I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 48

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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 48
Since I’ve made a bet, I’ll do my best to see it through.
A faint emotion crossed Aiden’s face. It looked like unease, or perhaps frustration, but Olivia decided not to interpret the feeling’s true nature.
His answer came only after some time had passed.
“……Who cares what anyone says?”
“Pardon?”
“I was just curious about the extent of your resolve.”
A transparent lie.
What bothered her most was his habit of attempting to shake her up this way, only to withdraw after getting burned once—the cowardly way he backed down every time.
Olivia’s posture tilted slightly to mirror Aiden’s defensive stance.
“I see. You were only curious about my resolve?”
“Mm.”
“Should I call Bennett and Panya over right now?”
“……They’ve already left for the day.”
Aiden was needlessly thorough. Olivia shot him a sidelong glance before turning away. There was nothing more to discuss.
His voice followed from behind.
“Remember just one thing. Things can happen that are far worse than you expect.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for the advice.”
Olivia left the Garden without turning back.
The dim Garden, now empty save for Aiden. He released a sigh heavy with complicated thoughts.
* * *
The sky was brilliantly blue. A summer breeze carrying the scent of green leaves brushed against the noses of the assembled group.
Fine weather and reliable companions—it was a perfect day to begin their first Mission, and Olivia’s spirits felt oddly lifted.
Though they had to find a missing puppy, and that task was tangled with both a disturbing case of vanished livestock and the involvement of what appeared to be a heretical priest.
“Everyone’s here early. Spirits are running high, I see.”
Aiden approached them with his usual air of discontent with the world.
Olivia quietly assessed his condition. Whether his advice from the day before had taken effect, he had shed whatever strange attitude he’d displayed yesterday, presenting himself cleanly.
His blue gaze moved slowly across the three people gathered before him.
“A Mission……. Right, a Mission is good.”
“Yes, that’s right!”
“What’s right about it?”
“…….”
The senior seems a bit on edge today.
Bennett whispered this before taking a flick to the forehead from an irritated Aiden and falling gloriously in defeat. A tragic turn of events.
Aiden clicked his tongue in displeasure, then thrust his finger forward suddenly toward the three.
“Listen carefully. If your identity is exposed, you die.”
“Excuse me? Is it really that dangerous? These are Village people.”
“What are you talking about? You die by my hand.”
And with that, he began his threats in earnest. His eyes gleamed with barely contained malice.
“You also die if you rashly enter a dangerous place without permission.”
“So you would be the one to kill us……?”
“Of course. People who can’t read the room and go charging into danger need to be shown what real death looks like.”
This was no jest. It was clear that if they so much as stepped out of line, he would come running with murder in his eyes, ready to fix their rotten brains through a baptism in hellfire.
A chill ran through her. Olivia resolved to never be careless.
She would rather not witness hell at his hands. Sincerely.
“And third.”
“Y-yes!”
“……If you get hurt, you die.”
Aiden looked genuinely somber as he said this.
“Pardon?”
“Don’t let me hear that you got hurt being reckless. You prioritize your own safety above all else. If it seems dangerous, leave immediately. If you can’t escape the situation, press this.”
Aiden distributed something he’d brought to each of the three. Button-shaped Mana Devices.
Olivia carefully felt the surface of the Device he’d given her. His concern, his anxiety—she could feel it, and it tugged at her heart.
Aiden drove the point home, as though carving it into their very minds.
“Don’t you dare get hurt. That’s the most important thing.”
“If I do get hurt……will you come find me?”
“I will.”
“S-senior…….”
A promise that he would find her if such a thing ever happened. This was teaching he’d consistently given her since his days as an Academy instructor through now—a pledge kept true.
And his words had become reality. Though it wasn’t Aiden himself who’d arrived on the day of the practical, but other members of the Lux Knight Order, Olivia still vividly remembered the moment when ‘comrades’ had come—holding fast to his teachings.
That moment she thought was a dream, or merely auditory hallucination.
The gratitude and relief. The sensation of being alive, and the affection for her comrades—
“If I find you hurt, I’ll kill you myself.”
“…….”
“Don’t get hurt. Understood? The moment you so much as scrape yourself, you’re all back at the Training Ground. You said it yourselves—that your training was sufficient. So you won’t get hurt, right? Am I wrong?”
You’re wrong.
“You get scrapes just from living, senior!”
“So? Are you complaining?”
Aiden glared at the three of them, his eyes so lethal they seemed ready to administer immediate punishment for any objection.
When none of them answered, Aiden seemed satisfied at last, offering a smile before continuing.
“Then shall we start with an Investigative Inquiry, splitting into pairs?”
It was a far too gentle smile for someone who’d just spent the last moments hurling threats.
* * *
Olivia had been paired with Aiden. Of course, it was no coincidence.
“Is this a coincidence?”
“Of course not, senior.”
“I thought as much. I wondered why the others made such a hasty retreat the moment we mentioned dividing into pairs.”
“I told you yesterday. If we were to split into pairs, I’d go with you.”
There was no room for coincidence here. Olivia preferred to seize what she wanted through effort rather than wait for chance to smile upon her. So she’d simply taken action.
“What? You wanted to be in the same pair as me?”
“Yes. Ujin said you’d be deployed with us on the Mission anyway.”
“That’s not—I mean……. Really with me? Why?”
“Why? Would you rather go with someone else?”
Though she’d spoken without conviction, both Bennett and Panya shook their heads violently as though they’d seen a ghost, so cooperation came swiftly.
But Aiden didn’t look pleased by this turn of events. His brow furrowed as he pressed the question again.
“So then, why specifically.”
There he goes again with that tone.
Olivia’s brow narrowed. He behaved as though desperate to wound her, as though compelled by it.
She now understood that beneath it lay fear.
Fear made people defensive—just as Aiden was now.
According to his logic, for some time she was to remain nothing more than his ‘junior knight’.
Yet it was he who’d been consistently reading something beyond ‘senior and junior’ into their dynamic.
“Olivia. I told you. Professional Boundary—”
“Senior.”
“……Now you’re interrupting your senior.”
“It’s not because I’m interested in you, senior.”
The one failing to maintain Professional Boundary—wasn’t that Aiden?
He seemed a touch self-conscious as well.
Olivia smiled brightly as she replied.
“You’re simply unpopular, senior.”
“What—what?”
“You were the number one instructor students avoided at the Academy.”
“……Me?”
Aiden looked stunned, as though hearing this for the first time.
Why was it that he’d worked his students half to death, yet still harbored hopes of being popular with them? It seemed almost unconscionable.
Olivia smiled radiantly as she drove the final nail through his heart.
“I made a sacrifice for you, senior.”
“What?”
“Because without me, it would’ve been obvious no one wanted to go with you.”
“What—what?”
“Since we’d decided to investigate together, it would have looked bad leaving you alone.”
Aiden’s face cycled through red and white in the most chaotic fashion. Watching his face transform through such a palette of colors, the tightness in Olivia’s chest released, and she felt genuinely delighted.
Olivia cared for Aiden. That was true. But she refused to become emotionally weak because of it.
“What were you even thinking…….”
“Ah, no. Just a moment.”
“Senior. Let’s maintain Professional Boundary, shall we? We’re working right now.”
It’s you who’s failing to maintain it, senior.
At the weight of that subtext, defeat flickered across Aiden’s face. Olivia savored her brief victory.

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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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