Book 2: Chapter 55: Making Headlines in the New School Year!

“Can you hooligans stop bothering my little sister?! She has already cut ties with you, hasn’t she?”

“Princess Irene, that time was just a misunderstanding, we pulled back to gather reinforcements! Can you just let me talk…”

“Hayden, you best get out of our sight this instant! If it wasn’t for… nevermind, but Lisha almost lost her life because of you selfish bastards!”

Lisha hid behind her older sister Irene, not willing to talk with Hayden directly. The legendary hero with the title of 【Grand Enchanter】 had run off with 【Berserker】 Balthes and 【Hand of Resurrection】 Wulfe back during their party’s plight back during the fight at the Laerte Line, abandoning Lisha and Lola. If those void monarchs hadn’t been Bella’s subordinates, the fate of the two girls wouldn’t have been very bright.

Irene had already joined Bella’s Dark Sanctuary and only returned to the Octavian Empire(Knights) because Bella needed an insider to keep her up to date on events that happened within the Empire that Felia had belonged to, another factor was that Irene didn’t have any decent excuse to abandon the Octavian Empire yet. After she had finally managed to repair her relationship with Bella and Lisha, Irene finally experienced the feeling of being an older sister. Irene had already heard from Lola about how Hayden had abandoned Lisha and left her to die, so she was steeled on not giving this pretentious male any chance to get close to Lisha.

Lola had also instinctively placed herself in front of Lisha, she didn’t have the best impression of these three either, having shared the same fate as Lisha.

“Lisha, give me a chance to explain, please! If you don’t give me a chance, I’ll stay on my knees until..”

Before Hayden could finish speaking, a cup flew straight at him from somewhere among the onlookers, hitting Hayden’s self-protection magic formation and shattering. Hayden looked back a little awkwardly at Brad Scout who was secretly watching the scene not too far away. Hadn’t their plan been for Hayden and the others to keep Lisha occupied, then some delinquents paid by Scout was supposed to mess with the girls, giving an opportunity for Scout to save the ‘damsels in distress’?

Scout was also rather surprised at the course of events, he scanned the crowd of bystanders who had gathered to watch and found that those subordinates of his who were supposed to have been those ‘delinquents’ were nowhere to be seen. Scout didn’t know where that cup had flown from and didn’t exactly care much for that right now, as he was desperately trying to find a way to fix his plan.

When Scout looked back to where Lisha, Irene, and Lola had been just seconds earlier, they were nowhere to be seen. It would have taken inhuman speed for them to have run away in the brief time that Scout had spent scanning the crowd, especially when one considered his cultivation level of Holy Knight. Outside of the dining hall currently, several young noble males were getting the living crap beat out of them by another group of young nobles, their screams and cries carried quite far and had even drawn the attention of the Olsyvia Academy’s security, with a detachment of guards on their way. The onlookers of the one-sided fight were mostly those from the commoners’ Francis branch Academy and chose to watch and not act when confronted with such a situation.

“Beerbohm, what the hell have I done to you…”

“Why did you glance at me?! I don’t enjoy your damn eyes looking at me, Kyle, you brought this beating upon yourself, so you better take it like a man!”

Bella’s group, now with Lisha, Irene, and Lola in tow, glanced back behind them at the scene outside the dining hall and continued on their way out. Before Bella had left, however, she had gestured to Beerbohm who was still beating on an unfortunate noble, Beerbohm and his subordinates soon left the scene as well. When the detachment of guards arrived with some of the school’s duty teachers, all they saw were a bunch of young nobles from the Octavian Empire sprawled on the ground and the group of their counterparts from the Gabriel Empire had long fled the scene.

This Beerbohm was a count from the Gabriel Empire that Bella had invited over, she had foreseen that the male Saviour back at the dining hall was planning something cliche like ‘saving the damsels in distress’. So, Bella had gotten Noesha to use her spatial magic to contact Beerbohm and his friends who had been wandering the shopping district to come over and help her deal with some hooligans, using the chaos that they caused to smuggle Lisha and the others out using Noesha’s teleportation magic.

The Saviour on the other side was evidently not as experienced as Bella in the art of plotting and trickery, Bella had quickly seen through his plan when she saw a bunch of nobles from the Octavian Empire gathered outside of the dining hall dressed like delinquents. If it had been her, she would have at least hired some nobles from a different empire from her own. Right now, Bella didn’t really want to face this Saviour head on, as 【Light Creator】 Vianne’s intel had been that there was more than just one such Saviour in the Olsyvia Academy, and it would be best not to stir up too much trouble before she was able to confirm the number of enemies.

“Be… Felia-nee, it’s good to see you again, are they your friends?”

“I’ll introduce you girls later, aren’t you only supposed to arrive here tomorrow? So why are you here…”

“If I didn’t come today, I would have been annoyed to death by that stupid father of ours. As soon as I got back last time, he was looking through marriage candidates for me and kept arranging for me to meet them, it was fortunate that Irene-nee and Luce-nee helped me talk him out of it, but it was still really annoying!”

However, Bella’s group hadn’t gotten far from the dining hall when they were stopped by a group from the Olsyvia Academy’s disciplinary committee. The Olsyvia Academy was largely managed by the students themselves, meaning that the student councils of the academy all held quite a bit of power. Apart from each branch academy’s student council, there was also a ‘main’ student council with the five council presidents of the branch academies as members and a ‘chairman’ at the top, usually referred to as the head president.

The Olsyvia Academy’s disciplinary committee was under the direct control of the main student council, the student council of the five branch academies had neither the authority to control the disciplinary committee nor the right to create one of their own. The committee was tasked with keeping order within the academy and would dish out disciplinary action to those who had broken the academy’s rules and regulations. The disciplinary committee was different from the academy’s security, as the guards would only be able to deal with conflicts between the commoners due to their own lack of peerage, and when royalty and nobility were involved in conflicts, the disciplinary committee was the only group with sufficient power and authority to punish the parties involved. Mainly because of the fact that many of the disciplinary council members were either royalty or nobility themselves.

“You girls over there, halt! Are you the lord of the Saniyah Duchy, Duchess Bellina? Please come with us to the disciplinary committee’s office for a bit.”

The party that confronted Bella’s was entirely comprised of members of the disciplinary committee. Their uniform wasn’t very, well… uniform, having some members from each of the five branch academies that all wore their respective uniforms. The only thing uniform about the group was the black armbands around their right arm that signified their identities as members of the disciplinary committee. The group was led by a beautiful knight in a snow-white set of light plate that was engraved with a unique dragon emblem that showed off her status and cultivation of dragon knight.

Bella did a scan through Felia’s memories and was able to identify this beauty in front of her. Esther Natasha, a member of the Esther family which was one of the Octavian Empire’s four great families.

Natasha, along with the 【Rose Knight】 Eleanor who had joined Bella’s Dark Sanctuary, was also recognized as one of the Octavian Empire’s 【Four Beauty Knights】, carrying the title of 【Frost Knight】. Natasha was also called the 【Pure-White Knight】 due to the snow-white colour of her hair.

Based on Felia’s memory and some tidbits of information that Bella had gotten during her conversation with Eleanor, this white-haired beauty in front of her was a rather strict person with quite the sense of justice, meaning that Bella would be in for quite a hassle if she allowed Natasha to take her back to the office of the disciplinary office. Especially as Natasha’s crystal blue eyes locked onto Bella with the same gaze as that of a police officer who was looking at the suspect of a crime.

“Classmate Natasha, I just arrived at this school, so why is it that…”

“Cut the crap and just come with us!”

“Unless you give me a valid reason, Natasha, I won’t allow you to take Be… Duchess Bellina!”

“Princess Irene, this isn’t the Octavian Empire, you have no authority to command me here. Kadir, why don’t you and your subordinates go and invite the duchess over…”

“If anyone dares, I won’t take any responsibility for the consequences…”

“Hey, Natasha, why don’t you see how many princesses are here first… If you don’t give us all a good reason for doing so, we’re not going to let you take Bellina… Duchess Bellina.”

Before Bella had even answered, her sisters Irene and Lisha confronted Natasha, and even Noreya had butted into the conversation. Natasha’s deputy, the vice-chair of the disciplinary committee, Count Kadir, looked a little awkwardly at the girls around Bella. Not counting the princesses Lisha and Irene, the three cloaked figures behind Bella had taken out their items that represented their identity as members of various royal families.

The Aldrich Empire’s 5th princess Ariel, Kristoff Empire’s 4th princess Noreya, Octavian Empire’s 1st princess Irene and 10th princess Lisha, as well as the Manasville Empire’s 6th princess Elaine. This meant that Duchess Bellina had a total of five princesses from four empires on her side. This was Kadir’s first time seeing such a powerful ‘anti-disciplinary’ force in all his time in the position of the disciplinary committee vice-chair.

Even though Ariel, Noreya, and Elaine were are princesses with no real power or authority and could, therefore, be somewhat ignored. Princess Lisha, however, was a dragon knight just like the head-chair of the disciplinary committee, Natasha. If Lisha were to stubbornly resist, then the disciplinary council really couldn’t do much about her.

“Are you all planning to resist the disciplinary committee’s decisions? Do all of you want to go have a chat in our…”

“I mean, we just finished our registration today, if it really comes down to it, we could all just drop out. Lisha, I think that I’m going to drop…”

“Me too…”

“Count me in…”

Now it was Natasha’s turn to be dumbfounded, even though she had always been rather stubborn and uptight, it would be quite the negative news if people found out that the Olsyvia Academy’s disciplinary council had forced five princesses and a duchess to drop out of school. Seeing that the two sides were about to break off negotiations, the vice-chair Count Kadir quickly tried to repair the situation.

“Please think this through, your Highnesses! There’s nothing that can’t be settled with a proper talk, it’s just that Miss Natasha, our committee head is quite impulsive herself. Duchess Bellina, the reason why we’re here is to ask for your help in something that we’re currently investigating. We’ve received reports from multiple students of a large-scale fight between two groups of nobles in front of the Francis Branch Academy’s dining hall. Just a while ago, we managed to detain Beerbohm’s group who had instigated the fight, many of them had testified that you were the…”

“He’s framing me, the entire continent knows that his family had just suffered a crippling defeat at the hands of my army during that border conflict a couple weeks ago. He’s definitely just putting the blame on me as some sort of petty revenge!”

Currently, Bella was currently cursing Beerbohm’s entire family. Hadn’t she told that dumbass to get out of there, how did he get caught so fast. Bella decided that she wasn’t going to pay a single penny of the original amount that she had promised him earlier, perhaps she would even force him to pay her instead.

“Which is why we need your assistance…”

“I humbly decline, you want to detain a Duchess, with just the verbal accusation of a Count? I’m not going to be coming with you unless you can provide some material evidence!”

“We’re not saying that you’re the one behind it…but…”

“We, the Chuch of Light, can guarantee Duchess Bellina’s virtuous character! It must just be a spectacular misunderstanding, Bellina’s… kindness is something that not only us two, but all four of the Church’s holy maidens can attest to. You must have gotten the wrong person!”

Right as the two sides were at a deadlock, the Church of Light’s 4th holy maiden Daisy and 3rd holy maiden Susan, who had just happened to walk by, intervened in the situation. Daisy was the Salo faction’s holy maiden and was probably the closest to Bella of the four holy maidens. Daisy had quickly chosen to step in after seeing that Bella had been confronted by members of the disciplinary committee.

As for Susan, she had secretly already ‘belonged’ to Bella. Seeing that Daisy had stepped in before her, she chose not to say anything herself, but also showed no sign of disproving what Daisy was claiming. Basically proving that Daisy was telling the truth.

Natasha’s face changed to one of awkwardness but quickly shifted to a more serious one. Natasha hadn’t expected for the Church of Light to intervene in this matter, especially not from both the Salo and the Alan factions who had united together to defend Duchess Bellina. Wasn’t this Bellina just another ‘new money’ noble who had bought her peerage? So why was it that there were so many people willing to stand behind her?

“Excuse me for a minute, Classmate Natasha, I’m definitely being framed. My good friend Kriss can prove my virtuous personality, if you don’t believe me, she’ll be arriving at the academy soon… Oh, I just remembered, she and I had made a promise to attend the same academy.”

“You… Are you threatening me?”

“You’ve got the wrong idea! I can swear on the god of light that I really wasn’t the one behind all of this. I am a faithful believer of the Church of Light, you should know what it means for me to make this oath!”

“Bellina… I hope that you remember what you just swore. I’ll be keeping an eye on you for as long as you are a student of the Olsyvia Academy! Kadir, finish dealing with the stuff here, I’m going to take some members to see if we can find any clues elsewhere.”

“Head-chair Natasha, at the dining hall… there should still be…”

“You go deal with it, I’m a bit tired.”

Natasha finally gave in to the sheer amount of power behind Bella. Not only were there princesses from all five empires as well as the holy maidens from the Church of Light, the princesses Lisha and Kriss were also regarded as heroes amongst the general population for their accomplishment of saving the town of Sakerid from the undead disaster that had happened a while ago. If all of these people were standing behind Bella, it would actually be near impossible for Natasha to detain Bella for questioning back at the disciplinary committee’s office.

Before Natasha turned away, Bella was able to see a few tears trickling down her face. Bella knew that she would probably have to fix relations with Natasha sometime in the future, it wouldn’t be exactly the best thing for her academy life to have pissed of the head-chair of the disciplinary committee. Ever since Natasha had become the head-chair of the disciplinary committee, she had never been thwarted like she had been by Bella today, and today’s events had definitely hurt her self-esteem. In Natasha’s heart, Bella had already left behind a strong impression.

___

The Saviour Scout and his newly recruited hero henchmen were still waiting back at the scene in front of the dining hall. Scout was rather confused as his original plan had been to cause some commotion at the dining hall, where they would manage to save the damsels in distress by taking care of the hooligans, and then he himself would take care of the disciplinary committee members after they showed up. After which the entire academy would have heard of the name Scout, and all of the academy’s girls would turn their eyes to the once useless young noble turned genius.

However, the ‘actors’ that he had hired never showed up, neither did the members of the disciplinary committee. What had gone wrong with his ingenious plan? He had hoped to make headlines on the school headlines after doing all of this! His biggest disappointment about his plan’s failure was that he had not been able to see the head-chair of the disciplinary committee, as Esther Natasha was ranked as one of the academy’s new school year’s top 10 beauties by some people who didn’t have any better things to do with their lives.

Scout was still thinking of a way to make more problems and eventually get the attention of the disciplinary committee, and then find a way from there to get into good relations with Natasha, preferably making Natasha his woman. Little did he know, he would no longer have any chance to see Natasha, even if he did attract the attention of the disciplinary committee. The reason being that Natasha would become a certain person’s full-time stalker and didn’t spare any time for anything else.

___

In the western part of the Olsyvia Academy, the Euphemia Royalty branch academy’s student council office, three girls were currently discussing something. A girl with violet coloured hair sat behind the desk belonging to the president of the Euphemia branch Academy’s student council, showing off her identity. Her blue eyes calmed gazed at the girl in front of her, the light cast on her by the office’s magic lamps further accentuated the air of royalty coming from her.

This unearthly beauty was the 1st princess of the Manasville Empire, Manas Ese, who was also the president of the Euphemia branch Academy’s student council. She ranked top three in this new school year’s top 10 beauties and was quite popular among the student body.

In front of Ese was a silver-haired girl with purple eyes whose beauty could even rival that of hers. Beside Ese sat a loli with golden twin tails that looked enviously at both Kriss and Ese, her gaze bouncing between them, probably envious of the two’s unearthly beauty that had put her own outstanding one to shame.

“Mathilde Kriss, are you serious!? You’re the Gabriel Empire’s 1st princess, and quite well respected by the other students as well, why do you want to move in with a noble? Especially a problem character like Duchess Bellina who had purchased her… Do you not care about your reputation?”

“President Ese, of course, I’m serious. The ‘problem character’ that you’re mentioning is my best friend, and those gossipers aren’t going to change my opinion about her. Be… Bellina isn’t at all like what the rumours say. President Lucia, am I welcomed to move into your branch’s dorms?

“Kriss, how about you read this article first!”

“Er, this is…”

Kriss received something similar to a magazine from Ese, the title of the first headline on the front page was ‘The Head of the Disciplinary Council Finally Admits Defeat!? The First Person that Esther Natasha has Failed to Detain!’. If this was the title of an article from Earth, it would definitely be on one of those click-baiting sites that only show a small aspect of the actual story and twists it to gather more attention. At first, Kriss didn’t plan on reading it at all, but with some pushing from Ese, she read the first few sentences and quickly locked onto the name ‘Bellina’.

ESE

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