How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?-Chapter 66Vol 3. : Don’t Let Classmate Isatia Get the Wrong Idea

“Vinny, wake up.”

“ZZZ... huh, huh? Wake up? Wake up for what? It’s still early today, it’s only eight o’clock—getting up now is a waste of time, isn’t it?” Vinny squinted, rolled over, and treated the knocking at his door from Shicodale outside like it didn’t exist.

“But, Vinny, we’re going to be late for class,” Shicodale’s knocking grew anxious.

“L...late?” Vinny tilted his head, his brain failing to boot for a moment. After resting for so long, that word felt a little unfamiliar to him, to the point that he didn’t react to it right away.

“Why would I be late? Classes haven’t even started yet.” As he spoke, Vinny pulled his head back under the covers.

“But, Vinny, you’ve already been discharged from the Sanatorium. You’re healed, and today is a school day?” Shicodale knocked again.

“I... ah!” In an instant, the groggy Vinny came fully awake. He slapped his own forehead in sudden realization.

Crap. He’d gotten too used to those leisurely days of hospitalization and convalescence and had almost forgotten he’d been discharged yesterday—and today he had to go to class like normal again!

Ahhh, in the early morning, the most despairing thing isn’t hearing that it’s Monday, it’s hearing that your rest period is over and you have to go back to school.

It’s over. I’m screwed!

As Vinny’s mind dragged itself out of the fog, he scrambled off the bed, using both hands and feet to search for his clothes.

Ahhh, he’d been way too careless when he went to sleep yesterday; he’d just tossed his clothes and pants wherever, and now trying to find them in the morning was like trying to assemble a transforming robot.

“My jacket, where’s my jacket—why is it hanging over there? Ow!” Because Vinny’s brain still wasn’t fully online, in the middle of searching he fell off the bed, seeing stars.

“Ah? Vinny, what happened? Are you okay?” Hearing the noise from inside, Shicodale couldn’t help asking worriedly from outside the room.

“Ahh, that hurt like hell! Tsk, I could’ve sworn I threw this jacket on the floor last night—how is it hanging on the chair now? What, can jackets grow legs?” Vinny complained, rubbing his butt.

Did I remember wrong??

Gritting his teeth through the pain, Vinny got dressed while he thought.

He walked over to the dressing table, roughly fixed his hair, then pushed open the door and stepped out of his room.

“Vinny, breakfast is ready. Hurry and eat or we’ll be late.”

“Mm, Dale, you go on ahead or you’ll be late for class,” Vinny said, glancing up at the clock hanging on the wall.

“It’s fine, I’ll wait and go with you,” Shicodale refused.

“Wait? Wait so you can be late with me?” Vinny joked. “If you can walk, go on ahead by yourself. No need to wait. I’ll be right there once I’ve eaten.”

“Mm, but I still want to go with you,” Shicodale murmured softly at his side.

This had always been his habit. After all, when he’d first arrived at Carillian Academy, nothing was familiar, and he’d been afraid of humans. Back then, it was Vinny who took him along every day, going to class with him, and only that way had he slowly overcome his fear.

By now, it was long since a habit.

“All right, all right, whatever you want,” Vinny, seeing he couldn’t talk Shicodale out of it, gave up trying. He just sped up and scarfed down his breakfast as fast as he could.

Once they’d filled their stomachs, the two of them headed straight for the Teaching Hall—and thankfully, they made it. When they reached the classroom, the instructor still hadn’t arrived.

Mm, even though the term had already been going on for more than two weeks, Vinny still felt like today was his first day of school.

It really had been a while. He hadn’t seen his classmates in ages.

He really wanted to say something like that. They were in a small class, without that many people; everyone knew each other’s names and was relatively familiar.

But familiar didn’t mean everyone got along great.

This was exactly the problem Vinny was facing now—he really wanted to say to his dear classmates, “Long time no see—did you all miss me?”, but those words clearly weren’t going to make it past his lips. His dear classmates’ eyes already said everything that needed saying.

Vinny felt that if he actually asked that question, most of them would answer in unison, “We wish you’d never come back,” especially those Imperial male students with the green light shining in their eyes.

At this age, which student knows how to hide their feelings, really? It’s not like they’re Aesphyra, a two-lives-cheat build, so what each gaze wanted to express was as obvious as it gets.

Man, seriously, these guys... they don’t know a thing about the situation, and they’re already glaring like this. What are you glaring at, huh??

Vinny could only abandon his impulse to raise his hand, let it fall, clear his throat twice, and walk into the classroom.

The fickleness of people’s hearts, huh.

Vinny swept his gaze around the room. As he stepped in, only Aesphyra smiled at him—but that girl always had that smiling expression on her face, so that was nothing unusual.

Other than her, there was Isatia.

When Vinny entered the classroom, Isatia looked straight at him.

He didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but he kept feeling like, at the moment her gaze landed on him, the frost that usually never left Isatia’s eyes... melted.

It was completely different from the feeling she gave off when they’d interacted before.

Oof.

Vinny wondered what the hell had been wrong with him recently—thinking like that was honestly disgustingly sappy.

Illusion, just an illusion. Besides, he’d helped Isatia out in such a big way; wasn’t it perfectly normal for her to be grateful to him??

Vinny and Shicodale sat in the third row.

Soon, the instructor walked into the classroom.

“Isatia, and Vinny—how are your bodies doing?” The instructor pushed up his glasses and asked with concern.

“Almost fully recovered, Instructor.”

“Mm, I’m fine now.”

Once both of them had answered, the instructor nodded, gave them a brief welcome back, and started the lesson.

However, once class actually began, Vinny discovered the second difficulty of returning to the classroom.

He had missed way too much material!

As the instructor’s pace picked up, Vinny felt like he was on a plane the entire time, like he was listening to scripture in a language from the heavens—he clearly understood every individual word he heard, but once they were combined, he didn’t understand a single thing.

All those technical terms—he didn’t know what any of them were supposed to mean!

Vinny was stunned.

If it were just one technical term he didn’t understand, that wouldn’t be so bad; he ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) could look it up afterward and tie it back to concepts from last term, and he’d more or less get it. But when it was a whole pile of technical terms he didn’t understand, they stacked up, and once the quantity changed, it turned into a qualitative change.

The result was that he didn’t understand a single word.

Seriously, why was the instructor going this fast? Could he not spare some thought for students who were just coming back from injury and illness??

Ah, right.

There were only two students who’d been in the Sanatorium and were just back in class because of injury—him and Isatia; and she was a destiny heroine and cheat build who had long since read through all of Carillian Academy’s textbooks for several years with her freakish memory.

Sure, they’d both taken several days of medical leave, but do you honestly think she’d feel any pressure catching up in class??

A max-level account isn’t going to regress just because you don’t log in for a few days. Going back to flatten a newbie village is still a wave of the hand.

All right, at this moment Vinny felt he could really sense this world’s malice toward him.

Fortunately, Shicodale sitting beside him had also noticed Vinny’s predicament and, very thoughtfully, wanted to help clear things up for him.

“Vinny, you’ve missed too much class and can’t keep up with the pace, right? Tell me what you don’t understand and I’ll teach you,” Shicodale whispered.

“No need, just focus on yourself,” Vinny shook his head. “If you try to teach me and fail, and you don’t listen properly to the lecture yourself and fall behind too, that’d be bad.”

“It’s okay, I already understand everything the instructor’s talking about. Let me teach you?” Shicodale suggested.

“Save it for after class; you listen properly for now.” Vinny glanced at Shicodale, then turned his eyes back to the blackboard.

“Mm... okay.” Seeing Vinny insist, Shicodale could only obediently give in; he had always listened to Vinny.

Still, he felt that ever since Vinny had come back from the Marsmo Secret Realm, Vinny seemed to have changed in some ways again.

It felt like, in some respects, his temperament had gotten a bit steadier than before??

Very soon, the bell for the end of class rang.

Vinny had spent the entire lesson forcing himself to stay awake; it wasn’t that he lacked ambition, it was just that he truly didn’t understand a single sentence.

He kept wanting to try to understand, but when you don’t understand even the foundation of a subject, the more you listen, the easier it is to nod off.

That’s when the drawback of a single-core processor really shows up.

In the past, the instructor’s magic chalk from the podium probably would have gone flying at him by now; after all, this instructor was renowned for keen powers of observation and insight—it was impossible for him not to notice a student zoning out.

But he also knew Vinny’s situation. You can’t expect every student to keep pace with Isatia, so he turned a blind eye.

After class, the instructor tucked his textbook under his arm and specifically reminded the group, “Because of an accident in the Secret Realm, some students haven’t been able to keep up with our progress. If any other students have time, please try to help those classmates out.”

“Of course, you can also come ask me.”

He didn’t name names; with that, he left the classroom.

That said...

The first half of that sentence might as well not have been spoken.

Aesphyra hadn’t been wrong when she roasted him—everyone in this class knew exactly what kind of reputation Vinny had here. The fact they weren’t kicking him while he was down was already pretty good; teach him?

They wish.

“Vinny, uh, let me teach you!” Shicodale volunteered.

“All right then, walk me through it,” Vinny said. Seeing Shicodale like this, he couldn’t bring himself to crush his enthusiasm, but he had serious doubts about Shicodale’s ability as an instructor.

“Okay, okay, then let’s start from the first lesson. First, this part, you use that, um, that formula...”

“Okay, Dale, I got it. You can stop,” Vinny said blankly the moment Shicodale got those words out.

“Eh? Vinny, do you already understand?”

“Nope.” Vinny shook his head. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

“Then... I really am just terrible at explaining, huh?” Shicodale drooped his head in dejection.

“No, you explained it very well,” Vinny said with a perfectly serious face. “But my recommendation is that you don’t do it again next time.”

“Uu...”

As for finding someone to walk him through the material, Vinny already had someone in mind.

And that was, of course...

“Vinny~ You look like you’re having a hard time,” a voice chimed.

“What’s hard?” Vinny silently turned his gaze toward the silver-haired beauty who had appeared at his side at some point, sitting elegantly with her legs crossed.

“Nothing, just... looking at your face, if we squeezed it for juice, I’m pretty sure every drop that came out would taste bitter,” Aesphyra laughed, her voice like silver bells.

“Bitter. So what if it’s bitter? Let it all be bitter and choke you with it,” Vinny shot her a look.

“Oh my? Choke me? Vinny, are you sure you want to choke me?” Aesphyra tilted her head, like a playful, adorable ragdoll cat.

“I’m sure, absolutely sure, and definitely sure. I already said I’m allergic to all kinds of nuts, so could a certain moldy white nutball stop bothering me, thanks,” Vinny snorted.

“Really? Then I’ll really leave, you know?” Aesphyra teased, glancing at the completely blank textbook in front of Vinny. “But... is that really okay?”

“What wouldn’t be okay about it?” Vinny looked at Aesphyra.

Or rather, in the direction of Aesphyra.

“Oh, is that so?~ In that case, since you don’t need anything from me, I’ll head out?” As she said that, Aesphyra started to leave her seat.

“Wait.”

Right then, Vinny called out to her again.

“Mmhmm~” Aesphyra hadn’t intended to really leave anyway, so she sat back down where she was, looking at Vinny with bright, expectant eyes. “You need something from me, Vinny?”

“Could it be... you need a favor from me~?”

“Then I’ll be in your care,” Vinny said solemnly, giving Aesphyra a nod.

“Pff, ‘be in my care’? Vinny, you can actually say that sort of thing? Then I’ll need to see some sincerity from you first if you’re going to ask me a favor, you know?” Aesphyra propped her cheek in one hand, teasing him.

“You little nutball, what are you muttering over there for?” To her surprise, Vinny suddenly gave her a strange look. “Didn’t I say I don’t need you here? Hurry up and get lost, stop bothering me.”

“Oh? Vinny, that doesn’t sound like the attitude of someone asking for a favor,” Aesphyra narrowed her beautiful eyes.

“Who’s asking you for anything? Don’t flatter yourself,” Vinny rolled his eyes at her.

“Mm? Weren’t you just asking me for help?”

“Was I asking you?? Can you please get a read on the situation?” Vinny chuckled, then looked past her at the black-haired ice-cold beauty who had, at some point, come to stand behind Aesphyra, sharing the same pair of violet eyes.

“Right, Isatia?”

“I was asking Isatia for help. What are you butting in for, you short white nutball?”

“Go cool your head somewhere else; who told you to teach me anything? Hurry up and move, don’t block Classmate Isatia. I’d hate for Classmate Isatia to get the wrong idea.”