Vol 3. Chapter 100: Kid, Nice Eyes

“It’s you??”

The red-haired girl who’d just come in stared at Vinny in the same surprise. Clearly, she hadn’t expected to be assigned to the same carriage as him, either.

Vinny gave the girl with the red hair pulled back in a long single ponytail—a lively, bright-looking girl—a once-over. Ever since they parted last time, he hadn’t seen this knight girl named Fennia in quite a while.

Or rather, this would-be knight girl who’d sworn to become a Radiant Cross Knight. She wasn’t one yet.

“I didn’t expect it either. So it’s you, huh? Long time no see.”

Seeing the red-haired girl, Vinny was the first one to speak up. They didn’t really have any deeper grudge. After last time, Fennia had even apologized to him, admitting that what she’d said before had been inappropriate and biased.

Vinny considered himself a pretty magnanimous person. As long as someone wasn’t dead set on butting heads with him, he usually wouldn’t dwell on it too much.

“Ah? Mm. Yes. Long time no see.”

As if she hadn’t expected Vinny’s attitude toward her to be this good, Fennia seemed a bit slow on the uptake for a moment.

“Eh?”

Shicodale blinked his big eyes and looked at Fennia in some surprise. If he remembered correctly, this red-haired girl had once come looking for trouble with Vinny. Their relationship should’ve been extremely tense.

Seeing Shicodale and Vinny sitting together on the seats, Fennia dragged her suitcase over and sat in the middle seat, not saying a word.

“Ah, hey?”

The second-year guy glanced at Fennia, then at the two sitting together, and finally realized they all knew each other—he was the only solo.

“So you three all know each other? Haha, that’s some coincidence.”

Not knowing what exactly their relationships were, the guy just joked around when he saw that the three of them were acquainted.

“Mm.”

Vinny didn’t really know what to say. Things between him and Fennia were still pretty awkward, so there wasn’t much to talk about. All he could do was quietly grunt in acknowledgment.

“Vinny, how have you been lately?”

Fennia asked in a tone that never quite let her gaze settle on him, like it was a casual, offhand question.

“Mm. I’ve been okay. What about you, Fennia?”

“I’ve been okay, too.”

The conversation between the two of them was extremely awkward—the kind where you have nothing to say but stubbornly try to find something anyway.

“Oh? Buddy, you’re Vinny??”

The guy next to them heard his name and immediately widened his eyes, looking at Vinny in disbelief.

“Yeah. You know me?” Vinny asked curiously.

“Haha, I’ve heard about you. Junior Vinny, you’re one of the three first-years who stepped into the Magus realm, right?” the guy said.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Truly gifted. I really envy your talent. Right now I’m only a mid-tier Sorcerer, just barely touching the threshold of high-tier Sorcerer. The Magus realm is nowhere in sight for me. I don’t even know how long it’ll take before I can formally see that door to the Magus realm,” the guy said with a sigh, his tone full of helplessness.

Across the entire Tyrelis Continent, he was without a doubt a genius. So young and already about to advance to high-tier Sorcerer, with stepping into the Magus realm within his lifetime practically guaranteed—a bright future by any measure. But at Carillian Academy, where geniuses were piled on top of each other, his talent looked downright ordinary, disappearing into the crowd.

On that point, Vinny understood that he’d taken a shortcut. That bottleneck that had blocked countless people, the step from high-tier Sorcerer to Magus—he had only needed to tap once to cross it, saving himself mountains of effort, sweat, and the risk of failing his advancement.

It wasn’t that there was no effort or sweat involved. It was just that all the effort and sweat had happened on someone else’s face.

“Don’t get too discouraged, man. I was just lucky. My Spirit Soul is low-grade, so stepping into the Magus realm was easier. With your talent, I think it’s only a matter of time before you get there,” Vinny said with a smile.

Just from a look, you could tell this overly mature-looking second-year guy was, with very high probability, of commoner birth.

After nearly a full year at Carillian Academy, Vinny had seen plenty of students from all sorts of backgrounds. By now, he could basically tell a student’s origins at a glance.

If he’d been from a noble family, his attitude toward Vinny probably wouldn’t be what it was now. Of course, that wasn’t to say there weren’t nobles who knew how to read the room and had some insight. There were lots of those, too. But most of them were still spoiled by favor, looking at people down the bridges of their noses.

Strong background and talent, growing up their whole life in praise and comfort, pampered and lauded from every direction—if they didn’t have at least a little arrogance in their hearts, that would be strange.

“Speaking of which, what about you, Fennia? How’s your progress been lately in both studies and realm?” Vinny asked.

“Me?”

At his question, Fennia shook her head. “I can’t compare to you.”

Her modest answer genuinely surprised Vinny.

This redhead belonged to the type who held fast to her principles, proud and stubborn, but with a personal sense of rules and morality. All her life, she’d regarded the Dawn Saintesses of past generations and the Dawn Goddess herself as sacred beings beyond blasphemy.

To her, he—a man of enormous controversy, with none of the Facilis traits, expelled and rejected by the Church—was, with very high probability, an imposter. And such deceitful theft of name and title was clearly a great disrespect to the Goddess and the Saintesses.

In Vinny’s opinion, even if she’d apologized before, her attitude toward him shouldn’t have softened much.

Judging by the looks of it, after what happened last time, Fennia’s mindset had changed as well.

Was it because she’d been defeated by him head-on in their match, or because she’d taken someone’s words to heart??

That, Vinny didn’t know.

“I only just advanced to high-tier Sorcerer. I can’t compare to you,” Fennia added.

A first-year second-semester high-tier Sorcerer—by Carillian Academy standards, that was still extremely strong talent.

Off to the side, the second-year guy could only feel aggrieved. He’d just come on this study trip, and sitting in a carriage had already hit his confidence several times over.

So, in this entire carriage, his realm was the lowest, huh?

He was the oldest, but his realm was the lowest. His juniors and junior sisters were all more talented and at a higher realm than him. Who could accept that??

All he could do was smile bitterly inside, sighing that the juniors truly had surpassed their seniors.

“Fennia, you’re being modest. I already said I just got lucky, that’s all—and on top of that, my Spirit Soul isn’t high-grade,” Vinny said, waving it off.

“Vinny.”

For some reason, Fennia suddenly called his name and looked over at him.

“Mm? What is it?” Vinny had no idea what she was about to do.

“I want to know... if one day your bloodline awakened again, what would you do?” Fennia suddenly asked.

“Why is Fennia suddenly so interested in that question?” Vinny raised a brow.

“I’m just asking. I want to know what you’d do.”

“Then what does Fennia think I should do?” Vinny shot back.

“Do you still remember the things I told you last time?” Fennia asked.

“Last time? That’s ancient history already,” Vinny said, shaking his head.

“Vinny, if your bloodline hadn’t been sealed shut... that would be better,” Fennia said, looking out the window.

“What’s this? Didn’t you say before that I was a deceitful imposter stealing their name? Why are you saying this now? Did you receive some kind of revelation and decide I’m not a fake anymore?” Vinny teased.

“Right now, humanity needs a true Saintess,” Fennia said, without directly answering that question. “No—I think we’ve always needed one.”

“And at this point, humanity has been without a Dawn Saintess for a full century.”

“Sometimes I think... if the Saintess were still here, would things really have ended up like this?” Fennia said, unable to hold back a sigh.

Vinny could tell that, after that incident, this would-be knight girl had been thinking about a lot of things—things the old her had never thought about.

“Fennia, I think these things all follow the current of history. Some things are destined, from the moment they’re born, to one day be eliminated by time. What still survives till today just means it’s not time for it to exit the stage yet,” Vinny said, apparently not understanding what Fennia was trying to express. Or maybe he did understand, but didn’t agree.

“You can’t seriously pin the problem on whether the Dawn Saintess is still around or not, can you?”

“I think we should just let things run their course. Isn’t the situation still okay?” Vinny said casually.

He hadn’t answered her question head-on, but anyone could hear the subtext.

Even if his bloodline wasn’t sealed, he didn’t want to get involved in any of that anymore.

“I understand.” Fennia nodded and fell silent.

The carriage quieted down.

The guy next to them felt like the air pressure had dropped, so he suggested the four of them play cards. But Fennia and Shicodale didn’t know how to play and couldn’t really pick up the rules, so they had to drop it.

After several days of travel, Carillian Academy’s first- and second-year students arrived at that hot-spring resort.

When Vinny got off the carriage, he stretched out in a huge, lazy motion. Carillian Academy’s unicorn carriages were truly comfortable. The interior decor and living conditions were five-star, and the food was five-star, too. Aside from being a bit boring, every other part of the experience was top-tier.

It was a pity they’d only let them stay inside the carriage. Otherwise, Vinny would’ve gone to find his card nerds to play cards with. Having a rare holiday where you don’t have to do anything and using it just to travel—what a waste, right?

Grabbing his luggage, Vinny hopped off the carriage. When he glanced back, the other students were also getting off one after another with their bags.

“Ugh, the food on the carriage was way too good.” Vinny pinched his little belly. “Dale, do you think I’ve put on weight these last few days?”

“Eh? No? You look the same as before to me,” Shicodale said from beside him, carrying his own luggage.

“Really? Oh—Fecolin, long time no see. How’ve you been these days?”

Catching sight of that familiar dead-eyed teacher who never looked like he had any energy, Vinny called out a greeting.

“Long time no see? I literally had class with you the day before we left. Did you forget already, kid?” Fecolin rolled his eyes at him. “What are you spacing out here for? Move it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Why are you in such a rush, Fecolin?”

“You think I’ve got nothing better to do than stand around like you? I’ve got to go meet up with the guide we arranged,” Fecolin said irritably.

“Eh? We even hired a guide?”

“Isn’t that obvious? On top of that, the Academy administration already sent word ahead to the leaders of the North Tribes. Otherwise, with this many outsiders entering their jurisdiction, we’d have been surrounded by them already.”

“Don’t run off. Don’t you dare cause me trouble, got it?”

With that, Fecolin left ahead of Vinny.

Vinny went back to Shicodale’s side and looked around. Probably because they were at the border, he didn’t see many people.

“So this is... the main base of the North Tribes?” Shicodale stared at the surroundings, lost in his thoughts.

“It’s just the border, not the main base,” Vinny said.

“Vinny, I hear hoofbeats,” Shicodale suddenly said. “Lots of them. Very dense.”

“Hoofbeats??”

Right then, Vinny also heard heavy hoofbeats, coming from far away and quickly closing in, heading straight for them.

He looked toward the source of the sound and saw that, on a hill not far away, a large group of riders had appeared. They wore nomad robes and light nomad armor, with headgear that was very distinctively tribal.

When they saw the people from Carillian Academy, they stopped on the hilltop, apparently conferring about something.

Shicodale immediately shrank behind Vinny, timidly hiding behind his back and not daring to show his face.

Vinny, meanwhile, studied the North Tribe cavalry on the hill.

Heavy armor had long since been eliminated—just like [Armor Fortress] as a Spirit Soul—only popular back in the low-magic era, when Spirit Souls and magic hadn’t yet been deeply developed. As all sides dug deeper into Spirit Souls and developed magic based on them that grew more and more terrifying, full plate armor and similar armor types were thoroughly thrown out by the times—dragging those heavy-armor Spirit Souls down with them.

So the North Tribe nomad cavalry were all dressed in easy-to-move-in light armor.

Before long, the captain at their head urged his horse down the slope. He didn’t bring everyone with him, only a few trusted subordinates.

“Oh?”

The captain rode down the hill and approached the line of Carillian Academy students. At a glance, he saw Shicodale in the student ranks. He guided his horse over, slowing to a stop about five meters from Vinny and Shicodale.

The dark-skinned, towering tribal man looked down at the small figure of Shicodale behind Vinny from his height in the saddle.

“Moon Elf?”

The tribal man was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed. “I knew it. There really were fish that slipped through the net back then.”

Shicodale didn’t even dare lift his head, curled up behind Vinny. Vinny could practically feel him trembling.

“Fish? What fish? You mean this dark grass carp right in front of me?” Vinny looked up at the tribal man, his tone level.

“Heh.”

The moment he finished speaking, the man’s gaze fell on Vinny, and a heavy pressure suddenly slammed down onto his shoulders.

Vinny, however, didn’t care. Even though the tribal man was much taller than him and still on horseback, Vinny wasn’t cowed by his presence at all. He met the man’s eyes, looking up without the slightest hint of inferiority.

Come on. Getting flattened by Destiny Heroines’ auras all the time was bad enough. And now some random NPC thought he could stand there and lock eyes with the infamous villainous young master of the Camella capital??

“They say Carillian Academy is full of dragons among men. I used to think that was only talk, but seeing this now... it doesn’t seem so false.”

Just as the atmosphere was about to explode, the tribal man suddenly spoke.

“Blue-haired kid, nice eyes.”

With that, he turned his horse around and rode off.