A Dragon's Curiosity

Shaking off the residual wetness with a powerful jolt Nisha entered the Magician’s Tower. The dragon did not fear ice and snow in the first place, so needless to say, a warm summer rain failed to affect her even slightly. Now that she thought about it, Nisha realised she had never experienced even a single cold nor another common ailment every other human she knew suffered from time to time.

Praising the remarkable constitution of her body for protecting her from small sufferings, she almost did not notice the loitering youths in front of the classroom.

“Watch where you are going, idiot.”

The speaker went out of his way to bump into the elf, giving her a firm shove.

Unfortunately, he miscalculated, the feeble looking girl did not only not stagger and fall, but he also suffered severe recoil instead from the power hiding in her body and harshly fell to the ground.

Hit by an existence beyond his understanding, the lackey’s skin bruised quickly in yellow and blue hues while he had to use all of his willpower to stop from groaning out loud. The other grunts picked him up and rushed towards the classroom, throwing glares at her and pretending to not let the vengeful grins anticipating her miserable future show on their faces either.

All the while they acted out this play by themselves, Nisha placed a hand in her pocket and felt up the object the other side worked so hard to put in her possession.

Going by its nature, the dragon had an idea what was about to happen and placed it in her [Inner Space] before shaking her head and advancing towards her desk. Now she really wanted to enjoy the grand spectacle her enemies prepared.

No sooner than the elf sat down, Miss Anet arrived as well, and the hushed conversations around the room came to an end. Nodding towards Alexander, who stealthily waved his hand in greeting, the elf folded her hands and supported her chin, waiting for the class to begin.

“A good day to you students. Your task for today is to continue with meditation practice after duelling each other and trying to get a feel for the flow of mana in your mind. Once you manage to do that, you can try to think of methods to increase your recovery efforts. In case you have questions, come to the front and avoid disrupting others. That’s all.”

As usual, the petite instructor neither raised her voice to allow them to understand her clearly if the class could not calm down or threatened to enact any punishments if they failed to fulfil her task. Relying on the neat and concise manner of speech inherent to her, Miss Anet gave them a few short sentences and sat down on her own; closing her eyes and started to meditate.

Despite not seeing any visual signs of danger, none of the students intended to go up to her and actually ask a question if they could not avoid it. Who wanted to wake up a sleeping beast?

Sadly an exception existed for every rule, and a certain student stood up right away, disturbing the magician’s meditation.

“Esteemed teacher, I have an issue I would like to report.”

Smoothing out the creases on his new and embroidered robe, Weston Whitehall frightened all the oblivious young men and women in the room, even some of his followers showed signs of fright.

Weston, on the other hand, feigned innocence and projected an air of righteousness.

“Speak. What is so important?”

Without opening her eyes and not moving a muscle, Miss Anet replied and did not let any of her feelings show.

The young man bowed to her and revelled in the limelight before continuing his little play.

Keeping his hands in the sleeves of his other arm, quite a few of the students hung on his lips, eager to see why Weston risked bringing calamity on himself.

“As I made an effort to return my debt to esteemed teacher, I described the previous ‘King’s Throne’ game to an acquaintance who has a chance to be employed as a court magician in the future. It caused him to raise some concerns regarding the competition. Answering his questions and confirming the scene together with me, there is a high chance the game has been manipulated and a fraud happened.

My duty as a magician is to uphold the principles and stand against injustice. Therefore I ask you to pardon my offence.”

He alluded the accusation in his words without naming anyone directly, building up his image as a proper and good man, who got cheated as well. Quite a few of the girls blinded by his looks gasped when they understood the implication.

“I see. And you are informing me now with what goal in mind?”

Even now Miss Anet’s eyelids remained still, not breaking out of contemplation at all as if bored already.

“Naturally I have started an investigation and found an irregularity if esteemed teacher can pass judgement after discerning the facts I would be most grateful.”

In her seat at the back, Nisha snorted at his blatant denunciation. The incident outside the room had already alerted her, but the current plot appeared far too crude to be true.

On her side, Alexander attempted to get her attention several times and a vein popped on his head when he saw through the implications as well. Sadly, the elf did not bother to respond and lazed around on her table, watching as if she was not concerned at all.

By now most of the other students also realised the speech aimed at her and how she took the king’s seat previously, but Nisha did not care at all. This little bit of attention fell short of the veneration she had received back in the [Dragon’s Den]; the current gazes already blended in the background. She did not react, on the contrary, the dragon did not care much for it either. Whether it was a raid from a neighbouring sphere of influence invading the dragon sibling’s territory or a visit from the [Harpy Queen] and [Fairy Queen], a much more grave situation needed to occur to send the elf into a panic.

Playing with a gleaming strand of hair that came loose from the blue fabric of her scarf, Nisha waited for Weston to continue his game and set the stage.

“You can do whatever you want with your own reputation, but you can’t just say what you like! Where is your proof? This is baseless slander!”

Unable to take it any longer Alexander unexpectedly stood up and focused all the attention on himself, surprising even the elf. She still had ways to deal with the noble. However, they also required some effort on her part. To have someone else step in and take up her cause helped Nisha a lot, especially since offending a noble usually carried a high price. Yet Alexander still spoke out for her, instead of cowering with the mass of students.

Weston glared at the new participant, to have his honour called in question by a mere commoner enraged him. Whether or not his accusation had truth behind it should not matter. He swore to remember this impudent fellow and make sure no official post or family would employ him in the future.

On the other hand, Nisha similarly vowed to remember this favour and treat Alexander well in return.

“It’s not unreasonable what my friend said. If I understand your intentions correctly, you claim I used an external force to cheat in the competition for the [King’s Seat]. Naturally, I can say that I am innocent and so on, but what use does that have when a noble personage from the Whitehall family calls my integrity into question.

Did that sum up the circumstances correctly, Ser Weston?”

As he had yet to be conferred with the title of a knight from the king, Weston did not have the right to be addressed with the honorific ‘Ser’ - strictly speaking. To get on his good side, however, many lower ranked nobles and acquaintances still called him that in hopes of getting his favour. Getting his ego stroked like this, the young noble bloomed like a showy flower and stuck out his chest with pride.

“So you are still sensible. Of course, it is impossible for a commoner admitted through a recommendation and scholarship to be stronger than an authentic noble of the highest pedigree in the kingdom. As long as you recognise my contact saw through your small trick, return my merit points, and formally apologise, I can agree to let you off and plead to esteemed teacher to spare you from a harsh punishment.”

Due to being pampered since birth and never having suffered any serious setbacks, Weston felt it was unbearable to have lost against Nisha previously. He had convinced himself she must have used an unknown method to cheat, otherwise, how could she be more proficient than himself? Of course, his position as a noble must have finally scared her, and her flattering words were an appeal to show her submission and a plea for mercy.

He did not doubt this unusually fortunate coincidence when he already made preparations to drag the elf down from her position. As long as Weston cleared the stain from his reputation and regained the [King’s Seat], he did not care about the method.

“I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake in your arguments.

Let’s put aside whether or not being noble determines your strength, I am not a human anyway. More importantly, do you think I can pull any underhanded tricks under the eyes of Miss Anet? If external help was so easy, would a teacher from the Royal Academy fail to discern it? Or would you claim that your acquaintance is so much smarter and powerful than Miss Anet?”

Nisha mixed some truths into her speech, she was indeed not a human. Not a real elf either, but no one knew that. Additionally, the dragon also knew their instructor would not bother with exposing a student for pulling a trick like Weston had done before, relying on a magic gem to supplement his own power.

Maybe if I actually lost against him in the struggle for the [King’s Seat], she would have said something. Or not, if Miss Anet simply doesn’t care about quarrelling between first and second rank students. We must look like small children to her …

As luck would have it only Nisha knew her own argument, the supervision by a higher authority than her own did not hold up at all. However no one could dispute it at the moment, and the collective gazes of the listening young magicians gathered on the young noble who started the whole thing, doubting his claims.

Due to a moment of pride and carelessness, the situation escaped his control, contorting Weston’s expression and putting him in a hard spot.

“Sophistry! Not even elves can overcome the noble blood we humans have! You want to dodge the question by averting our attention to minor things. Don’t think you can succeed!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, his back chilled. Instead of arguing back, his opponent looked like a sly cat, showing pearly white teeth in a broad grin.

“I can’t ascertain whether or not that’s the truth, as I am not as educated as a splendid noble human such as you, Weston Whitehall.

Since that is the case, we can only rely on our teacher, Miss Anet, to oversee a fair contest to see whether I cheated to overcome you.

To prove my sincerity, I will bet two thousand merit points on my innocence, which can at the same time serve as the challenger fee to compete for the [King’s Seat] in an extraordinary manner. And considering we will trouble Miss Anet to act as the judge, each of us should also take out another five hundred points as a token of appreciation for her time. Naturally, it is a minuscule amount for a teacher, but it’s the gesture that counts.”

All of the students broke out in whispers, furiously discussing the words Nisha just uttered. None of them dared to believe a commoner would act so brazenly in front of a noble. Either outcome seemed to be terrible, either the elf lost a ton of merit points or deeply offended a young master coming from a Duke household by exposing his words as lies in front of a large crowd. Thankfully none of that mattered to the person herself, Nisha snickered at the grand play that finally came together.

This point also represented the last chance for Weston to step down from his claims. If he offered a word of apology after seeing her sincerity and acknowledged Miss Anet as a good teacher; blaming his source a little for exaggerating, he still might save face. At least he would not embarrass himself.

Sadly the young and hot headed youth did not believe his plan had any holes. As Weston himself had cheated last time, he sincerely believed there was no way Nisha truly had mental strength above his own. She should have used a similar trick to overpower him. Now that their teacher would watch over the competition, he had a chance to retake the seat and even earn merit points.

In the unlikely case, Miss Anet and the elf conspired to make him lose, there was still the magic gem charged with magic power in the elf’s dress, his lackey told him earlier it was successfully placed on her person.

The greatest bait still was the generous amount of merit points the other side had offered. While he troubled an associate of his family who already entered the third turn at the academy, the previous amount he lost still cost him quite a bit of gold to exchange. If his family found out he lost, just some gold would be the least of his troubles, So Weston gritted his teeth and had purchased the merit points at a low cost.

If he seized this chance and won two thousand points this time around, he would have enough to spend for several moons. Perhaps even as much as half a turn for a first turn student.

“Alright, I agree! Esteemed teacher, I will have to trouble you to carefully examine our duel to make sure there’s no chance of anyone cheating!”