Free Web NovelThat annoying, promiscuous stinking sea-queen.
Watching the silver-haired girl inside the classroom skillfully making chocolate, Vinny—without knowing why—felt something off in his chest. He thought back to how Aesphyra had been acting strange toward him since this morning, that feeling like her world didn’t include him at all.
That sense of distance made Vinny taste again the suffocating choke of having once faced the cold world alone... and other people’s fickle moods.
What on earth had caused it?
Was it because she’d witnessed that farce between him and Milian yesterday, took it seriously, and actually started to hate him??
Or was it that he’d been deluding himself all along? That Aesphyra always liked teasing him only because it was fun, and he was the only one who’d unilaterally decided she treated him like a friend—like he was even a little special to her.
Thinking back on all the things they’d been through together, all the daily moments, Vinny simply couldn’t stop his mind from going there.
Even he didn’t understand what was wrong with him.
Ah—what the hell is going on?
He’d never been the type to grind himself down like this, okay?? If something pissed him off, or someone pissed him off, he always said it on the spot, cursed on the spot. Since when did he have delayed reactions and bottling it up to torture himself??
The fact that he couldn’t control these wild thoughts—he found it unbelievable himself.
On one side, his thoughts he couldn’t stop from flying.
On the other, he couldn’t figure out when he’d turned into this, or why he’d become like this.
The chaos in his head was like lumps of colored clay mashed together, each smearing into the other until you couldn’t separate them cleanly anymore.
Carrying that complicated mess of thoughts, Vinny felt like he’d tasted every flavor life had—sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, salty—one after another, without repetition.
He felt like his mind was splitting.
One side couldn’t stop thinking about why Aesphyra was ignoring him, and who she was making chocolate for.
The other side told him he shouldn’t be like this. Whoever Aesphyra wanted to make chocolate for—or whether she wanted to ignore him—was her business. He didn’t need to care, and he didn’t have the right to care. It was whatever.
After all—
He and her didn’t have any special relationship.
Wasn’t that right??
With his heart in a tangled mess, Vinny didn’t even know how much effort it took to peel himself off the window and step away, one step at a time, no longer paying attention to what was happening inside.
Right.
This was how it should be.
In the end, he’d overstepped. She was the noble, chosen hero—the current only direct heir of House of Carillian, the Galathus Family’s eldest young lady, the designated protagonist favored by fate, cherished by the luck of Tyrelis Continent.
And what was he?
Just an original villain-role. Sure, he’d changed his original BAN END, but the new BAD END still wasn’t avoided. And in his previous life, he’d even had a life-and-death grudge with Aesphyra.
Wasn’t this obvious?
So what was he feeling disappointed about? Shouldn’t their relationship be like this?
This was already the best possible outcome.
Logically speaking, even if his relationship with Aesphyra had improved—if they were no longer mortal enemies—it still wouldn’t mean they could become friends. At most, it would mean she’d stop wanting to kill him.
Wasn’t his original goal only to make Aesphyra put down her killing intent? For the two of them to be like strangers with no hatred or grudges—two parallel lines whose tracks would never cross? She would build her crystal palace, save her world, live her magnificent life... and he would walk his own narrow bridge, live his ordinary days.
Wasn’t that the best result he’d imagined at the start?
So why, now that it had happened, did he feel completely unable to be happy??
What exactly was he craving?
As an original villain from the story, the fact that he could survive, even rise into the ranks of “genius,” and make it this far—wasn’t that already a miracle among miracles?
So what more did he want??
Yeah. That’s how it was. That was the thought. That was what reason told him.
But—
He hadn’t even walked ten steps before Vinny stopped, looked again toward the classroom window, and slightly clenched his fist.
Speaking of which...
Hadn’t Shicodale said earlier that he wanted to make chocolate for Vinny?
Then it wouldn’t be great to just accept someone else’s chocolate, right? It was normal to make one too, as a return gift. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
Normal, right??
Mm. That’s right.
That was exactly it.
He didn’t have any other thoughts, and no other purpose—he just wanted to go in and mooch the method for making chocolate.
It was because he wanted to do it that he was doing it—purely to return the gift, and because making chocolate looked kind of interesting.
In short—
It had nothing to do with that white-haired nutball at all!
That’s right.
That was exactly it.
Thinking that, Vinny made up his mind.
He quickly returned to his dorm.
“Huh? Vinny, you’re back?” In the kitchen, Shicodale was holding a book, seemingly studying how to make chocolate.
“Mm.” Vinny didn’t give Shicodale a real answer. He headed straight for the second floor.
“Eh—eh?” Shicodale felt like Vinny’s state was strange, but he didn’t dig deeper. His attention was still focused on the book in front of him—One Hundred Ways to Make Chocolate Delicious and One Hundred Methods of Chocolate-Making—because it had to be done today.
Otherwise...
His feelings wouldn’t be delivered.
At least, that was how Shicodale saw it. For elves, these things carried special meaning—especially when it came to feelings.
Meanwhile, Vinny rushed upstairs, shut his door, opened his wardrobe, and dug out a leather suitcase.
He took a deep breath.
The “equipment” inside this suitcase had been sealed away for a long time. He didn’t even know what kind of mindset had made him not throw it away back then.
But now, somehow, it was being used again.
Vinny stared at the suitcase with a complicated expression, silently telling himself: this was his own idea, and it had nothing to do with Aesphyra.
He opened the suitcase and took everything out. Then he dragged out the vanity in his room—the one that had never once been put to use—and sat in front of it.
Because he didn’t know how to do makeup, he didn’t do any. He only used the vanity mirror to clip on the strip hair extensions that matched his hair color, then changed into the outfit from the suitcase.
The Carillian Academy girls’ uniform style was very close to a JK uniform. Vinny put on a set that fit his size, tied the black bow at the collar, wore the dark-blue pleated short skirt, pulled black thigh-high socks over his slender legs, and put on brown loafers.
The person in the mirror looked like someone from a completely different world.
Ice-blue twin tails tied into shoulder-length pigtails with a black ribbon.
Ice-blue eyes.
A face like carved ice and polished jade.
Pale skin that looked crystalline and translucent, like frost and snow in the twelfth lunar month.
A “girl” in a JK uniform—clean, pure, striking—stood there in front of the vanity, flat-chested but full of that bright, delicate aura.
Compared to last time, Vinny hadn’t put on makeup—not even light makeup.
But with a ridiculously strong foundation and absurd “modeling stats,” he still perfectly matched that clean, pretty JK uniform.
The blue-haired girl in the mirror was naturally beautiful, delicate-featured. Even without makeup, her looks were extremely lethal—easily the level that could be ranked as a school beauty. All she had to do was cross her arms and she gave off a pure yet proud, unyielding young-lady aura.
“Tch!” Vinny looked at himself in the mirror, couldn’t help baring those sharp little tiger teeth, and huffed at his own reflection.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m just going to freeload the chocolate-making method. Nothing else!” After saying that, Vinny took a deep breath. She had dared to huff in front of so many people during the beauty contest—this was nothing compared to that.
There was nothing to be unable to do.
She’d already done far more humiliating things!
This time she was just blending in to learn how to make chocolate, that’s all!
Right? Ingredients were annoying to prepare, and cost money. And if you wanted to make it properly, you needed specialists and equipment anyway. How ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) could that compare to Carillian Academy’s professional cooking teacher, for free??
Vinny used cloth to cover the vanity again, fastened the Frostfang earring to his earlobe, opened his door, and went downstairs.
“Dale, I’m heading out for something.” Vinny hurried out of the dorm.
“Oh, okay. Vinny, I’ll wait for you to come back to eat.” Shicodale’s attention was completely on the chocolate-making tools and the book in front of him. He didn’t see at all that Vinny was leaving dressed like this.
Bang. The door shut.
Vinny looked up at the sky outside and felt it was unusually gloomy.
He walked forward, the brown loafers making that distinctive tap against the ground.
Walking through campus, Vinny felt that he was much more practiced at crossdressing this time than last time. At least he didn’t feel like everyone on the street was staring at him, making him uncomfortable all over.
Let them look.
It wasn’t like he’d never been looked at before.
And people were born to be looked at anyway, weren’t they??
Vinny made his way all the way to the Third Teaching Hall.
“Ahem! This—this young mas—this young lady wants to go in and learn the method for making chocolate. Is that okay?” Arriving at the classroom Aesphyra was in, Vinny went to the doorway, cleared his throat, switched on his fake voice, and spoke to the student guarding the entrance.
“......” The girl with thick lenses didn’t speak. Vinny couldn’t see her eyes behind the glasses.
“W-what’s wrong? Not talking—do you have an opinion about this young lady??” Vinny’s heart tightened. He lifted his chin and pressed a hand to his chest.
“Ah, sorry. Classmate, I nodded off for a second,” the girl said after a moment, seemingly reacting. She pointed at the roster on the desk. “You don’t need to tell me. Just leave your name here and you can go in.”
“W-what the hell, you...” Vinny silently let out a breath. He’d thought he’d been recognized, or that he needed to swipe a student card. He took the roster and, with big sweeping strokes, wrote Vinnia, then lifted his chin and stepped into the classroom.
Ah—why is the chocolate smell so intense??
Also... where is that woman?
Vinny’s gaze instinctively searched for Aesphyra.
“Classmate, why are you only arriving now? Our class is about to end.” Just then, a female voice came from behind Vinny.
“H-huh?” Vinny turned and saw a female teacher wearing glasses.
“Alright, hurry up and start. I’ll try to make sure you learn how to make chocolate before class ends.” As she spoke, the teacher pointed to an empty cooking station.
“W-wait—hold on! This young lady isn’t here to—”
“Classmate, aren’t you here to learn how to make chocolate?” the teacher raised a brow. “If you want to learn, but you came this late, I really doubt your attitude.”
“Tch! How do I not have an attitude? This young lady thinks her attitude is great.” Vinny’s mood was already bad, and this was just his personality—he got triggered on the spot and immediately started performing stubborn bravado.
“Of course not. You think something this child’s play—this young lady wouldn’t understand it??” Vinny snorted and crossed his arms.
“Then fine. Hurry up and start, classmate. We’re ending soon. After that, the materials and tools won’t be lent to you,” the cooking teacher said, pushing her glasses up.
“Ah... that...” Vinny immediately got stuck.
“What, classmate? Didn’t you just say you knew how?” Light flashed across the teacher’s lenses.
“Tch. Don’t look down on me. Of course this young lady knows!” Vinny said, walking up to the cleaned cooking station and reaching for the mold.
“You’re wrong from the very first step, blue-haired classmate. The first step is mixing the ingredients in a bowl, not grabbing the mold,” the teacher said.
“I-I obviously know that! This is just... this young lady wants to place it somewhere convenient to reach!” The blue octopus almost wanted to huff again.
“Classmate, the tool for stirring the ingredients isn’t that one.”
“T-this young lady obviously knows that! This young lady just wants to test a new direction for development.”
“Classmate, adding water means hot water, not cold water. Like this, this whole batch is ruined.”
“I—I...” This time, even Vinny couldn’t keep being stubborn.
“Classmate. You don’t know how to make chocolate at all, do you?”
“......”
Vinny looked at the ingredients smeared all over his hands, the tools in his grip covered in wet powder, and lowered his head in silence.
“Alright, alright. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove by forcing it like this,” the teacher sighed. “Come on. Switch to another station. I’ll teach you hand-in-hand. Put the tools down and wash your hands first.”
“......Thank you, Teacher.” Vinny lowered his head and thanked her in a small voice, looking like a blue little octopus drooping all its tentacles.
The two of them went to another station, and the teacher began teaching Vinny how to make chocolate, step by step.
“Classmate,” the teacher asked casually, “in a bad mood today?”
“Not at all. This young lady isn’t.” Vinny denied it with all his might, but his denial had zero persuasiveness.
And for a girl to be in a bad mood on a festival day like today...
The teacher felt like she could roughly guess the reason.
