Chapter 30: Totes Adorbs, Part 2
IT was Camille’s turn next. Timidly, she opened her box, and her scroll fluttered up to greet her. Then she cast her spell, and the paper promptly dropped to the table. She rolled it up with ease; Iris praised her, and Camille smiled bashfully. From there, she seemed to struggle with the braiding section, so Iris took her by the hand and walked her through it, step by step. After that, she had officially sealed her scroll.
But right as the girls were celebrating, Iris’s scroll started flopping around again. Hastily, she snatched it up and slammed it on the table a few more times. The poor thing twitched pathetically. Truth be told, it was impossible to overpower a magic spell with brute force; after enough time, it would start flailing again.
“And there it goes again,” Reseda laughed, watching as the scroll writhed in her grip. It slipped out of her hand and fell to the ground.
How can you laugh at her? Nigel thought reproachfully.
Meanwhile, Camille hastily cast a spell on Iris’s scroll, stopping it for good. But as Iris beamed at her, Reseda frowned.
“Nigel, have you heard the rumors?”
“What rumors?”
“The rumors that Iris has been bullying Miss Camille in private, under the pretense of tutoring her.”
Nigel sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “Right, that. Some girls came and told me about it, actually. But what part of this is bullying?”
“Beats me,” Reseda replied absently. “But we’ll need to quash the rumors, so I want you to talk to her. Tell her that whenever she wants to meet up with Miss Camille, she should do so in a conference room where I’m present.”
Nigel looked back at him skeptically. Reseda claimed to have a good reason for doing this, but in actuality, he just didn’t want anyone else to see Iris smiling.
“Tell her yourself, milord.”
“I don’t want her to get mad at me.”
“The royal family will never accept her, you know,” Nigel warned him quietly.
At this, Reseda faltered and looked at him. Despite the awkwardness, Nigel held his ground. He cared about both Iris and Reseda, which was precisely why he had to come out and say it. He couldn’t support Reseda’s doomed crush.
“Not with her soilpox scars.”
Because of her scars, Iris still didn’t have a fiancé, though many of her peers did.
“Surely no one cares about such trivial details anymore.”
“That’s not all. Do you see that? Iris has no mana. She can’t finish a single assignment the way she’s supposed to.”
“What about you?”
“I can cast spells, at the very least.”
He showed Reseda his scroll—perfectly immobile, tied with a glossy emerald green cord with diagonal purple and gold stripes, braided in the shape of an iris flower. It matched Iris’s almost exactly, just as one might expect from her twin.
“Yep, your spell worked, all right. I guess she’s even worse than you.”
“Which means she can never be the Holy Maiden.”
Camille’s mana was tremendous, and it still had the potential to grow. A score of 5 was not the upper limit of her aptitude; it simply indicated that she excelled in that category, with no precise measurement.
As for Iris, their father was right—she’d have to become the Holy Maiden if she wanted to stand a chance of marrying into the royal family. Was Reseda really prepared to fight for her if she failed? If not, then Nigel wanted him to back off. Otherwise, if Iris got her hopes up, she’d only get hurt in the end…and he didn’t want to see that happen to her.
“There are upsides to not having any mana, you know,” Reseda replied unexpectedly. “She’s very resistant to any magic cast upon her. That’s a useful trait to have, is it not?”
At this, Nigel blinked in surprise. Reseda had a way of always looking on the bright side—something Nigel sincerely admired about him.
“Take my charm amplification spell, for example. It doesn’t work on her at all,” he continued, chuckling mischievously.
“Excuse me? You’ve been casting magic to boost your own sex appeal?! On school grounds?!”
“Well, I tried. But it didn’t work.”
“Never do that again!”
“Why? It doesn’t break the rules. Besides, everyone does it. Who wouldn’t want to look good in front of the opposite sex?”
Nigel rolled his eyes. “Insecure much?”
“Now then, I think it’s time I went down there. If Iris submits a scroll with Miss Camille’s magic on it, I can only imagine what the teacher will say.”
Reseda whipped out his wand and began to cast a spell on himself.
“Your Highness!”
Reseda knew it would have no effect, but he couldn’t help but try regardless. Once his charm was boosted an additional twenty percent, he set off strolling down the hall.
Then he met up with Iris and opened the small box containing her scroll. A magic circle had been affixed to it, trapping it inside.
“Iris, if you submit this scroll, it’ll count as cheating,” he explained.
Camille and Iris exchanged an alarmed look.
“Retract your spell, Miss Camille. And Iris, just submit the entire box when you turn it in.”
“Oh, of course! That way, it won’t flop around! Thank you for the helpful advice, Your Highness!” Iris told him, beaming.
I’m not Your Highness, he thought. But he didn’t want to ruin the moment.
After Iris put the scroll in the box, he picked it up. “Now I’ll do this.”
He tied the box with his own braiding cord in the shape of a cherry blossom. The teacher would see it and understand its meaning: that he’d decided she had completed the assignment to the best of her ability while unable to cast magic.
“Thank you so much! Now maybe I won’t get yelled at!”
Iris grinned at him, and he blushed shyly.