How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

The end of the practical assessment signaled that the first-years had shed their status as new students and officially advanced to second year.

Inside the dorm, Vinny stared at the large words exceptionally outstanding on his report card and fell silent.

Exceptionally outstanding was the highest tier of overall semester grades at Carillian Academy.

This semester, with Isatia’s help, Vinny’s academic scores had improved a great deal. On top of that, he had gotten full marks in practical combat and completed it perfectly.

As for the practical assessment, Vinny had also received full marks—

but it had not been perfect.

Several days had passed, and the practical duels were mostly finished too. Most of the examinees had completed everything, filled out their departure paperwork and registration forms, and gone home with their luggage in hand. Before long, the campus would probably grow quiet.

Even a lot of the card players had already left.

“Everyone, mountains and rivers may separate us, but we shall meet again in second year!”

At the last gathering of the card-player-soul club, Ferdi even put on an {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} absurdly solemn noble salute as he bid everyone farewell.

“Brother Ferdi, don’t say it so absolutely. What if you get held back? Then we won’t be meeting in second year at all, hahaha.”

“Get lost. Who do you think I am? Me, held back, as the boss of the card-player-soul club? To tell you the truth, I performed beyond my normal level this time. I nailed it perfectly. You should worry about yourselves first,” Ferdi huffed.

After that, the club members all said their goodbyes and went home one after another.

As for why everyone was heading back to the city so quickly this time, it was probably because the new season of the card game was about to begin during this break, and a whole batch of new cards was coming out. They were all too impatient to wait to go buy packs.

At this point, the only card-player club member still left at the Academy was probably Vinny.

He was still staying at the Academy and waiting.

On one hand, he was waiting for news from Ronilei.

On the other, he was gathering information.

“Vinny, from the relevant texts I’ve looked through so far, I haven’t found a single case of someone being hunted down by a Demon Pillar for their soul and still coming back to life afterward.”

In the café, Mirexia organized the report she had written.

Mirexia was a very conscientious person. No matter what she did, she recorded it all in detail, writing everything into a report and noting every little point. It had always been her habit. She believed that any detail, no matter how small, might someday prove useful.

Ever since Vinny had said he was going to save Milian, Mirexia had been spending every spare moment outside her duties searching through related texts for methods and precedent cases.

Part of it was because she wanted to do everything she could to help Vinny.

The other part was because Milian had risked her life to save him, and Mirexia was grateful to her too.

The result, however, was disappointing.

There were only a handful of records of Demon Pillars appearing in the world at all. Across the entire recorded history of Tyrelis Continent, there were only a few instances. As for those indirectly killed or banished by Demon Pillars, the books only skimmed over them in passing, as though even the people writing those histories had taken it for granted that such people could never be brought back.

If someone was killed by a Demon Pillar or a Demon Pillar minion—those high-dimensional beings—then that was erasure on the level of space itself.

The idea of bringing them back sounded like sheer fantasy.

Almost disrespectfully impossible.

“I see.” Vinny nodded. “Thank you, Mirexia. You’ve worked hard on this these past days.”

Seeing how seriously Mirexia had taken all this just to help him moved him deeply.

Still, even though he had known all along that this kind of thing sounded nearly impossible, his mood couldn’t help growing heavier.

“However, that isn’t absolute.”

Mirexia lifted the coffee in front of her and took a sip.

“After all, Milian is a Golden Elf. She’s different from humans. And nearly all the texts I checked were about humans, not elves.”

“There are also claims that the essence of a Golden Elf is originally a leaf from the golden sacred tree, meaning their form of life is fundamentally different from that of humans. So I think the elves are obviously far more knowledgeable about this matter than we are. Their history is ancient, their cultural inheritance is almost perfectly preserved, and war has rarely ever reached Eternity Forest.”

“I understand.” Vinny nodded again.

Humans simply knew too little about elves.

“Thank you, Mirexia. I keep troubling you.”

“It’s nothing. Didn’t you already treat me to coffee as thanks?”

Mirexia turned her eyes slightly aside and lifted her cup again, using the coffee cup to hide her face.

“And besides... why are you saying I’m being troubled too?”

“True.” Vinny curled his lips slightly. “It’s probably because you’re too reliable, Mirexia. You make people want to depend on you without even thinking about it.”

[Virtue +100.]

[Current Virtue: 7639.]

The coffee in Mirexia’s cup barely brushed her lips before she had to set it down lightly, pretending nothing had happened as she pulled out a silk handkerchief and wiped the corner of her mouth.

“What’s wrong?” Vinny asked.

“Nothing.” Mirexia made it look as though something outside the window had caught her attention and did not look directly into Vinny’s eyes. “It’s just... it feels like it’s been a very long time since the two of us were alone together like this.”

“Ah, yeah.” Vinny sighed too. “Last time was probably when I tapped on your window, right?”

“Mhm.” Mirexia remembered that time.

She sat upright in her seat, looking at the empty chair beside Vinny. Her hands, resting flat on her knees, slowly tightened for some reason.

Then, all of a sudden, both of them fell silent.

Vinny was thinking things over.

Across from him, Mirexia’s thoughts were unexpectedly tangled, her gaze drifting back and forth between Vinny himself and the empty seat beside him.

But Vinny didn’t notice the movement, nor did he make any deliberate effort to notice it. Mirexia’s motions were simply too subtle.

The atmosphere suddenly went dead around the two of them.

Mirexia felt a little awkward. Her lips parted slightly, but she didn’t know what to say.

Having spent years handling official duties, Mirexia had never really had the time to learn much beyond training, studying, and administrative work. When it came to finding topics for casual conversation, she might actually have had even less experience than Shicodale.

“So after all these years... we still haven’t changed.”

In the end, after giving the empty seat next to Vinny one last look, Mirexia abruptly said that.

“Ah... huh?”

His train of thought interrupted, Vinny didn’t quite understand why Mirexia had suddenly said that, but he still answered, “Haven’t changed? I think we are different, aren’t we?”

“Not still the same?”

As she spoke, Mirexia kept glancing toward the seat next to him.

“Uh...”

Vinny vaguely felt like her words had some kind of hidden meaning, so he tried to search her expression for clues.

The result was—

nothing.

Not a single clue.

Mirexia still wore that habitual poker face of hers, those cold and gorgeous eyes full of frost and the dignity of a princess of Camella.

Probably because she spent her days constantly receiving nobles and court officials, Mirexia had long since gotten used to facing everyone with the same composed expression.

To be honest, the reason Vinny never misunderstood and thought Mirexia had a problem with him was because he knew what kind of environment and habits she had grown up with.

His childhood friend really was a little bad at expressing many of her feelings.

But that couldn’t really be blamed on her.

Mirexia’s life had hardly been fortunate either. Asking her to suddenly change now and become some smooth, eight-faced old fox like Aesphyra was far too unrealistic.

“Uh... really? I still think there are a lot of things that are different.”

Because Vinny had still been thinking about Milian just a moment ago, his mind hadn’t fully circled back yet. So after hearing Mirexia’s words, he didn’t think too deeply about them and never switched on his Mirexia-language translator.

“Different? Like what?” Mirexia stirred at that.

“For example...” Vinny said with complete seriousness, “we used to only drink juice because we thought coffee was bitter, but now we both drink coffee.”

“...”

Mirexia suddenly fell silent again.

[Virtue +80.]

[Current Virtue: 7719.]

It had to be said—Mirexia’s expression control was truly impressive.

Even now, her face did not change in the slightest. Only the fingers around her cup tightened a little.

“What I meant was...” Mirexia stayed quiet for a long time before finally speaking again, her gaze turned off to the side.

“Mirexia, are you okay? Why do you keep signaling over there with your eyes? Is there something there?”

Vinny frowned and looked in the direction she had kept glancing at, but he saw nothing at all.

There was absolutely nothing worth noticing there.

“...”

Mirexia fell silent again.

[Virtue +100.]

[Current Virtue: 7819.]

“Ah, did I interrupt you? Sorry about that. Go on.”

Vinny scratched his head.

“We... used to sit like this too,” Mirexia said, lowering her gaze slightly.

“Sit like this?”

Vinny looked at Mirexia, then at himself, his brows drawing together.

They used to sit like this too.

Wasn’t this... just normal?

What else was there to it? Didn’t people just sit the way they sat?

“Mirexia, do you mean... our sitting posture?” Vinny asked in confusion. “The way we used to sit and the way we sit now really is the same, yeah. But that can’t be helped. It just means some habits are hard to change.”

“...”

[Virtue +100.]

[Current Virtue: 7919.]

As expected of Mirexia.

The Virtue gains just wouldn’t stop, would they??

Vinny took a sip of coffee, staring at the skyrocketing Virtue and sighing inwardly.

Mirexia went completely silent.

And maybe it was only Vinny’s imagination, but he felt like her cheeks looked just a tiny bit puffed out compared to before.

An illusion, probably?

How could Mirexia possibly have such a cute, girlish side to her?

“Am I bothering you?”

Looking at the coffee in front of her, Mirexia suddenly asked that.

“Huh? No, of course not.”

Even Vinny could hear now that something was off in her tone.

A complete workaholic had squeezed time out of her own rest schedule to help him solve a problem, and then suddenly asked, Am I bothering you by coming to see you?

Anyone who heard that would know the context was wrong.

Come on. Bother him?

Who was busier, him or Mirexia?

She had more work than she could finish already, and she still squeezed out time to help him search through texts and write detailed reports. Was he seriously supposed to say she was bothering him?

“No. I think... I’m the one who bothered you.”

Mirexia pressed her lips together.

“Of course not. How could you possibly bother me, Mirexia?” At the critical moment, Vinny’s emotional intelligence overperformed for once, and he knew that if he kept trying to explain with another dry No, of course not, it would only make the whole thing sound more hollow. “Why don’t you come sit over here with me? I’ll explain properly.”

Maybe it was because he had been spending so much time around fate heroines lately, hearing all kinds of veiled meaning in what they said.

At this point, not gaining emotional intelligence would have been impossible.

“...”

The moment she heard that, Mirexia froze.

[Virtue +150.]

[Current Virtue: 8069.]

“Is that so? But... wouldn’t that be a little strange?” Mirexia asked hesitantly.

At that, a strange look appeared on Vinny’s face.

Even he could see what Mirexia was thinking now.

It was just too obvious.

Why?

Because the moment he made that suggestion, Mirexia already looked like she was about to stand up.

He would have had to be blind not to understand.

It was as though those words were merely something she needed to ask symbolically, something that had to be said no matter what, as though they involved some foundational logic inside her—like without asking that question first, she couldn’t bring herself to do it with a clear conscience.

But in reality, she already looked like she could barely hold herself back from getting up and coming over.

Watching her like this, even Vinny felt a little awkward.

Still, based on what he knew of Mirexia, that was exactly the kind of awkwardness she had in this area.

She really was bad at expressing her feelings.

But those feelings were also abundant and sensitive.

And on top of that, she was traditional and conservative.

That was just Mirexia’s personality, shaped by the way she had been educated and the life she had lived. While young nobles her age were attending banquets, she had been working.

Looking at the way Mirexia seemed to be waiting for what she imagined was the perfectly natural answer from him, yet also visibly restraining the impulse to rise, Vinny suddenly had a slightly wicked thought.

That thought was—

to say nothing.

To do nothing.

Just sit there and watch Mirexia, and see whether she would end up sitting there in embarrassment again, or go all out and stand up anyway.

Ahem.

Of course, that was only a fleeting thought.

Vinny would never actually do that.

Still...

Why had he suddenly had such a dark and mean-spirited little impulse?

“What’s strange about it?” Vinny could only explain. “When we were little, we could sit side by side while eating. So why would that suddenly be impossible just because we’ve grown up? There’s nothing strange about it.”

“Mhm. That makes sense.”

As if she had received the symbolically necessary answer she needed, and finally crossed some line in her own internal logic, Mirexia stood up and sat down in the seat beside Vinny.

“Mirexia, hold out your hand.”

“Hm? Why?” Mirexia didn’t understand what he wanted.

“Just do it and you’ll see.”

Though confused, Mirexia still did as he said, opening that pale, slender hand with its clean, elegant knuckles and holding it out in front of him.

“Don’t move.”

Vinny lightly took hold of her wrist and carefully examined the lines on her hand.

“?!” The moment she felt his body heat, Mirexia’s expression changed at once.