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A week has passed since the entrance ceremony, and for us new students, this is the real beginning of our new life. Still, it seems that the atmosphere this year is different from the last’s.

「Say Aura, will you be joining us for tea?」
「I’m very sorry, Miss Hermie. There is something I need to research about, please invite me again in another time.」
「Oh my, then it can’t be helped. If you have the chance, join us next time and feel free to invite your friends as well.」
「Yes, of course.」

Based on what I’ve heard from my upperclassman, at this point in time, rejecting the invitation of Miss Hermie, a daughter of the purple peer household, is unacceptable. Rejecting the invitation of Miss Hermie, who is considered to be the leader of the second prince faction, would inevitably result in her faction becoming hostile against you. Going against the second prince faction, the largest faction in the academy, should be inconceivable; but the new students this year are the only exception to this.

This is because Miss Lily of the Iglesio household, a house supposedly in a neutral position, is together with the daughter of the Purple Peer Ormos, Miss Solarima, who is supposed to be of the first prince faction, and the son of White Peer Bodwin, Sir Teybert, who is supposed to be of the second prince faction. That in of itself is not a problem. Well it is a problem, but the real issue is that the three of them all rejected both the first and the second prince faction’s invitation to their lunch meeting.

The anti-monarchy faction was greatly delighted about this news. Both the Purple House of Ormos and the White House of Bodwin are nobility of great influence in Auretias Kingdom, and with the addition of the House of Iglesio, then there will be nothing more to fear, so it’s an understandable reaction.

However, at the start of the week, the members of the anti-monarchy faction were dejected. That’s understandable as well, as despite their spirited invitation to the three of them, they didn’t accept the anti-monarchy faction’s invitation.

In the end, the three of them did not express their support to any faction, and thanks to this, us neutrals are able to avoid having to give definite answers to both factions. Based on what my upperclassman told me, professors will harass the students that decided to join the faction opposite to theirs, so I’m really happy that this happened.

I was worried that I might still get harassed for not joining a faction but there isn’t any sign of that happening so far. Now that I think of it, if you harass someone that may or may not choose to join your faction in the future, it’ll defeat the purpose of the harassment since they could end up joining the opposing faction.

Thanks to this, I can comfortably participate in class. Still, the classes here are quite peculiar. Different from the town schools, classes such as History and Language are only given minimum attention but classes such as Magical Theory and Application are abundant in exchange, and I can barely keep up.

「Focus your magic power on your right hand! Keep it that way! To start, keep it up for three minutes! After doing that successfully, extend your time to five, then ten minutes!」

Right now, we’re practicing magic power control in Professor Herman’s class, but this is considerably difficult. It was easy to do the first few times, but after repeating it many times, you get tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and you start to lose focus. Once that happens, maintaining the amount of magic power becomes immediately more difficult, and the magic power will then disperse.

By my tenth blunder, I couldn’t help but wonder how the others kept it up, so I stole a glance at the top student Miss Lily, and I was immediately at loss for words. With an extremely bored expression, Miss Lily shockingly gathered magic power in both her hands, turned it into a ball, and threw it into the air. Then before it could start falling to down, she gathered magic power in her hands once again, threw another ball before catching the one in the air, and began juggling.

She turned magic power dense enough to be visible into a perfect sphere, maintaining the shape even when the magic power separated from her body, controlling four… no, while she was juggling, the spheres of magic power has increased without me noticing. 5, 6, 7… How many of these spheres does she even intend to simultaneously keep under her control?

Ah, Professor Herman noticed what Miss Lily is doing. With a cramped smile, it seems that he mildly rebuked her but after Miss Lily said something, he backed down. Ethel of the first prince faction seems to look angry due to that but it’s clear that Miss Lily, with her display of great proficiency in magic power control, doesn’t need this class.

After that, I was captivated by Miss Lily’s splendid juggling, and then I suddenly made eye contact with her. I was staring at her for a long time, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that she noticed my gaze. It feels like I’ve been caught doing something improper, making me shrink and get red in the cheeks but Miss Lily simply showed me a blooming smile.¹

After that, I somehow managed to regain my focus; and as I successfully kept my magic power for ten minutes somehow, today’s class finally ended. As I was feeling down from thinking how I would likely fall behind if I don’t practice this more on my own, Miss Lily approached me for some reason.

「I believe you are Miss Auralima from the Household of Yellow Peer Kirkwood, correct? Are you perhaps familiar with my name?」
「Ye-yeash! I-I-I’ve heard a lot about you, Mi-mi-miss Lily!」
「I’m glad to hear that. Miss Auralima, it would seem like you’re not very proficient in magic control.」

Having Miss Lily, the top student and the focus of interest in the academy, talk to someone like me is already overwhelming enough, and yet she even saw me in my failure. Ah, I just want to disappear.

「M-m-my apologies! Pardon my unsightly display!」
「Ah, excuse my discourtesy. It wasn’t my intention to criticize your skill. But how does this sound? Miss Auralima, would you like to join us in our magic training? 」
「Ye-ye-yes!?」

As I instinctively apologized and was about to run from this situation, Miss Lily gave a suggestion that was far beyond what I ever imagined to hear right now.

1. Lyly: Lady killer. Well, everybody killer if we put old man Kent’s reaction into consideration.