Alice's Founding Senior Disciple, Greg Sass, had been born into the Kingdom's illustrious Duke Sass's House. At the Academy, his name had once been synonymous with nepotism and bottom-of-the-class performance.
Despite his distinguished background as a duke's son, Alice could attest, on the strength of a year's bitter experience, that he was an absolute disaster when it came to studying and researching magic theory.
Whenever a course required a theoretical research paper that demanded solid fundamentals and patient study, Greg invariably found some excuse or method to foist it onto her, his nominal mentor.
Worse still, his air of aristocratic entitlement left Alice, who was already poor at arguing with people and particularly ill-equipped to handle students of his standing, swallowing her anger more often than not. She could only grit her teeth and accept the work, then sacrifice her own rest to stay up late cleaning up his mess.
During that period, she would often stare at assignments Greg should have completed himself late into the night and find herself struck by an absurd thought:
Which of us was the mentor, and which was the disciple?
She, his mentor, had practically become Greg Sass's private academic drudge!
Fortunately, those bleak days had not lasted too long.
Not long after advancing to his second year, Greg had disappeared for quite some time.
During his absence, Alice had felt that even the air she breathed was fresher. She had even secretly prayed that he would never show his face again.
Although Greg had eventually returned to the Academy and resumed attending classes normally, Alice had immediately adopted the most direct and effective strategy: avoidance.
She adjusted her schedule as much as possible to avoid any occasion where their paths might cross, and never took the initiative to ask what he had