Runes alone were entirely Jaelin’s. They were hers alone, something no one could take away.
But when the Young Master said he had lost the rune textbook, she was a little sad. She thought it could not be helped, since he had not done it on purpose.
The contents of the textbook were already in her head.
Jaelin spent her time assembling and disassembling rune formulas in her mind. Hundreds, thousands of various formulas stacked up neatly inside Jaelin’s head.
When she had barely recovered from her severe illness at the Eduard mansion and returned to the orphanage, the orphanage director had been replaced.
Word was that the ducal household had suddenly conducted an inspection.
Director Sallindwe had been forced to surrender her title and face legal proceedings for embezzling the support funds meant for the orphanage children.
That autumn, the Young Master left for the capital, and Jaelin gained a goal. The Pelodian Imperial Academy. The place the Young Master had often spoken of.
Jaelin wanted to enroll there too. The Academy, they said, was a place even ordinary people like Jaelin could attend if their skills were outstanding enough.
If she attended there, she would be able to see the Young Master up close. And above all, Jaelin had a yearning for magical design.
No matter how much she studied, she was thirsty. She wanted to study new formulas, and she wanted to refine the formulas she had developed more precisely.
The Pelodian Imperial Academy was the place with the largest magical design educational institution in the empire, and she heard one could receive the finest education regarding formulas there.
Even a commoner could enter the Pelodian Academy if their skills were good enough. But how much skill was required to enter the Academy, Jaelin had no way of knowing.
She had no choice but to study desperately with the books the Young Master had given her. It was the best Jaelin could do.
Time passed, and the age of twenty—when one became eligible to submit enrollment documents to the Academy—drew near.
Jaelin was desperate. Once she turned twenty, she had to leave the orphanage. The Pelodian Academy was the only path left to Jaelin.
The exam was held at the Academy in the capital. The exam questions were strangely easy.
When Jaelin submitted her completed answer sheet, the proctor looked at her with puzzled eyes.
“Are you giving up on the exam?”
“What? N-no, I’m not!”
Startled, Jaelin let out a shrill cry. A few students still taking the exam glared at Jaelin with dissatisfied eyes.
“I-I’ve answered all the questions.”
“Already?”
“Yes. D-did I do something wrong?”
Frightened by the proctor’s startled face, Jaelin shrank her shoulders and fingered her sleeve ends.
“No, nothing’s wrong…… If you’re certain you’re finished with the exam, you may leave.”
After Jaelin left the exam hall, her answer sheet circulated among the proctors, causing a brief stir.
It was something Jaelin, who had already left the exam hall, could not know.
And a month later, Jaelin received an acceptance letter from the Academy.
The acceptance letter stated that Jaelin had been transferred into the Pelodian Academy as a fourth-year student.
It was fortunate. Jaelin had no money. If she attended school for a shorter time, the money she would need to borrow would be less, which was a relief.
‘Anyway, if I go to the Academy, I’ll be able to see the Young Master. Has he forgotten me? I hope he remembers.’
Jaelin counted down the days until she would go to the Academy.
And one week before the new semester began, while Jaelin was walking down the Academy corridor to register for her courses—
“Jaelin? Are you really Jaelin?”
A strange low voice she had never heard before called Jaelin’s name.
The large figure that strode up before Jaelin was more than enough to cover her entire body.
To see the face of the man standing before her, Jaelin had to crane her neck and look up for a long while.
It was Lionel. It really was Lionel.
She had vaguely thought that if she came to the Academy, she might be able to see Lionel.
But she never dreamed she would run into Lionel by chance like this before the semester even began.
The man looking down at Jaelin was no longer the boy left in Jaelin’s memory.
He looked to be well over 190 centimeters tall, and the shoulders wrapped in a loose shirt were firm and broad.
Unlike the loose shirt, the trousers tailored to fit his long legs perfectly made his appeal stand out even more.
The baby fat that had remained on his cheeks as a boy had now vanished without a trace. And yet, Lionel was still Lionel.
Jaelin thought he was still like a sculpture alive and breathing.
His eyebrows, as if carefully painted by an artist, his nose, delicately arched as if sculpted by a master, his slightly reddish, full lips, and his firm yet finely chiseled jawline contrasted with his large frame, evoking a peculiar appreciation.
Lionel’s face was closer to the ascetic, yet strangely, everyone who saw him could not erase the thought that he was decadent.
Beneath the pitch-black, disheveled hair resembling a fascinating abyss, golden eyes that looked languid as afternoon sunlight gazed down at Jaelin.
Jaelin could not take her eyes off Lionel’s golden eyes. It felt as if she had returned to that moment ten years ago, when she had fallen in love at first sight upon first seeing Lionel.
A deep, low voice roused Jaelin from her thoughts.
“You—are you Jaelin?”
Startled by the repeated question, Jaelin answered.
“Y-yes, yes, yes. Y-Young Master. That’s me.”
Jaelin immediately bit her lip. She had practiced hard not to stammer.
Though it had improved greatly compared to before, when she was nervous or caught off guard, she would still unconsciously stammer badly.
“Young Master, she says.”
A few students passing by Lionel and Jaelin looked Jaelin up and down and giggled.
When Lionel glanced at them with a light smile, the blushing students quickly scattered.
Lionel, turning his gaze back to Jaelin, smiled with an awkward face.
“So it really is you. And that form of address is a bit awkward here at the Academy.”
Jaelin answered slowly, trying hard not to stammer.
“Ah…… I’m sorry. It’s a habit from before, so it just slipped out……”
“No need to apologize.”
Spotting the Pelodian Academy uniform Jaelin was wearing, Lionel asked.
“By any chance, did you enroll here too?”
“Yes. Starting this year, I-I’ll be attending here.”
“That’s great. Well, you were good at runes even when you were young. Then call me by my name. Or you can call me Senior.”
“Uh…… Th-then I’ll call you Senior.”
She could not bring herself to call him by his name. Just thinking of saying the Young Master’s name aloud made her terribly embarrassed.
“All right. Do that.”
Lionel smiled warmly and cast his gaze over Jaelin’s shoulder.
“I have a prior engagement, so I’ll be going. If you have time later, let’s have tea at the cafeteria.”
“Yes. Young— ah, no, Senior.”
“It was good to see you. Then.”
Lionel gave Jaelin a light nod and left.
Nathan, Lionel’s friend walking from the opposite side of the corridor, draped his arm over Lionel’s shoulder as he came close and glanced back at Jaelin.
Once the two had moved far enough that their conversation could not reach Jaelin, Nathan asked Lionel.
“Who’s that? Someone you know?”
“Someone I briefly knew as a playmate when I was younger.”
“Your playmate? Then there’s no way I wouldn’t know her. Who is she?”
Nathan, who by nature loved mingling with people, had a wide network. He knew practically everyone of a similar age.
Since Nathan and Lionel’s circles were similar, there was almost no case where Nathan did not know someone Lionel knew.
“It’s possible for you not to know someone. No matter how wide your network is, how could you know every person in the world?”
Lionel said with a slight smirk.
“That’s true, but still. So who is she? This is the third time I’m asking. Or don’t tell me—you’re keeping secrets from me?”
Nathan laughed heartily and lightly tapped Lionel’s side.
“Why would I keep secrets from you? It’s just been so long since I saw her that I don’t remember well. She must have enrolled at Pelodian this year.”
“Hmm, then she’d be a first-year. First-years should be at the new student orientation right now, so why is she wandering around here?”
“Who knows. She must have gotten lost or something.”
Lionel shrugged lightly and soon changed the subject.
“By the way, where are the others?”
***
Jaelin stood dazed for a long while after Lionel had gone. It felt as if she had returned to that moment when she first saw Lionel.
Her mind went blank, and she could not think of anything. Barely pulling herself together, Jaelin moved her feet.
Today was the day one of the current students was supposed to teach Jaelin how to register for courses.
Normally, this was something learned through the new student orientation, but because Jaelin had transferred in as a fourth-year, the Academy had assigned a student from the same department to help her.
It was the Academy’s consideration for Jaelin, who was unfamiliar with the Academy’s inner workings.
Staring intently at the map, Jaelin found the location of the cafeteria, their meeting place.
But no matter how much she looked at the map, she could not figure out where the cafeteria was.
She had left much earlier than the appointed time, expecting to get lost, but Jaelin only barely managed to arrive at the cafeteria after the appointed time had passed.
Fortunately, the person Jaelin was supposed to meet had not yet arrived.
A short while later, a flamboyant man with dazzlingly shining silver hair let loose called Jaelin’s name loudly from the cafeteria entrance.
“Jaelin Brittson!”
At the loud voice echoing through the cafeteria, the eyes of every student and professor in the cafeteria turned toward the entrance at once.
