I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 36

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 36
* * *
Olivia had deliberated for a very long time.
Should she accept Aiden’s wager, or refuse it? What was he truly after with this wager of his?
A broken engagement? Yes, he’d said he wanted that. But then, why?
Her mind spun with endless thoughts, days of confusion stretching endlessly before her.
Of course, time flew swiftly even as she wrestled with these questions.
“Olivia. You’re top of the class again?”
“Looks that way.”
“First practical, first place. Second exam, first place? You’re really something.”
Her classmates whistled in admiration as they passed her by.
At last the second exam had concluded. Due to an unfortunate incident during the practicum, this round had been held within the Academy grounds rather than in the field. Olivia, naturally, had placed first.
With the grade announcement, all practical coursework at the Academy came to an end. And that meant the moment of choice had finally arrived for Olivia.
Olivia brought her pen to the Temporary Knight Order Application Form—on which she could write nothing but her name—then set it down again.
“Olivia! What are you doing here?”
“You startled me. Panya?”
“What are you brooding about now, our dear marquis’s daughter laden with sorrows?”
“That daughter business again……”
At Olivia’s grumbling, Panya giggled and dragged a chair over to sit beside her.
“Panya, listen to me.”
“Oh, a crisis consultation. Seems like you’re having quite a few of those lately?”
“Stormy adolescence, you know.”
Who could possibly understand this tumultuous secret of hers? Olivia sighed forlornly.
“Panya, suppose someone proposed a wager to you.”
“Hm. Your fiancé proposed a wager to you? Now that I think about it again, that man really is strange.”
“But I can’t figure out what he’s really after with it.”
Once more Olivia exhaled a heavy sigh, and the evening glow poured across her profile. Panya’s gaze fixed upon Olivia’s face, bathed in ruddy light, as if enchanted.
“He said if I fail to meet certain conditions, we should call off the engagement. But the conditions he set seem… odd.”
“Conditions you’re sure to fail?”
“……No, not really. Actually, it’s something I need to accomplish someday anyway.”
“Hmm. So if you win the wager, you gain something good for yourself?”
“That’s about it. Which is why I’m hesitant. I should accept, but I’m afraid. What if something changes dramatically? What if I come to regret this choice?”
It was puzzling. If he truly wanted to break the engagement with Olivia, he’d exempted people who obviously seemed “malicious” from the criteria—as if such petty distinctions didn’t really matter to him at all.
Did he have such confidence that even with such concessions he wouldn’t lose? Or did he have some other scheme hidden up his sleeve?
Just as Olivia’s thoughts were spiraling deeper, Panya knocked sharply on the desk.
The sound broke through Olivia’s reverie. Panya spoke brightly.
“What does any of that matter?”
“What?”
“Olivia, when did you become so timid?”
Panya patted Olivia’s back forcefully—whether from genuine exuberance or not, the impact stung sharply.
“Think back to when you transferred to the Knight Department.”
“Mm.”
“You were carrying all sorts of uncertainty back then too, weren’t you? Probably even less clarity than now, I’d say. After all, you—the young miss of Marquis Kessier’s household—threw away your golden path and chose to become a knight.”
Was that how it had been? Now that she thought about it, yes, it seemed right.
Though Aiden had left her half-dazed, abandoning Monster Classification Studies for an entirely new department had naturally brought tremendous fear. And her parents’ opposition had been fierce.
Panya’s words continued.
“You can regret. But you don’t have to regret.”
“Panya, but……”
“But if you don’t accept this wager now, you’ll definitely regret it. That’s just who you are.”
Those words struck her like a lightning bolt.
Aiden’s true intentions, his worries and concerns, the wagers he’d laid out……
All of that mattered less than one thing: Olivia’s own heart.
Olivia had always wanted to choose to face things head-on.
When she looked back, every regret she carried came from times she’d chosen to flee rather than meet the challenge.
Panya was right. She’d already made a promise with Ujin, so she couldn’t back out anyway—and if she let fear defeat her now, regret would surely follow.
A weight lifted from her chest. Olivia smiled brightly.
Scratch.
Panya’s chair scraped loudly against the floor as she leaned in. Her eyes gleamed with a bright, intense light.
“And listen, he said to break off the engagement, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m telling you this with absolute certainty… if you really do end things, that man will regret it far more.”
Her tone carried unshakeable conviction.
“My sweet, beautiful friend, to consider throwing away someone like you is sheer idiocy.”
“Even so, I… care for him quite a lot.”
“Exactly. So think of this not as him giving you a chance, but as you giving him one last chance.”
Panya offered a reframing of perspective. And it was precisely what Olivia needed.
Olivia’s expression brightened.
She was right. Whatever Aiden’s true thoughts, she’d come to understand them through direct experience.
Olivia had no intention of giving up yet. There was still effort to be made.
“Now then, let’s submit that application and go get dinner.”
“All right. I’m buying today.”
“Really? No, truly? Can I get something expensive?”
“Order whatever you want. I’ll even buy ten courses.”
Not long after, the two visited a professor’s office to submit the application, then promptly left the Academy.
Olivia’s application form lay on the professor’s desk, rustling softly in the breeze that slipped through the open window.
[Name: Olivia Kessier]
[First Choice. Roux Knights]
[Second Choice. Roux Knights]
[Third Choice. Roux Knights]
A remarkably resolute application, with only one knight order’s name written down.
* * *
The sun was setting. Outside, the streets bustled with people heading home from work and others seeking evening entertainment at restaurants and taverns.
Since the Melma War, the Laurentia Empire had regained perfect peace.
The faces of passersby were full of smiles, and scattered everyday conversations rose cheerfully from every corner.
Perhaps because of this, the figure of a man in black clothes with his hat pulled low stood out all the more starkly among them.
Everyone who passed turned to look at him at least once.
Knock.
“Watch where you’re going!”
“……”
“What, bad luck, I guess.”
The man whose shoulder had been bumped frowned and glanced back, but seeing the sinister figure’s face, he clicked his tongue and walked away.
None of it registered. The man’s gaze was fixed entirely on the two figures in Academy uniforms.
“Olivia, the injury from the practicum—is it all right?”
“Yeah. It’s really healed now. Even this beast seems calmer.”
The girl laughed playfully, tapping the sword at her hip. The man’s gaze naturally drifted toward it.
A sword with a small groove between the hilt and blade. Unmistakably the sword they’d been searching for. The image of it burned sharply into his eyes.
Hiss.
-So, you found it?
“……Yes.”
-The intelligence was accurate?
“It would appear so.”
The man’s response came low and slow. Meanwhile, the girls grew steadily more distant until they vanished entirely into the crowd.
Their master had said there was someone at the Academy who had taken what belonged to him.
It had been his from the beginning, and someone had stolen it while his control was temporarily—only briefly—relinquished.
It must be recovered.
The man clenched his fist tightly, and the scrap of paper in his hand crumpled with a rustling sound.
“Olivia Kessier……”
Having repeated the name he would bring to his master once more, the man turned toward a shadowy building and disappeared.
The space where he had been was quickly filled by the crowd once more, peace restored. No one remembered the man who had stood there.
A peaceful moment in the evening.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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