Chapter 116
Umm…. Who is that?
Reddish-brown eyes stare at me fixatedly from a pinched, prim and proper face. She has the sort of appearance that would make one think that a girl is trim and tidy. Hair pulled back just so, a pristine uniform clean and pressed, impeccable posture, the works.
“I beg your pardon, but I think it would be wise for you to leave this academy.”
I want to doubt my ears. Did she really say what I think she just said!?
Who is she to tell me that? Just cause she looks like some random Committee-Member-A, what gives her the right to tell me to leave?
“Hah?” I’m too taken aback, so Gilles is the one to react first.
“Yeah!” cries a member of the crowd. And one shout leads to another.
“Jane’s right!”
“Get out of here!”
Wow, they’re all just jumping on the bandwagon now. Did committee members’ opinions always hold this much sway? Even if she’s a member of the student council, I don’t remember such a status bringing with it a crowd inciting skill.
So this tidy little pampered princess is called Jane, huh? That smug little grin is getting on my nerves. I want to wipe that repugnant thing right off her face.
Her voice is no help either. It sounds artificially high pitched and grates on my ears.
“Um… Ali?”
At the exact same time as Gilles starts speaking, my fist is sinking into the middle of Jane’s unsuspecting face. I guess this is what you would call getting on someone’s last nerve.
Badmouthing me is one thing, but why must I be forced to leave the academy? And since I can’t use magic at the moment, my fists are currently all I have at my disposal.
“Gegh…….!!” she chokes out a deep, garbled grunt, a much lower tone than one would expect after seeing her appearance.
Ooh, she was blown away quite nicely.
I never thought I’d get to see the results of my daily training at a time like this.
I hadn’t exactly intended to send her flying like that though…. And if she dies, I’ll probably end up expelled from school. Though, it’s not like I hit her that hard. She shouldn’t die from just this much.
The bridge of her nose will likely be broken though.
With a thud, Jane’s back smacks down hard on the grass.
Oh my. Now that I look more closely, there seems to be quite a lot of blood flowing from her nose. And she seems to have fainted as well.
Gilles’s eyes are as round as saucers as he stares blankly at me. And that raucous chorus of heated voices yelling at me to leave are now deathly silent. It’s like their outrage from before was a lie.
Ahh~ That kind of hurt my hand. This is why physical force is typically my last resort. Punching someone really hurts.
“I… won’t be expelled for this, right?” I quietly ask Gilles, but he doesn’t reply. Was he really that surprised?
Hmm, while Gilles kickstarts his brain again…. should I take this opportunity to threaten the rest of the students a bit?
Very slowly I turn around.
Impatience and fear intermingle on the faces of the crowd standing behind me.
That’s right. Those are exactly the eyes that I wanted them to look at me with.
“Would anyone else like a piece of this?” I ask pleasantly. A wicked grin is stretching across my face and my fist is held out in front of me like I’m asking if they want a knuckle-sandwich.
The moment I say it though, I realize just how insane I must have sounded. I also want to smack myself for jumping in like that without thinking. I sounded like some common thug! I should have come up with something more dignified to threaten them with. But it’s too late to regret it now.
At my words, all their faces instantly turn pale.
More than pale, they look petrified. It’s to the point where, if anyone were to ask them what happened, I’m sure they’d be too terrified to speak a word. I get the feeling they’d say, “Nothing!” and then run away from there as fast as they can.
These people are absolutely spineless.
Pathetic.
“Ufufufufu!”
At the sudden laughter, I feel chills run down my spine…. Hearing someone sound so amused in a situation like this is…. rather creepy.
I turn to look towards where the laughter is coming from and see a person sitting in a tree a small distance away.
The moment we lock eyes, she abruptly dismounts, jumping down easily from her perch. She brushes off her skirts momentarily and then sidles straight over to me.
Immediately I can tell that it would be better not to get involved with her.
Although she’s taller than Gilles, she’s still looks tiny. Her eyes are huge, round, and raspberry colored, and her peach pink hair is tied up in two long pigtails on either side of her head…. She looks just like a doll. An ominously adorable doll.
I get the feeling that this lovely child didn’t make an appearance in the game. With an image like that, I feel like I would have remembered her.
As she draws nearer, a sweet scent wafts towards me.
“Hi, Alicia-chan~! I’m Mel! Nice to meet ya!” she greets in a cute, cheerful voice once she’s standing right in front of me.
In contrast to her friendly tone, once she had said her piece, her eyes start to rove all over me. She scrutinizes me from head to toe, and then abruptly a grin breaks out on her face again.
“Aww! You’re so cute~! That lovely skin and those pretty eyes….er, eye. Even with just one, you’re such a beauty! I just want to eat you up~” she cries while bringing her face uncomfortably close to mine.
My intuition is screaming at me to have nothing to do with this girl. She feels extremely dangerous…. like there’s a dark aura surrounding her. And that dark aura is yelling at me that I’ll get burned if I get too close.
Gilles’s thoughts seem to be moving in a similar direction as mine. His eyes look a bit shaken as they desperately try to convey to me that this person’s not normal.
“If you were looking for your brothers, they should all be gathered with the student council. I don’t think they’ll be hanging around here,” Mel says with an amused smile on her face. Though I’m not sure what she finds so entertaining about this situation.
“And, you know~ The way I see it, things aren’t exactly all simpatico over there. There’s some deliciously bad tension between the members~ They practically hate each other’s guts! Ah! Right, come to think of it…. Ali-Ali, your dearly betrothed is currently the president of that madhouse~!”
Huh? Ali-Ali?
“And from what I’ve heard, things are especially not going well between him and Liz-chan, our dear vice-prez~ Hmm, and I wonder whose fault that is…. Right, Ali-Ali?” she says with a wink. “Thanks to you, this whole academy’s practically certifiable! It’s chaos~!”
Why does she sound so happy when she says that?
“Ah, I’m in the same class as Henry and Alan, by the way…..”
“Huh? You’re 18?”
“Yup! I’m 18. And call me Mel, ‘kay?”
Just going off her appearance, I never would have guessed she was 18….. and her excited and excessive way of talking makes her seem much younger as well.
Mel’s eyes drift over to Gilles now and they give him a quick once-over.
“You’re quite the cutie, too. What’s your name?”
Gilles doesn’t say anything. He just continues to eye Mel suspiciously, readying himself in case she does something unexpected.
“Can’t you talk?” she says loudly, like she thinks his hearing might be affected too.
“His name is Gilles,” I reply in his stead.
“Ohh~?” Mel murmurs. With her slightly superior height, she looks down on him with a cold, almost calculative stare.
For whatever reason, those eyes send a spike of fear through me. This girl really is dangerous. I can feel it. My whole body is screaming it at me.
“Oh, Ali-Ali, you don’t have to be on guard like that,” Mel says with a disarming smile on her face.
And then suddenly she’s got Gilles’s hand gripped in one hand and mine in the other and she’s clutching onto us with everything she’s got.
In that same moment, the scenery starts to warp before my eyes in a dizzying swirl of interlocking colors.
Teleportation magic.
….So she’s capable of it as well.
I close my eye and hold my breath. Gilles must have realized what was happening as well since next to me he does the same.
At a time like this I need to be at my best. I cannot allow myself to become nauseated from sudden teleportation.
T/N: Lol, I totally thought the sweet voice was going to be Liz XD But, I have to say, I’m not disappointed to be wrong HAHAHA. Jane seems like a fun addition to our cast~ And the fact that she rubs Alicia just the wrong way as to incite her to violence is kind of hilarious lol. She was holding herself back all this time and after one little thing from Jane, BAM!
And what do you guys think of Mel!? I personally love off-kilter characters. I’m super excited for the chaos that she’s likely to stir up!!