My High School Nerd Rival - Chapter 30

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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 30
As Lights Out Time approached, the Library grew quieter by degrees, emptying of the students who had filled it moments before.
Yet Cyrus Quinton held his seat until the very end.
It had been a day thick with discomfort.
Not merely because the experiment had failed. Since then, peculiar stares had clung to him without pause.
His response to this was no different from before—to conduct himself as though he felt nothing at all.
As more time elapsed, the Library sank into an even deeper silence.
Cyrus checked his watch, then opened the bag he’d set beside his seat. The Experimental Chemistry Textbook inside it stirred an unbidden thought of Ivy Underwood.
That troublesome, meddlesome girl.
Had that stubborn creature actually listened to his advice to sit still? Hopefully she was resting quietly in her room as she ought to be.
Of course, it wasn’t genuine concern. It was merely the practical thought that he couldn’t postpone the experiment indefinitely. He had never cared much for this sort of suspended, awkward state.
He considered sending her a message, but after fiddling with his smartphone for a moment, he set it aside.
She’d manage on her own.
After all, she was the type who lived and died by her grades—she’d find a way to recover quickly and cooperate with the experiment.
Just then, someone burst through the Library door in visible haste.
He’d assumed it was a student rushing to return books before the closing time, but that wasn’t the case.
It was a female student who volunteered in the Library. He didn’t know her name, but her face and the long braids hanging on either side of her head were familiar from her frequent visits.
Breathing heavily, she entered the Library and glanced around before darting back between the stacks.
Something urgent seemed to be the matter—though it was none of Cyrus’s concern.
……
He rose from his seat and gathered his bag.
Faint but desperate-sounding voices seemed to drift from between the stacks, but that too was nothing that warranted his attention.
* * *
“Listen, you promised. Give it back now.”
Emily sat in the most secluded corner of the Library, her hands clasped together in desperate supplication.
“Please. Will you?”
“Oh my, Angel.”
The owner of the smug voice just in front of her was, of course, Tiffany Vance.
Unlike the frantic Emily, Tiffany took her time—withdrawing a mirror, applying lip balm, studying her own face at length—before answering slowly.
“Anyone who heard you’d think I was blackmailing you, sweetie. I’m just curious, that’s all.”
Tiffany tapped a Translucent Plastic Container perched on the Library windowsill with one long fingernail.
“I mean, can you imagine? A student smuggling a bearded dragon into the Dormitory—this isn’t a magical school from a movie, after all.”
Emily’s face went ashen. Cold wind was seeping in through the gaps in the windowframe. Pickle, inside the container, barely moved at all.
“N-not on the windowsill. You can’t.”
Emily pleaded without taking her eyes from her lizard.
“Please. I did everything you asked. Give Pickle back to me.”
Pickle was a grandfather of a bearded dragon—fourteen years old, and he had been at Emily’s side since her earliest childhood.
She had smuggled him into the Dormitory despite knowing it broke the rules because his remaining time was limited.
They had spent their entire lives together, and the thought that she might be separated from him in his final moments was a terror that Emily could not bear.
Tiffany had discovered Pickle early in the semester.
At first, she’d played the part of confidante, promising to keep the secret. But as weeks passed, Emily had sensed something wrong.
And today, Emily had learned her instincts were right—though she’d realized it far too late.
<Angel, it’s just a little prank. Friends do this kind of thing all the time, right?>
That “prank” had been locking Ivy in the Storage Room overnight.
Emily, of course, knew better than anyone that such a thing was far from harmless fun.
If it had truly been something so trivial, Tiffany would have done it herself.
She’d sent Emily instead because she knew it was unforgivable.
And Ivy was kind—she would never suspect Emily of such a thing.
‘And in reality, she didn’t suspect me at all.’
Ivy had seemed slightly puzzled by Emily’s hesitation, but she’d never imagined Emily was capable of wrongdoing.
Tiffany had calculated that detail precisely.
Emily longed to run to Ivy right now and open the door and apologize with every fiber of her being.
But when she saw Pickle in Tiffany’s hands, she found herself frozen.
Pickle was so fragile. Too delicate to withstand even the smallest impact.
“Please give him back.”
“Don’t worry, Angel. Your creepy little partner will be returned to you tomorrow morning. It’s not like he’ll die overnight, is he?”
Tiffany peered into the container at Pickle, who wriggled slightly, her nose wrinkling with disgust—then tossed him into the Black Shopping Bag she was holding.
Emily’s face went even whiter, but Tiffany was already holding up her mirror again.
* * *
When Quinton returned to his room, he was somewhat surprised to find that Logan, his roommate, had actually stayed in for once.
Thump, thump.
Though the sound of Logan bouncing a basketball off the wall was beginning to grate on his nerves.
“Cyrus.”
As he was setting down his bag, he heard his name called.
“What?”
“Is the class president okay?”
“Probably.”
It was only as he answered that the offending sound of the ball ceased. Yet the echo still lingered in his sensitive ears, making the silence that followed feel delayed by a beat.
“So, you know.”
From the pause came Logan’s voice, halting in a way that seemed odd given that Logan Blake was normally forthright and unguarded.
“What.”
Quinton answered flatly without inflection, watching Logan’s hand trace the black line on the basketball.
“Damn it.”
Logan, still struggling for words, then let out a low curse before fishing around in his pocket. His phone had vibrated.
Cyrus said nothing and turned toward his desk to organize his bag.
“What’s the young lady want?”
The casual, playful tone drifting from behind was pure Logan—his default mode.
Probably someone looking for him again.
Cyrus, even dull to rumor as he was, knew that Logan maintained “complicated” relations with several female students.
“Huh? The class president?”
But when an unexpected name was spoken, the hand pulling out a book went still.
“No, she’s not here. Why?”
Cyrus heard himself ask Logan the question before he’d even registered the thought.
“Who is it?”
“Joy Carter.”
“Who’s that?”
“The class president’s roommate.”
Logan glanced up briefly from his phone to answer.
“Give it here.”
When he extended his hand, Logan, though caught off guard, passed over the phone.
“What’s wrong with Underwood?”
He spoke directly into the phone.
-Quinton?
“Yeah.”
-I mean, so—
When Joy’s words faltered, Cyrus pressed again.
From the way she was searching, it had to be that Ivy wasn’t in the room despite Lights Out Time drawing near, so she’d called to find her.
“Did you try calling her?”
-She left her phone in the room.
“Did you check the Infirmary?”
-She wasn’t there.
“What about dinner meds?”
-Doesn’t look like she took them. The sandwich is still there.
“Hell.”
Cyrus let out a sigh heavy with exasperation.
That damned tomboy. Was it really so difficult to listen to a simple instruction to stay put with an injured hand?
“Understood. Hang up.”
-Cyrus!
At the urgent call, Cyrus raised the phone back to his ear.
“What.”
-You… you really don’t know anything, right?
“How would I know where she is?”
-It’s not that. You hate Ivy, don’t you?
“Yeah. I hate her.”
Making such a nuisance of herself—she was genuinely the worst possible experiment partner. Insufferable.
“If there’s nothing else, I’m hanging up.”
He ended the call unilaterally, then grabbed the Black Hoodie Zip-up hanging on the wall and left the room.

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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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