“Wait a moment, president. Rukna will be sitting next to me, right?”

“Vice President Chad, you need to have a brief conversation with me.”

At that moment, Aaron squeezed through the carriage entrance where Rukna was standing and took the seat next to Chad first.

He dumped all the letters on Chad’s lap onto the floor, then placed the budget plan on his lap.

“If you keep pushing work onto me, I’ll plant barley sprouts on your head and harvest them every autumn.”

Aaron’s eyes flashed as he held a wooden hammer under Chad’s chin.

In the meantime, Rukna quietly sat where Matian had knocked. But Bolton was nowhere to be seen.

“Bolton said his clothes were wet so he rode in the coachman’s seat.”

Matian, who was reading the minutes, resolved Rukna’s curiosity.

Then the window of the opposite coachman’s seat swung open and Bolton expressed his regret, saying, “Is the only one who came to find me that idiot?”

The carriage carrying everyone departed for the military academy.

Rukna leaned her head against the window, watching the late sunset.

When she turned her head because the back of her head felt hot, Matian was still reviewing documents.

‘Why are you pretending not to see me after looking at me?’

He had been on the same page for 30 minutes.

‘He couldn’t possibly remember what happened in the underground prison, could he?’

Although she had confirmed with the holy sword that Matian was unconscious at the time, she felt strangely uncomfortable.

‘Is it because I keep worrying as we get closer?’

Sharing one’s heart with someone while hiding one’s gender and identity was an act of deceiving the other person.

If you have a conscience, you should put everything back in its place before getting deeply involved with the other person.

‘I need to maintain an appropriate distance.’

Rukna turned her gaze back out the window.

The sight of the setting sun below the horizon dyeing the city bright red was beautiful, but Rukna’s eyes reached even farther than that.

Upon returning to school, Rukna immediately ran to the school nurse and received and drank the gender juice.

“If there are no special variables, this will be the last gender juice you drink.”

“I hope so. It tastes really bad.”

“Haha, I’ll have to improve the taste next time. Anyway, you’ve worked hard this time too, Rukna. Well done, really.”

Nurse Gale hugged Rukna tightly and patted her.

That embrace was always peaceful and warm, with the power to melt Rukna’s tired heart.

“Actually, I was nervous. Matian, who was out of his mind, found out I was a girl.”

“He drank a lot of that pond water. Then he won’t be able to remember. It activates the subconscious and distances the consciousness.”

“That’s a relief then.”

“Even if you get caught and expelled, don’t worry. I’ll provide for you. The teacher has more money than it looks? I just accumulated it because I didn’t know how to spend it. That’s all yours.”

“Haha, what’s this? Someone might think I’m your daughter.”

“Then do you want to be my daughter? The teacher is ready anytime.”

“Pardon?”

“Why are you so surprised? It has been my lifelong wish to have a pretty daughter like our Rukna.”

When Rukna smiled bitterly at those words, Nurse Gale put on a brave face and tapped her chest.

“So lean on me whenever you’re having a hard time. This Gale will be quite reliable.”

“Thank you, teacher.”

“Oh my, I don’t accept verbal thanks.”

“Thank you.”

After thanking the teacher with a tight hug, Rukna left the infirmary.

Despite the big incident, her footsteps back to the dormitory were lighter than expected.

The fact that she now had an adult to rely on in this world was so reassuring that Rukna felt a sense of stability as if she had finally found her own place.

Having thus returned to everyday life, Rukna immersed herself in her studies again.

After the theology class ended and Rukna was organizing her major books, Hans’ gang came over.

They sharpened her blunt writing tools and refilled her ink bottle.

It was like a scene of racing mechanics quickly checking the tires and engine condition of a race car in the middle of an auto race.

In the meantime, she overheard her classmates talking about Matian.

“Isn’t the student council president strange these days?”

“Ah, you mean what he does every night?”

Every night? Rukna pricked up her ears, pretending not to listen.

“Is he at least sleeping?”

“I heard he got scolded by the professor in applied martial arts class.”

“The Weapon Master got scolded by the Sword Master? Isn’t this like a professor getting scolded by a master?”

“He was standing blankly and almost broke his arm.”

“Hehe, even Matian Wiegratz falls from trees sometimes.”

The ever-perfect student council president’s mistakes became good gossip material for the cadets.

Rukna bit her lips inward.

After attending St. Agnes Girls’ School, she hadn’t encountered Matian except during lectures, so she could only learn of his news through such rumors.

‘I made up my mind to keep my distance, but it’s a shame to suddenly become so distant like this.’

Still, the next class was advanced swordsmanship, so she would be able to see him. She was determined to greet him today. Rukna clenched her fists and moved her steps to the Wiegratz College where the lecture was held.

“Matian!”

Just then, Rukna saw Matian entering the lecture hall and waved her hand in delight.

However, he only glanced at Rukna in acknowledgment and went to find a seat without any particular reply.

Unlike what her classmates said, Matian did not show any unusual behavior during the lecture.

He was more dejected than usual, and disappeared like the wind as soon as the lecture ended, so they couldn’t talk, but still.

A week passed without exchanging a single word with Matian.

‘What the hell is the problem!’

Rukna was eating dinner in the dining hall, exuding a menacing aura, and stabbed the sausage with the knife she was holding.

Bolton, who was sitting next to her, hurriedly closed his wide-open legs and looked at Rukna with a terrified expression.

“Wh-why are you getting so frighteningly angry, idiot?”

“Why the hell is he ignoring me?”

“Because you lack muscle?”

“Ah, not that. I mean Matian.”

“Right! Matian has been strange these days!”

Bolton denounced that Matian was not properly participating in student council meetings and just sitting blankly the whole time.

He said you have to shout in his ear to barely carry on a conversation.

“This Bolton speculates that Matian’s symptoms are a side effect of the water from the Pond of Truth.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m currently analyzing the components with a pond water sample. If it goes well, I might be able to develop a new elixir. Want to come to the lab tonight? I’ll show you the results.”

8 o’clock in the evening.

Although it was not curfew time, all buildings except the library had their lights off.

Rukna went to the Golden College where the laboratory was located.

Among the pitch-black windows, only the laboratory at the far left end of the 3rd floor was brightly lit.

‘There it is.’

But would she be able to properly climb the dark stairs without a candle? It seemed a bit scary.

‘Hey Bisbi, do you happen to have a light function too?’

“Yes, the great holy sword will gladly be the master’s lantern.”

‘Good. Then let’s go in.’

Creak. Rukna opened the entrance door of the college and went inside.

The interior of the building without a single light was darker than the outside. The holy sword began to glow in the jet-black space.

But the size of that light was just like a firefly.

‘Hey, is this the best you can do?’

Didn’t it emit blinding light during the last spiritual power test? Rukna quietly looked down at the vaguely glowing pendant.

“That was spiritual power, master. This is light.”

‘Are they different?’

“Just because it can fly, are a fly and a bird the same?”

‘No.’

“Just because it’s white, are salt and sugar the same?”

‘…No.’

“Then just because it glows, are spiritual power and light the same?”

‘I see.’

It seemed to make sense, but it was strange. As Rukna furrowed her brow, the holy sword urged her to move quickly.

Traversing the dark school grounds with only one small light was more eerie than expected.

Rukna climbed the stairs, barely illuminating her feet.

Perhaps because it was dark, she began to lose track of how far she had climbed.

‘What floor are we on now, Bisbi?’

It felt like she had been climbing for a long time, but was it still not there? Light should have been leaking into the hallway from Bolton’s lab.

But even after stepping on and climbing the stairs, only pitch-black corridors greeted Rukna. She felt strangely like she was being haunted by a ghost.

“You are currently on the 4th floor.”

‘You climbed one more floor? You should have told me in advance!’

“You didn’t ask, master.”

‘You used to do well on your own.’

“That was when you weren’t thinking of throwing me away, master.”

At those words, Rukna stopped walking for a moment.

She was already pondering how to hand over the holy sword to Matian. This lump of iron was unnecessarily quick-witted.

Feeling somehow apologetic to the holy sword, Rukna quietly went down one floor without asking for help.

‘This is definitely the right place.’

She held up the pendant and shone it on the stairwell wall. A sign that said 3F. It was indeed the 3rd floor.

‘The place where the light was on earlier was the lab at the far left.’

But now all she could see was a pitch-black corridor that seemed to have no end like an abyss. There was no lit laboratory.

‘There’s no way he finished the experiment and left in the meantime. Since this is the only staircase in this building, we would have run into each other if that were the case.’

Ah, maybe he drew the blackout curtains because of the experiment.

Rukna held the pendant at head height and began looking for a lab with the curtains drawn.

Because it was so dark, she couldn’t feel how far she had walked or how much further she had to go.

‘The lab was at the far left end, so I’ll have to go a little further, right?’

But how far had she walked?

Was this corridor originally… this long?