OHNIR – Chapter 76
Chapter 76: Worth It
Gloria was truly a competent tutor. Throughout her lessons with Kelusta, she was utterly imperturbable. Even when the latter, after getting a mountain of questions wrong, shamelessly begged for mercy and acted cute, the duke’s daughter could, without a single distracting thought, enforce the rule: “Get one wrong, you’re punished with two more. Get another wrong, you’re punished with a new test paper.”
This method of punishment was sharp and ruthless. It tested Kelusta until her vision blurred; she would tremble at the sight of a quill and feel the urge to vomit at the sight of parchment.
Even though she got to spend every day with Gloria, those two weeks were, in her heart, a living hell.
The days of waiting for the exams crawled by like a slow, torturous blade. Just when Kelusta felt she was about to break her third quill, she finally, after what felt like an eternity of waiting, made it to the exams.
Right now, the brown-haired girl was sitting in the classroom, having just received a piece of parchment from Pascal with her exam schedule written on it.
“Is our schedule the same, Kelusta?”
The moment she got her exam schedule, Doris skipped over to Kelusta’s side, curiously craning her neck to look at the paper in her hand.
Kelusta gave it a quick scan and breathed a sigh of relief. She showed her schedule to Doris, beaming. “My potions exam is the last one!”
Although the review period had been a living hell, if she couldn’t cram for potions for a few more days… she felt Gloria would only make her life an even worse living hell on the day the results were announced.
“Eh, you’re so lucky,” Doris said with envy, glancing at the schedule and pouting. “I have potions on the third day. How am I supposed to review for that… Goodness knows, I still have a quarter of the book I haven’t had time to read!”
“Oh, come on, Doris, count your blessings,” Pascal, sitting behind them, held his head in his hands in despair. “I have potions first and history last,” he said tragically. “What kind of deep-seated hatred does the scheduler have for me? Did they have to stab me at the beginning and then stab me again at the end to be satisfied?!”
“…” Doris said with deep sympathy, “Okay, buddy, you really have it rough.”
For the students, anyone who got to take history earliest and potions latest was considered a child chosen by heaven.
The material for history was vast and complicated, relying solely on rote memorization. But as everyone knew, a student’s memory only lasted seven seconds. Being forced to wait until the last day for the history exam meant having to memorize for several more days, which was truly painful.
As for potions… well, whether you took it early or late, you were dead either way. Being able to cling to life for a few more days was a pretty good deal.
Doris shrugged and handed the parchment back to Kelusta. Amidst Pascal’s dejected sighs, the lively girl turned her head, seeming to notice Kevit, who had been silent for a long time.
She thought for a moment, then reached out and tapped on his desk, trying to kindly invite him into their conversation. “What about you, Kevit? How’s your exam schedule?”
The boy with the jade-green eyes was slightly taken aback. He shifted his gaze from the schedule in his hand to Doris and smiled faintly. “Not bad, not good,” he said gently. “History is the second exam, potions is the fourth. It’s within an acceptable range for me.”
“Hmm, okay, looks like our Ruth is still the luckiest,” Doris said with a grin. “History on the second day, and potions last. She’s just one step away from being the chosen one.”
Kelusta raised an eyebrow, glancing thoughtfully at her friend, who was staring intently at Kevit, seemingly waiting for him to continue the conversation. But she didn’t say anything.
It was Kevit who, after his eyes met Doris’s, seemed to realize something. He paused slightly and added awkwardly, “Yes, very lucky.”
After saying that, he lowered his head again, staring at the exam schedule as if a flower might bloom from it, showing no intention of continuing the conversation.
“…”
Doris pressed her lips together and withdrew her gaze. She muttered under her breath as if deflated, “Alright, rather than meddling in other people’s business and wasting my effort, I think I’d better hurry up and finish reviewing the rest of my textbook.”
With a sigh, she turned to walk back to her seat, but she had barely taken a step when someone abruptly grabbed her wrist.
“Doris, can we talk?”
The brown-haired girl smiled faintly at her, her golden eyes as brilliant as sunlight, filled with an incredibly reassuring warmth and gentleness.
Doris met her gaze. After a long silence, she finally sighed, “Let’s go. We’ll talk outside.”
And so, the two of them went outside the classroom, one after the other.
The hallway buzzed with the noisy chatter of the crowd. In this environment, the sound of their conversation seemed to be drowned out, becoming almost inaudible.
“These past few days, you’ve been secretly going to see Kevit behind my back, haven’t you?” Kelusta smiled and spoke first, easily exposing the other’s actions under Doris’s slightly surprised gaze.
Her private efforts exposed by her friend in a single sentence, Doris lowered her eyes in embarrassment. Her expression was downcast as she said dejectedly, “I’m sorry. I just noticed that you and Kevit seemed to be giving each other the cold shoulder, and I was a little worried, so I took it upon myself to go find him…”
Listening to the incredibly pure and kind words of the girl before her, Kelusta felt a warmth spread through her own heart. She sighed softly, raised a hand to pat Doris’s shoulder, and said gratefully, “I’m honored to have you looking out for me, and I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for me during this time—Doris, thank you. You’ve really gone through a lot of trouble.”
“It was no trouble,” Doris shook her head and said in a low voice. “Besides, I didn’t even manage to get you two to make up… I don’t deserve your—”
But Kelusta quickly interrupted her. As if completely unaware of the atmosphere between herself and Kevit, she said decisively, “You do deserve it.”
“Regardless of whether there’s a rift between Kevit and me, as long as you’re willing to make an effort for our friendship, then you deserve my sincere gratitude.”
The brown-haired girl gave a bright smile like a sunflower, her eyes curving. Her words struck a chord deep in Doris’s heart.
The latter stared at Kelusta, slightly stunned. After a long moment, she smiled faintly, her eyes filled with gentleness and joy.
“…I’m happy to have your thanks.”
Under Kelusta’s firm reassurance, Doris finally broke into a smile. But she still glanced back into the classroom, as if still a little worried, and lowered her voice to ask tentatively, “So, are you planning to make up with Kevit? Even Pascal secretly told me that you two really haven’t spoken directly to each other in a very, very long time…”
She had heard they were the best of friends back in Seaside Town—childhood friends who could talk about anything, who grew up together… How could they have a falling out just like that?
Doris really couldn’t figure out what kind of major event could have happened to make the relationship of these two friends of over a decade cool down so quickly, to the point where in just a few days, it was as if they were about to sever ties.
And it had all happened so quietly. Besides the two of them, no one else seemed to know the reason…
—But no matter how puzzled Doris was, Kelusta would never tell her friend the truth.
She didn’t want to drag Doris into this vortex as well.
So, the brown-haired, golden-eyed girl softened her expression. She raised a finger to her lips, squinted her eyes slightly to affect a relaxed air, and whispered, “Don’t you worry… When the time is right, we’ll naturally make up—I promise I won’t make you wait even a second longer.”
With Gloria’s high-pressure review method, Kelusta’s last-minute cramming paid off handsomely. She felt she did quite well on the first few exams and even harbored a tiny glimmer of hope of getting all A’s—because she had actually managed to fill in every blank, only asking the System about a handful of questions!
—This was simply a miracle of intellect and erudition!
“These two weeks of suffering weren’t for nothing,” Kelusta was moved to tears, completely impressed with herself. “Thank you, Lux, thank you, Old Sy, and most importantly, thank you, me!”
The System rolled its eyes, too lazy to argue with her about why the most important thank you was to herself.
But then again, to grasp the bulk of the knowledge others needed a whole semester to learn in just a two-week sprint…
One could only say, as expected of the game’s heroine. No matter how much of a lazy, gluttonous, and unreliable person she usually was, she still had a protagonist’s halo invisibly protecting and buffing her.
“I reasonably deduce that you can meet Gloria’s requirements.”
For once, the System didn’t seize the opportunity to mock her, but analyzed sincerely, “With the 【Sage】 achievement, your knowledge of history is likely unmatched even by the professor who writes the questions, so getting an S-rank is definitely not a problem. As for courses like herbology and incantations, under Gloria’s tutelage these past few days, your level is not much different from mine… Hmm, looking at it this way, the only thing that remains to be seen is potions—but I believe that as long as you cram these last few days, getting a B-rank will be a piece of cake.”
“Hearing you say that, I feel like I could get a decent score even if I just lie around and sleep for a few days?” Kelusta was curled up in a soft armchair in her dorm room, not taking its words seriously at all. She said drowsily, “Anyway, I’ll take your good words for it.”
Although the weather was gradually turning colder as time passed, the sunlight over the royal capital was as dazzling as ever. Looking out from the warm room, one couldn’t tell at all that it was now winter.
The incessant crackling of burning charcoal from the nearby fireplace made the whole room toasty warm. Kelusta was curled up in a small ball in the chair, chatting idly with the System while gradually closing her eyes, about to drift off to sleep in a daze.
However, just as she was about to fall asleep, a series of light knocks came from the door, successfully jolting her drowsy mind awake.
“…Who is it? Why come looking for me at this hour.”
The brown-haired girl sat up and gave a long yawn with sleepy eyes. She shuffled in her slippers, swaying with every step, and rubbed her eyes as she walked to the door, lazily pressing down the handle.
The old wooden door of the dorm room creaked open.
“—Hello, I apologize for the intrusion. Are you Miss Breviou?”
A sweet voice with a hint of friendliness rang out. It sounded both unfamiliar to Kelusta, yet also vaguely and inexplicably familiar.
She frowned and blinked hard. Only then did her eyes adjust to the overly bright light outside, and she finally recognized the graceful, pretty girl smiling at her.
“Miss Tina Hippol…?”
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