Chapter 236
Chapter 236
It was only natural that Evan Lisitoel would take first place at the Academy.
Even while taking nearly twice as many lectures as an ordinary student for the sake of early graduation, he took first place in every single class. Who would dare think they could beat him?
“You really are relentless.”
Beatrice muttered as if thoroughly fed up.
“What is?”
“I mean the way you’re cramming lectures together to graduate within three years, no matter what.”
The Academy’s graduation requirements were difficult enough that some students took ten years to graduate.
The sight of him gritting his teeth and taking lectures because he intended to finish it within three years was frightening.
“Why are you so hung up on graduating?”
“Do I have to explain that?”
Evan asked back.
There was no particular reason he had to explain, but....
“No, I could be curious, couldn’t I?”
Besides, Evan felt as if he were obsessing over graduation to a somewhat strange degree.
No matter how remarkable he was, there was no way he was not pushing himself.
“You get curious about all sorts of things. Do you have nothing to do?”
At Evan’s following question, Beatrice flinched.
Those words were the mutter he made before he became irritated.
And once he started becoming irritated like that, even a professor could not stop him.
Perhaps if Evan were truly angry, even the Emperor might not be able to stop him.
“Ah! If you’re not going to explain, then fine!”
He kept dragging his words out as if he might answer, then might not, making people curious!
Beatrice got ahead of him before Evan could lose his temper.
Could she let it pass like this?
Beatrice glanced at Evan’s expression.
Fortunately, Evan quietly tapped the desk, then answered.
“Because it is bothersome.”
“What is?”
“As the heir of a noble family, I must naturally graduate from the Academy in order to inherit the family.”
“That’s true.”
That was not an option, but the most basic condition recorded even in imperial law.
It did not matter which department one chose and graduated from, but if one was a noble who would receive an imperial title, one had to graduate from the Academy.
“I didn’t think you were the type to cling to a noble title.”
Rather, she had always thought he was the sort of person who would not cling to titles or family and would drift away at any time.
That was even more so because the Evan Lisitoel Beatrice saw was a person who found things like duty bothersome.
“Why would I throw away what is mine?”
Evan answered monotonously.
“If it were something that would not be given to me in the first place, then so be it. But if they will become mine as long as I fulfill a few bothersome duties, there can be no idiot who would give them up.”
True. If Evan gave up his place as heir to the Lisitoel family, the count would naturally search for an heir among the collateral branches.
If that happened, Evan would inherit nothing, not the family title, nor the enormous wealth accumulated over generations.
His argument was valid.
But she had simply never imagined that Evan would be the kind of human who considered even those things.
“I have no intention of rotting at the Academy for six whole years.”
“Usually, people don’t call it rotting.”
From Evan’s position, it was only natural that the time he spent at the Academy felt futile.
After all, there was nothing more pointless than relearning something one had already mastered perfectly.
Evan was forcing himself through that futile work to satisfy the conditions of an heir, so it was understandable that he wanted to graduate as quickly as possible.
“Are you even the same kind of person as us?”
“Are you picking a fight?”
At Evan’s fingertips gathered a powerful mana hard to believe belonged to a mere second-year Academy student.
What horrified Beatrice even more was the sight of him casually controlling, with a single fingertip, an amount of mana that would crush an ordinary person to death.
Whew. They didn’t call him a complete mage for nothing.
Swallowing a light sigh, Beatrice obediently raised both hands.
“I surrender, so please spare me.”
Beatrice had no desire to become an idiot like Boreas Nevera Sunbae, who was needlessly hostile toward Evan.
At her easy declaration of surrender, Evan immediately dispersed the mana he had been wielding and answered.
“A wise choice.”
That arrogant smile was obnoxious as expected.
The one fortunate thing amid the misfortune was that even though Evan could infer his opponent’s thoughts as clearly as if he were looking into the palm of his own hand, he did not try to ruin someone over thoughts alone.
Well, the frightening part about Evan was that if he decided someone had touched his reverse scale, he would carefully trample them down until it was difficult for them to recover.
“So this is why the weak are sorrowful.”
Beatrice was absolutely not someone who would be treated as weak anywhere else, though.
Feeling somehow wronged, Beatrice sniffled.
---
When people saw that Evan Lisitoel had ultimately earned his diploma within three years, the emotion they felt was closer to emptiness than admiration.
He actually pulled that off?
And even as valedictorian?
Amid the applause pouring over him, Evan quietly looked down at the people.
It was not that he felt any special sentiment.
There were not many things in this world that could move him.
Evan remained motionless, staring down at the people all along.
‘Is he in a foul mood because we clapped a little too little?’
‘Damn it, what a rotten bastard.’
‘Still, now we’re finally free from that mad dog!’
Under Evan’s persistent gaze, the sound of applause grew even louder.
When the applause became loud enough to grate on his ears, Evan leisurely stepped down from the platform.
The one who approached Evan was Iris Viden, one of his classmates.
Evan’s blue eyes touched Iris.
“You really are graduating early. You’re amazing.”
Her words contained admiration, but in truth, her eyes were like those of a snake measuring the size of its prey.
“Am I supposed to thank you?”
“No, why so formal all of a sudden?”
Iris tilted her head.
The mad dog of the Academy.
For three years, Evan Lisitoel had diligently been called a mad dog.
The source of that rumor was Boreas Nevera, who had constantly been at odds with him, and Iris Viden, who seemed to strangely hate him, but Evan did not go out of his way to touch them as long as they did not directly harm him.
Even if they did harm him, there was no chance they would cause any problem for Evan, so it was a natural response.
Though that lack of response instead made Boreas run even more rampant.
In the first place, Evan was simply a human made that way.
“I should have brought you a bouquet.”
Iris’s red eyes swept over Evan.
“Well, you wouldn’t have accepted it anyway.”
“Correct.”
“So what are you planning to do now?”
Iris tilted her head.
“You don’t look like you’re planning to head to the Lisitoel territory like this. Did I guess wrong?”
Her words were not wrong.
Just as Iris said, Evan had not the slightest intention of obediently returning to the Lisitoel territory.
But there was no need to tell her his future schedule honestly.
Without answering, Evan walked past her.
Obnoxious bastard.
Iris whispered, but Evan ignored that as well.
Likewise, because there was no need to respond.
“I hope the day comes when you regret this moment.”
Regret. There could be no word more laughable than that.
After all, in Evan Lisitoel’s life, the word regret would never exist for his entire lifetime.
In that moment, Evan could be certain of that without the slightest doubt.
---
There had been a time when he had wondered what he would do after graduating from the Academy.
But the answer to that question came surprisingly easily.
He would wander the world.
However, he did not feel inclined to use magic.
It would be tiresome if more people recognized him.
In the end, Evan pulled a black robe over himself and took up a sword.
“I wish to become a mercenary.”
At his youthful voice, the Mercenary Guild employee quietly looked at Evan’s palm.
Looking at a palm that, no matter who saw it, seemed to have never once held a sword, the guild employee was at a loss for what to do.
She wondered how she should recommend a suitable mercenary corps for a noble young lord to enter.
“Uh, well….”
“Miss, is something wrong?”
A woman who lightly brushed past Evan’s side asked the employee with a smile.
“Ah, well.”
The employee looked back and forth between the woman and Evan a few times before finally explaining the situation.
“This person asked me to recommend a mercenary corps he could enter.”
“When did I do that?”
“Pardon?”
“I said I wished to become a mercenary. I never said I would enter a mercenary corps.”
He did not particularly want communal life where there was a chance his identity could be discovered.
He had taken up a sword, but he would be using magic, and if he suffered any wounds, he intended to disguise them as sword wounds. Life together with others would only be troublesome.
“Being alone is comfortable.”
“Oh, Lucius.”
But the employee sought God the moment she heard Evan’s words.
Evan, who did not fail to understand what it meant to seek God in this situation, frowned. It was unpleasant enough that he wondered if she was looking down on him.
But the woman who had been watching all of that from the side burst into laughter.
“…….”
Huh. This Evan Lisitoel is openly becoming the target of laughter?
Evan was dumbfounded and looked straight at the woman.
The woman, who had tied up her long blue hair high, was unmistakably a mercenary, judging by the sword at her waist.
The smile on her lips held composure, so she was probably a mercenary belonging to the fairly strong side among mercenaries.
Most of all, there were those clear golden eyes, like the light of the sun, or like the moon shining clearly in the night sky.
Those two eyes, which seemed as if he would not grow bored even if he looked at nothing else all day, were engraved into Evan’s blue eyes as if branded there.
“Ah, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to laugh at you.”
“…….”
Evan still did not answer and quietly looked at the woman.
At that persistent gaze within the silence, the woman strode toward Evan.
“Usually, mercenaries don’t travel alone.”
“So?”
“No matter how confident you are in your skill, traveling alone is too dangerous. So would you perhaps like to join our mercenary corps?”
“I do not even know your name.”
“Serena.”
She immediately said her name and held out her hand.
Then she smiled as freshly as a morning glory blooming wide in the morning.
“Just call me Serena comfortably, without a surname.”
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