Wh-what am I thinking?!
The moment that thought surfaced, Yelina jerked her head down as though she had been burned. Her cheeks flushed scarlet, all the way to the tips of her ears.
She frantically questioned and chastised herself:
Yelina Forst! What nonsense are you thinking?! Greg is just a younger student who needs me to look after him! How could I, how could I have these... these strange thoughts about him?!
While Yelina wrestled with herself, her face alternating between red and white as she remained lost in her own world, the students who had witnessed that close call could no longer hold back. They began talking among themselves, their voices filled with disbelief and lingering fear:
"Hey! D-did you see that just now?!"
"I did! My god! That pillar of fire nearly hit someone!"
"That blond guy... was Greg Sass, right?! He reacted so fast! He intercepted it with Water Magic in an instant!"
"That was out-of-control Intermediate Fire Magic!"
"What... what spell did he just use? It looked kind of familiar..."
"I think... it was just the most basic Water Gun? But I've never seen a Water Gun that powerful or that fast!"
"He must be incredibly proficient with it!"
"But how is that possible? Doesn't he... have hardly any magical talent?"
After all, Greg had long been branded a magical failure at the Academy, yet at such a critical moment, he had intercepted an out-of-control intermediate spell with clean, decisive precision, and had even taken the initiative to protect his companion...
The shock of that scene was every bit as great as that earlier Academy News report.
Every face was filled with shock and confusion as they scrutinized Greg, reassessing his abilities.
Just then, the third-year girl responsible for all this came stumbling over, her face