Demon King of the Royal Class

Chapter 276

After finishing all the Monday exams, the four girls from Class A gathered at a café near the classroom building instead of returning to the dormitory.

While it would have been better to go back to the dormitory and study, they were all quite upset.

“I think she’s really a crazy bitch.”

Surprisingly, it was Adelia who said that.

It was shocking that Adelia, who was usually a bit timid, used such harsh language. Riana, Harriet and even Ellen stared at her with their mouths agape.

“O-Oh... Was that too harsh...?” Adelia said.

Her face turned red and she scratched her cheek, afraid that she had been too forceful.

Riana took a sip of her lemonade through a straw and shook her head.

“You’re not wrong. Well said, Adelia. I mean, if she wants to enter Miss Temple, she can just do so. Why come to the first-year classroom and cause a scene? What’s her problem? And what? No competition? That’s ridiculous.”

Riana had strong words for her as well.

Harriet crossed her arms and frowned. “I really don’t like her,” she grumbled as she stuffed a mocha macaron into her mouth.

Olivia had been picking fights with Ellen at every turn lately, and the incident that day had been the culmination of that.

It had led to Ellen, who was usually able to maintain her calm, openly expressing her dislike for someone.

However, the fact that Olivia had overpowered Ellen in terms of strength was enough to shock everyone.

Ellen was seen as someone extraordinary among her peers, regardless of her actual grade.

There were only two people in the first year of the Royal Class who received such treatment: Ellen and Reinhart.

Ellen was Ellen, and Reinhart was Reinhart.

Both had something unique that made them stand out and receive special treatment in their own ways.

Of course, for Reinhart, it was never in a good way.

Even though her opponent was an annoying fifth-year student, Ellen was still Ellen.

The fact that the annoying fifth-year senior had overpowered Ellen had stunned everyone.

“But that senior... Does she really like Reinhart?” Riana asked, tilting her head.

Harriet and Ellen both stared at Riana.

“She likes him... doesn’t she? Otherwise, why would she do that?” Adelia said cautiously as she glanced over at Harriet.

“I don’t know. Right now, it seems like she’s just having fun tormenting him. Honestly, what good does it do her?”

That was true.

Her past behavior might have seemed cute from a certain perspective, but the way she had been behaving in class just prior to this was certainly not. She was just picking a fight for no reason.

It wouldn’t look good to Reinhart, and it wouldn’t be good for her either.

“Tormenting him?” asked Ellen.

“I thought Reinhart might actually like her despite her behavior, but the more I see it, the more I realize he genuinely dislikes it. If she really likes Reinhart, shouldn’t she stop after he says he doesn’t like it a few times?” answered Riana.

That made quite a bit of sense.

Why would someone keep doing something that the person they liked found distasteful? Reinhart had indeed constantly told Olivia Lanche to stop such behavior.

Ellen had her doubts, but Riana’s words made sense to her.

Olivia Lanche kept doing things that Reinhart disliked.

Ellen knew something that others didn’t as well. Olivia had purified the cursed Tiamata, and because of that, she was seen as a lifesaver to Reinhart.

Ellen knew that, because of this, Reinhart couldn’t be too harsh on Olivia.

However, Olivia was using this as leverage to keep bothering Reinhart.

Whether it was out of affection or not, Olivia was indeed tormenting Reinhart.

“ ”

Ellen quietly sipped her chamomile tea.

She thought about it long and hard, but came to the same conclusion: she couldn’t let Olivia Lanche continue like this.

Even though she had been overpowered once, and might face a rough situation again, Ellen had no intention of hesitating.

***

Ellen did not head to the fifth-year dormitory with a particularly serious mindset.

What she wanted to say was simple and not complicated.

She didn’t intend to fight. Not because she lacked the strength, but because she felt ashamed of her impulsive action of making the first aggressive move in the classroom, regardless of the outcome.

She did not intend to fight, and had only one thing to say: ‘Stop bothering Reinhart. He’s not comfortable with it, so why keep doing it?’

That was what she planned to say. After returning to the dormitory, Ellen headed alone to where the fifth-year students were staying.

Everything was fine when she called Olivia Lanche, who came out wearing her usual slightly frivolous smile.

Even when Olivia looked at her with a teasing expression and asked her what she wanted to say, the atmosphere wasn’t too bad.

Ellen’s business was simple. There was only one thing she wanted to tell Olivia. ‘Stop bothering Reinhart. It’s rude to keep doing something he has repeatedly said he dislikes. Please refrain from it.’

That was exactly what Ellen said, and Olivia Lanche tilted her head in response.

She offered up a weak laugh. “Haha... Reinhart has already given me a piece of his mind...”

‘Did Reinhart already say something to her? No wonder he left the classroom a bit earlier.’

“Did Reinhart ask you to tell me all this?” Olivia asked her.

“... No.”

“Really? Then why are you speaking on his behalf?”

Olivia, who had been smiling, now wore a cold expression.

It was as if she’d heard the one thing that could worsen her mood while in an already unpleasant situation.

“Who are you to Reinhart?”

“... Sorry?”

Olivia stepped closer to Ellen.

Ellen didn’t back down, but stared at Olivia with a hardened expression.

“Who are you to Reinhart?” Olivia demanded again. “Why do you talk as if Reinhart belongs to you, saying things like ‘Stop bothering my Reinhart’?”

“...”

“It’s disgusting to hear that from a third party.”

Olivia’s gaze was frigid.

‘A third party.’

That phrase struck a nerve with Ellen.

Moreover, Olivia had said similar things more often.

“Please take good care of our Reinhart!

“Don’t get too close to Reinhart, okay? You know why, right?

“I’ve heard you’re good at fighting. But don’t bully our Reinhart too much.”

Olivia had always spoken as if Reinhart belonged to her.

Ellen met Olivia’s glare. “You’ve said the same things.”

Olivia smiled. “Yes, I have. I said those things because I want Reinhart to be mine. What about you? Do you feel the same?”

“...”

Ellen couldn’t say anything.

Did she want Reinhart to be hers?

She hadn’t thought deeply about such a question. She feared that if she reached an unwanted conclusion, it would trigger a chain of irreversible events. Olivia continued to look at Ellen coldly, but she still couldn’t give an answer.

“Why can’t you say anything? Can’t you even express your own feelings?”

“...”

“I’m asking you: what is Reinhart to you?”

“... A friend.”

“Is that all?”

“...”

Ellen couldn’t say anything more.

It felt as if everything would come to an end the moment she said anything else.

She feared that this unpredictable senior in front of her would say something strange and destroy all her relationships.

In the end, Ellen couldn’t say anything.

“If you’re nothing more than his friend, then you don’t have the right to tell me what to do, do you?”

“...”

“Isn’t that right? You’re just a friend, and you don’t even want to be more than that, yet you’re telling me not to get close to Reinhart.”

Olivia’s tone was almost accusatory.

It was as if she was forcibly opening a heart that no one had tried to open before.

“Isn’t that a bit strange?”

The things she was saying were similar to what Harriet had once said to her.

“You don’t want to lose anything, but you hate the idea of someone else taking it more. So you’re trying to hold onto everything halfway?”

Olivia placed her hand gently on Ellen’s shoulder and smiled. It wasn’t her usual frivolous and kind smile, but a sneer.

“You’re really selfish.”

Not choosing was also a choice.

Pushing everything into the future and doing nothing was also a choice that would inevitably lead to a certain future.

Every road eventually led to a future in which everything fell apart.

‘Am I selfish?’

Ellen felt as if she had been struck on the head by Olivia’s words.

‘Why does this person dislike me so much? What does she want to achieve by confronting me like this?’

To Ellen, the person who was once called the Saintess of Eredian was merely someone she disliked.

‘Why does she dislike me?’

She hadn’t known until that moment, but after this, she thought she understood.

She knew she was being selfish, and she knew her actions were wrong, but there was a stronger desire.

She did not want to lose to this person.

She sensed that, if Olivia got hold of Reinhart, she would never let him go.

Finally, Ellen thought she understood why Olivia disliked her. It was the same reason she disliked Olivia.

The fear of losing... That’s why she disliked her.

When she recognized her own feelings, Ellen also realized Olivia’s feelings were hidden behind her cold gaze.

Behind that gaze, there was a certain fear.

“Are you afraid of me?” Ellen asked.

“... What?”

Just as she feared that the person in front of her might take Reinhart away, this other person was also afraid.

That was why she picked fights, challenged her, and scratched at her.

Ellen’s sudden question caused Olivia’s expression to twist.

“Afraid of you? Why would I be?”

Her sudden loss of composure at the sudden provocation said it all.

Ellen knew she had hit the mark. Now that she realized that the person opposite her not only disliked her but was afraid of her, Ellen finally understood.

She had been overreacting.

“You’ll graduate next year, won’t you?”

Time was not on Olivia’s side. Olivia’s lips twitched as if she was flustered by Ellen’s words.

“... I’m going to graduate from school,” she said.

“Even so, you’ll have to leave this dormitory.”

“...”

She wouldn’t need to see that annoying face the year after next.

After that, she and Reinhart would continue to stay in this dormitory together.

Olivia didn’t like that.

There was no need to get angry. There was no need to react so seriously to this person’s provocations.

Reinhart would be by her side longer than by Olivia’s, so there was no need to fight. She had already won, so why fight?

Olivia wanted to make her look ugly. There was no need to play along with that.

Olivia would dislike her and be envious of her. She didn’t know what Olivia wanted her to acknowledge, but there was no need to do so.

Olivia gritted her teeth, seemingly searching for words, and finally said in a trembling voice, “A year is quite a long time, you know?”

“Yes. I wish you luck,” Ellen replied.

Ellen looked at Olivia, and the corner of her mouth twitched upwards.

She felt like she was doing something very wrong, but it was also very satisfying.

Having always been on the receiving end, it felt good to finally land a blow. No, it wasn’t just landing a blow; it was a realization that her opponent had been fighting from an overwhelmingly disadvantageous position from the start.

Olivia had finally lost her composure, and her eyes turned red.

She bit her lip and glared at Ellen.

She seemed frustrated.

No matter how much she tried to provoke Ellen with her words, she knew there was an unbridgeable gap between them.

‘What if Olivia Lanche had been a classmate?’

Ellen couldn’t say for sure, but she probably wouldn’t have been able to look at her with this mocking sense of superiority.

Hypotheticals were meaningless.

When all was said and done, Reinhart would eventually spend more time with her than with Olivia, no matter how much time she tried to spend with him. That truth would never change.

“D-Do you think being in the same class as Reinhart is everything?”

“Yes, I do.”

‘It’s a place you can never enter. A place you envy the most.’

Once Ellen said that, there was no other reason to be angry.

‘She’s just envious and jealous of me.’

Olivia bit her lip and glared at Ellen, disturbed by her blunt statement.

Ellen smirked and walked past Olivia Lanche. “It would have been better if you had been born a bit later,” she said in parting.

“You... you... you! Did you really just...! You... little...” Olivia stammered, her mouth agape, as she watched Ellen walk away.

After Ellen disappeared, Olivia’s eyes turned red, and she bit her lip.

“Damn it...” she muttered, “I shouldn’t have messed with her... I didn’t even get anything out of it...”

Olivia was so frustrated that tears began welling up in her eyes.

***

Although it felt pointless to engage in such emotional battles, Ellen felt a kind of satisfaction she had never experienced before. She wouldn’t have felt this good even if she had punched someone.

“It would have been better if you had been born a bit later.”

Olivia’s expression upon hearing those words had been priceless. It felt as if she had taken revenge for all the times she had been wronged in one go, and that whatever Olivia said moving forward would not matter anymore.

Knowing why Olivia had said such unreasonable things to her made it all irrelevant.

She was just envious that she was not in Ellen’s place, and that frustration and resentment had led her to pick those fights.

As Ellen walked back to the dormitory, her steps light, she encountered someone in the hallway.

“Ellen. Did something good happen?”

“Oh, um... no. Just...”

Ellen’s buoyant mood dampened upon seeing Harriet.

Selfish.

Olivia had definitely said that about Ellen.

She didn’t want to lose Harriet, and she didn’t want to lose Reinhart either.

She was clumsily trying to hold onto both of them.

That was what made her selfish.

Olivia Lanche’s words echoed in her mind.

Ellen wanted to ignore it, but she wasn’t foolish enough not to understand the message behind those words.

‘Harriet likes Reinhart.’

Ellen didn’t want to think about it, but she knew it was entirely possible, since Reinhart always paid attention to Harriet.

‘If Reinhart starts to like Harriet, what should I do?’

Ellen didn’t want to lose Reinhart to Olivia.

Similarly, she didn’t want to lose him to Harriet either.

It was too frightening to think about.

“What’s wrong, Ellen?” Harriet asked kindly, tilting her head as if wondering if Ellen was feeling unwell.

“... It’s nothing. I’m just a bit tired.”

“I’m going to study with Reinhart. Are you going to rest then?”

Harriet was carrying a bunch of study materials in her arms.

She was going to study for the exams. More precisely, she was going to help Reinhart.

“What about the others?”

“They’re studying for their own majors, so if you don’t come, it’ll probably just be me and Reinhart.”

That meant they would be alone together.

“I’ll come too.”

“Okay, grab your books and come.”

“Okay.”

Harriet walked briskly towards the study room, and Ellen watched her go.

Ellen thought Olivia’s words wouldn’t affect her, but thinking about Reinhart being alone with a friend stirred an unpleasant emotion within her chest.

‘I...’

Ellen bit her lip, watching Harriet walk away.

‘What should I do...?’

Ellen realized she was already preparing herself to hate her friend.

As Ellen walked back to her room to get my study materials, her steps felt heavy.