“……Hans?”

Was it because of the mountain rabbit bread they had eaten from those guys?

Seeing the injured potatoes, I felt uncomfortable with a stabbing pain near my stomach.

“Ugh, Lady Rukna…… R-run away.”

Hans, covered in blue bruises all over, trembled his hand towards Rukna as if leaving his last words.

Watching this scene, Zvai burst into laughter.

“Hahaha, I heard rumors that you, Hans, had become a subordinate of that weakling, but I didn’t think it was true!”

“This insolent bastard, I’ll…”

Hans tried to stand up, supporting himself on the ground. But Rukna blocked his way.

“Stop it, Hans. I’ll handle this.”

“But Lady Rukna……”

“I don’t want my people getting hurt.”

To be precise, it was ‘the person who bought bread for me,’ but Rukna omitted the explanation and patted Hans’s shoulder with a benevolent smile.

Her people! Moved by those words, the potato trio shouted Rukna’s name in unison.

“From today on, we’ll dedicate all our pure love to the respected Lady Rukna!”

“No, not loyalty but pure love? That’s burdensome.”

“Now our hearts are so full of Lady Rukna that there’s no room even for women.”

Hans’s gang looked up at Rukna, fawning excessively.

“That’s right. Now Lady Rukna shines like a star to us!”

「Sigh.」

Huh, I thought I just heard the holy sword sigh, but was it my imagination?

「I’ve enhanced the master’s body with holy power.」

In reality, Rukna’s fists were surrounded by a faint light borrowed from the holy sword’s power, but these guys wouldn’t notice that.

“You dare to touch my subordinates?”

Rukna, armed with holy power, naturally referred to the potato trio as subordinates and raised her fists, while Hans’s gang, watching this, covered their mouths, captivated by Rukna’s charisma.

“A guy with a face like a woman, showing off.”

Zvai snorted at Rukna’s small fists.

“Hey, weakling. I’ve told you many times. Don’t make me the last place.”

“……What?”

“Are you going to keep pretending not to know? Geez.”

Zvai approached Rukna, almost touching her.

And with each word, he forcefully pushed his finger between Rukna’s collarbones.

“Because, you, did, well, on, the, test, I, ended, up, in, last, place, this, time!”

But that small body didn’t budge at all.

This can’t be! Confused, Zvai finally pushed Rukna’s chest hard with his palm.

But even this time, that weakling-like guy didn’t move at all.

Did he put glue on his soles? Zvai glanced down at Rukna’s feet. The feet were just normally touching the ground.

Meanwhile, Rukna realized why this body had always volunteered to be last and snorted.

‘This guy must have had a really tough time at school.’

Can’t leave such trash alone. Rukna, borrowing the holy sword’s power, clenched her fists tighter.

“Hahaha, did you see that, guys? Rukna Golden is clenching her fists in front of me?”

Zvai slowly lowered his head towards Rukna while rotating his arm as if loosening one shoulder.

As their foreheads almost touched, Zvai tilted his head.

Was he always this pretty? Zvai, newly impressed by Rukna’s appearance, rolled his eyes.

“Why don’t you try hitting me with that puny fist, pretty?”

Despite Zvai’s imposing attitude, Rukna stared back straight into his eyes without avoiding them.

“Not lowering your eyes? Ha, Rukna Golden is getting cocky now? Did I tell you or not that our family runs a successful trading company in the south?”

“……”

“Didn’t I say that I’d crush a barely surviving Golden Count family like yours in no time? Huh?”

Zvai threw his large fist towards Rukna’s cheek.

Rukna, nimbly leaning her upper body back, curled her fingers into a fist and blocked Zvai’s attack.

Thud! As the two fists collided hard in mid-air, the sound of crushing bones was heard.

The impact pushed both bodies backward, raising dust, and someone fell to the ground.

Zvai’s gang, certain of his victory, were celebrating among themselves when they suddenly froze.

They belatedly discovered that it was Zvai, not Rukna, who had fallen.

Rukna shook her fist and looked down at the defeated Zvai with contempt.

“You, you, how dare you!”

Zvai tried to get up immediately but staggered. What’s going on? His head was spinning just from his fist colliding with that small fist.

As he stumbled several times trying to regain balance, groans from his subordinates were heard from behind.

“Urgh! Argh!”

“Ugh!”

What on earth happened! By the time Zvai grasped the situation, clutching his head, his subordinates were already stacked on the ground like firewood.

They had rushed at Rukna and been taken down with one hit each.

That insolent bastard! Zvai gritted his teeth and pulled out two daggers from his pocket, gripping one in each hand.

“Come on, using weapons is so cheap.”

Hi, Bisbi! Rukna couldn’t lose either, calling Bisbi inwardly.

「A disobedient dog needs a stick. Look behind you, master.」

As instructed by the holy sword, when she turned around, the pendant hanging inside her clothes glittered.

When she grasped it, the round pendant transformed into a long mop.

‘Why a mop of all things?’

「You should clean up trash with cleaning tools.」

‘That’s true.’

The mop had been on her mind since the cabinet incident, and beating that guy with this would probably feel satisfying.

“Hahaha, is that weakling doing a magic show now? Planning to become a clown after graduation?”

Zvai mocked as Rukna summoned a mop with her back turned. He was still talking nonsense, not having come to his senses after being knocked down once.

“A clown?”

Rukna turned to face Zvai.

Her stance, holding the unnecessarily holy-glowing mop, was quite solemn, but Zvai treated her like a village idiot who could only summon a mop with useless skills.

“If conjuring just a cleaning tool with magic isn’t being a clown, what is it?”

“Then shall we bet on which of us is more ridiculous?”

As Rukna swung the mop she was holding, drops of wet mop water splattered on Zvai.

Ugh, ptui ptui! Rukna laughed heartily watching Zvai’s disgusted expression.

“Haha, you should be the clown.”

“You little…?”

Just as the enraged Zvai was about to pounce with daggers in both hands like a swift praying mantis.

「Someone has detected an ominous atmosphere. The student council is expected to arrive in 1 minute and 34 seconds. Finish the purification. 4/5」

‘Already?’

Rukna, engraving the holy sword’s warning in her mind, jumped into the air to avoid Zvai’s attack.

Simultaneously, she smoothly followed up by swinging the mop handle to strike Zvai’s crown.

“Urk, gak!”

Thud. Zvai fell. Along with the message that the purification was complete, the holy sword’s voice faded away, and the mop also dispersed into particles of light.

The potato trio, who had been staring only at Rukna regardless of whether the mop disappeared or not, cheered for Rukna who had taken down Zvai with a single blow.

“As expected of Lady Rukna!”

“To resolve it with just one strike!”

“It’s not that impressive.”

Judging by how good it felt in her hands, it seemed to suit her aptitude, so from the next dawn training, she might have to hone a club instead of a sword.

You could say it fits more snugly in the hand, couldn’t you?

“Let’s go now. We’ll be caught by others.”

“Yes, Lady Rukna!”

Rukna and the potatoes quickly moved to another location before the student council arrived.

They were declining to receive demerits like last time.

A few days later.

“Someone has made a splendid mess again.”

Matian closely examined the thug students collapsed on the floor.

Just like during the Zvai incident last time when they each had a tremendous bump on their crown, this gang’s bodies were also full of marks from being beaten with a long stick.

“There’s a system called dueling, so why do they secretly do this?”

Matian was genuinely curious.

The thrill of driving those who tried to trample oneself to the brink of death in front of everyone is quite sweet, so why bother dealing with it secretly?

Could there be a secret that needs to be hidden?

‘If it’s a student with a secret.’

Matian recalled the pale face of a likely suspect.

Then the palm inside his leather glove, which had once high-fived Rukna, began to tingle, and he scratched it with his fingers.

‘The situation is already complicated with the missing holy sword, but thanks to someone, school life isn’t boring.’

Bolton, who had surveyed the situation, also clicked his tongue.

“They’ve become just like laundry with all the starch taken out.”

As he said, the faces of those who usually misbehaved were now filled with kindness instead of malice.

“Does beating them with something like a divinely blessed washing paddle make them like that?”

“Yawn, who keeps making this mess? It’s not letting people sleep.”

Chad stretched and complained about having his nap time disturbed.

“Who else could it be? There’s only one person who’s been disciplining the wayward guys these days.”

“Are you talking about Ruka? No way.”

Chad nonchalantly mentioned Rukna’s nickname.

“You’re in charge of monitoring students of interest, yet you don’t know what that blockhead is up to? I know better than you do.”

“What are you saying? About Ruka, I know more……”

Chad couldn’t finish his sentence and closed his mouth.

Just then, seeing Rukna passing by in front, his drowsiness suddenly vanished.

“……I see. I guess I hadn’t realized it.”