Chapter 14: Weekend(2)

Without even time to panic at the appearance of Layla, who didn’t even know English, I quickly bowed.

“…… Meet the princess.”

“Hmm. I’ve felt this way since last time, but you still try to be polite to me even when there’s no one else around.”

Of course, Layla’s reaction wasn’t very good.

It was as if she was vaguely saying to me, ‘Isn’t that a bit too much?”

If I thought about it a little, it was natural.

In the original, Princess Layla was the one who hated the unnecessarily rigid royal etiquette more than anyone else.

-Meet the princess Layla…… .

-Haa, Ellis Akstra.

I clearly told her to be polite to me.

The scene where he got angry at Ellis Akstra, who was always polite to me, and told her to be polite to me, was a famous scene that all fans of the original would remember.

When I thought about that, I slowly raised my head.

“…”

“You’re finally raising your head.”

As soon as I raised my head, I saw a blonde, blue-eyed beauty.

That was also Layla, who was smiling brightly as if things had finally worked out the way she wanted.

……Hmm. She’s really pretty, crazy pretty.

If there was a characteristic of the original, [Sword of the Academy], it was a characteristic.

All the heroines that appeared were beauties that you might only see once in your life.

Of course, if you asked if that wasn’t the case with most Academy stories, I had nothing to say.

It was natural for the heroines to be portrayed beautifully, given the nature of this genre that mainly had to attract male readers.

‘……if you are looking for it, there are probably some cases where the heroines are plain.’

At least that meant there were no such cases.

At least there were no heroines who used plainness and elegance as their weapons.

-You can call me Ellis from now on.

In fact, if we really have to be picky, there was Ellis Akstra who played the purest girl in the beginning.

That’s a scam.

It was impossible to deal with cover scams.

-What? Can you say that again?

Anyway.

I thought I could hear a strange woman’s voice in my ear, but really anyway.

What I wanted to say was that the princess in front of me was that pretty.

“Then, how about answering now. What commissions do you usually accept?”

“Is it difficult to answer? A question like this shouldn’t be difficult to answer.”

It meant that the pretty princess was asking me a question that I could never answer.

“There are none.”

“Huh? There are none?”

“Yes. I have never received a commission directly connected by the Academy.”

“…”

As soon as she heard my answer, Layla’s expression crumpled like a paper airplane that had just fallen to the ground.

Watching that scene in real time, I felt more amazed than scared.

That face can change like that.

The human body is truly mysterious.

As I was expressing my admiration for the mysteries of the human body, I heard Layla’s voice, which had become considerably lower than before.

“… Lian Trice. You’re not joking with me right now, are you?”

“Yes. This isn’t a joke, it’s the truth..”

“Where do you usually go on weekends that you don’t come to the library?”

The library?

Why the library out of nowhere?

I couldn’t help but wonder at the word library that suddenly popped up.

Layla continued talking as if she was very frustrated with me.

“Yes. The library. You, who always visited the library after class on a regular basis, never seemed to visit on weekends.”

“Whew, that’s right. Then where do you usually go on weekends that you don’t come to library”

“The library…you said?”

“Ah.”

“Is there a special reason? If what you just said is true, you wouldn’t be taking requests every weekend.”

Layla spoke to me with a very serious expression.

And, after seeing her, I could finally understand the intention of her question.

You were dissatisfied that someone who always came to the library on weekdays didn’t come on weekends.

That was the dissatisfaction.

That’s why she asked me this unexpected question.

Now I felt like I understood.

The Layla I know is a person who cares more about her surroundings than anyone else.

In the beginning, Layla mentioned that she became interested in the main character because he never missed his swordsmanship training every day.

At this point, I don’t think any further explanation is necessary.

The heroine started to take interest in the protagonist simply because he came to the training ground every day.

Of course, that didn’t mean all the questions were gone.

But you’re interested in me?’

Even though the protagonist of the original work hadn’t started his activities in earnest yet.

No matter what, he was interested in a rascal who only came to the library often?

I thought that this was hard to understand from a common sense perspective.

“Oh, by the way, don’t misunderstand. I was just curious about what you were doing on the weekends.”

“…”

“If by any chance you were doing rascal-like things on the weekends that you never did on weekdays, then I’ll have to retrain my judgment of people who believed you were different from the rumors.”

It didn’t take long for me to realize how stupid my thoughts were.

Aha. That’s why you were curious.

You were curious not because you were interested in me, but because you couldn’t tell if your own eyes were wrong.

Fortunately, what I was worried about wasn’t true, but I felt a strange pain in my chest.

I thought he was late because he overslept, so I ran out of the house.

When I got to the office, it was closed because it was the weekend.

It was a strange feeling like that.

I couldn’t ignore the princess’s question just because of this feeling, so I answered without lying as much as possible.

“……I couldn’t visit the library because I was doing personal volunteer work over the weekend.”

Of course, it wasn’t that there was no mixing at all, but it was an answer that minimized the mixing as much as possible.

It was volunteer work, right?

At least if it was cleaning up something that wasn’t my doing, it was volunteer work.

A mental victory.

It was a kind of mental victory.

When Layla heard what I said, she looked quite surprised.

“Volunteering? Not volunteer work that the Academy connects you with, but volunteer work that you do on your own?”

“Yes. Since it’s something I do on my own, I guess no one has known about it.”

“Hmm, that’s what it is. Somehow, it’s no use trying to find out with my information.”

“…”

“Of course it’s a joke, so relax. What use would an Imperial Princess be to investigate an Academy student?”

Layla patted my shoulder as a joke, perhaps seeing my hardened expression in real time.

‘……What a surprise.’

I really thought my heart dropped just now.

Even though she herself said it was a joke.

Because I knew that it was completely possible for the Imperial Princess, Layla von Pelias.

She was a woman whose title was the Imperial Princess to begin with.

She was already designated as the next emperor to inherit this empire.

And, if I were to interpret this again, it meant that she could deal with just one Academy student without anyone knowing.

‘…That’s scary.’

To me, who had decided to live the rest of my life as comfortably as possible, this meant that she was the number one person I absolutely could not hate.

I wasn’t afraid of death.

It’s not like I wasn’t afraid of the process of approaching death.

I had absolutely no intention of spending my remaining life in the imperial dungeon.

Realizing that her remarks had been more shocking than I had imagined, Layla had an apologetic expression on her face.

“Your expression has frozen, so I think my remarks were a bit reckless. I’ll apologize for that.”

“……No, it’s okay. I was just a little flustered.”

“I’m apologizing for flustering you, so don’t ask any more questions about that.”

“……Yes.”

In fact, it was a forced response.

If we were to look up the old saying, this situation would be like ‘eating mustard while crying.’

Unfortunately, Layla seemed to believe that I had truly accepted her apology.

“Thank you for accepting my apology. I’m still not used to apologizing to others.”

“…”

“Or, how about this. I’ll choose one of these many commissions and solve it with you as a token of my apology.”

“……Yes? Did you just say that the princess herself would take the commission?”

The answer that just came out was a reflexive answer, so it came out without even going through the filter in my head.

It was such a surprising statement.

In fact, it was a very shocking statement that the princess of the empire would take on someone else’s commission and take payment for it.

“Yes. Also, since this is an apology, you can take my payment.”

“…”

“What do you think? Isn’t this a sweet offer that you can’t refuse?”

Layla spoke with a more confident expression than anyone else, as if she was telling me to at least refute any of her opinions.

‘……What kind of crazy person would refuse the princess’s offer?’

I had to use all my strength to hold onto that sentence that seemed like it would slip out of my mouth at any moment.

And, quite naturally.

It was a set procedure that the request was decided to be resolved on the spot.