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「Have you calmed down?」

As Ms. Claura was flustered by the large amount of money before her, Ciel called for her. While it’s not much, I do find Ciel being able to do small gestures like this to be a sign of social growth.
Even if this was just done to urge Ms. Claura to continue our discussion.

「Y-yes. Still, I’m scared of carrying this around, so could you deliver this to the appropriate personnel later on?」
「Is it fine if Mia delivers it?」
「Mia?… Ah, if you mean your attendant, of course.」

There’s no guarantee that Ms. Claura wouldn’t run off with it, after all. As long as the payment reaches the academy, it’s no issue. At any rate, there are other fees that also need settlement anyway, so it’s probably best that we pay them altogether.

「Now then, next is the dormitory papers, but I’ll have to talk with the dormitory-in-charge first, so would you mind waiting for a bit?」
「Understood.」

With Ciel’s response, Ms. Claura left the room.

「I wonder what she needs to talk about.」
「If I had to guess, it’s to confirm the room availability? The academy unlikely expected you to be brought here, and perhaps because of that, it might not be easy to communicate with the personnel responsible for room assignment.」
「That sounds plausible. Then does that mean that the room we want might not be available?」
「It’s a possibility, but I believe that won’t be the case.」
「Really?」

Financially speaking, it’s not an amount to be spent so easily, and as those who attend the second academy are generally not heirs, there are probably families that would rather not expend too much for their education.
And there are also families that can’t afford it to begin with.
While listening to, and occasionally joining, Ciel and Mia’s conversation, Ms. Claura eventually returned.

「Apologies for the long wait. I’ve confirmed the room; would you like to be guided there now?」
「Understood.」

Following behind Ms. Claura as she exited the room again, we headed to the dormitory.

◇◇◇

Next to the main academy building is the girl’s dormitory, and it’s really wide.
Apparently, the boy’s dorm on the opposite side has a similar construction, but the fact that they can build establishments like these speaks greatly of the kingdom’s technological prowess.
As we walked past clean and well-maintained hallways, Ms. Claura opened a door at the end of the corridor, which hid a small closet with what appeared to be a staff standing at the center.

『The room itself seems to be a sorceric tool. I wonder what it’s for, though.』
『It’s likely used to go to the floors above.』

In old-world terms, it’s an elevator.
While the dormitory building is wide, it’s also around six storeys high.
I personally don’t think it warrants the necessity of an elevator, but six storeys may be a bit rough for daughters of nobility.

「It’s going to be a bit shaky, so brace yourself.」
「We’re going to the upper floors, right?」
「Wow! I’m surprised you know!」
「The staff in the middle seemed unnatural, so I thought it might be a sorceric tool.」
「Miss Ailneige, do you have interest in sorceric tools?」
「Right. I’m curious enough to think of learning about it, at least.」

Though it’s not Ciel that has interest in it, but me.
I do think she has some interest in the subject, but probably not enough to undertake classes on it.
Ms. Claura cheerfully responded, 「I see」 as she tapped the gem crowning the staff twice.

The sorceric elevator started to move, causing that characteristic floating sensation, and it stopped thirty seconds after.
As the door opened, we were welcomed by a warm lounge room furnished with sofas, tables, and bookshelves. There were also two other doors similar to our elevator door, one on each left and right side of the room.

「The last room on this floor will be your room, Miss Ailneige.」
「Are there others occupying this floor, too?」
「There are three others from your year level and one from a higher year, so five of you in total.」
「There’s a lot this year.」
「There are years when no rooms are occupied at all, so it’s honestly a surprise.
The announcement of passers still isn’t finished, so there may be more occupants, but it’s most probably unlikely.」

Assuming one of them is the red-haired noble girl, the only other person I can think of is the elf girl that stood out during the entrance exam.
Princess Leshimiiya should reside one floor above us, so that leaves one other passer we don’t know.
And with the elf girl, I’m not even sure that she’ll get a room on this floor.

And then there’s the sole upperclassman. This one feels like danger.
Why? It’s because I’ve been persistently feeling her magic power ever since we set foot on this floor.
It’s concealed in a way that skilled people can sense it, and I feel that she has at least around half of Ciel’s magic power capacity.
Since this seems to be a deliberate display, perhaps she might actually have the same amount of magic power as Ciel.

I should be able to gain more information through detection, but she might counter-detect me, so I’m keeping to myself.
Ciel seems to have noticed her magic power as well, but she doesn’t seem to care much.
As for Mia, she seems to only feel that something’s vaguely amiss.

「This will be your room, Miss Ailneige. You are free to redecorate the interior, but please avoid damaging the furnishings inside.」

As this happened in the background, we arrived before the room we will be staying at from now on.
It had a dark brown door with an air of luxury to it.
As the door opened, inside was a space wide enough to contain a classroom, with several doors connecting to other rooms.
At the end of the spacious room is a bed, with partitions surrounding it.
On one side, there is a study desk, while a sofa is on another. And close to the entrance door is a large table set that seems to be for tea parties.

How do I describe it? It’s like a study room and a bedroom was squeezed into a single space.
Though squeezed isn’t the right word considering how spacious it is. In terms of pure width, it’s actually bigger than our manor room.

「To briefly orient you regarding the dormitory, the first, second, and fourth floors and above are where students reside, while the third floor is occupied by the mess hall and cafeteria.
While your room is equipped with a kitchenette, you can get breakfast and dinner in the mess hall, so feel free to avail yourself of the meals as much as you like.
In general, you will be using this fifth floor and the third one the most, so keep it in mind.」
「So there’s a separation.」
「It’s to prevent those from the lower floors from going up, I guess.
Apparently, various incidents happened in the past that resulted in such a clear division within the dorms.
That’s why, Miss Ailneige, please take care to not loiter much on the other floors.」
「Understood.」

It’s an awfully curt answer, very in character for Ciel.
Despite that, it seems like she does understand the meaning behind Ms. Claura’s words.

Children of aristocrats are sure to have expensive belongings; for a commoner, selling even a single noble hair accessory could earn enough to live comfortably for a while.
I don’t believe sticky-fingered children would be allowed to enter the academy so easily, but it is possible for those who are in sudden need of money to be motivated to steal.

On the other hand, there might have been nobles constantly complaining about commoners clamoring by their rooms. In some cases, maybe they went even further than just complaining.
While the academy may have a strong push for equality, they probably want to avoid unnecessary troubles as well.
Commoners and nobles rarely go as far as to share their private times anyway; moreover, we would rather avoid troubles as well, so I can’t really complain about that.
And honestly, commenting on it wouldn’t really change anything either.

「Well then, for any further questions, you can find the dorm supervisor’s office on the third floor, so feel free to inquire there.
There are instructions on what to do next among the documents I gave earlier, so please follow those.」

Quickly leaving those words, Ms. Claura rushed out of the room.
I’m sure she has other commitments that need her attention.
After all, this was an unplanned arrangement; if there’s anyone to blame, it would be the boy who pestered us at the academy gates.

「Now then, Lady Cielmer. I will be arranging the room, so please feel free to rest wherever you may please.」
「Is it really alright for me to do nothing?」
「Let’s see… Then if you have any preferences, it would be appreciated if you voiced them out.」
「Now that’s troublesome. I’m almost sure that I can’t think of a better room plan than Mia can. I’ll just sit quietly and behave.」

Saying so, Ciel sat on the bed at the end of the room.
It’s quite well-built and has a good bounce to it.
Still, I prefer the comfort of the bed we had at the manor.

『Since we have free time, why don’t we think over which courses to take? If we scan the documents, we should see the courses we can study.』
「True. By the way, what should be our end goal here in the academy?」
『To start with, graduating would be one. I believe the requirements for graduating should be written in the provided materials as well.』

With my response, Ciel started scanning through the documents.
We’ve talked about how school is a place of learning before, and I do wish that Ciel can find friends here, but now that she mentioned it, we haven’t really talked about our goals after enrolling.
We have previously talked about what we’d like to learn, yes, but we never really discussed how to graduate.

Actually, graduating from school was a given in my mind, to the point I didn’t even question it.
Ciel surely has some idea of what graduating entails, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she only has a vague idea about it.

「Found it. From what’s written here, we just have to get passing grades in a program, it seems.」
『After graduating, you should be around the age where you’ll need to find work, so even if you haven’t reached mastery yet, a certain level of skill will be required of you.
Hunters, for example, need to reach D-rank to graduate, so the other programs will likely demand a similar level of proficiency in their specialization.』
「In that case, graduating doesn’t seem that difficult.」

If it were Cielmer, we can basically graduate any time, since she’s already an A-rank hunter.
And in terms of sorcery, there aren’t many who can best Ciel.

『Now that I think about it, we don’t actually need to graduate.
Even if we don’t, it wouldn’t really affect us much. We can probably just consider graduating as a bonus. I think it’s best if we simply do as we like without thinking too hard about things.』
「Right, let’s do that. Still, Ain, you have to actually come out here in the academy, okay?」
『I’ll do so during the courses that I want to study.』
「If you won’t come out for other times, I won’t let you switch out.」

Ciel said with a mischievous smile.

And that ends this chapter! While she was very amicable and sunny, poor Ms. Claura really wanted to leave ASAP, lol. She probably had her own line of students that she had to leave because of the noble boy fuss.

As for our girls, now they’re in either everyone’s favorite or least favorite part of the enrollment process, choosing your classes. The previous chapter revealed that they failed one subject, I wonder if that will affect their subject choices. Also, Ciel is in the initiative pushing Ain to go out more, cute. No more being a shut in, Ain!

Now then, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to comment. Stay healthy, stay safe, and have a nice day~!

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