666, and it’s turn-based, huh?

So what the hell is going on with these two? Vinny felt like, with his processor level, he couldn’t quite read it. How did it suddenly turn into them attacking each other again??

But in the original, these two often did things that looked like they were attacking the other person, but were actually flirting—fighting over who was on top. That did seem... kind of reasonable, I guess??

All Vinny could say was that the match between experts was completely beyond him. Watching it, he only had a few thoughts: What are they doing? Why are they fighting? Why did their words suddenly turn into barbs and gunpowder? Which sentence did this weird hostility suddenly come out of? Why does it feel like every line has something behind it?

No way.

Vinny suddenly had another bizarre thought—was he, just like in the original, once again becoming one link in the “play” between Aesphyra and the other destined heroines?

No, Isatia wasn’t really hitting straight balls—she was using him as an excuse to flirt with Aesphyra, right?!

Damn it, this is the second time already. Don’t treat this young master like one link in your two-person “play,” okay??

Vinny couldn’t help rolling his eyes.

“Ahem. Isatia, I’m kind of hungry. How about we hurry up and go eat? Let’s not waste time.” Seeing Aesphyra and Isatia with their arms folded, staring each other down in silence—neither of them making any other move—Vinny still felt like the “martial-soul true forms” behind them had already fought three hundred rounds in the air, like they’d keep confronting each other until someone won today. So Vinny could only speak first and break the silence.

“Let’s go.” Isatia agreed. She gave Aesphyra one last deep look, meeting those smiling eyes so similar to her own for one last glance.

“Sorry, Aesphyra. Vinny is treating me to a meal, so we’ll be going first.” With that, she left together with Vinny, leaving Aesphyra alone to watch their backs.

After that, Vinny took Isatia to the high-end steakhouse Mirexia had brought him to before. Since she had treated him in a place like that, if he was treating someone, he couldn’t drop the level. Even if Isatia didn’t lack any of this—and didn’t lack this meal at all—this was an attitude issue. It was a matter of how much sincerity he was showing, that he wanted to be friends with her.

After they got to the restaurant, Vinny originally planned to sit across from her, but after Vinny sat down, Isatia sat down on the outside of Vinny first, blocking his plan in advance.

“What is it?” The school-uniform girl with black hair and purple eyes held the menu with hands like an artwork, lifted her head, and looked at Vinny as he hesitated to speak. Those gemlike, agate-bright eyes carried confusion.

“Ah, nothing. I was just thinking I’d sit across from you.” Vinny scratched his head.

“But when we tutor, don’t we always sit like this?” Isatia tilted her head as strands of dark hair slid over her shoulder and fell smoothly. “Do you think there’s something inappropriate?”

“Ah, no, no. But we’re eating now. Tutoring is definitely different from eating.” Vinny explained.

“So you don’t want to sit on the same side as me?” Isatia’s beautiful eyes stared into Vinny’s, calm and serious.

“That’s not it! How could that be?” Vinny immediately broke into a sweat. When she asked it like that, how could he possibly answer “I don’t want to”??

Besides, she was the First Princess of the Tyrel Empire, the second-ranked school beauty in their year, a black-haired long-straight-haired school-uniform beauty—and she was being this proactive toward him. What reason did he have to refuse? Refusing would be way too ungrateful.

Fine. Sitting together it is. She was right—when they tutored, they sat together anyway. What was the big deal.

“Isatia, take a look. See what you want to eat.” Vinny said.

“You pick. Our tastes are pretty similar. I generally like whatever you order.” Isatia said, drinking the coffee that had been brought up.

“Ah? Uh... okay.” Vinny didn’t know what to say, so he could only take the menu that seemed to still carry a faint trace of a girl’s fingertip fragrance.

And what he didn’t know was—at the same time, outside the steakhouse.

“Aiden, how’d you do on this one?”

“Not bad. You?”

“Yeah right! Look at your face—like the sky fell—and you’re saying not bad?? Tsk tsk. You don’t even tell your bro the truth, like I’m meeting you for the first time.”

“Aren’t you the same? You definitely bombed it, then came here to get some balance off me. You think I don’t know??”

Outside the steakhouse, two male students shoved and cursed at each other with grinning insults.

“Alright, alright. Even if nobody did well, it’s noon and we’re starving. Where are we eating?”

“No idea, but you’ve gotta treat me. I bombed it.”

“Get lost! Like I didn’t bomb it too. I bombed it, alright? How come nobody’s treating me??”

They were still cursing as they finally realized they’d ended up in front of this steakhouse window.

“Oh? You get sleepy and someone delivers a pillow. Perfect, isn’t it? No need to think of a place. Aiden, let’s eat here at noon.”

“But this place is pretty expensive...”

“Tsk, why do you talk so much?? You bombed the exam and you still can’t spend money to enjoy a high-end restaurant??” the other male student said irritably.

“That’s true. Hey, hey—let’s go, let’s go!” As he spoke, the two of them headed toward the entrance.

“Hey, speaking of it—turns out the traitors in the card-player-soul club weren’t just us, huh?” Aiden sighed. “After that inspection, a bunch of people got hit. They were all found to have joined support fan clubs for various school beauties. Even Ferdi was wearing a badge for some kind of beauty-contest champion girl’s support fan club.”

“Tsk, it’s my first time hearing someone call themselves a traitor. Is that even a traitor? The card-player road is lonely. What’s wrong with finding someone to admire on this lonely road??” John said with righteous indignation.

“But seriously, older guy Vinny is a real man. He really hasn’t joined anyone’s support fan club.”

“Yeah.”

As he spoke, Aiden suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong, Aiden? Why are you standing there? Did the exam make you stupid? You aren’t even eager to eat—something’s wrong with your brain.”

“N-no, John. I think I saw your goddess!”

“What goddess? What are you talking about?” John looked confused.

“Your goddess. Didn’t you join the Isatia support fan club before?” Even though Aiden and John had been roughhousing and exposing each other earlier, they were actually roommates—and roommates with matching interests at that. A pair of terrible friends. That was why they had done that mutual exposing inside the card-player-soul club.

“Yeah, so what? Didn’t you expose me??”

“No, I’m saying... I think I saw your goddess. And she looks like she’s eating alone with a man.” Aiden said uncertainly.

“Huh?!” John froze for a moment, his ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) brain stalling from how much information was packed into that sentence, and only then reacted, looking in the direction Aiden pointed.

“I’m not seeing wrong, right? That should be Isatia... and the one next to her is... no—older guy Vinny?!” After seeing clearly through the glass who was sitting beside Isatia, the two of them were struck by lightning, frozen in place. John, especially, went numb all over.

After confirming the two inside really were Vinny and Isatia—and that they were even sitting on the same side—the two of them stood outside the shop in silence, staring at the window, getting shredded by the wind.

“AAAAH?!” After a long time, John exploded first in the silence. He stared at the man and woman sitting on the same side, utterly unable to believe it.

“Uh, John? You... okay?” Seeing John’s reaction, Aiden wanted to speak, then stopped.

“Actually, you don’t have to be like this. Maybe it’s just that older guy Vinny accidentally helped Isatia with something, and she’s just treating him to a meal, hahaha.” Aiden forced an explanation—even though he didn’t believe it himself.

“Ah, ahh, yes, that’s right! Aiden, you’re a damn genius! How did I not notice before?? Right, it must be that!” John nodded like crazy.

“Yeah! That’s right! There’s no other possibility!”

“Uh, John?” Seeing John get weird and twitchy, Aiden started to feel scared inside.

“B-but.” John finally managed to calm down a little, but when he lifted his head again, he started stammering again.

“But what?”

“But would a normal thank-you... personally feed the other person?!” John pointed into the shop, eyes hollow.

“Huh??” Aiden jolted, turning to look—only to see inside the shop, the black-haired long-straight-haired school-uniform beauty pick up the dessert cake in front of her, take a spoonful, and calmly bring it to Vinny’s mouth.

Now the two of them fell silent again—mute, wordless, nothing to say.

“AAAAH! So the real traitor is here?!” John wore a face of absolute agony as Aiden dragged him away.

Aiden felt like if he didn’t drag John away—if he let John keep chopping down his love—John was going to have a mental breakdown.

The contrast was just too big. It was like finding out the goddess you adored and worshiped, the one you didn’t even dare speak to, was just as clingy in front of the person she liked.

It hurt. It hurt too much!

Fortunately, the soundproofing on the glass here was very strong. Neither Isatia nor Vinny noticed this little incident.

And on the other side—

“Aiya. As always, such a very fine grade.” On the academy back street, inside an alchemy potion shop called Crucible Grand Furnace, a tall, long-haired woman with a witch hat and pale, beautiful skin sat on her long chair, examining the glowing potion in her hand.

“No wonder it’s Aesphyra. Even when your state is poor, you still keep a very high baseline.” The long-haired woman shook the potion bottle slightly, watching the liquid roll inside, and smiled.

“Aiya, if it weren’t through these potions, I really wouldn’t be able to tell. You’re in a bad mood today? Hehe. Since we’re old acquaintances, I’ll listen to you complain a little.” The woman wearing the pointed, oversized witch hat propped her cheek with one hand and looked at the silver-haired girl in front of her with meaning. “After all, it’s not common for something like this to happen to you. I’m curious who it was—who could actually make you unhappy.”

“Miss Christine, please forgive me, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Aesphyra calmly selected her next batch of alchemy materials, not even turning her head.

“Even though I really want to satisfy my curiosity right now—since I’ve never seen your mood this bad—my rational mind is also telling me that if I keep prying, our cooperation from now on will end here.” Christine smiled. Her witch hat was worn crooked, and it was hard to say whether it was her personal style, done on purpose, or simply crooked.

“Is that so? Miss Christine is a smart person. You should know what you ought to do.” Aesphyra’s tone was ordinary, still carrying that faint, barely-there smile like always.

If she hadn’t noticed that the quality of the batch of alchemy potions Aesphyra brewed just now was much worse than what she usually submitted, Christine felt she wouldn’t have been able to catch anything.

Christine had been running an alchemy shop inside Carillian Academy for years now. Decades, surely. And the silver-haired girl in front of her was the only student she couldn’t see through.

Logically, that was unbelievable. These little brats with barely-grown hair had grown up inside an ivory tower and never gone out. They had no real scheming depth. They should’ve been the easiest group to understand. Even if they could fake it, they shouldn’t be able to fake it strongly.

But the first time she met Aesphyra, she discovered that this silver-haired girl—beautiful to an excessive degree—was an exception. In those purple eyes, Christine could only see her own reflection. Other than that, she couldn’t find anything.

A person like that was usually an absolute genius of alchemy. Christine’s intuition and experience told her so.

So the two of them entered a series of collaborations. After all, even Aesphyra sometimes couldn’t get her hands on certain scarce materials. Those precious materials weren’t something you could buy with money.

And Christine was willing to provide them. The price was that Aesphyra had to brew some alchemy potions for her regularly.

To be honest, she’d known Aesphyra for almost a year now, and this was the first time she’d ever sensed any emotional change on Aesphyra—and that she would actually feel displeased because of something.

That was far too interesting.

Christine looked at Aesphyra brewing potions with the curiosity of someone discovering a new continent, making no effort to hide it.

“Alright, alright, forget it. Even if I’m curious, you won’t tell me anyway, right?” Soon, seeing Aesphyra give no other reaction, Christine stretched lazily in boredom.

“How about this—five Dragon-Whisker Grass. I’ll buy that secret of yours?”

“Miss Christine always brings up questions that leave people unable to make sense of them.” Aesphyra laughed softly.

“Alright, alright. If you want to be stubborn, there’s nothing I can do.”

(An animated “cute-god champion” clip of Vinny, plus sound effects, plus chibi form and an avatar-frame border are now available~ The pink half of the border is Vanessa’s wings and hearts, and the blue half has Vinny’s hair ribbon.)