Chapter 79
Chapter 79
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 79
Chapter Title: Joining
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Sunlight filtering through the curtains stabbed my eyes.
“…….”
Morning had arrived without me realizing when it had dawned.
I silently turned my head to the side, and at the end of that gaze… dust on the dorm room floor.
‘Ah.’
Today, as usual… I had greeted the morning on the dormitory floor.
Crack!
Just moving my body a little produced a sound from my back and waist… somewhere it shouldn’t have come from.
As expected… no matter how many layers of blankets I piled up, the floor was still the floor.
Hard… cold… and utterly unforgiving dorm room floor.
‘…Ow.’
As I slowly raised my body, what I heard was… the cheerful screams of my joints snapping back into place one by one.
And when I lifted my head to look ahead, blankets were piled like a mountain on the sofa.
Pitifully slaughtered blankets…
This was all the doing of that wicked little dragon… namely, Veronica.
‘…I’m the lord of this room.’
But reality was…
The bed had been seized by the dragon, and the sofa was a victim of her sleep-talking…
Every time the dragon thrashed in her sleep-talking, from sofa to bed… bed back to sofa.
All that remained in the wake of that wicked dragon were crushed cushions and slaughtered blankets.
In the end, I was relegated to the lowest rank, left with the floor.
So today, too, I greeted the day with dust and a stiff body.
‘Haa….’
Living together with the monster parasitizing my dorm.
That monster hadn’t shown even a hint of leaving until the academy’s opening day approached.
And now.
With class time approaching, she was even showering in the bathroom over there.
‘…….’
Suddenly… I realized something was wrong.
‘What?’
Showering?
Who?
In the bathroom?
Whoosh!
I whipped my head toward the bathroom.
Splashhhh…
The sound of water pouring from the high-pressure showerhead.
‘…Is this a dream?’
No way… even if, no way.
She’d even conquered the bathroom?
For real?
‘…….’
With my creaking body, I got up from my spot and approached the bathroom door.
Click.
Stopping in front of the door, pale steam seeped out from the crack.
Drip… drip…
The sound of water droplets falling through the steam.
Splash. Splash.
The moist sound of feet on the floor.
And finally…
“Hmm-hmm-hmm~”
Some off-beat humming from somewhere.
‘Haaa….’
My brain tried to deny reality, but my ears confirmed every bit of it.
She was really showering.
With class time right around the corner, not only not leaving the dorm, but showering in the bathroom.
She even seemed in a good mood.
Showering and humming…
I had no idea who the real lord of the room was.
‘She could clean herself with magic….’
Maintaining bodily cleanliness with magic was basic knowledge for any magic user.
For a dragon, it should be even simpler…
Did she really have to wash with water like a human?
In my bathroom, no less?
While I, a student, was getting ready for class.
The dean?
‘Ah… a dragon.’
Suddenly, everything made sense.
Was this absurd behavior just from having no thoughts at all?
Or, being a dragon and not human, did human common sense not apply at all?
I decided not to think about it anymore.
I just lay down on the pile of blankets sprawled on the sofa and let go of all thoughts.
And then…
Creak.
The sound of the bathroom door opening.
Splash. Splash. Splash.
The sound of wet feet slapping the floor.
…drawing closer.
“You little shit? What time is it, and you’re still sleeping?”
“…….”
I blinked and stared blankly at Veronica, standing there with wet hair draped down.
Yeah.
Sleeping in the dorm, eating in the dorm, even showering in the dorm…
I could understand.
I could tolerate it to some extent.
But…
[Dean]
“Huh, what? You’re up?”
Drip. Drip.
Water droplets rolled down from Veronica’s hair.
And below those droplets…
A single towel.
That was it.
[Please put on some clothes]
Sleeping, eating, showering—fine.
But…
Why was she casually wandering around a single guy’s dorm with just a towel on?
Dragon dignity? Face?
…Any concept of a woman?
None of that meant anything in front of this little dragon.
“You like it, but you’re pretending not to.”
[What’s your sense of chastity like?]
Like it?
Who?
Me, liking this situation?
“Joy’s written all over your face?”
[You can’t see because of the mask]
“Hearts popping out? I see them all?”
Not a single brain cell of mine was thinking ‘joy’.
Right now, in this moment, I could feel several cells grinding away by the second.
[Dean]
“Yeah?”
[Put on clothes first]
“Hmm….”
Veronica stared at me blankly… then tightened her towel.
As if that solved the problem. Why didn’t she get it?
“More importantly, what hairstyle for today?”
Ignoring me, Veronica spun around to the full-length mirror.
Her wet hair dried fluffy in an instant.
“Ponytail? Half-up?”
[Mohawk]
“Twintails it is today.”
Blatantly ignoring me, Veronica parted her hair into two sections.
And then… she suddenly dropped her hands and approached me.
“Want to tie it for me?”
I couldn’t hide my flustered expression, but Veronica acted like she hadn’t seen it… hadn’t felt it at all.
She just held out the hair tie with a face that said it was the most natural thing.
[I don’t want to]
“Why.”
[I don’t want to]
“Tie it.”
So brazenly, so confidently.
No matter how I looked at it, this wasn’t a normal conversation.
If a woman wearing just a thread of cloth asked you to tie her hair…
…Anyone would panic.
Even if I brought Carnel, she’d surely yell zero points.
“Hmph.”
Veronica whipped her head away, blatantly sulking.
…I couldn’t leave her alone anymore.
If I did, who knew what other antics she’d pull…
I resolved to administer some mirror therapy.
Whoosh!
I shot up and…
Tap.
“…?”
Reached out, lifting Veronica’s chin.
With my other hand, I drew a line in the air and…
Boom!
Mana burst like fireworks.
Light fragments scattered like stardust.
“…….”
Veronica stared at me with blank eyes.
…I’d meant to startle her with the fireworks, but she wasn’t startled.
And I was still holding her chin, eyes locked.
Then…
“…Oh.”
A short exclamation followed.
Soon, Veronica’s eyes sparkled.
“Can you do it one more time?”
…Far from flustered or startled.
She leaned in with a face like she loved it to death.
Did this woman even have the emotion of embarrassment…
‘Ah.’
Come to think of it, she wasn’t human—she was a dragon.
…I kept forgetting.
***
【Look, Lev. It’s the mask guy.】
“…….”
【Not even glancing at Lev? Must’ve had a rough time.】
“……So.”
【How about going to cheer him up?】
Back after a whole month.
Familiar classroom, familiar window seat.
And right now, I was… forehead planted on the desk, walling off the world.
‘Ah.’
The cool touch of my forehead on the desk felt good.
My overheated brain, with a few cells ground away, cooled down.
‘Tired….’
Not just from lack of sleep.
The aftereffects of that morning.
The shocking start to the day from the bathroom onward.
I had plenty to think about, but right now, in this moment, I thought nothing.
I just… didn’t want to lift my forehead.
【Shouldn’t Lev go cheer him up?】
Lamenta kept whispering beside me.
Still face-down on the desk, I turned my head to look at Lev.
[Hi Lev]
“…Hi.”
Seeing Lev after a whole month.
Our first greeting in a month.
Lev was still Lev.
“……Something wrong?”
Even through the mask, she could tell my state, it seemed.
Lev asked with her expressionless face.
[Too many things happened]
Like being kidnapped—or invited—by the Delbar family…
Fighting the duke…
Having some nonsensical dream…
And then some random little dragon squatting illegally… committing public indecency to boot.
Stories that would never end if I started.
“……Yeah?”
But I didn’t bother explaining each one.
Too tedious, and even if I did, I wouldn’t get a proper response.
…That’s just Lev’s personality.
That was when.
“Oh my… so that’s what happened, top student.”
Seros had sat in the seat next to mine without me noticing, looking at me with an inscrutable expression.
He was still… being his snarky self, unchanged.
“You’re bullying top student again!”
“Eep…?!”
And Rapia ruthlessly suppressing such Seros.
To be precise… Rapia’s fist and spirits.
But…
“Huh?”
One of Rapia’s spirits hovered in front of my mask, and soon the others swarmed over.
- Mask!
- It’s a mask!
- Cool mask!
A horde of spirits from who-knows-where circled me, even clapping along.
“What’s going on?”
“What’s this about, second seat?!”
Seros yelled at the flustered Rapia.
“Oh dear… not second seat anymore~”
Saying it herself, she clutched her forehead and shook her head exaggeratedly.
Beside her, Rapia’s fist was priming for a swing.
I quietly prayed for Seros’s soul.
‘…….’
I subtly lifted my head, scanning the whole S Class.
But…
No cat in sight.
‘Late, huh.’
Tardy on the first day of school.
So very Neru.
***
“Everyone here?”
Veronica stood at the podium.
Thank goodness… she wasn’t in just a towel like when she roamed my dorm that morning.
This time, she wore actual ‘clothes’.
“Hmm….”
Veronica swept the classroom with her vertically slit pupils.
And… soon, one eyebrow arched slowly.
“Where’s the cat?”
S Class students turned their heads in unison, scanning around…
But Neru was nowhere.
“Ha… this one’s late on the first day of school. Wants to die?”
Seros and Rapia gulped.
The raw, violent wording made it hard to tell if she meant it or was joking.
“Hmm….”
Veronica propped her elbow on the lectern and rested her chin.
Then she began tapping the lectern with her finger. Tap… tap…
“There was something I had to say….”
On the verge of remembering something.
But she just kept tapping the lectern…
Suddenly, a lightbulb flashed! above Veronica’s head.
“Ah.”
Veronica straightened up abruptly and strode to the front door.
And…
“Alright then….”
Before she finished, she yanked the front door open with a clunk!
Beyond it…
Klaus stood with an awkward expression.
“…This was how we planned the intro. Dean…?”
They’d apparently prepared a flow together, but Veronica’s sudden move threw it off.
And Veronica tilted her head, then casually reached out as if it was nothing and…
Tap.
Grabbed Klaus’s wrist and dragged him to the podium.
“Alright~ Starting today, Klaus Whatever joins S Class~”
“Whatever…?”
“Kidding, kidding.”
“Kidding…?”
Klaus reacted a beat late, unable to process the scene.
Veronica’s speech, her jokes, her playful attitude… all bewildering.
“It was a joke, why so flustered?”
I understood.
Veronica’s jokes weren’t really jokes.
Literally, or figuratively…
It was a pain only those who’d experienced it knew.