“What’s there that you can’t do? Hurry up and apologize. Don’t tell me it’s always been like this?”

“Th-that is…….”

“I think I warned you.”

“……”

It was quite a coercive atmosphere. She was momentarily startled and her hiccups stopped. Melinda only rolled her eyes.

She didn’t know what this atmosphere was, but it definitely didn’t feel good. She could see the injustice accumulating layer by layer in the followers’ eyes. And the arrow of that anger.

Was pointed toward Melinda.

“S-Sir Eloise. Everyone is watching. Do you really mean for us to apologize here?”

“Why. Don’t you want to? Then I’d like to say there’s no need to accompany me next time.”

“……N-no! We’re sorry!”

The followers who chewed and bit their lips one by one turned to Melinda. And with faces pale as death, they opened their mouths like fools.

“S-sorry, witch.”

“Right. We’re sorry for mocking you. This won’t happen again.”

“……”

The followers bowed their heads with rotten expressions, but that was just for show. Venom flowed in the eyes that met hers. But superiors don’t care about such ominous atmospheres among subordinates.

Thinking things were appropriately settled, Eloise turned his head to look at Melinda.

“Since it turned out this way, I’d be grateful if you’d let go of your anger. I hope we can meet again tomorrow, Melinda.”

Eloise, who finished speaking familiarly on his own, moved away. The followers also disappeared in a line like poop trailing behind goldfish.

But Melinda’s prediction wasn’t wrong. Eventually, after that worthless apology, the small witch’s life became earnestly difficult.

Though they couldn’t say a word in front of Eloise, they began taking out their anger on her. The degree of bullying intensified.

Things disappeared, she fell and got seriously hurt. Sometimes even Melinda’s close friends suffered hardships. The more this happened, the deeper the anger accumulated in Melinda’s heart, and her irritation also thickened.

‘This is all because of that damn Eloise.’

Melinda only thought he had found a new way to torment her.

With that brilliant brain of his, there was no way he didn’t know that his attention would make Melinda’s situation even more irritating!

Of course, the accumulated anger soon exploded.

“I can’t stand it anymore. ……I’ll kill them all.”

“What is, what is this? Uwaaaah!”

“Kyaaaah!”

Melinda strangely twisted the premise that ‘witches cannot curse their peers’ and beat them all up by strangely mixing curses and magic for physical enhancement on herself.

A commoner against nobles no less.

Actually, even now that incident was puzzling.

Even Melinda thought what she had done wasn’t an incident that would pass quietly. But how did it pass so quietly?

Or perhaps because there had been so many accumulated incidents, she could avoid the academy’s harsh discipline.

Anyway, Melinda had to lie sick for a full week from the aftermath of cursing herself, and when she got up, everything had been settled.

Anyway, after that, she got the ridiculous nickname of violent squirrel, and the follower bastards never bothered her again.

Because the things that had been under the surface came above.

Anyway, even setting aside the sordid past, there were sufficient reasons why Melinda couldn’t harbor good feelings toward the man called Eloise for these reasons.

Melinda hated that human.

She really hated him.

Enough to advise even an enemy not to fall for that human!

She hated his presence that caught her eye once in a while even when she wanted to ignore him.

She hated that his features would naturally come to mind once in a while because he had such an outstanding face, and she hated that while he smiled gently, there was no human properly contained in those blue eyes.

She hated that this eventually settled as an inferiority complex and coiled in her heart, and she hated being constantly reminded that she was in a position where she couldn’t reach that arrogant and cold human.

She hated him so sickeningly that she could sell her soul to a demon just to see that arrogant and detestable human’s downfall!

But today, such a thing happened.

Being ignored by him right before her eyes.

“Ha. Hahaha!”

It was the moment that she had wished for for three years, but when it actually happened, she felt dirty.

Her pride cracked.

“Son of a b*tch. After tormenting me all this time.”

If it was interest he could discard so capriciously, he should have done so early on. What does he think he is? Who does he think he is?

As expected, nobles were arrogant and cold. That bastard was no different from any other human.

“……Those eyes should have been done by me. Not that bastard, but I should have, done it!”

As if he was sick to death of it, he turned around and left in front of Melinda who suffered every time because of it.

As expected, he’s a detestable bastard. A wicked bastard!

Unbearable irritation surged up enough to make her chest burn hot, so Melinda gulped down the beer in the huge glass mug placed in front of her.

“Kuh!”

After drinking to the end and slamming it down with a bang, Melinda this time glared at her longtime friend Sasha who was sniffling beside her.

Her close friend was currently immersed in sadness for a completely different reason than Melinda. She had been rejected after confessing. No, she said she couldn’t even properly confess. Because her confession letter was stolen by others!

And the target of that confession was……

“Ha!”

“Huuk, Me, Melindaaa. My pride is so hurt.”

Sasha, with her dark blue hair hanging down like wet seaweed, was still beautiful, but today she couldn’t make her heart happy.

Melinda glared fiercely.

“Sasha. How could you do that?”

“Huh? Friend.”

Seeing Sasha with swollen eyes from crying made her resentment grow even more.

“Why that bastard of all people, when you’ve heard from me every day what kind of human he is!”

Anger swept over her like flames. Her friend Sasha was also a student of the Witchcraft Department and a proper witch. So she knew. That her eyes had to go to beautiful people. But, but still, she was a friend, wasn’t she?

Melinda glared fiercely with a sense of betrayal.

“You saw everything by my side. How vicious and evil and cunning that human Eloise is, how much he’s tormented me using his followers, you know it all! You’ve even been hurt together with me, so how could you send a confession letter to that bastard! How could you fall for him!”

“Huuuung, sorry, sorry. I, I don’t know either. Huuung, I didn’t want to but he’s so handsome……”

“Ha, those damn looks!”

Since it was true that he was annoyingly handsome, she had nothing to say. Melinda, who caught her breath for a moment, pinched Sasha’s pale cheeks and shook them painfully.

“If you were going to do it, you should have done it well! Getting caught by those follower bastards and getting torn to shreds! What was that about? Huh?”

“It hurts, Melinda, my cheeks hurt!”

No matter how beautiful his appearance was, what was inside was like a human who had boiled and eaten a million vipers!

“Sasha, you’re hopeless.”

“Huh?”

She decided. As expected, she had to get drunk today.

Melinda poured the additionally ordered beer into Sasha’s mouth with a determined expression.

“Uup, up, Melinda, puhup!”

“Drink. Drink and die.”

Watching the beer going down gulp by gulp, Melinda’s eyes gleamed darkly. Anyway, graduation was coming soon, so there would be no occasion to face that detestable human in the future. She just had to endure a little, really just a little more. That was her only consolation. But that was that, and today’s resentment had to be eliminated.

“Today you and I can’t be in our right minds! Come on, Sasha. Drink until you’re ready to die from drinking. And from today, throw away any feelings you had for such a human. Got it?”

“That’s not up to me, hup!”

“Drink!”

It was the moment when alcohol swallowed her mind.

Ah, if she had known what would happen after that, she shouldn’t have drunk until her soul was pickled……

At some point while endlessly gulping down alcohol……

Her memory cut off completely.

⁕⁕⁕

“Huk.”

Melinda’s eyes snapped open. And she immediately had to clutch her head and suffer from a terrible hangover, but that wasn’t what was important. Something was wrong with her body.

“No way?”

This empty feeling in her stomach as if it was hollow. Wasn’t it too similar to the aftermath after she got furious and beat Eloise’s follower bastards like beasts?

“Back then I definitely cursed…… It can’t be. Right, that must all be a dream! There’s no way I did such crazy things again!”

Melinda rummaged through drawers with eyes turned red like a crazy person.

Books scattered into the air, and roughly bound parchments fell with thuds.

After spilling the contents of the drawers outside like a mole for a while, Melinda slowly collapsed to the floor.

“……F*ck.”

One empty parchment.

That was evidence that she had used a curse.

“No.”

Her face turned pale.

Damn. That, that wasn’t a dream?

The dream where she smiled darkly while holding someone’s hair in her hand and activated a curse wasn’t actually a dream?