YM778.TV Chapter 243: Lick
Chapter 243: Lick
The moment Nora planted the kiss on Roel’s cheek, everything in the grass field suddenly came to a halt. It was complete silence.
Roel found his mind turning blank from the warm sensation on his cheeks as blood started rushing to his head, causing his face to heat up. He would have never thought that Nora would actually do such a thing before so many eyes.
Even though Nora was very open with Roel, she had always conducted herself with poise in public. In the five years since they had gotten to know one another, Nora had never made any overly intimate moves in public that invited wild speculations before.
After all, she was the successor of a powerful nation. It wouldn’t be wise for someone of her position to reveal her own romantic interest as her enemies could potentially use it as a weapon against her. However, on this very day, perhaps it was due to the threat she felt from her surroundings, her level of aggression was on a far higher level than before.
Little did Roel know that this wasn’t the end to Nora’s ‘reward’.
While Roel was still feeling overly self-conscious from the crowd staring at them with agape mouths, Nora’s sapphire eyes narrowed a little as she followed up with her next move. Roel immediately felt a wet sensation on his cheek, which sent a shudder through his body.
Nora immediately took a step back before indulging herself with Roel’s response.
“Nora, you...”
By this point, Roel’s face had already turned as red as an apple.
The crowd also finally broke the silence as fervent discussions immediately broke out amidst the crowd. The male students who went through a complete cycle of falling in love to falling out of love in just a short minute struck their chests out of sheer frustration whereas the female students stared at Roel with gritted teeth.
Roel dizzied in confusion. He subconsciously wiped off the wet sensation with his hand as he instinctively wanted to protest against Nora’s prank, but the realization that they were in public silenced off his words. He ended up stuttering helplessly with quivering lips.
The adrenaline rush from sharing a moment in front of a crowd made both of their hearts beat fast. Staring at the reddened Roel, Nora felt as if all of her desires had just been set alight.
“Such an expression really is... Ahh, I feel like I’m the one being rewarded here instead.”
“Isn’t this enough of you? If others were to find out...”
Their hushed conversation sounded more like whispers of sweet nothings to the onlookers, though to be fair, the content of their exchange was far more explosive than what they were imagining. However, their private time in public view was soon disrupted by someone else.
“What are the two of you doing here?”
The noisy crowd parted once more as Charlotte finally rushed over from the other end of the grass field. She had noticed that the atmosphere was a little off as soon as she arrived at the scene, but when she heard murmurs coming from the crowd regarding what Nora had just done, her face immediately darkened.
“Your Highness Nora, what in the world are you doing to my fiancé?”
“It has been a while, Miss Charlotte. Pardon me, but what did you mention earlier? Your fiancé? Who is that?”
“Needless to say, I’m referring to Roel. I’m not a fan of answering meaningless questions.”
“Is Miss Charlotte mistaken about something? I don’t recall Roel having any fiancée... Ah, I remember it now. By fiancé, could you possibly be referring to the 100-year-old engagement contract between the Sorofyas and the Ascarts that unfortunately doesn’t apply to you?
Just like that, the two young women began going at one another in public. The five months of having Roel stolen from her side had left Charlotte deeply infuriated, and Nora was displeased at having her moment with Roel rudely interrupted too. With such feelings brooding in their hearts, their tongues were sharper than ever, leaving the crowd both baffled yet weirdly excited too.
Meanwhile, on a balcony some distance away, an old man holding onto a staff watched the sight and chuckled softly.
“What energetic children they are.”
Principal Antonio stroked his beard as he remarked. Behind him stood a group of staff members dressed in uniforms, but in contrast to Antonio’s gladdened expression, they had tensed looks on their faces.
They had witnessed the earlier commotion, but none of them were able to get involved as the Saint Freya Academy was supposed to be an autonomous academy ran by the students. They weren’t to interfere in the students’ affairs except in times of emergency, which clearly wasn’t the case earlier especially since Lilian was present too.
One must know that there weren’t even that many Origin Level 3 transcendents amongst the staff members, and Lilian’s ‘Origin Level 3’ was different from the others.
“That feeling earlier on... It looks like the princess’ has already surpassed the conventional notion of ‘Origin Level 3’.”
“Indeed, but isn’t that a good thing for a Ringbearer of the academy?”
“You can say so. Looking at it from another perspective, it also means that the student she suppressed earlier isn’t anyone ordinary either. He was actually able to withstand her pressure...”
The staff members behind Antonio began discussing the earlier incident. Some of the teachers eyed the Nine-headed Serpent Staff in Roel’s hands and posed their doubts to the principal.
“Principal Antonio, isn’t that student’s staff too dangerous? If it were to lose control...”
“If I’m not mistaken, that should be a magic tool from the ancient era. Such artifacts tend to be hard to fully control...”
The teachers began fervently discussing the origin of Roel’s staff, expressing their worry that it might run amok. However, Antonio was unfazed by the concerns they posed.
“Lose control? Nay. The nine-headed serpent might have appeared aggressive, but everything was under his control. The fact lies in how not a single bystander got injured despite the ruckus.”
The old man smiled black-haired young man in the grass field before turning around to face the staff members behind him.
“And speaking of danger, I’m aware that there are plenty of experiments far more dangerous than that staff being conducted in this city. Instead of worrying about a student’s magic tool, why don’t you focus your efforts on ensuring that nothing goes wrong with those experiments? Otherwise, if our Purplerose Ringbearer holds a meeting to vote on an eviction, there would be nothing I can do at all.”
Antonio’s playful warning brought a subtle flicker in the eyes of the staff members, curbing their thoughts of confiscating the Nine-headed Serpent Staff over in order to research it. Meanwhile, after making his point, Antonio turned his gaze back onto the grass field.
“I have a feeling that this generation of students will be different. The princess of the Saint Mesit Theocracy, the daughter of Rosa’s chief administrator, and the successor from the Ascart House. What a bustle it’ll be!”
“...”
Antonio’s remark brought a helpless smile onto the faces of the teachers. The more outstanding a student was, the greater the pressure heaped on the teachers. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing for them.
“Hm? You look rather worried. There’s no need to be. Putting aside the Theocracy’s princess and the daughter of Rosa’s chief administrator, someone has already reserved the position as the teacher of the Ascarts’ successor,” said the old man with a chuckle.
He gazed at the black-haired young man with his deep eyes as he offered his sincere blessing.
“Let’s hope that he’ll be able to pull through.”
...
In the end, Nora and Charlotte’s argument was cut short by the opening of the doors to the assembly hall. Roel finally breathed a sigh of relief.
It was supposed to be a simple flag removal operation, but it ended up drawing the attention of Lilian, Nora, and Charlotte. He felt like it would have been much less tiring to get into a fight than to deal with all of these. It was no wonder why some people preferred to resolve problems with violence.
Along with the crowd, Roel and the others began making their way into the assembly hall under the watchful eyes of the members of the Enforcement Division.
Similar to its grass field, the Saint Freya Academy’s assembly hall was impressively huge too. It was designed to fit over ten thousand students at once after all.
It usually remained close throughout the year except for the freshman entrance ceremony and the graduation ceremony since most events wouldn’t need such a huge venue. Even the celebrations of the Academy Foundation Day were held in the other smaller halls too.
Of course, there were also some special events which would warrant the opening of the assembly hall, such as the Centennial Academy Foundation Day or major award ceremonies to honor students who had made significant accomplishments. One example of it would be the ‘Dragonslaying Incident’ several centuries ago, where the academy had specially opened the assembly hall so as to make the occasion as grand as possible.
It would be a huge mistake to think that the assembly hall would look crude just because of its massive size. On the contrary, it was built with the finest materials and was exquisitely designed down to the minor details. The Saint Freya Academy had no lack of money anyway, so it was very willing to spend on its publicity. This palatial assembly hall was one of its key investments, and it seemed to be fairly effective given the gasps of awe coming from the students.
Just the corridor leading into the assembly hall was already a sight to behold. The thousand freshmen were welcomed by a red carpet and exquisite hanging lights on the ceiling. By the sides of the corridor were floating sculptures and portraits of distinguished personnel who had been awarded in the assembly hall.
Roel was amazed by the grandeur as well, but he was starting to get used to extravagance. The time he had spent with Charlotte in Rosa had already thoroughly opened his eyes, so he wouldn’t get too affected by something of this scale.
Beyond the white corridor was the red-and-gold themed assembly hall. It had a ceiling so high that the illumination provided by the hanging lights above looked a little iridescent.
Due to that, the academy placed a few floating illumination devices around the place, though what was interesting to note was that these illumination devices weren’t uniform. They came in different shapes and sizes, and the light they produced differed from one another as well. Oddly enough, there were even advertisements on them.
One example was a skeleton hand forming a mini heart with its bony fingers, emanating an eerie green fluorescence. Every once in a while, the light would flicker and form a series of words:
【The Necromancy Scholar Guild warmly welcomes the arrival of the freshmen.】
There had to be at least a hundred different varieties of such floating illumination devices around, each presumably coming from a different Scholar Guild, displayed in full view before the freshmen. Such a bizarre sight naturally piqued the curiosity of the students.
Meanwhile, Roel was just rendered utterly speechless.
He leisurely strolled into the assembly hall with the crowd, but little did he know that in a remote corner above the assembly hall, a crimson-haired woman biting on a cigarette had already set her eyes on him. There was a resentful smile hanging on her lips.
“You’re finally here, the brat of the Ascart House.”