My High School Nerd Rival - Chapter 2

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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 2
Evelyn’s fixation on becoming a Top Student wasn’t rooted in some rebellious refusal to follow tradition.
She simply wanted to escape unhappiness.
Or more precisely, unhappiness of the kind her parents had—though she hated admitting it in such banal terms.
They say that guardians are those who teach a child both the best and worst of life.
Her parents were living proof of that maxim.
Her mother had been a Top Student at Royal High School, never once relinquishing that rank, and after graduation had become engaged to a prince as though it were only natural.
Of course, in this modern age, no woman got excited over the anachronistic trophy of a “prince”—and her mother was no exception.
Yet for her, the engagement was the finest proposal imaginable: a combination of scholarship and internship rolled into one.
There was no refusing it.
Her mother, who had even studied abroad on the Royal Family’s dime, returned home to begin her career through a government parachute appointment, moving between various departments while enjoying the promised rapid promotions.
Armed with all that experience, she eventually ascended to the position of Queen, and to this day she labors for the nation’s progress.
In this modern world, isn’t a queen merely a “tourist attraction”?
Well, one couldn’t ignore that aspect. The royal marriage had certainly boosted tourism, and various merchandise bearing the new Queen’s crest and signature had sold splendidly.
Yet no matter how the world changes, the “honor” and “influence” painstakingly accumulated by the Royal Family do not fade away.
Especially not in a small nation.
And when the Royal Family’s talent strategy—marrying intellectuals of the age—proved successful, the small kingdom of Alden’s Royal Family retained considerable power to this day.
Backed by the absolute support of the people.
And to speak of the shamefully mortifying beginning of her misfortune, one must return to the time when Evelyn was six years old.
Not much of that period remained clear in her memory, yet the events of that moment were vivid enough that she could recall even the smallest fragrances and sounds.
Young Evelyn had walked to her mother’s office with the primly delicate steps befitting a little princess and greeted her with proper courtesy.
The girl at that time harbored a terrible compulsion—”I shall become a perfect princess”—so she believed she must observe propriety even in something as small as visiting her mother.
“Mother, look at this. It’s pretty, isn’t it? Lady Camilla gave me this Ribbon. She even tied it for me personally.”
Camilla was a beautiful lady one encountered from time to time in the palace.
Evelyn didn’t really know who she was. No adult ever spoke of Camilla in her presence.
So Evelyn simply assumed she was some noblewoman from a prominent house.
But there was one time when her governess had said something.
“It’s best not to get close to Lady Camilla.”
She’d said it in a hushed voice, as though it were some great secret.
But that was the one thing Evelyn couldn’t understand.
A “perfect princess” had a duty to befriend everyone in this land, or so she believed.
(Of course, the Evelyn of today would never entertain such a foolish notion.)
In any case, the moment she showed off that Ribbon to her mother……
“Evelyn Claire de Creste.”
Her mother called her by her full name, stressing every word as though they were proper nouns.
Startled, Evelyn looked up and saw a face she barely recognized—her mother’s face transformed.
The mother whose visage was always so cold it was called an “ice flower” was filled with a heat Evelyn had never seen before. The emotion dwelling in that heat—that it was not mere anger but something far beyond it—young Evelyn did not yet understand.
“Give it to me.”
From her mother’s hands, the pretty Ribbon was swiftly unwound. ‘But it’s my Ribbon!’ Evelyn wanted to protest against her mother, a rare impulse for her.
Yet her mother’s hand holding the Ribbon was trembling.
In the end, she said nothing.
That night.
Unable to sleep after what had happened that afternoon, Evelyn ventured into the corridor to find her governess but instead heard her parents’ voices.
They were hurling accusations at each other in loud voices.
She wanted to flee to somewhere those sounds couldn’t reach her, but her legs froze. Though she covered her ears with her small hands, their shouts and cries seeped through her fingers.
Evelyn dimly understood that all of it stemmed from her Ribbon.
And she didn’t fully grasp the meaning of that quarrel until she entered her teens.
By accident, she found her father’s photo album.
Every moment of his life was spent with Camilla.
That day, a long-held conviction of Evelyn’s shattered.
The belief that “I will marry the smartest person in this nation and live happily ever after.”
There was no causal relationship between marrying the smartest person and happiness.
The pain left behind by broken conviction transformed her life completely.
She had to escape this cursed tradition.
According to the hidebound law of the Royal Family, there was only one way to avoid that nightmarish marriage.
She herself had to graduate as a Top Student.
On the day she resolved this.
Evelyn permanently stored her Portable Console Game—something she’d regarded as a second self—in a box and picked up books instead.
And so, at sixteen.
Evelyn submitted her application to Royal High School under an assumed identity.
She concealed her true status partly for her own safety, and partly because it was an old tradition of the hidebound Royal Family.
But did other students really fail to recognize someone of “royal” standing?
In fact, Evelyn had worried about that too.
Her photograph had appeared in newspapers before, and Royal High School had its share of privileged children who’d enrolled while fleeing their parents’ control—some of whom had actually greeted her in person.
But consider it a bit more carefully.
Those she’d met in person hardly ever raised their heads in her presence.
And whether from photographs or in person, having seen her face posed no problem whatsoever.
At that time, Evelyn had spent about two hours under the hands of a royal attendant, maintaining “the form of a perfect princess as people imagined her.”
And now.
After the Top Student announcement, Evelyn had fallen asleep while copying an old philosophical text to suppress her anger, and her current appearance bore little resemblance to the “princess” they had seen.
Hollow eyes from lack of sleep, dark circles beneath them, blonde hair left unwashed and tousled.
Over her uniform hung an oversized gray hoodie that sagged across half her body, and a large pair of glasses covered half her face.
What looked back from the mirror was not a carefully groomed princess but merely “Evelyn Underwood,” the only child of an ordinary dual-income couple.
Naturally, someone who had grown up loving beauty from childhood didn’t entirely appreciate this appearance.
But that wasn’t important right now.
Cyrus Quinton.
She had to remove that terrible boy from her life.
Before she herself sank completely into unhappiness.
* * *
“……Would you mind stopping all that rustling?”
As Evelyn was about to leave the dormitory with her heavy backpack, her roommate Joy’s pained voice reached her.
Judging by the way Joy was buried under her blanket, groaning miserably, she’d apparently snuck out of the dorm, enjoyed some party somewhere on campus, and come back.
Honestly, it made no sense to her.
Never missing a chance to have fun, yet perpetually late to class.
But Evelyn had no right to point that out.
It was absurd for someone whose name itself was false to meddle in another’s life.
She simply left the room.
The closer you got, the more chances there were for her identity to be exposed. It was better for both of them to keep a proper distance.
Passing through the corridor and crossing the common hall of Dormitory 3, Evelyn checked the notice on the wall from the resident advisor.
[▶Joy Carter
Curfew Violation.
▶Logan Blake
Unauthorized Access to Rooftop.]
Beyond that, familiar names and offenses continued. Thanks to these residents, Dormitory 3—where Evelyn served as first-year class representative—had built quite a notorious reputation in just three months.
Though it wasn’t Evelyn’s concern.
She’d taken on the role of dorm representative in the first place only because the teacher had mentioned extra points on her student evaluation.
She had no intention of interfering in anyone’s life as representative.
Besides, these free-spirited kids probably wouldn’t want a representative like that anyway.
In that sense, they had a reasonably balanced relationship. One based on mutual indifference. Especially.
But at the end of this meaningless list, an oddly out-of-place name appeared today as it occasionally did.
[▶Cyrus Quinton
Lights-Out Violation.]
“Doesn’t he know how to dim his desk lamp?”
Or close his curtains more carefully.
With such a simple method, he could avoid the lights-out violation.
“I know.”
But suddenly, a reply came from right beside her.
Evelyn’s eyes widened, and she turned to look.
It was Cyrus.
He was gazing at the notice with casual familiarity.
Just how long had he been standing there?
“If you know, why deliberately get caught for lights-out violations?”
Evelyn looked up at him pointedly, arms crossed, and Quinton answered in an even tone, his gaze still fixed on the notice.
“Because it’s true that I violated it.”
“How exemplary of you.”
At her sarcasm, his green eyes finally met hers.
“Why do you care?”

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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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