The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Of course, while some only noticed the strange order, others also noticed something else.

A slightly muscular blonde girl nudged her partner, her eyes sparkling. "Did you see? Isn't that little girl similar to the one in the rumors?"

The boy, who looked a little slimmer than his date, frowned as he scratched his head in confusion. "Which one?"

The blonde rolled her eyes. "You know, the pink little devil that's recently been creating chaos all around."

The boy blinked in surprise before realization finally dawned on his face. "B-Bronya… Y-You don't mean the little princess who goes around getting teachers expelled, do you?"

Bronya nodded. "Right, that's exactly it!"

But when he thought about it, the boy still found it hard to believe. It wasn't as if there was only one girl with pink hair in the academy, after all. "N-No way, right? Someone like her would probably enter by breaking the window, steal all the food, and insult everyone on the way out. And then, if someone dares to complain... she would get them expelled along with some of the staff!"

Though he wasn't sure how many of them there were in the youngest batch, he knew at least two girls with pink hair, one in his own year and one two years junior. How could he believe that the little devil in the rumors would be the same girl who looked mostly harmless just now?

His partner frowned as she rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "That's… a bit exaggerated, right? I doubt she would insult unrelated students for no reason, though the rest might happen. Anyway, wanna follow her and check out if she's like… super strong for her age or not?"

The boy stared at the blonde girl in disbelief. "NO! Are you crazy?!"

Pouting, Bronya could only give up her thoughts for now. Anyway, since it was their first date, it wouldn't be nice to just cancel it and run after a fight.

She could always bully the little girl in a fair duel later. Bronya was sure that cute little face would look adorable when decorated with a few tears.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Evelyn remained unaware of the gossip inside the building as she had already moved out to avoid further embarrassment. She hadn't managed to get far, however, when the pink-haired girl noticed some very familiar faces heading her way. 'Huh? Eula and… Amber?'

The little redhead seemed to follow two feet behind Eula like a meek little lamb being led to slaughter, while Eula seemed to go on and on about something or the other.

Evelyn wasn't even sure if Amber was even listening as she nodded her head along. In any case, Eula wasn't looking back to see her nod, either.

The green-haired girl was the first to sense someone's gaze, and she paused her speech and blinked in surprise when she noticed the pink-haired girl. "Eh? Evelyn?"

Amber, who had been meekly following behind the older girl, immediately jumped in excitement as she followed Eula's sight to find her friend. "Evelyn!"

Evelyn smiled as she watched the little redhead rush to her and hug her in delight. "Hello to you too, Amber."

The redhead grinned, and her previously meek appearance from when she had been following behind Eula was nowhere to be seen. "I got your letter!"

Evelyn blinked in surprise before she recalled that she had expected to be staying in the Wonderland of Doom much longer, and had Cecilia forward a message to Amber so the girl wouldn't be too distressed by her 'missing' friend. "Ah, forget about that. I'm already done with what I needed to do." 

Amber didn't really understand what her friend needed to do in the first place, since the letter only told her not to worry and she would be back in a few days or so. But now that her only friend was back, she was of course happy.

Evelyn patted Amber's head as she turned her gaze to the amused Eula. "Weren't you watching over that tower?"

The green-haired girl smirked as she shook her head. "After you went in, everyone was given time off till tomorrow. Speaking of which, I suppose I should thank you?"

At first, Eula found it a bit absurd how much Aurora doted on this little girl. But after seeing a couple of teachers expelled in quick succession, getting some time off was really nothing worth mentioning.

Evelyn blinked. "Eh? You're welcome, I guess. Were the two of you going to 'Arohma'?"

Eula chuckled as she looked at Amber's obviously reluctant appearance. "Actually, I met this little girl when I was heading back, and dragged her here to eat and relax. I had no idea I'd stumble into you again, though."

Evelyn nodded. "By the way, before the two of you go, I actually had something to ask you."

Eula blinked in surprise. "Oh? Go ahead. I'll answer if I can."

As long as it wasn't the confession for her puppy love, that is, she added in her mind. 

Hopefully, the little girl remained shy, or it would make their future interactions very awkward, as the case often was after a rejected love confession. This was why Eula hated the whole dating concept.

The pink-haired girl scratched her cheek in embarrassment, and just when Eula was about to think her guess was right, the words she spoke went in another direction entirely. "You're quite close to the Aquan princess, right?"

Eula frowned. "Yes?"

The last she recalled mentioning her princess to Evelyn was a long time ago. If she had any questions, wouldn't she have asked then and there?

The green-haired girl couldn't help but have a bad feeling in her heart. 'D-Don't tell me the way I talked about my princess created too great an image in her heart, and now she's developed a crush and wants me to introduce them to each other?!'

Evelyn thought that Eula's expression was a little weird, but she decided to ignore it for now. "This place belongs to the Aquans, right?"

Eula blinked, now feeling completely lost. "That's… not entirely true? Well, the royal family manages it, and we take a part of the profits. It's still the academy's property, though."

The pink-haired girl looked a little disappointed, but she decided it was still worth asking. "Do you pay the same rate as everyone else in there? To be more specific, suppose I was making a big purchase from 'Arohma', is there any way to get a discount?"

Eula blinked, dumbfounded.

Evelyn coughed. "What I mean to ask is… do you have coupons?"

The green-haired girl groaned. "N-No, it's not that I didn't understand your question… it's just… wow…"

Evelyn tilted her head in confusion. "Hm?"

Maybe on this entire continent, there would be no one who believed any commercial operation that involved the Aquan royalty would give up even a fraction of a fraction of their profits.

Eula chuckled.  "You really are something else, Evelyn. You know what… just for you, I'll see what I can do after talking to some people. I'll let you know in about… three days or so, how does that sound?"

Although it would normally be impossible for an academy student to get such an exception, maybe she could ask if her princess was interested in Aurora's student, after all.

The ancient pillar had always been quite mysterious. Though there were few who dared to risk offending her to try to get closer, it was an entirely different matter if her student approached them on her own.

Eula believed that even her princess should be somewhat interested. And in that case, getting a little discount was really nothing at all.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Meanwhile, in another part of the academy, the new headmaster was enjoying a cup of tea with ex-headmaster, his peaceful expression painting a stark contrast with the frustration of the recently titled pillar.

The black-haired man took another sip of the exotic tea to calm himself down, but it was just as futile as it had been a few seconds ago. "I'm telling you, she'll be the death of me someday!"

Harlan Stonehardt, the new headmaster, chuckled in mirth. "Don't be so angry, Lord Hyperion. At the end of the day, haven't we always known how unreasonable Lady Aurora is?"

Hyperion scoffed. "There is being unreasonable, and then there's being bat shit crazy! Even if Lord Mantis had a habit of getting on people's nerves, was there really any rhyme and reason in killing him? She didn't even try to justify herself properly!"

In the beginning, he had approached Harlan with the thought of forming a temporary alliance to digest some profits for himself by counting on the man's inexperience with the post.

However, Harlan had shown that he was already quite knowledgeable even in this aspect, much to Hyperion's shock. 

It wasn't that he was looking down on the senior professor, but there was simply no documentation anywhere that outlined a pillar or the headmaster's rights and entitlements. There was only a plaque in the grand hall on their responsibilities.

For Harlan to know so much, he must have either been guided by a pillar at some point in time, or he could have done his own research over the years. Hyperion had no way of digging into it too much, though, and also knew that asking about it was pointless.

Helpless, and a bit angry at having even this plan ruined, Hyperion could only vent his anger and exhaust some of the man's prized exotic spirit tea.

There was a moment of oppressive silence in the room as the dark-haired man mumbled. "Does she really think the academy is her home?"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━