There are times when I freeze when I hear something I never thought I would hear. That's exactly what I did just now.
'Will you shut up? Will you shut up? Will you shut up'
Her words continued to ring in my ears like an auditory hallucination.
I was frozen like a stone and just stared at her with shocked eyes. If she had been a character like an arrogant, shameless, and thoughtless noble lady, I wouldn't have been so shocked.
It's shocking to hear a character who is the complete opposite of me say something like that.
"Didn't you hear what I said? You're blocking the road, so I can't get through."
Elaine's left eyebrow furrowed slightly. At that moment, my mind suddenly snapped.
I sensed that she was feeling worse. She had a habit of frowning her left eyebrow when she was in a bad mood.
'It's best to avoid her.'
I don't know what the hell happened between them. But one thing is certain: this emotional rift is definitely not one that can be resolved here.
So, i have to step back from here. Staying here any longer would only make the relationship worse.
"Oh, sorry."
I stepped aside. Elaine walked past me without even looking at me.
'Wow, what is this…? It's been serious from the start?'
I shook my head in disbelief.
The second year of the Academy would be incomplete without her. A character that important. But is this what it looks like?
"Max, this guy is really something."
Is it true that a character with that kind of concept receives this much hate?
Even if I know that guy Max did it on purpose, I can't do it, that punk.
'Oh, thank you, thank you Max . Because of this, I'm going to have a bloody, bloody hard time rebuilding my relationship with her, you little shit.'
I left the place grumbling.
* * *
"Phew."
A sigh escaped as Elaine frowned, feeling a headache arise. She had run into the man she hated the most in a place she never expected to see him. It was an unbearable stress.
"...I don't understand."
The Max Seltrin she knew was never one to set foot in the lower ranks. There was nothing here that he wanted—good alcohol, good food, and high-class prostitutes.
That meant he had no reason to come here.
Elaine frowned and pondered why he had come here but ultimately could not come up with an answer.
"I don't understand," she muttered again.
This wasn't the only incident.
Max was the most difficult type of person for her to understand.
Noble status. Heir to a prestigious family. Vast wealth. A man with a blessed environment that everyone envied.
Yet he had achieved nothing at the Academy.
It was almost like he was a failure.
If it were just that, there would be nothing difficult to understand.
Because even if one puts in the effort, there are bound to be people who fall behind due to a lack of ability.
But that wasn't Max's problem. He was fundamentally negligent.
He neglected his studies and was lazy about training. He had never once given his best, either in assignments or in practical training.
Elaine could understand that Max liked alcohol or women.
But she couldn't understand at all how he could live so moderately and with such little effort, as if he fiercely hated putting in the slightest effort.
That's okay, up to there. If she simply don't understand, she just have to keep her distance.
But...
"Why are you doing that?" she recalled, seeing Max smiling wickedly.
"What are you talking about?" she had asked, her patience wearing thin.
"No, the face is pretty even though the clothes are a bit too much," he replied, his words laced with a tone that bordered on sexual harassment.
It was hard to tolerate, starting with the comment that her face was half and half. But she held back and asked:
"...Is it that bad?"
"You're so unsophisticated. You're the top student in the so-called best academy, but how can you be okay with that? You look low-class. Why don't you buy some clothes and wear them?"
Elaine couldn't forget that moment—the gaze that thoroughly looked down on her.
No matter how excellent she was, she was still seen as a lower-class person in his eyes.
It felt like he was saying something like that.
Her stomach churned, and she felt nauseous. She quickly left that place.
"Ugh—"
After a long period of nausea, she finally felt better. Only then did a cold anger engulf her whole body. Her body trembled.
She couldn't stand being treated with such outrageous rudeness and contempt by a human being who lived so negligently.
It was from then on that Max Celtrin became the man she hated the most.
* * *
"Hmm."
Turk was frowning and thinking.
There was one reason: the 20 gold coins placed in front of him. It was an excessive amount of money for tuition.
He shouldn't have accepted it, but he ended up doing so.
Couldn't he overcome his desires? No, that wasn't it. It's true that he had some conflict in his heart, but he tried to express his intention to refuse.
But what he said at that moment:
"Imperial Type 8. That's enough. That's what I came here to learn."
Because of those words, he missed the timing to refuse. Those words shook him.
For the first time, he felt that the value of the Imperial Type 8 had been recognized by someone else.
Turk had been practicing kal-bap for over a decade, but never once had anyone recognized the value of the Imperial Type 8.
Instead, he was treated like the world's biggest idiot.
People grumbled behind his back, wondering why he was so stupidly stuck with basic swordsmanship and not learning the new, better swordsmanship techniques that were out there.
Every time, he pretended not to hear it and let it go in one ear and out the other. He endured it as if nothing had happened.
But inside, an indelible heaviness was building up.
However, today, he had scraped off a little bit of that heavy dirt.
"Who could it be?" Turk wondered.
Looking at the young man's stylish and expensive-looking clothes, Turk assumed he came from a wealthy family. Judging by his speech, he was probably thinking the young man was a nobleman.
But if that was the case, the question only grew larger.