Chapter 400: Sophie Dimitri [1]

Yennifer asked the question in the most casual way, as if it was only natural of her to do so.

"Sophie... is a close friend of mine."

I lied with a straight face.

I had rehearsed the line for quite some time now, so it easily flowed from my mouth without sounding forced in any way.

"Hm? Is that so? Talking to her, it didn’t feel like she considered you a friend of hers."

Yennifer slightly turned her head in my direction without stopping in her tracks.

Her brows were raised, clearly showing her suspicion regarding my relation with Sophie, but—

"I don’t see any reason for me to convince you of our... friendship."

I mean... that should have been an obvious thing, yet the authority with which Yennifer kept asking the questions was similar to someone who was close to me and had every right to interrogate me about my life and the relations that I had with the people by my side.

"Fair enough."

Hm?

Though the words weren’t exclusive to me, someone else using it in the same tone as me felt a little... unfair, though I wasn’t petty enough to point it out.

"Why did you choose the disciplinary committee?"

Shifting the topic to something else felt a reasonable choice to me, and so I did the same.

Yennifer, on her part, didn’t reply immediately, as she raised her head to look at the blue sky suspended above our heads, before turning her attention back to the ground beneath us.

"Why did you choose it?"

Instead of an answer, what I received was a question, though that didn’t surprise me.

In fact, I had expected Yennifer to react in such a way.

"I chose Ashlyn, and well... it appears that she was in the disciplinary committee."

"..."

Hm?

The look that Yennifer just gave me felt a little different from my expectations.

Was she impressed by my answer or repulsed by it?

But thinking about it, she had no reason to feel any sort of repulsion towards it—

"Are you dating her?"

"Hm?"

"Miss Ashlyn Levaith... are you dating her?"

I couldn’t help but stop in my tracks as I gave Yennifer a long glance.

"Your words gave such an impression. There’s no need to be so dramatic... let’s go."

My eyes tracked the figure before me as she moved in her usual grace, not taking even the slightest efforts to look at me.

Was I being the dramatic one here?

I didn’t think so.

And I didn’t know why, but I felt like this girl... Yennifer had rehearsed all her dialogues before coming here.

Why did her words have such a piercing effect on me for no reason?

Sigh.

Maybe I was being dramatic.

Closing my eyes, I took deep breaths for stabilising my mind, while at the same time I channelled mana all across my body to remove any lingering effect of my earlier anxiety from it.

Why was the path to meeting Arthur’s daughter filled with such difficulties?

***

Sophie stood near the entrance to the girls’ dormitory waiting for a certain someone.

To be specific, a girl named Yennifer Alistair, who Sophie later learned was the second princess of House Alistair.

After arriving at the academy, Yennifer was the first one to meet her, and at the time Sophie had no one to guide her, so she ended up talking with the Alistairian princess.

Kael was supposed to be there during her admission, but as she had arrived early... he wasn’t in the academy.

It was through the headmaster that Sophie had learnt regarding the academy’s visit to the Levaith duchy, but due to the recent news, that visit had been cancelled midway and that was why the students had returned early.

Sophie was just glad that at least there was someone to help her get settled in the academy.

Thinking about Yennifer... the girl felt a little cold but genuine in her words.

Despite Sophie’s repeated protests, her father had asked her to listen to Kael while attending the academy, and so Sophie was left with no choice but to follow the orders.

It wasn’t like she was scared of her father, but more like... she didn’t want him to worry about her.

Curing her from the disease itself had caused him to pledge his allegiance to an organization called D.X., of which Kael appeared to be some high-ranking member, who was even above Arthur in the hierarchy of the organization.

At first Sophie had thought that her father had begun to serve Kael, as during all his visits Arthur was always subservient towards Kael.

But after being cured, she had learnt more about the organization that her father was working for, and the one that was leading the said organization.

X... that was the person before whom Arthur had bent his knee and Kael too served the same man.

She couldn’t learn more about X, as neither her father nor the people who would come to visit him from time to time and were part of the same organization had explained anything to her regarding the leader of D.X.

But from everything that Sophie had heard so far, she had come to a final conclusion that whoever this X was... he was far stronger and superior to her father.

Though it should have been expected given that X was supposed to be the leader of such a massive organization, Sophie still found it hard to believe that her father... someone whom she considered invincible, had someone stronger than him out there.

Sophie’s worldview was being the limiting factor in her analysis, as she never had a formal education in the subject related to the cultivation levels in the world.

Coming to the academy would be her first step in actually becoming something in her life, that so far had been a lightless dump for her.

"There she is."

Sophie’s thoughts were interrupted by a calm voice, and as she raised her head to spot the source, she could see Yennifer walking towards her—

"Kael?"