s best friend, so she could be trusted too!
“If it’s awkward for you, you can opt out.”
It’s all business and no personal feelings, so even if they’ve heard the plan, they’d still be monitored.
“By the way, it seems like my body is stiff, so I was planning to warm up by taking down some pirates, and this works out perfectly.”
Melissa gladly accepted.
Ugh.
What should Pastel say to her when she mentions killing people to warm up?
Every time the Southern Commander’s heir brought this up, she found it oddly terrifying.
She subtly averted her gaze.
“What about you, Elshire?”
The silver-haired girl nodded.
“I’ll join in. I originally came to help the sponsoring benefactor in the student council.”
Wow.
Coming to help a friend!
So sweet!
“Great!”
Pastel jumped up from her seat.
She raised both arms triumphantly.
“It’s party formation time!”
Oh yeah.
Then she realized something and paused.
Aren’t they on bad terms?
Is this party truly okay?
Looking back and forth at the two, she saw Melissa lightly sipping her black tea.
“I don’t mix personal feelings into public matters.”
Elshire merely stirred her teacup and didn’t refute it.
“Great!”
Pastel once again raised both arms.
“It’s party formation time!”
Ruins.
Ruins.
We’re off to explore the ruins~!
Yay!
