〈Why are you acting so unlike yourself?〉

〈I get that you can’t help where your eyes go—you’re only human—but still, your fiancé’s team is the white team, you know? Be aware of that.〉

If not for her friend Therese’s small voice cutting through the cheering crowd, Adeline wouldn’t have even thought to offer a word of consolation to Matteo, who was seething over his defeat after the match ended.

“What the hell is this?”

But those eyes that had shone with such vibrant color during the match now revealed drowsy sleepiness beneath half-closed lids.

“What the hell are you?”

Matteo, realizing the unexpected intruder was none other than Kailen Belliche—someone he normally found disagreeable—removed his hand from Adeline’s waist and stood up.

“Belliche?”

It wasn’t just Matteo von Regenstadt who particularly disliked Kailen. 

Most of their classmates who’d entered the academy the same year—mostly from distinguished families—secretly found him disagreeable. 

And for good reason: to those who’d lived their whole lives proud of their noble birth, Kailen’s existence invoked feelings of defeat, which naturally made him unwelcome.

Behind his back they disparaged him as nothing but a lowly merchant’s son with an overly handsome face, but that wasn’t the reality. 

Since entering by beating out all the nobles who’d received thorough education from childhood, Kailen Belliche had never once relinquished his top ranking.

Just decades ago, Matteo would never have had to make eye contact with such a lowborn bastard, yet now he had to attend classes in the same lecture hall, treated as equals—it was infuriating enough.

And yet this creature dared to strut around without knowing his place instead of prostrating himself flat. Matteo constantly ground his teeth, only refraining from expressing it because he thought it beneath him.

Someday he’d have to teach him a proper lesson.

“This isn’t a place for the likes of you to b*tt in, so just go on your way, Belliche.”

Without removing his hands from his pockets, Kailen snorted and lightly stepped over the low stone ledge.

“But this is my way?”

White shirt with a couple buttons undone, navy blue trousers. Aside from the missing necktie embroidered with the Ehrenroth Royal Academy crest, he hadn’t violated regulations, but something about him seemed delinquent.

“But what’s this piece of trash blocking my path?”

Matteo, looking up at Kailen who was at least a hand span taller, momentarily doubted his own ears. Adeline did too, of course.

“Ah, almost stepped on it. Stinks.”

“What?”

Matteo’s eyes glinted with madness as he grabbed Kailen’s collar in belated humiliation, but Kailen looked at Adeline with complete indifference and spoke leisurely.

“How about it? Should I dispose of this before it rots further?”

“You son of a b*tch!”

Before the words even finished, a fist flew. Before startled Adeline could even draw breath, Matteo’s fist struck Kailen’s jaw squarely.

“Learn your place!”

Kailen turned his head back from the impact, licked the blood from his split lip with his tongue, and grinned brightly. His playful smile was bizarrely cheerful.

“Now it’s self-defense, Regenstadt.”

Crack—with a dull explosive sound, this time Kailen’s fist crashed down like lightning into the center of Matteo’s face.

Unable to even make a sound, Matteo’s body flew and rolled across the stone floor before stopping.

It truly happened in an instant. Though she’d thought him a man who deserved to be struck by lightning, when the vivid sound of Matteo’s bones seemingly breaking reached her ears, her body froze.

What if something really goes wrong…

The man called Kailen was just excessively large-framed, but in fact Matteo was also taller and more solidly built than most. Because his father, Duke Regenstadt, was a former military officer, he’d never neglected physical training since childhood.

I-I should stop them…

Adeline couldn’t move, only trembling in place while staring in the direction Matteo had flown.

But Kailen—he slowly approached Matteo who lay sprawled like a corpse. Then he pressed his shoe against the space between Matteo’s chest and neck, smiling in circles.

“You’re fine too, right? Regenstadt?”

Like returning the disgusting words of concern Adeline had heard from Matteo, Kailen asked in a leisurely voice.

“Kuh, urk. Gack.”

Matteo, squirming like a bug beneath Kailen’s foot, retched up a crimson mass. In the bright red foamy lump vomited by him with his blood-covered face, several white pebbles were visible. 

Probably broken teeth.

“Kuh, uh… you… f*ck… f*cking… bastard… You…”

“Yeah, that’s right. Calm down, calm down. You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll… kill… you. I’ll really…”

F-first, I have to stop them. The ducal house…

Unlike Adeline who was going crazy with anxiety watching them, the actual party involved—Belliche—didn’t stop mocking Matteo.

“Oh yeah? But how? Like a few hundred years ago, claiming I committed blasphemy and having my head chopped off with an axe?”

“…You… f*ck… f*cking bastard.”

“Ah, should I start washing my neck and waiting from today?”

Of course, this wasn’t an era where heads were chopped off with axes like centuries ago, but even so, the ducal house wouldn’t let Belliche go after he’d used violence against their heir. 

No matter how much it was a student quarrel, something like this couldn’t be resolved within school rules.

Ehrenroth Royal Advanced Academy where Kailen and Matteo were enrolled was the most prestigious higher education institution across the entire Arcadia Continent, a kind of genius training ground.

Most students were from the highest social classes, but a small number of nouveau riche offspring and commoner scholarship students definitely existed.

Therefore, according to regulations, everyone on campus had to speak respectfully to each other regardless of status, emphasizing equality and strictly forbidding discrimination based on origin.

But an invisible wall definitely existed. They just didn’t reveal it overtly. 

The upper classes acted like enlightened intellectuals on the surface, but their thinking inevitably contained arrogant elitist ideology. 

Even the gentle Adeline had such consciousness pop out occasionally, and could only restrain it by constantly being aware.

So the generations-old distinguished House of Regenstadt might think a mere commoner had insulted their family and seek even more cruel revenge.

Expulsion at minimum. Really, expulsion at the very least.

But she couldn’t let Belliche receive heavier punishment than the vile Matteo who’d committed acts deserving stern judgment.

I have to make them stop here.

Adeline gathered her skirt and stood up. She hadn’t noticed until now, but one of her shoes had come off when she fell. After finding and putting on the rolling shoe and dusting herself off, Adeline approached the two men again.

“Both of you, stop this.”

Honestly, she thought there was no honor left whatsoever for Regenstadt because of the scoundrel heir named Matteo. But Adeline didn’t say that.

She had to deliberately invoke the ducal house’s honor and pride to make Matteo voluntarily leave this place.

“Don’t dirty the Regenstadt name any further. There’s no need for the entire family to become a laughingstock because of you alone, is there?”

Matteo forcefully struck away Kailen’s foot still pressing on his chest, but Kailen didn’t budge.

“Aagh!”

Instead, a suppressed short cry burst from Matteo’s throat.

“Stop now.”

Only after Adeline’s words fell could Matteo raise his body from beneath Kailen’s foot, solid like an iron weight.

“…”

But the sharp tension between the two didn’t disappear at all. Matteo, groaning lowly while feeling his collapsed nose bridge, looked ready to charge immediately just from his expression.

Belliche too wore a face that inwardly hoped Matteo would charge, making her dizzy now. He just smiled, enjoying this situation. Broadly enough that his white teeth showed and dimples bloomed on his cheeks.

Adeline removed the hand from her forehead and spoke to Matteo.

“If you want to deal with both Krauben and Morsha, then continue. Regenstadt heir.”

“…Ha, sh*t.”

To add weight to the pressure, Adeline attached her mother Luise’s homeland Morsha beside her own country’s name. Only then did Matteo flinch slightly, and seemingly to hide such a reaction, he ground his teeth even more while looking at Belliche.

Ptui—Matteo spat blood-mixed saliva and glared at Belliche.

“Right, I shouldn’t associate myself with trash.”

Without even glancing at Adeline, Matteo nodded his head lightly and finally left.