Victor hesitated for a moment, but in the end, he shook his head. "Never mind."
Then he quietly started looking for the materials.
Young men and women were always hard to figure out.
Victor said he'd let it go, but he couldn't stop thinking about it.
And when Emma finally realized that the person reading in the front-left corner was Dark, she couldn't help thinking how annoying he was, always hanging around in her field of vision.
But deep down, she couldn't help feeling a little pleased.
After all, there really weren't many students among the Magister House's new recruits who studied as "diligently" as they did.
Dark was the only person she thought wasn't so childish.
It was exactly nine in the evening.
Emma was still studying diligently. Dark pretended not to notice.
Following the number he'd memorized, he found the bookshelf and returned Selected Works of Magitech Spirits to its place. Then he glanced at another spot.
Into the Abyss had been taken.
Chapter 12: Dark Demon Stubbornly Survives
Tuesday's classes were Dueling Class, Arithmetic Class, and History of Magic.
The first-year Dueling Class professor, Power Jones, was a dueling master with one-sixteenth Giant blood!
Not only that, she was also the head of Noble House!
Incidentally,
the head of Knight Academy was Professor Sarah Sylph, who taught Summoning Class.
The head of Magister House was Professor Lily Laplace, who taught Arithmetic Class.
The head of Fool House was Professor Didi Maxwell, who taught History of Magic.
Just like in a galgame, all four heads of house were women!
From its name to its headmaster to its professors, Saint Marian Academy had a distinctly female-dominated feel.
Professor Jones, who had one-sixteenth Giant blood, was bigger than an ordinary human in just about every way. She had neat short hair, athletic muscles, bronze skin, an overdeveloped bust, and an abundance of healthy vitality.
Although Dark wasn't particularly interested in the professor who stood over two meters tall and came equipped with her own basketball, she seemed quite popular at the academy.
He'd heard that Professor Jones's Giant blood came from the Giant royal family, while her father was a full-blooded human noble. She might not be pure in terms of race, but when it came to being a "noble," she was as pure as could be!
Among Saint Marian's upperclassmen, plenty of both boys and girls admired Professor Jones. You could call it a form of worship for the strong!
The new students in both Noble House and Knight Academy were looking forward to Professor Jones's Dueling Class.
But during that class, Professor Jones only covered some very basic theory.
This included the rules of dueling competitions, tactics, combinations of different Magitech Cards, and how the attributes of different races countered one another...
The good news was that the Duel Club would be holding its recruitment event on Friday afternoon.
The bad news was that anyone who wanted to join had to own a deck of at least twenty Magitech Cards!
That bad news crushed the new students who'd been looking forward to dueling!
It was only the second day of school. Who could have twenty Magitech Cards already?
Then again, if you couldn't even put together a deck, what was the point of joining the Duel Club?
The next class, Arithmetic, was even more tedious than Dueling Class—and much more difficult.
The new students were suffering, and they all agreed it had to be the hardest class in first year!
Diana said she'd been dreaming through the entire lesson.
Rose had paid attention, but she looked dazed and clearly hadn't understood much either.
As for Dark,
he hadn't been listening at all.
This elementary-school-level math class was an insult to his intelligence!
[Pride +1]
Professor Lily Laplace, who taught Arithmetic Class, was apparently a Pixie, a different race closely related to the Elves.
Like the Elves, Pixies had long lives and the wisdom that came with the passage of time.
Professor Lily Laplace preferred her students to call her Professor Lily.
Like most Pixies, her body had stopped growing at around the age of eleven or twelve by human standards, making her look even younger than the new students sitting there.
She was about the same height as Diana.
She also had a pair of dragonfly wings, liked to go barefoot, and never let her feet touch the ground.
The professor for the third class, History of Magic, was Professor Didi Maxwell, who was also a Pixie. But she had butterfly wings, and she looked much older, with deep wrinkles across her forehead.
Professor Didi's teaching style was much like Professor Lily's: she read straight from the book, word for word.
They might have had encyclopedic knowledge and great wisdom, but they really weren't suited to teaching...
History of Magic was probably the most boring class of all. Fortunately, Professor Didi was very kind and approachable. Even if a student accidentally fell asleep in class, she'd only tap them lightly and dock five or ten points.m...
Professor Didi was also in charge of Astronomy on Wednesday evenings.
But Astronomy was an "interest class," held only when Professor Didi announced it.
In other words, there definitely wouldn't be any Astronomy classes during the first month after the new students arrived.
Magical Beasts on Fridays was similar!
Apparently, Magical Beasts wouldn't start until next semester.
And it was quite possible the class would be postponed even further.
First-years weren't allowed to enter the Dungeon outside the Castle, which made it difficult for them to study Magical Beasts properly.
That left just six classes each week: Summoning Technique, Magic Theory, Potions, Dueling, Arithmetic, and History of Magic, with two lessons for each.
It was a pretty relaxed schedule!
The library.
Dark arrived before Pandora and finished registering, then claimed the same seat in the reading room as the day before.
After that, he took out the Arithmetic workbook and started working through it.
The problems were far too easy!
Armed with the times tables, he swept right through them.
By the time Emma sat down behind and to his left, he'd already finished nearly half.
By five in the afternoon, he'd completed the entire workbook!
That meant he was basically done with his Arithmetic homework for the whole semester.
Dark closed the workbook and contentedly placed it on the upper-left corner of the desk.
Since he'd been calm while working, he hadn't triggered the "Greed" indicator.
But when he felt pleased with himself, [Pride +1] floated across his vision!
"So I can get conceited just by doing elementary-school math problems?"
Dark was stunned! Emma was stunned too!
Emma simply couldn't imagine how Dark had finished an entire workbook in such a short time!
They were all first-years, so what made him so amazing?
Shocked, Emma redoubled her efforts to study Arithmetic on her own!
After finishing his homework, Dark watched the "Pride" value that refused to go down. Though his anxiety didn't show on his face, it kept building inside him.
"Am I really that arrogant?"
Dark began to ask himself honestly.
He kept asking himself that question for a whole month.
Dark didn't even know how he'd made it through that month!
But as the saying went, life was like being stalked by a lovestruck woman. If you couldn't fight back, you had to learn to enjoy it.
Dark became the most talked-about star among the first-year students!
Every morning, he got up at six and arrived in the common room promptly at six fifteen.
His Familiar would fly around the outside of the Castle and enter through the cafeteria kitchen's ventilation shaft.
The Halfling cooks were very fond of the little DemiDevimon, who was always bringing them small gifts.
The gifts might have been things like pebbles picked up by the river, little flowers gathered by the roadside, lucky clovers from beneath the setting sun, or pretty colored feathers...
But they were the best presents a little Familiar could find.
The Halflings tucked the flowers into their hair, pressed the lucky clovers into cards, and stored the pebbles and pieces of glass in jars.
Every morning, DemiDevimon flew in right on time.
Then the Halflings would hand her a basket they'd prepared in advance, filled with pastries and milk.
DemiDevimon would grab the basket with her two sturdy claws and fly smoothly back to the Tower Dormitory in Noble House.
Dark had gotten used to eating breakfast in the common room.
Reading while he ate helped lower the chances of triggering "Gluttony" and "Greed."
That was absolutely speaking from experience!
After he'd finished eating, DemiDevimon would take the basket back to the kitchen.
Dark would stay in the common room and keep reading.
He only headed to his first class once the room started to fill up.
At first, he was always the first to arrive. But later, he discovered that whenever he had class with Knight Academy, someone else always got there before him.
Fortunately, the game's number-one heroine hadn't grown up yet, so she wasn't in his hunting range.
Compared to the more troublesome Diana, Emma was practically a harmless little kitten by the roadside.
Diana gradually became even more clingy.
It started with the Arithmetic homework.
Diana had no talent for Arithmetic, and Rose wasn't much better.
So the two little best friends had a sudden inspiration and sought out Dark, who was already starting to show the qualities of a "top student."
With no other choice, Dark taught them a secret technique—the "vertical calculation method"!
Vertical calculation meant writing out a calculation vertically while working through it, making the process much easier.
Professor Lily promptly picked up the technique and spread it throughout Saint Marian.
For a knowledgeable Pixie, this calculation method wasn't necessary at all. But for beginners, it was like a gift from heaven.
Professor Lily even named it the "Dark Vertical Calculation" and gave Dark a full fifty points!
This left Dark deeply troubled—his "Pride" value had gone up again!
Before you continue