Chapter 1 – That Annoying Raymond!

2nd place: Diana Everhart

Diana glared at the ranking sheet posted in the center of the bulletin board. Again. Second place again. This time, she had truly believed she could win and had thrown herself into it like mad, yet she was still there, unchanged, in that same spot.

“I’m doomed. Father said if I’m first from the bottom again this time, he’ll really throw me out.”

“Hey, if my grades drop any more this time too……”

Her friends, who had been grumbling with tearful faces, suddenly shut their mouths. They had noticed Diana giving off a dark aura beside them.

“Ahem, ahem. Anyway, I think posting the rankings where everyone can see them like this is way too inhumane. Why do they even make this public?”

In the end, one of the friends who had been watching her mood lowered their voice and spoke as if trying to sound serious.

“…….”

But despite those efforts, Diana’s gaze remained fixed on only one place, on the name in 1st place positioned directly above her own.

1st place: Raymond Black.

Ever since that name entered her life, except for the first few times, her own name had always been placed beneath it. By now, it was meaningless even to count how many times her name, which rightfully ought to have stood in 1st place, had been pushed down.

Neither the written exams, nor the swordsmanship sparring, nor the practical magic tests had granted her a victory in even a single one.

“Move aside instead of blocking the way, will you?”

At that moment, a low, dry voice dropped over Diana’s head.

When she turned, she saw Raymond standing right behind her, at least a head taller than she was.

Beneath his neatly arranged dark hair, grayish-brown eyes looked down at her indifferently. A well-shaped nose and an immaculate uniform. Everything about him was excessively neat, to the point that just looking at him made irritation rise for no reason.

“Congratulations, Black. You’re 1st again this time.”

Diana forcibly pulled up the corners of her mouth. It was the most socially acceptable smile she could manage.

“…….”

But Raymond said nothing, only sweeping his gaze over her from top to bottom. After that brief glance, all that remained was the sight of his back as he lightly tapped her shoulder and left the classroom.

“Wow. He’s impressively consistent at being unpleasant. If only his personality could match even the tip of that face.”

“Still, a personality like that weirdly suits a face like his.”

“Hey! How can you be saying that in a situation like this!”

Beside Diana, who had been ignored perfectly and cleanly, her friends made a fuss trying to comfort her. Their hands repeatedly landed on and lifted from her shoulders.

“……Hah.”

Amid them, Diana stared blankly at the shoulder Raymond had just struck. A hollow laugh slipped from between her lips, empty enough to make the smile she had carefully worn feel pointless.

“So annoying! This is driving me crazy! I’m seriously so, so annoyed!”

“Shh, Diana. You have to be quiet in the library.”

“What does it matter when there’s a soundproof spell on us!”

In any case, Diana was suffering from severe stress. Even after the exams had ended, she had not gone out into town with her friends and had instead remained in the library, pouring out her grievances to her older sister.

“I keep losing 1st place because of that annoying Black. Does that even make sense?”

Within the soundproof spell where only the two of them could hear each other, Diana whined to her older sister seated across from her.

“Diana. Second place is still very good.”

Hailey soothed her younger sister with a familiar expression while picking up and eating the dessert on the desk.

“I don’t want to do just very good! I want to be the best! The very best at the Academy! The absolute best!”

When Diana began getting angry while lying flat on the desk, Hailey let out a low sigh.

“If you’re that angry, why don’t you try a classic tactic?”

“What?”

“Confess to him and shake his mental state.”

At the sudden remark, Diana jerked her head up and looked straight at Hailey. A mischievous smile rested on Hailey’s face.

“……Something like that would only work if someone like you did it.”

After blankly scanning that face for a moment, Diana soon let out a long sigh and buried her head again.

Her sister, Hailey Everhart, was beautiful. It was not for nothing that people said anyone who saw her once would inevitably turn around and look again. Even before entering the upper Academy, she had already received countless confessions from the prince of a neighboring country, the only son of a Duke, and many others whose names alone anyone would recognize.

“I’ll be lucky if I don’t just get cursed out after confessing.”

Diana muttered this in front of Hailey, who was chewing her dessert.

Even so, for a moment she briefly imagined herself confessing to Raymond. But she could not picture his mental state being shaken in the slightest. Rather, all she could vividly imagine was him looking down at her as though disgusted, then returning to his own business as if nothing had happened.

“Don’t be so impatient. You never know what can happen in life. Who knows if an unexpected opening might suddenly appear?”

Hailey said in a calm voice as she stood from her seat. Then she stroked Diana’s head once and left the library. She said she had a prior engagement that evening. Well, it made sense. Someone like Hailey would never have no plans at all on the day the exams ended.

Left alone, Diana stayed slumped in the same place for a while. But no matter how much her eyes moved over the open book, the only thing that remained in her head was Raymond’s obnoxious face.

In the end, a few hours later, she closed the book she had not managed to read at all and rose from her seat. But just as she was about to take a step, a notebook lying on the floor caught her eye.

“Hm?”

The moment she casually picked it up, she saw that unlike its rather worn cover, the inside was filled with nothing but pure white blank pages. Still, that was not especially strange. Judging by the faint aura she could feel from it, someone had clearly placed a concealment spell on it. It was a common secrecy spell that prevented anyone except the caster from reading the contents.

Losing interest quickly, she headed for the counter to turn in the book. But the moment she saw the name written on the back of the spine, her steps stopped in place.

“……Raymond Black?”

The very person who had kept her trapped in irritation until this late hour, and the most fitting possible owner of this notebook, had his name written on the back.

This kind of low-level concealment spell was usually something underage students used when writing exchange diaries or secretly passing love letters.

To put it simply, it meant it was a method that did not suit ‘that’ ill-mannered Raymond Black.

Perhaps because of that, curiosity suddenly swept over Diana.

What had Raymond Black hidden inside this? The lightly budding curiosity soon drifted into the thought that perhaps Raymond had written down some secret to studying in this notebook.

‘This is the last chance for me too.’

The moment she reached the end of that thought, Diana’s eyes changed.

The midterms were already her defeat. There were still several sparring matches and practical magic exams remaining, but if Raymond took 1st place from her again in the final exams as well, then 1st place for the year would in effect already be gone.

If that happened, then no matter how long she had been in 1st place before Raymond appeared, it would become even harder to catch up to Raymond, who had arrived at the Academy after building up numerous awards and high marks abroad. And next year, when she turned twenty-two, her goal of graduating as valedictorian would slip completely out of reach in that very moment.

‘Absolutely not.’

Diana tightened her grip on the notebook. Perhaps this might be the only final chance to change the situation.

So that night, Diana holed herself up in a corner of the library and spread out every magic book containing release spells, wrestling with them. Until the dawn air seeped through the cracks in the windows, there was not the slightest hesitation in the hands that turned pages and recited spells.

“It worked!”

And at last, around daybreak, as though a faint light were spreading, black letters slowly began to rise line by line across the blank page.

xx year, xx month, xx day.

Even today, Everhart is dazzlingly beautiful. The moment I saw her smiling under the sunlight, my eyes were completely stolen, as if the world itself had stopped.

“……What is this?”

As Diana read down the notebook with bloodshot eyes, her eyes suddenly widened. What was written in the notebook was not exam secrets or summary notes. At the content that began with an excessively sentimental line, her hand stopped in midair.

Hailey Everhart. If the day ever comes when I can stand proudly before her under the title of valedictorian, then on that day, I want to convey this feeling I have long held without hesitation.

“……What?”

Diana stared down at the final sentence for a long while. Her mind went blank in an instant.