“…Thank you so much for the gift.”

The two returned to the academy and stood at the crossroads to say goodbye before heading to their respective dormitories.

“It’s nothing. I enjoyed it.”

“Me too! Let’s go out together again next time!”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

A neat smile curved beneath the thick glasses. Aer’s cheeks flushed slightly at his smile.

She felt as if his bare face, surely hidden behind those glasses, was flickering before her eyes.

So she gathered her courage. She decided to reveal her own flaw that she had wanted to hide from Louis until now.

She felt a pang of conscience that she could no longer lie to him who was approaching her so honestly.

“…Um, Louis.”

“Yes.”

“I’m really sorry about the unpleasant incident we experienced today.”

“Why are you apologizing, Aer?”

“Well…”

Aer bit her lip for a moment before continuing.

“Actually… it’s because of me. You might not know this, but I’ve been shunned from high society for a long time. Because of mistakes made by my family and myself in the past, I’m still often the subject of gossip. So incidents like earlier… I actually experience them frequently.”

“….”

When Louis didn’t say anything, Aer’s head gradually lowered.

“But I really wanted to be friends with you, Louis. Strange, isn’t it? Even though we haven’t known each other for long, I felt oddly comfortable with you. Was I the only one who felt that way?”

As Aer spoke, her voice grew progressively quieter. Though she had decided to be honest, she was afraid of how he would react.

As she was nibbling on her lip again while waiting for his response, a hand, small and fair for a man’s, reached up and gently tapped just below her lips.

“If you bite like that, you might hurt yourself.”

“Ah…”

Aer, who had been staring at the ground, raised her gaze. Louis had taken off his glasses and was looking at her with a gentle smile.

His dazzling violet eyes were gazing at her with a warm hue.

She really couldn’t get used to Louis without his glasses.

When those eyes with their indescribably peculiar atmosphere stared at her intently, she found herself wanting to just keep looking into them endlessly.

“I, too… am glad to have met you, Aer.”

To Louis, her confession wasn’t particularly surprising. After all, he already knew everything.

However, hearing it directly from her was different. The words coming from the mouth of someone whose thoughts he couldn’t read seemed unbelievably sincere.

Rather than trusting her, he didn’t realize that hearing it from her mouth without knowing her inner thoughts could give such a sense of reassurance.

Whether it was truth or lie.

The very fact that he could discern between them already made her a new and unique existence to him.

Louis gazed at Aer for a while, letting out a small laugh.

It felt wondrous to have someone in front of him who was neither completely hidden nor fully exposed.

“Thank you. Well… I’ll be going in now. Have a good night, Louis.”

“You too, Aer.”

Aer watched him put his glasses back on before slowly turning away. She felt strange.

Even though she knew his behavior was because he was a commoner unfamiliar with high society, she couldn’t contain her joy.

Her slow steps soon turned into light skips. She was overjoyed to have made her first friend in this world.

Hop, hop.

Aer returned to her room with light jumps and plopped down on the sofa without even changing out of her outdoor clothes.

“…I made a friend.”

She had friends in her past life, but none here.

If she had lived without knowing about her past life, as in the original story, she would have died without ever knowing the preciousness of friendship.

Thinking this, Aer once again made a firm resolution.

“I must find the awakening stone and survive. That way, I can see Louis for a long, long time.”

Once her family falls, she too will become a commoner.

No, she might barely cling to life, but in any case, she will survive by any means necessary.

Aer, who had been sitting, stood up energetically and began to undress.

With just the fact that she had made a precious friend, she felt as if her life had changed.

***

After class, Aer went to Professor Declan’s office. It was now part of her daily routine, so her entrance looked quite natural.

“Hello.”

“Oh, you’re here?”

The one who seemed even more natural was none other than the assistant James. He, who at first had looked at her with suspicion, now jumped up as if he had been waiting for Aer to arrive.

“Here! These are the exam papers we need to grade today.”

“Ugh!”

The enormous amount of exam papers was daunting just to look at.

The quantity was tremendous because it included all first-year students and there were classes twice a week.

Unlike Aer’s dying expression, James began to handle other tasks with a look of renewed life. It felt as if he had more time on his hands just by offloading the first-year exam papers.

Aer, too, rolled up her sleeves and started examining the papers, thinking to finish quickly.

Although the content was something one would learn in elementary education in her past life, it was surprisingly difficult to find perfect scores. Aer nodded as she confirmed two perfect scores again today.

Of course, if she included herself, there were a total of three perfect scores.

Her, Louis, and Ian.

These three were the only ones with perfect scores.

“Hmm…”

Ian getting a perfect score wasn’t particularly remarkable. Well, he must have been educated from a young age, so he’d be different from others. Even if that wasn’t the case, wouldn’t he have some kind of buff as the protagonist’s family member?

Aer thought this as she looked over Louis’s exam paper once more.

‘Such a nice kid is smart too.’

She thought Louis could definitely rise higher.

If he continued studying like this, he could enter the royal palace’s finance department or the banking sector.

As she finished grading effortlessly, James glanced at her furtively.

“Ah, Aer?”

“Yes?”

“Could you possibly grade these exam papers too?”

“Uh…”

Aer smiled awkwardly. She wanted to get up and leave, but James’s complexion looked terrible, making it hard to refuse.

With dark circles under his eyes, he pleaded.

“There’s not much left. If you could just do these… Would that be okay?”

It’s really difficult to refuse when asked like this. Moreover, because she came to grade every day, she had developed a certain rapport. Aer swallowed a short sigh and answered.

“Give them to me…”

“Oh! Thank you so much!”

Fortunately, there were only about twenty papers, so Aer started grading aggressively. Moreover, the questions were different from the exam papers she had just done, which made it interesting.

However, these problems could also be solved with mental arithmetic alone, so she graded them without hesitation.

James was watching this scene with his mouth slightly open.

In fact, James’s real task was to pass the second-year exam papers to Aer.

It was something Professor Declan had earnestly requested before going to class.

When James first heard this from the professor, he was skeptical. No matter how good she was, she was just a first-year student.

How could a first-year student grade second-year exam papers? It wasn’t just about marking answers; she had to correct wrong formulas and convey them.

That’s why it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that grading took up the most time compared to other tasks.

But…

What was this amazing speed, and how was she calculating the answers only in her head?

James swallowed hard as he watched Aer scoring the last page.

“…As expected of the professor’s eye for talent.”

“Huh? What did you say?”

Aer asked, hearing his words that came out like a sigh without him realizing.

“Ahem, look at my mistake.”

“…What is it now?”

“I gave you five fewer papers.”

“….”

No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like an intentional mistake, but she couldn’t point it out. Aer looked at him with narrowed eyes, but James feigned ignorance and handed over the third-year exam papers as well.

“Come on, five papers are nothing for you, Aer.”

Aer let out a small sigh as she took the exam papers.

“No more after this, okay? I need to prepare for other classes too.”

“Oh, right. There’s no more.”

“…Hmm, these problems are different again.”

Aer quickly became engrossed as she saw yet another set of different problems. James once again began to observe her intently.

Watching her methodically correct formulas, James’s jaw dropped, and he had to cover his mouth with one hand.

If he didn’t, he felt like he might scream.

A scream of joy…

F-Finally! I’ve found my successor!

James even shed a tear at the appearance of a talent that met the standards of the incredibly picky Professor Declan.

Unaware of his state, Aer quickly finished her work, not even dreaming that the exam papers she was grading were for third-year students.

“Well then, I’m really going now. No more, okay?”

“…Yes. That’s enough.”

Seeing James answer with a dazed expression, Aer felt a chill and rubbed her arms before leaving the professor’s office. Then she hurriedly headed somewhere.

She walked along a familiar path where there were fewer and fewer people.

At the end of it, Louis, who had been waiting, put down the book he was reading and looked up. Next to him was a chessboard that the two had recently become engrossed in.

“You’re here?”

Since confirming their friendship that day, the two had been meeting every day without fail.

“Did you wait long?”

“It’s fine.”

For Aer, this time was the most precious and happiest part of her day.