My High School Nerd Rival - Chapter 1

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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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Episode 1
Period 1
In the belief that publicly announcing rankings would disregard students’ individual rights, the school made the bold decision to strip the numeral rankings from the “Top Student” announcement.
Of course, this decision failed to produce the intended effect of making all ten names on the Top Student list appear truly equal in the eyes of human dignity.
The simple ruse of using the order of names as a proxy for ranking was transparent even to the school’s rarest troublemakers.
[Announcement: First Semester Top Student List]
Her mobile phone buzzed.
Ivy, who had been ironing her uniform in the Dormitory, set down the hot iron and retrieved the small device she hadn’t let out of her sight for days.
She tapped the alarm, and the screen turned white as the sluggish school network kicked in, a spinning loading icon beginning its tedious rotation.
Patience was proving to be a virtue she couldn’t quite summon at this moment.
Ivy caught her lower lip between her teeth.
‘There’s a real possibility your name will be first. Unless something extraordinary happens.’
That’s what Bennett had told her last week.
He’d probably noticed her unease—she couldn’t even put down her mobile phone despite the Top Student announcement being scheduled for today.
‘But remember, Ivy. It would be foolish to rank the ten Top Students. It simply means they are all outstanding.’
Bennett had added the necessary words as a teacher, spoken in an almost perfunctory tone.
As if he already knew she would let them go in one ear and out the other, fixated as she was on being first.
He wasn’t wrong. Ivy regarded second or third place as meaningless.
Ivy Underwood’s name had to be positioned at the very front, no exceptions.
This was precisely why she’d enrolled at Royal High School in the first place—a school she wouldn’t otherwise have needed to attend.
The tedious loading image finally vanished.
[First Semester Top Student List]
The moment she scrolled down, Ivy’s breath caught.
Dear God, please.
Please, I’m begging you.
* * *
“This doesn’t make any sense!”
Ivy hurried after Bennett as he emerged from the Office and confronted him immediately.
“Why is my name in second place? It makes it look like I’m ranked second. Doesn’t that seem wrong to you? I got a perfect score.”
“Hello, Ivy. I’m delighted to inform you that the Grade Appeal Request period is coming up soon.”
Bennett delivered his greeting with a blank expression, then fled the scene almost as if escaping.
Ivy pursued him relentlessly.
“Even being generous and assuming Cyrus got a perfect score just like me—that still doesn’t explain why there’s no clarification at all! Everyone’s going to assume I’m second! Should they have listed us by birth date? They could’ve gone alphabetically at least! Then I would’ve been first.”
“Well, I suppose…”
Bennett’s answer was ambiguous, and Ivy’s anxiety deepened.
Was she really second? Or had her name simply been placed second by some arbitrary rule?
“Please, sir. My entire future depends on this!”
Unable to ignore Ivy’s desperate pleading, Bennett sighed quietly and stopped walking.
“Ivy.”
“Is there perhaps some vague phrasing in my essay that cost me points retroactively?”
“Not a chance. Your answers were flawless in every detail.”
“Did I succeed too quickly in the practical exam? But I was entitled to three attempts.”
“Ivy. This has nothing to do with test scores or practical performance.”
“Then what is it?”
As she posed the urgent question, the school’s public address system crackled to life—and it was calling for Bennett.
The teacher gazed upward as if receiving divine salvation, then excused himself with a face that showed remarkably little remorse before departing.
“Seriously!”
A massive shadow like a tree trunk passed directly beside her where she stood fuming.
Her eyes followed it reflexively.
And her face fell completely.
It was Cyrus Quinton.
The smug bookish top student who had claimed the first position on today’s Top Student announcement—obnoxious, bespectacled, and insufferably self-satisfied.
Watching him stride down the Corridor with that arrogant, rigid expression was genuinely revolting.
“So becoming first means you don’t greet anyone anymore?”
It went without saying that Ivy had never actually conversed with Cyrus in the first place.
Not that she was singling him out for special treatment—Ivy maintained a cordial social distance from all students and avoided forming deeper connections when possible.
She was here to be first and foremost. Nothing else held any interest for her.
But that didn’t mean he would be unaware of her existence.
They shared several classes, and in every single one they were in direct competition.
He surely recognized her as a rival…
Cyrus halted mid-stride and turned slowly, adjusting his silver-framed Glasses with a subtle movement. The furrow between his brows was distinctly pronounced.
“Regardless of my rank, I don’t greet people I don’t know.”
Ivy was left speechless.
‘What? Is he joking?’
But looking at those eyes brimming with indifference, it seemed he genuinely didn’t know who she was.
How was that even possible?
Not that she’d wanted him to remember her anyway.
“Ivy Underwood.”
Ivy pronounced her full name with deliberate precision, suppressing her anger.
As if drilling it directly into his clever skull.
By this point he should understand. Her name had been listed right after his on the Top Student announcement.
He ought to be tensing up, recognizing her as a competitor who would soon threaten his position.
“Fine, good morning. Underwood.”
But he offered a perfunctory greeting devoid of any genuine warmth and turned as if to leave.
Ivy quickly caught up and fell into step beside him, and after he’d advanced perhaps five strides ahead with obvious irritation, he spoke.
“What do you want?”
“Cyrus Quinton—didn’t my name mean anything to you when you heard it?”
“Why should it?”
“Because, obviously, my name appeared right after yours on the Top Student announcement!”
As if some annoying forgotten detail had suddenly resurfaced, he pulled out his mobile phone. Ivy’s eyes widened in disbelief.
My God. You haven’t even checked?
He turned the device over in his large hands—which made the phone look disproportionately small—tapped at it briefly, glanced at the screen, then stuffed it back into his pocket.
“That’s right.”
His casual confirmation was so infuriating that Ivy felt like screaming, but she first needed to verify something crucial.
“When were you born? What month?”
“…September.”
“Ha! I knew it!”
Ivy was born in October. Now everything became perfectly clear.
“Don’t go thinking you’re first place alone. I got a perfect score too. You’re just lucky enough to have been born a month earlier and landed that spot. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
Cyrus acknowledged her with indifference and resumed walking.
Ivy could only stare at his broad back in disbelief.
What kind of infuriating character was he?
“So that’s it, then?”
An unwelcome weight settled onto her shoulder.
She turned with an irritated glare.
“Don’t touch me, Logan.”
“Hey there, Dormitory rep.”
That cheerful face suggested he’d caught the entire exchange with Cyrus and found it thoroughly amusing.
“Don’t get so worked up. Nobody cares about Top Students anymore. Unless you’re royalty, that is.”
The way he said ‘royalty’ with that smirk made it clear he was enjoying himself.
“It’s honestly a ridiculous system.”
The “system” he mentioned was a tradition that had persisted in this small kingdom for centuries.
Logan was right that it was absurd—the notion that among children born in the same year as the Royal Heir, whoever graduated first from Royal High School would marry the Royal Heir itself was rather absurd.
A sort of bloodline-based talent recruitment, one might say.
“It’s what keeps this small kingdom together.”
Though Ivy really didn’t want to admit it, she found herself defending that foolish system.
“Anyway, that four-eyed nerd staying first is hardly your worry, dormitory rep. It’s the princess who should be concerned.”
Logan grinned and reached a plausible conclusion.
Yes, that made sense.
Yet the problem remained.
The princess who would have to marry that insufferable, bespectacled boy.
‘…This country.’
Ivy would have preferred to die.

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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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