Vol 3. Chapter 68: Am I Part of Your PLAY?

Vinny opened his mouth. He really wanted to ask the two of them whether they’d forgotten that they were here to tutor him, but in the end, he once again chose to shut it.

It wasn’t that he was chickening out. It was because he felt these two girls were chatting with each other with quite a bit of “heat”—so heated that he felt if he dared to butt in at this moment, he’d be someone who completely couldn’t read faces or sense the mood.

The two girls just kept looking at each other like that. Their exchange could still barely be called friendly, and yet, there was a kind of tense “swords drawn, bows bent” feeling hanging in the air.

Stuck between them, Vinny was completely at a loss. He felt he ought to take some measures so he wouldn’t end up getting caught in the blast radius of the pressure field between the two of them, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

He couldn’t very well have the two of them arguing, while he scooted closer to Shicodale to get away from the turbulence between them, right?? Vinny had the strong feeling that if he really did that, things would only get worse. Those two cannons might switch from facing each other to turning both barrels on him alone, and that would be even more of a disaster.

It was right at that moment that the class bell finally rang, like a savior making their entrance, pulling Vinny out of his sea of suffering.

Vinny let out a breath, feeling like he’d finally been freed from this horrifying pressure. However, after the instructor walked into the classroom, he realized another serious problem.

These two didn’t seem to have any intention of moving from their current seats, huh??

But when Isatia came over, she didn’t bring her textbook, did she??

“Ah, Classmate Isatia, you seem to have come a bit too hastily. Do you need me to lend you my textbook~?” Whatever Aesphyra was thinking, her face was full of goodwill. Her seat was already close to Vinny’s, so it was easy for her to reach into her bag for the book.

Tsk, tsk, this damn green-eyed girl. The old habit’s acting up again. Trying to use this opportunity to have some physical contact with Isatia to push the relationship forward, huh??

Vinny couldn’t help but silently look down on her.

“No need.” Isatia replied with perfect composure, as if she’d long since anticipated this situation. As she spoke, she leaned in closer to Vinny. “I can just squeeze in with Classmate Vinny. That way I can also tutor him while I’m at it.”

“...” Aesphyra only smiled without speaking.

Pfft.

Vinny didn’t know why, but seeing Aesphyra’s “failed flirting” and eating-dirt look, he found it absolutely hilarious.

He carefully glanced to his side. Isatia and Aesphyra were both sitting properly on his left. Aesphyra had no intention of leaving either—she just opened her textbook and got ready for class.

“Classmate Vinny, do your best to understand as much as you can for now. I’ll teach you again after class,” Isatia said, her cool voice carrying a faint warmth you could actually feel.

“Ah, oh! Okay. Thanks a lot.” Once Vinny came back to his senses, he ignored Aesphyra’s soft laugh beside them and gave his thanks to Isatia.

As expected, during this class, Vinny was once again just “taking a flight,” listening to heavenly scriptures. It was the same familiar formula, the same familiar flavor. He could hear every individual word, but once they were strung together, they became a string of completely unfathomable, mysterious symbols. He could not understand a single term.

Vinny knew his single-core processor couldn’t keep up with the times anymore, but he hadn’t thought the generation gap would be this huge.

His one and only impression was that Isatia smelled really good.

Hey, hey! This really wasn’t him being horny! It was an honest thought, okay? You couldn’t seriously expect him to have a cool, aloof, long-haired black-haired beauty sitting right next to him and still “sit there with a heart like still water,” could you??

Wouldn’t that be the greatest disrespect to her??

Very soon, the class ended in a blur. The instructors of Carillian Academy were, after all, an elite team; they could obviously tell that a certain someone, having missed a few days of class, could not understand anything at all. So the instructor kindly told Vinny that he could come find him after class if there was anything he didn’t understand.

Vinny had also thought about going to the instructor if he didn’t understand something, but—

He glanced at Isatia beside him and felt like he was tied down and couldn’t get up from his seat at all.

Isatia had seen him listening to heavenly scriptures for the entire class and had specially come over to sit next to him to teach him. For him to immediately turn around and go find the instructor instead—wouldn’t that be really awkward behavior??

So Vinny definitely wasn’t going to go down to ask the instructor to teach him. He’d just ask Isatia beside him to keep teaching him.

As for this class—

He hadn’t understood the content to begin with, and there was a low-pressure field constantly emanating from his side, which was even scarier. It would repeatedly strip away his attention and force him to sneak glances at the “other battlefield” to his left.

Vinny didn’t know why he unconsciously chose the word “battlefield” to describe Aesphyra and Isatia sitting on his left. He only felt that if he were sitting between the two of them right now, he would probably already have been ravaged by the storm until he was in pieces.

Granted, with the breadth and nobility of these two, they definitely wouldn’t do something like kicking each other under the table, but Vinny still felt the atmosphere between them was extremely subtle.

In the original work, the relationship between these two was pretty fiery. They were a Schrödinger’s “who’s on the bottom” pair. Just like the famous law that “when there are two bottoms, one must be on top,” if there are two tops, then one of them has to be on the bottom. Vinny remembered that in the original work, between Aesphyra and Isatia, who “went on top” depended on which one of them had the stronger “top energy” at the time; whoever lost in their top-versus-top contest would be the one on the bottom.

In other words, the result was random every time, which was pretty entertaining.

Vinny wasn’t sure whether the two of them were currently playing that PLAY right now and had just happened to grab onto the topic of the engagement, which then turned into an unending argument and power struggle over who got to lead. After all, for strong-willed people, wanting to take the lead in any given topic was perfectly normal.

You really had to hand it to Isatia for her clear, easy-to-understand way of explaining things. After teaching Vinny through the whole break, he had at least managed to catch up a little bit.

Well, you couldn’t quite say Isatia was particularly good at teaching people. It was more that her learning ability was so ridiculously strong that there was basically nothing she wasn’t good at. This was just the least conspicuous of her many shining points.

Aesphyra was the same way. However, this girl had just recently tried to use the whole “teaching” matter as leverage to toy with him.

You could only say the difference in level was obvious. Isatia’s appearance had turned a certain white-haired nutball into a complete clown.

Vinny had also noticed during class that aside from giving him some tutoring, the two of them had almost all of their attention on each other. You could say they were not yielding an inch, with nothing and no one in their eyes but each other, to the point that Vinny himself felt he had absolutely no room to wedge himself between them at all.

Was this the gears of fate in the original work turning once more, putting these two on the same tooth of the cog again, lining their sights up with each other??

Vinny still remembered there were quite a few people at Carillian Academy who shipped this pair. The first and second-ranked of the year with a relationship of rivalry and sworn enemies, both high-born beauties, both domineering types, and even their hair colors had incredible ship appeal—one white, one black.

And you know what??

Soon, the class ended. All morning, Vinny had been in a daze. He felt like he had come to class, and yet it also felt like he hadn’t. The entire time, everything was shrouded in clouds and mist. The instructor on the podium opened and closed his mouth as if he were speaking, but Vinny just had no idea what exactly he was talking about.

It looked like the gaps in his knowledge could only be filled in by Isatia’s follow-up explanations, huh.

It was only when he saw his classmates filing out of the classroom one after another that Vinny realized the morning’s classes were almost over. There was only one final class left.

If Vinny remembered correctly, the last class was combat class, held at the training field, and as the last class of the morning, everyone packed up their textbooks and headed out of the Teaching Hall.

Vinny looked at Shicodale’s blankly cute face beside him, then at Isatia and Aesphyra on his left.

Two living dads—no, two living moms.

Aesphyra tidied up her textbooks first and stood up. She glanced at Isatia, who was still sitting in her seat.

“Classmate Isatia, you’re amazing. You don’t seem to have any pressure at all with the academic subjects. Looks like you’re quite a ways ahead on the syllabus,” Aesphyra praised.

“It’s fine.” Isatia answered Aesphyra without even lifting her eyes, giving a very perfunctory reply. “When it comes to this, I’m far inferior to you, Classmate Aesphyra.”

“I really do think you’re incredible and outstanding, Classmate Isatia.” Aesphyra said with a squinting smile. “I looked over last term’s written finals for the academic exams. You got a perfect score too, didn’t you?”

“Classmate Aesphyra has quite some refined taste and leisure time,” Isatia said, clearly referring to how Aesphyra had deliberately gone and checked her scores so closely.

“Of course. I’ve always paid close attention to you, Classmate Isatia~” Aesphyra tilted her head and admitted frankly, smiling like a dainty little jade-white fox.

Tsk, tsk, here we go again, huh??

Vinny sent Aesphyra a look of contempt.

This white-haired nutball was starting to flirt again.

“Is that so? Then I suppose I should say thank you for valuing me so much, Classmate Aesphyra?” Isatia lifted her gaze and glanced at Aesphyra.

“Mm-hm~ I keep a close eye on the rankings too. After all, Classmate Isatia, you’re second in the year. If I don’t pay a bit more attention, who knows if one day you’ll surpass me.” Aesphyra’s tone sounded like she was just stating a very ordinary sentence. Well, if it hadn’t been for that “second in the year” and “might surpass me one day” being emphasized ever so slightly, with a stress that was hard to notice but definitely there, it might really have been just a simple modest turn of phrase.

With Isatia’s sharpness, there was no way she wouldn’t notice, but Aesphyra acted like she was completely unaware, as if she thought Isatia wouldn’t care about such little details at all as she said it.

“...” Isatia was silent for a moment, then got up, walked around Aesphyra, and went to where she had been before to pack up her own bag.

“Uh, uh?” Vinny looked at Isatia’s back and then at Aesphyra, who was still watching Isatia and smiling brightly.

“Classmate Vinny, Classmate Isatia and Classmate Aesphyra... did they get into a fight? Over what?” Then the dazed, fluffy white-haired little elf beside him scooted closer and quietly asked Vinny.

“Shh, kids shouldn’t talk nonsense. What do you know? The two of them get along great; they were just flirting and bickering just now! Which eye of yours saw them fighting??” Vinny put a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture and rolled his eyes at Shicodale, muttering quietly.

“Flirting... and bickering?” Shicodale tilted his head. He still didn’t really understand the definition of that term, but he just felt like that wasn’t how they’d been interacting before.

Elves were very sensitive to emotional fluctuations. Shicodale could clearly detect the faint emotional ripples in their earlier conversation and what sort of emotions the two of them had been speaking with.

Emotional ripples?

Even if there had been emotional ripples, Vinny wouldn’t have known. His Virtue System only reacted to emotional fluctuations that Destiny Heroines had because of him, changes in [Virtue]. If a Destiny Heroine’s emotional fluctuations were caused by some other Destiny Heroine, he would not react at all and would never know.

“Alright, enough. This isn’t something a kid like you ought to be understanding.” Vinny lectured Shicodale in the tone of an adult. “Classmate Dale, don’t be curious. You’ll experience it sooner or later—but not now. Got it?”

“Eh—eh, eh?!” Shicodale froze, and once he realized what Vinny had just said, for whatever reason, a faint blush rose to his cheeks.

[Virtue +50]

[Current Virtue: 4684]

This kid was way too easy to fluster.

Vinny scratched his head.

Once they’d finished packing their textbooks, the whole class headed for the training field.

Today’s combat class was a bit different. Previously, it had all been unarmed combat. Today, it was armed combat. Aside from not being allowed to use Spirit Souls, enchanted tools, or alchemy potions, everything depended entirely on their personal ability.

After changing into his training uniform, Vinny walked onto the training field.

Mm, everyone else had basically changed into their training uniforms too.

Vinny even spotted a certain golden-haired elven brat sticking her tongue out and making a “bleh-bleh-bleh” face at him in secret.

That damned golden elf brat was asking for a beating again. The scar had barely healed and she’d forgotten the pain already. Had she already forgotten the humiliation of being thoroughly beaten by him in combat class last time??

The combat instructor had already been teaching their class for a whole term. They were old acquaintances by now. As soon as she came up, she ordered everyone to go to the weapons rack beside the training field and grab whichever training weapon they were best at.

Vinny walked up and picked out a training spear—one of the practice models—and gave it a few swings on the spot.

He had never systematically learned any fancy spear arts, but this was the weapon he was most familiar with. He’d gone through life-and-death situations so many times, and it had always been with this in his hands.

“Alright, we have a lot of time this class. Everyone, your rankings will be involved in the arena matches later. So today, we’re going to simulate an arena battle.” The female combat instructor spoke and then had the students form a ring around the training field, leaving the middle open.

“Who wants to go first? Don’t get nervous just because so many people are watching. They’re all classmates; there’s nothing to be afraid of. Later, when you’re in real arena matches, the people standing below will be a crowd of strangers of all different years whom you don’t know at all. It’s best to practice your mindset about being watched now.”

“Instructor, I’m willing to go first.” Very soon, a male student walked up with his training saber, swaggering onto the field.

Vinny recognized him. This one seemed to be a student in their class from the Tyrel Empire.

“Very good. Then pick your opponent,” the female instructor said, arms folded.

“Haha.” The tall male student chuckled a few times without rushing to pick someone. “I’m sure everyone knows there was a little incident in the Marsmo Secret Realm a while back. A classmate was trapped inside the Secret Realm. It was extremely dangerous. But thanks to the decisive composure and strength of the people involved, they managed to cut their way out of the encirclement.”

“I was really on edge for them back then. I was incredibly happy that they escaped, but at the same time, I was also really curious about Classmate Vinny, who kept his cool inside the Secret Realm. Just how strong is he, exactly?”

Well, damn, that dagger came out of the map pretty fast, didn’t it??

Realizing that all of his classmates’ gazes had fallen on him along with the Imperial male student’s words, Vinny yawned with a look of utter boredom.

“Classmate Vinny, your injuries should be all healed up by now, right?” the male student joked in a teasing tone. “I mean, I heard you weren’t actually all that injured to begin with.”

“I wonder if you could show us today the explosive power you displayed in the Secret Realm, as well as the strength of someone ranked twenty-third in the year?”

Tsk, tsk.

Vinny knew it would turn out like this.