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nAn entire month has passed without anything major happening - no scripted event that would lead to the downfall of Miriette, no unexpected events activating all on their own, nothing.

nIt certainly looked like the unnaturally accelerated route of the second prince has slowed down to more or less the proper speed too.

nZoemi came to a conclusion that the heroine just like in the game - was a withheld person with common sense just as her appearance would suggest, and had been spooked by the sudden flood of affection coming her way from the person she barely even knew.

nThe blue-haired Surou on the other hand...

nHe seemed mighty suspicious for sure and whenever it was possible, the black-haired attendant would check up on what the second prince was up to – but aside from trying to get closer to the blond-haired heroine, there was nothing suspicious.

nThe peace and quiet were both a blessing and a curse...

nIt was a good thing since, well, things between Miriette and Horeo, that Zoemi had set up for all these years, could slowly progress at their own pace.

nBut – the peace was a bad thing since without any events happening Zoemi had no idea whose route the heroine was actually following!

nWas she still on the second prince route?

nBecause of the suspiciously accelerated progress made with Surou, another condemnation event from his route could literally pop up at any time, so Zoemi was on pins and needles whenever he spotted the blue-haired second prince and the blond heroine anywhere near his dark-haired master.

nAs an attendant, he wouldn't dare to outright try and order Miriette to get away whenever Surou and the heroine were around because knowing her, could easily bring the exact opposite effect...

nEither way, without the proper knowledge, Zoemi couldn't make a specific preparation to break the event and had to spread his efforts to take every bad option into consideration – which was already exhausting on its own...

n...but the black-haired attendant had no intention of merely stopping at that – oh, no!

nOn the side, he was trying his best to show his master's good points to everyone, manipulating things from the shadows – because obviously, it was good to improve Miriette's public appearance – the more people liked her, the less likely they would be to believe any bad rumors about her!

n...is what the scarred attendant was thinking...

n|If she is liked, people wouldn't accept bad things happening to her!|

nZoemi would nod, congratulating himself for an excellent idea.

nAnd so, whenever there was a chance, Zoemi would drop a hint about his master's good heart.

nWhen he was in the kitchen he would thank the staff on the behalf of his master.

nWhen he would be praised for a good answer he would say that his master explained it to him beforehand – even though more often than not it was the other way around.

nIf it just so happened that he would help someone and was thanked for it – which didn't happen all that much because still most of the students would run away at the mere sight of his scarred face - he would say that helping others was something that his master told him to do.

nAnd everything looked like it was working!

nMore and more students were smiling at Miriette when saying hello - some of both the male and female students asked her to help them with a subject they had a problem with...

nIt looked like she was thought of as a reliable person.

nBut without Zoemi's knowledge, gossip had spread that Miriette was a very scary, cunning, and powerful person who even managed to force the terrifying darkness magician to do her biddings.

nSo the smiles that Zoemi thought were the display of affection were actually fake-smiles full of fear motivated by the fact that if Miriette wouldn't like them, they would be dealt with by her terrifying attendant in the cover of the darkness.

nIn a similar fashion, the female students that gathered around Miriette were more similar to a cult revering Miriette as a deity rather than treating her as a friend.

nSadly, despite - or rather because of - Zoemi's efforts, the majority of the student's body was genuinely afraid of Miriette, but the black-haired attendant was too busy being worried about the future events and preventing the possible bad endings threatening his master and couldn't notice that.

nHoreo and Miriette - who were both brought up in the most powerful families in the kingdom and were taught how to see past the fake smiles and empty flattery - weren't fooled at all.

nThe only way the fake behavior affected them was that it was maybe slightly more annoying than they would want to, but seeing the genuine hard work of Zoemi neither of them did have the heart to tell the scarred boy that he was basically fearmongering other students.

nThe most unfortunate part was that it was all going back to the ugly scar on the right side of Zoemi's face...

nWithout it, all of his efforts would pay out in the exact way that he intended them to.

nBut sadly, the majority of people tend the look to affect their opinion about others and look at their actions through the lens of said looks...

nZoemi became the symbol of fear in the Aspakeony Academy and Miriette started to regret that she stopped him from wearing the mask...

nShe considered suggesting him to wear it, but if she told him something like that after the passionate speech she gave him before they got to the Academy and straight up say that he should wear the mask after all - wouldn't it be equal to saying that she is ashamed of the wound he suffered for her? Wouldn't he start hating her for that?

n...with all that in mind, maybe a month in which all that has happened could not exactly be called peaceful and quiet after all...

n...but nonetheless, such a month has passed since the school year started...

nThat meant it was finally time for the first magical examination for the new students!

nThe common way of thinking was that determining the strength of the students should happen at the beginning of the year but the administration of the academy has decided that the most important thing was to make sure that the students all know at least the bare minimum of the safety measures. The teachers couldn't allow any disaster to happen after all.

nAlso, it took quite a while to construct the proper examination ground - everything was going to be destroyed in the process of testing anyway so the academy never bothered to construct a special building that would withstand the extreme displays of magic – since, honestly, because of the existence of both variant and transcended magician, one could never be too sure how strong the next student might be.

nThe whole process was always a bit of a chore and this year the teachers had an extra set of problems!

nNot only there was a student with a darkness attribute - which did not happen since more than three hundred years ago - since the betrayal of the Ghosts - and there was also a transcended student and a student with a variant attribute all in the same year!

nThe academy administration sure had to rack their brains over how to prepare the tests so that no harm would be done to anyone.

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