Chapter 53 · Human Hunting (3)

I don’t know how much the Caesar count family lorded that over everyone. When you discover a new magic formula, you get the honor of having your name recorded in the official magic tome, along with a massive merit award.

“Very well. Then I will submit the princess’s formula to Naritas for official verification review. Do you agree?”

“Sure.”

When I answered coolly, Alfredo’s face turned even redder, as if he were more incensed.

“However, if the results of the verification review are poor, you will have to apologize for treating the elder mages and my scholarship so lightly.”

“Sure, whatever. Then may I go back to my seat?”

“…”

He was so heated he didn’t answer, but I cheerfully trotted to an empty seat. Along the way, I saw that even Giselle, who had been smirking, had her face scrunched up.

The formula verification review usually takes about a month, so enjoy yourselves until then. I should let you know what it feels like to have your precious research results stolen… but since this is something from the future, you’ll never know. That’s a bit of a shame.

Honestly, if the Caesar family hadn’t acted so shitty first, I wouldn’t have had any reason to touch them.

‘This is just the beginning, you lot.’

As I grinned and took out my notebook, the side of my face prickled for some reason, so I turned my head. A girl sitting next to me was looking at me with an expression of wonder. She looked about eighteen, a lively-looking girl with long lemon-colored hair half-tied back and slightly drooping green eyes.

Ah! This girl… she was one of the girls who muttered that I was cute in the great hall yesterday. Kind-hearted and pretty, too.

When our eyes met, she flinched, then soon smiled a sunlit smile. She scooted closer to me and began writing next to my notebook with her quill.

[How did you make that formula?]

Alfredo was focused on his boring lecture again and wasn’t looking this way. I wrote my answer beneath it.

[I just researched this and that as a hobby and made it.]

Then she wrote again, swish-swish.

[The princess really is a genius. I hope you pass the review.]

I wasn’t used to receiving goodwill from strangers without any effort, so I was a little taken aback. The only people who had treated me with unconditional goodwill from the start were the three priestesses, those wingless angels.

When I looked at her with a puzzled expression, she blushed slightly and wrote in very tiny letters.

[That professor is kind of unpleasant.]

I had to hold back a laugh. As soon as I read it, she scribbled lines all over to cover the letters. And wrote a new sentence.

[My name is Millea Estevan. I’m the second daughter of the Viscount Estevan family. Please call me Mila♡]

From the cute little heart she drew, I could grasp Mila’s personality. To have such a normal, cute noble young lady sitting next to me—what luck!

[Sure, Miss Mila♡]

When I drew a heart back, a bright smile spread across her lips. And so we chatted throughout the class without Alfredo noticing. We filled five whole pages of a new notebook.

From our conversation, I learned that Mila was a noble from the province of Letitia, famous as a resort area, and that she was currently living in the academy dormitory.

[I’d love for the princess to come visit Letitia during summer vacation.]

Wow, what a player this young lady is. Her sociability is no joke. To invite someone she just met to her home based on a conversation in a notebook during class! And a princess at that!

[It would be an honor to be invited. But what can I do for you in return?]

[Return? There’s no need for anything like that! My parents would be so happy if the princess came. My father does business with Marquis Laselles, and he’s heard so much about the princess from him.]

Oh ho, so there’s a connection with the Laselles family after all.

[But Princess, is it true? That the princess is a Polyops!]

She was so excited that her handwriting was hard to read.

[Yes.]

The moment I wrote that answer, Mila’s face was filled with enormous astonishment. She gaped in shock.

Hmm, hmm. This does make me a little proud.

[If it’s not rude to ask, could you show me? I heard a rumor that the princess summoned a divine beast.]

[My divine beast is still incomplete, but it’s not hard to summon. As thanks for the invitation, I’ll show you during break.]

[Princess♡♡♡♡♡♡♡]

While Mila was drawing hearts wildly, the bell ending class rang. The moment Alfredo left the classroom, she cried out.

“Princess, thank you so much! Can my friends see it too?”

Mila’s voice was exactly as I expected—high and cheerful. A sparkling girl’s voice. She probably had lots of friends too.

“Of couwse.”

When I smiled and answered, she dashed off. The news spread through the whole class in no time.

“Princess Anastasia is going to show her divine beast!”

“Really? A divine beast?”

“Then the rumor was true?”

In an instant, boys and girls swarmed around me. Uh oh, I hadn’t expected this much attention.

If I’d known, I would have practiced handling my divine beast more—I regretted it a little. Because my divine beast was still not in animal form but a fluffball with eyes, nose, and mouth.

Of course, it had grown much bigger than before. At first it was smaller than a fist, but now it was the size of a large ball I could hug tightly. But since it had almost no abilities, I called it ‘Useless.’ The three priestesses comforted me, saying it was just because I was still young.

The students looked at me with sparkling eyes from the center of the classroom. Even Giselle and the other students in the back kept glancing this way.

“Um… I’ll twy summoning it. But I heard there was a gag order about me being able to use divine power…”

They looked taken aback and exchanged sidelong glances.

“It seems almost everyone already knows. Then I guess it doesn’t matter.”

I swallowed hard and gathered the prana in my body. When divine power first manifested, my mana went wild at the slightest movement of prana, but now it was nothing. It was nothing short of a miracle.

“Servus servórum Dei.”

The moment I recited the holy word, a fluffy white ball of fur popped into the air.

“Gasp!”

“Is that a divine beast?”

“I guess so. It’s moving!”

The students didn’t dare come close and watched Useless from a distance, fascinated.

“It’s so cute…”

“It’s fluffy…”

“I want to hug it…”

The girls murmured in entranced voices as they watched Useless bob around. Honestly, Useless is so cute that cuteness might as well be its ability. And it’s so soft I want to use it as a cushion all day.

“Marilyn, what are you doing? Come here!”

Giselle scolded her friend. The girl who had been sitting there watching Giselle’s reaction couldn’t hold back and stood up.

“But, but I want to see it up close too…”

Hmph, it’s your loss if you can’t appreciate this lethal cuteness. Cute is always right, and it makes the world warmer and more beautiful.

“You can each hug it one at a time.”

When I said that generously to provoke Giselle, the girls let out a collective gasp.

“Me first!”

“No, me first!”

“Miss Louise, wait your turn. I was at the very front…”

“I was the one who asked the princess, so of course I should go first!”

As they bickered, they all agreed with what Mila said. Mila smiled a dignified smile and carefully approached Useless. Useless, which had been bobbing in place, slipped into Mila’s arms.

“Aaaah~!”

Mila made a strange sound and hugged Useless. She smiled happily and said,

“It’s warm…”

Yes, Useless does seem to have some warming function. Very faint, though.

“Miss Millea, please show some mercy to us too. Twenty seconds each should be fine, right?”

“Twenty seconds is too short!”

I felt a little odd, since a divine beast definitely wasn’t meant for that purpose. Well, if it brings happiness to many people, that’s also a blessing from God…

Just then, Giselle chimed in.

“Do divine beasts normally look like monsters without even a proper form? Are you sure it’s a divine beast and not a monster?”

Mila, still hugging Useless tightly, flared up and shot back.

“Have you ever seen a monster this cute?”

“It’s a little different from the divine beasts I’ve seen. Normally they take animal forms.”

“Miss Giselle, if you want to hug it, get in line. You have to wait your turn.”

“…!”

When the gathered girls ignored Giselle’s provocation and pointed to the long line, Giselle’s face turned red and blue and she returned to her seat, muttering, “Who wants to touch that monster anyway?!”

‘Oh, this is so satisfying.’

Seeing Giselle, who always joined Stella in humiliating me, being rebuked by fellow nobles felt wonderful. So I let the girls hold Useless until my prana was nearly exhausted.

◇ ◆ ◇

“Papa, so I let evewyone howd it once. They aww woved it!”

“Is that why your prana is on the verge of exhaustion?”

Paeon said in an angry voice during our evening training, as I proudly recounted the day’s events.

“So you had no intention of training today.”

“N-no… But everyone was so happy, I couldn’t stop in the middle…”

“A divine beast is not a pet or a doll! It is the use of the princess’s power. To use it for something like that…”

‘Something like that’! It was the first time in my life I’d received favorable attention from nobles. Paeon, who didn’t know what that meant to me, was annoying, but I held it in and tried to coax him.

“Papa, teach me in detail how to handle a divine beast. It’s a bit much that it’s still just a fluffball.”

“I’ve said this repeatedly, but the princess is still far lacking in defense and healing abilities. The reason your divine beast is in an incomplete form is because your divine power isn’t stable. Training has an order to it.”

Ugh… that rigidity!

“Then today just let me see Papa’s divine beast. Seeing yours might stimulate mine into taking proper form.”

“…That’s nonsense.”

“But Papa’s is too big to summon here, isn’t it? Can’t you metamorphose it into a smaller form?”

Paeon’s divine beast is a white dragon called the Albedo Dragon. There was a time when I wished mine would be a dragon too. Turns out dragon-form divine beasts can only be summoned by one person per century. Tsk! To think I got my hopes up without knowing that.

According to divinity studies, which researches divine power, divine beasts have a certain degree of self-awareness. And research shows they closely resemble their summoner’s personality or habits.

‘If it’s like Paeon’s personality, it’ll be super blunt and not cute at all.’

Still, I hadn’t seen it since the Ars Confelo three years ago, so I was terribly curious. Even then the match had ended in an instant, so I hadn’t gotten a good look.

“Papa~ Just once~ Show me just once~ Okay?”

When I clung to Paeon’s leg and pleaded, he flinched and shuddered. Trying to peel me off like I was a swarm of leeches!

“I won’t let go until Papa summons it!”

Knowing he wouldn’t dare push me away, I held on tight and persisted. Paeon looked troubled, sweating profusely, and finally surrendered.

With my heart pounding, I watched him recite the holy word, and then something that appeared softly in the air lunged at me. I was knocked flat by the heavy thing.

“Whoa?!”

No, surely Paeon hadn’t ordered it to attack me… What was this…? Soon I felt something warm and wet on my face along with a licking sound.

‘Is this… a tongue?’

The thing that had pounced on me began licking my face like crazy!