Chapter 67
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: Vacation Ceremony (2)
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Isabel Helm.
Right now,
she had finished the academy's vacation ceremony held in the grand auditorium.
She had called aside her friend,
Libia Clawit,
and the two of them had moved to a quiet spot, facing each other.
"Isabel? So, what did you want to say?"
After that,
Libia wore a puzzled expression about being suddenly brought here,
and asked what she intended to say.
Seeing that,
Isabel steeled her resolve once more...
From earlier,
in the grand auditorium...
No,
from the week of the Founding Festival,
from the moment she had realized her feelings for Aden...
To say what she had wanted to tell Libia,
"Huu..."
she took a deep breath
and faced Libia.
"What's wrong, Isabel?"
Then,
Libia, who had been watching her hesitantly with a questioning look,
voiced her concern.
"Libia."
What she was about to say
would crack the innocence in Libia's puzzled, pure expression...
"Yeah? What's up?"
"I... like Aden too."
But she had no intention of dragging this out any longer.
She quickly conveyed to Libia
what she had wanted to say,
what she had kept trying to say... what she wanted to say.
"What...?"
Then,
was it because she couldn't comprehend it...
Or,
because her brain refused to accept such shocking, unbelievable information...
Libia stared blankly for a moment after hearing it,
then asked her back.
"I like Aden."
Isabel drove the point home once more.
"Wh-what are you saying, Isabel...? That joke isn't funny."
Finally grasping the meaning,
Libia spoke in a trembling voice she couldn't hide, telling her not to joke...
"It's not a joke. I really like Aden."
But,
now that things had come this far,
Isabel had no intention of backing down either...
'He looks good when he smiles.'
She had no thought of giving up Aden.
So...
"Everything I'm saying is the truth."
"Isabel... likes... Aden?"
Everything she was saying now...
was completely sincere.
Conveying that absolute sincerity to Libia,
she looked as if she couldn't accept it,
confused at first, then soon...
"You're... really serious...?"
As if finally accepting all the facts,
her eyes held a massive wariness unlike before, desperately hoping for denial,
like a final warning to back off...
she asked if it was true.
"Yes, I'm serious."
And Isabel,
resolutely facing her without any intention of heeding the warning,
told her it was true.
"Isabel..."
"I also know now that Aden is a regressor."
But she didn't stop there,
quickly adding that she knew Aden was a regressor.
'Libia... probably already knew that...'
'The chairman, Professor Elina, the Magic Tower Lord... and Libia know.'
According to Aden,
Libia had known for a long time.
Come to think of it,
Libia had always...
asked Aden about things she shouldn't know, future events that hadn't happened yet...
'I was late to find out.'
Aden's secret
was something Libia had known long ago.
So, she was too late.
She,
had been slower than Libia.
However...
'Now I know too.'
Now, she knew Aden's secret as well.
They knew the same things
about Aden.
That was the meaning behind her words...
"That too...? No... no need to panic more..."
Hearing that,
Libia showed initial surprise, then quickly accepted it
and continued speaking.
"Isabel, we're... friends, right?"
"Friends."
"So, in that sense, let me ask..."
She asked if they were friends, almost persuasively,
and Isabel answered lightly.
"You don't plan to yield?"
"No."
To the near-pleading question of whether she had no intention of yielding,
she immediately replied with refusal.
"I liked him first."
"That doesn't matter."
"We're friends."
"That's why I told you to confess."
"I'll do it right now..."
"Too late."
After that,
through several more exchanges,
they confirmed even more thoroughly
that neither intended to back down,
that neither would yield to the other.
Polygamy.
In this world where the law allowed one man to have multiple wives,
neither of them intended to let the other have Aden completely.
Simply,
the principal wife.
Even if Aden took many other wives besides them,
they competed solely for that one seat
only one person could occupy.
So,
neither had any intention of yielding
or backing down.
Therefore...
"It's a competition, Libia."
A competition.
Just like always,
competing for that single seat.
Nothing more.
"Isabel."
Probably right now,
they were thinking the same thing.
Feeling the same emotions...
Aden.
The competition to claim him...
"Sorry, but this time, I can't lose."
Unlike all the other competitions they'd vied in so far,
no matter what,
she absolutely could not lose...
"Same here."
So,
they gazed at each other
with eyes filled with a firmer resolve than ever before.
Isabel and Libia.
Having known each other for so long,
constantly competing,
they could tell even more clearly
from the resolve burning in each other's eyes
that neither would yield.
The vacation ceremony proceeded,
and after quickly organizing the opportunities he needed to seize during the break yesterday...
he spent the night in the dormitory,
and the next morning dawned with sunlight filtering through the window cracks.
He rose quickly
and began preparing to head to the capital.
'I need to go today.'
If he were only planning to obtain the Imperial Sword,
he could have taken it easy heading to the capital,
but this vacation,
including the Imperial Sword,
he aimed to claim another opportunity as well,
leaving no time to dawdle.
'The second one aside...'
The second aside,
the trials for the Imperial Sword would inevitably consume a lot of time.
Preparing for any contingencies,
the sooner he reached the capital, the better.
So, he finished preparing swiftly,
left the dormitory,
and was heading to the teleportation device when...
"Aden!"
The familiar voice from behind, one he'd always heard,
made him turn to see who it was.
"Isabel? Good morning."
In front of the dormitory,
the passage one must pass to leave,
also the meeting spot where he'd met Isabel during the Founding Festival week.
There,
Isabel spotted him
and approached, waving her hand.
"Aden, what are you doing over vacation?"
"Me? I have some business in the capital... thought I'd head there."
And then came
the question about his vacation plans.
When he answered that he was heading to the capital as planned,
Isabel visibly looked disappointed and continued.
"...I wanted to hang out together, like during the Founding Festival..."
"Huh? Aren't you going anywhere over break...?"
Seeing her say she wanted to hang out,
he asked where she was staying over vacation,
but.
"Yeah, the chairman said it's okay to stay at the academy."
In response,
she explained that the chairman's consideration allowed her to remain.
'Looks like she handled it just as expected.'
Hearing Isabel's words,
he could tell that the matter with the Helm Marquisate
had been resolved well by Eris, as anticipated.
'Eris isn't the type to know something like that and let it slide.'
It was something he'd roughly expected.
Eris wouldn't stay idle
after seeing Isabel's kidnapping in the capital,
and his intervention preventing her return to the Helm Marquisate.
He'd anticipated she'd investigate what was happening there
and sort it out herself.
'Right now, I don't have the power to deal with the marquisate...'
He didn't know exactly how Eris had handled the Helm Marquisate,
but he was certain she hadn't done nothing.
'Why go that far...? Because it's a promise with a close friend.'
500 years ago,
before sealing the nightmare Bahamut,
someone she had been with.
According to Chairman Eris,
her one and only close friend from the old kingdom.
Ena Polres.
In Frontier Chronicles,
the game's only mention of her name came through Eris,
the sole person who knew of her existence.
The promise with that person.
As long as Eris valued that promise above all else,
there was no way she would ignore the suffering
of Isabel, who had become her student
at Frontier Academy.
With those thoughts,
he naturally continued to the still-pouting Isabel ahead.
"Good. Then I'll come back as soon as possible, and we can hang out then."
"Okay, I'll wait."
And with that promise to return early and spend time together,
he waved to Isabel one last time
and left the academy for the capital.
'Guess I need to move faster...'
Somehow...
'I'll wait.'
This vacation,
he had one more reason to hurry,
one that had just arisen.