How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

Vinny and Aesphyra had finished their practice report and submitted it. The good news was, both of them had achieved excellent marks. Although the results fell short of perfect, clearly no one had expected even this outcome.

Who would have thought that what seemed like a simple demonic serpent outbreak would turn out to be connected to a Demon Lord? It wasn’t just the Carillian Academy administration that had failed to anticipate it—even Jiu Lixue herself hadn’t expected to appear in a nameless border village of the Empire, executing a traitor before the eyes of two Carillian Academy students.

Afterward, the Academy’s Dean of Academics had called the two of them in to describe the entire process and experience in detail. After all, this practice exam had ended up involving a Demon Lord—and not just any Demon Lord, but one of the most powerful: the Queen of Fox Demons and Succubi, Jiu Lixue.

“What you’re telling me,” Dean Morincate frowned, “is that the Demon Lord Jiu Lixue appeared in Lake Village at the Empire’s border not to declare war, not to provoke hostility, not to take any offensive action at all—but simply to eliminate a disobedient traitor?”

“Yes. At least on the surface, that’s what we heard in their exchanges. Jiu Lixue came to eliminate a succubus who had broken the rules, provoked conflict between fox demons, succubi, and humans, and intended to ignite a war. Of course, we can’t completely rule out deliberate posturing, but the likelihood is small. It’s unlikely Jiu Lixue would make such a grand [N O V E L I G H T] display, bringing so many ministers and confidantes along, only to carry out something so meaningless.” Aesphyra replied calmly. “I think there are internal divisions among Jiu Lixue’s forces. She wanted to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys, so she brought all her subordinates to witness her execution of the traitor—telling them plainly, this is the fate of any demon who continues to defy my command.”

“However, Jiu Lixue seemed to have little interest in us. That gave us the chance to escape.”

Aesphyra skipped over the most critical details, brushing past them with understatement.

It wasn’t wrong. Jiu Lixue truly hadn’t harbored much killing intent toward them—and toward Vinny, none at all. If not for Aesphyra’s bloodline being that of the [Hero], she wouldn’t have provoked the trouble of dealing with Carillian Academy in the first place. The two of them would likely have been released outright.

“...This incident is indeed something we failed to account for. We’ll be sending a faculty team to investigate the area. As for your practice exam grades, both will be recorded as exceptionally high. Furthermore, as this was an oversight on the Academy’s part, you’ll be granted appropriate compensation.” Dean Morincate concluded after a pause.

“We apologize. Because of the evaluation arrangements, your lives were nearly put in danger.” He added with genuine regret.

“Ah, well, it’s not really the instructors’ fault. Nobody could have expected this, right? Probably not even Jiu Lixue herself.” Vinny scratched his head.

Based on the current situation between humanity and the demons, no human nation believed the demons would declare war at this moment. After all, the demon factions were practically tearing each other’s brains out already—starting a war against humans now, opening a second front, would be suicide.

In fact, if not for their mistrust of humans, the demons might even have sought to ally with humans against rival demons. How could they possibly spare attention to declare war on humanity?

Exactly. Nobody could have imagined demons would show hostility toward humans at such a time. Rationally speaking, it was impossible.

But reality often proves far stranger than rational analysis—and logic doesn’t always apply.

Once the Empire learned of this afterward, the Tyrel Emperor would likely dispatch the elite Imperial Knight Corps to hold Jiu Lixue accountable. As for what would come of it, whether both sides could reach an agreement—none could say. And in any case, it had nothing to do with Vinny and Aesphyra.

The questioning ended, and the two returned. Now, what lay ahead was preparing for the final practice combat exam.

But before that, Vinny still had to continue his work in the Student Council. That was the duty of a council member—even when others were resting, he had to catch up on the backlog of tasks that had piled up.

When Vinny arrived at the Student Council hall, the first thing he saw was that familiar figure, giving orders to a group of lower-year students.

“Yo! Senior-sis, busy as always? I’m back. Got any work that needs me?” Vinny greeted warmly.

Vinny was always kind to those who treated him without prejudice.

“Oh, Vinny, so you finally made it back?” The senior sister glanced up at him, raising a brow. “I thought a wolf had dragged you off on the road, coming back this late.”

“Eh, the two of us ran into some trouble, but come on—who am I? Of course I took care of it all!” Vinny boasted.

“A paired practice task, hm? You didn’t just make trouble for your partner, did you? You remembered to thank them properly when you got back?” The senior didn’t even need to ask to know who had been the burden.

“Senior-sis, so that’s the image you’ve always had of me? Couldn’t it be that this time I was the one carrying the team?”

She said nothing, only narrowed her eyes at him.

“Uhh, okay, maybe normally I’m not exactly reliable. But hey, that’s just normally!”

“So who was your partner this time? A Student Council member too?”

“Eh? How did you know that?”

“Just a guess. Don’t tell me—it was Aesphyra, wasn’t it?” She shot him a look.

“Senior-sis, you saw the exam list?”

“Didn’t have to. Of the first-years who hadn’t returned yet, it was you and her. Honestly, who else could manage to handle you but Aesphyra?” She sighed lightly.

“Well, at least you came back safe. Just as well—I need someone to do the heavy work. Oh, I mean, tasks that don’t require much technical skill. Go fetch the stack of blue documents piled on the President’s desk in the President’s office.”

“Oh.” Vinny nodded, deliberately ignoring the “heavy work” remark.

Now that he thought of it, he hadn’t seen Mirexia in a while. Since coming back, he hadn’t even greeted her yet.

So Vinny went to the Student Council President’s office and knocked on the door.

“Come in.” Mirexia’s calm voice drifted out.

“Yo, Mirexia, I’m back.” Vinny pushed the door open, smiling as he greeted her.

“Oh.”

To his surprise, Mirexia’s reaction was unusually flat—so flat it bordered on cold.

Vinny wondered for a moment if he’d misheard.

He’d thought that after so long apart, Mirexia would invite him to sit and chat a bit.

He was probably just overthinking it. Mirexia must simply be too busy right now to talk.

Watching her bent over her desk, not even lifting her head, Vinny tried to convince himself of that.

After all, it couldn’t be that he’d done something to anger her.

Don’t be ridiculous—he had only just gotten back, hadn’t even seen her yet. She was only now learning he’d returned. How could he possibly have had time to anger her?

“Sorry to bother you, Mirexia. Senior-sis asked me to bring down some documents.” Vinny picked up the stack of blue papers on her desk. “I’ll come back after I finish. If you need help with anything, just let me know—same as always.”

“No need.” Mirexia didn’t even look up. “I’m not busy.”

“Uh... okay. Still, don’t push yourself too hard. If anything comes up, just tell me.” Seeing her so firmly refuse, Vinny couldn’t help feeling awkward. But since she said she didn’t need his help, he’d better leave rather than bother her.

He turned to go—when a faint voice drifted behind him.

“This won’t get in the way of your dates with Aesphyra, will it?”

“? Huh??” Vinny froze, half-thinking he’d misheard, glancing back at Mirexia, who sat steadily at her desk with her pen.

Yes, she appeared to be working in earnest—but...

Was it just his imagination? It seemed her gaze was tilted, unfocused, like her eyes weren’t actually on the documents at all.

And paired with the oddly resentful tone of that line, Vinny had the sense that if he walked out without saying anything now, things would spiral completely out of control later.

He didn’t know why—but he just felt it.

“Uh, Mirexia... what did you just say?”

“If Aesphyra knew you were here with me, wouldn’t she misunderstand?” Her azure eyes stayed on the papers, but closer inspection revealed them to be unfocused, not really reading anything.

“Misunderstand? ...What? Why would she misunderstand? What could she even misunderstand?” Vinny was baffled.

What the hell? He had no idea what Aesphyra could possibly misunderstand—so why was Mirexia acting like it was obvious??

Which of them was the crazy one here??

“There’s nothing shameful about this, after all.” Finally Mirexia put down her pen, though her gaze still didn’t meet his.

“Yesterday, a Student Council member saw you and Aesphyra together at a café. I happened to overhear your conversation.”

“......”

Happened to overhear, huh?

Watching her refuse to even look at him as she said this, and remembering her strange behavior last night, Vinny instantly realized something.

No way.

Yesterday—when he’d gone to the café with Aesphyra to do their practice assignment—Mirexia had been there too?

But he’d checked—there had only been a handful of customers!

Could it be she’d been sitting just out of his line of sight?

The more Vinny thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

As for that nonsense about some other Council member witnessing it, and her overhearing by chance—yeah, that was pure fabrication.

“But we were doing the practice assignment. I got grouped with Aesphyra. I didn’t have time to tell you—we set out right away.” Vinny couldn’t help explaining.

“...Is that so.” Mirexia fell silent for a long while, then forced out just those two words.

Damn.

That déjà vu feeling—Vinny knew he’d somehow triggered another Mirexia dungeon instance.

And worse, after those two words, she said nothing else. She didn’t tell him to leave, didn’t tell him to stay.

With Mirexia’s personality, she always expressed things subtly, never directly.

That was the worst. It meant she dumped the whole problem on him—she wouldn’t say it, leaving him to guess.

Guess right: no reward. Guess wrong: punishment.

Vinny pressed his lips together. His brain normally ran at the lowest possible capacity—but in these crises, it always kicked into overdrive.

If Mirexia really had been there yesterday, then she probably heard the entire conversation between him and Aesphyra.

If that was the case...

Vinny quickly replayed in his mind everything he and Aesphyra had said at the café.

“Ah, Mirexia, I think that Council member must have misheard—or, if they did hear, then misunderstood.” Vinny tried to explain.

“Oh?” The frozen-Mirexia finally stirred, lifting her gaze to meet his for the first time.

“First off, I wasn’t on a date with Aesphyra—we were doing our practice work, you know that. Second, some of Aesphyra’s remarks were a bit misleading, but she didn’t mean them that way. She even teased me, saying ‘an endearment just means you love to call me that.’”

“Oh, right—you probably won’t believe this, but I actually saved her life this time. To repay me, she even gave me a gift.” Vinny added casually, as if by accident.

“...You, saved her?” Mirexia’s eyes widened. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Vinny could save Aesphyra—she believed he had the ability. What she couldn’t believe was that a first-year practice task could have put them in such danger.

“Yep. If you don’t believe me, ask Dean Morincate. Our mission turned out really dangerous, far beyond the norm. He even called us in afterward to hear the details—we just got back from that.” Vinny spread his hands.

“You two aren’t hurt, are you? No injuries?” Mirexia’s expression shifted instantly, anxiety flashing across her face.

At that, she completely believed him.

And when she thought about how she had jumped to conclusions, throwing a fit over nothing—guilt stabbed through her.

[Virtue +300]

[Current Virtue: 3544]

She hadn’t meant to be like this. In fact, she herself thought her behavior unreasonable. But she just couldn’t help it.

From yesterday to today, after witnessing Vinny and Aesphyra’s “date,” her heart had been restless, sour, tangled.

She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Vinny was her childhood friend, her close companion. Aesphyra was her friend too. If her friends were getting along with each other, shouldn’t she be happy?

What right did she have to get in their way?

Yes, rationally, that was true. But emotionally, Mirexia couldn’t convince herself. The bitterness kept her awake at night.