“You want me to aim to be an academy scholarship student?”

Adele nodded with a solemn expression.

“And you want me to get you into the academy?”

Adele, who had been about to nod again, paused midway.

“You should call me boss.”

She pointed it out shamelessly, despite being the one attempting academic fraud.

Vincent thought for a moment and said.

“Is that what you want?”

“It is what the boss wants.”

“Why?”

When asked for a reason, Adele thought for a moment. There was only one proper reason.

Before conquering the world, she wanted to find as many of the people she had known in her previous life as possible.

But she could not reveal the truth about her regression. In the end, Adele resolved to tell a kind lie.

“That way I can keep an eye on whether you are training properly.”

The face of the innocent Vincent changed, if only for a very brief moment, to the expression filled with desire that he had worn when looking at Layla before the regression.

When Adele blinked and opened her eyes again, he had returned to being the innocent young child Vincent.

‘Was that my imagination?’

Vincent thought for a moment and said.

“I will need to save up some money.”

“Good. We are on the same page.”

That was exactly what Adele wanted. For a commoner to enroll in a noble academy, money was what mattered above all else.

To think even a child this young understood reality. It was surely the result of growing up watching a father like his.

‘But I should turn a blind eye to wrongdoing of this degree. A person cannot always be perfect.’

The greedy teacher smiled slyly.

“Adele, your expression looks strange.”

“It is not proper manners to observe the boss’s face so closely.”

Vincent chuckled at Adele’s composed response and went on to say more of what he had been thinking.

“What about buying a title? A status high enough that no one can look down on you.”

“There is no one who looks down on me.”

“I should look into what route is needed to purchase a title.”

Vincent was not listening to Adele and had fallen into his own world. Despite the fact that enrollment in the academy was still a long way off, he seemed to want to prepare thoroughly.

At that moment.

“Everyone! I’m back!”

A bright and clear voice suddenly appeared in the clearing.

Adele turned her face in the direction the voice had come from.

“The sorcerer?”

“Did you get along well while I was gone?”

She ran toward the direction from which the sorcerer had appeared.

“Were you that happy to see me?”

At that sight, the sorcerer, who had been filled with emotion, suddenly felt a chilling sensation and wrapped a strong protective magic around his stomach.

Immediately after. Adele put force into her legs and launched herself toward the sorcerer from where she stood.

Precisely toward his stomach!

“Ugh!”

“My meals!”

Despite having used protective magic, the sorcerer groaned at the considerable pain dealt to his abdomen.

‘As expected, there is something extraordinary about this child. How could a headbutt from a young child be this painful? I absolutely must stay close by her side at all times.’

Unaware of what the sorcerer was thinking, Adele smiled with satisfaction that her headbutt had landed properly.

It was a good revenge.

“That was…… powerful. Impressive.”

“How dare you abandon my meals and run away. It was a punishment you well deserved.”

“Was I really just someone who cooked your meals?”

At the words accompanied by a few tears, Adele nodded gravely.

That decisiveness makes the heart ache even more.

‘Well then, I should at least feed her well and keep her healthy. That way she will be worth watching over.’ The sorcerer was now rationalizing things to himself.

“By the way, what were you talking about just now?”

At the sorcerer’s question, Vincent, who had appeared at some point, pressed close to Adele’s side and said.

“We are going to the academy.”

“Pilonia National Academy?”

“That’s right. There is no place for you.”

Vincent said that and grinned. As though only he could be by Adele’s side.

Of course, the sorcerer paid no mind to such an attitude. He ignored Vincent’s possessiveness and thought carefully about the academy.

“This young master here is a noble, so enrolling in the academy is only natural.”

The sorcerer’s gaze shifted toward the grimy Adele.

An orphan who could not even get a proper meal without him around. She had surely been living as a wanderer before that. To the extent that she had worked at a construction site with that small body.

In other words, she had neither money nor power in this kingdom.

“Can this young lady go?”

It was a natural question.

At present, the possibility of a commoner attending the academy was about as likely as plucking a star from the sky.

Unless someone with enormous wealth made a donation, perhaps.

He had even heard that enrollment was not the end of it, and that an enormous sum had to be paid every year just to maintain enrollment.

‘There is no way Adele has money, so is there somewhere she can borrow it? Or a patron?’

The sorcerer’s face went pale having thought that far. He looked back and forth between Adele and Vincent.

The grimy Adele and the polished Vincent.

“You, don’t tell me……”

Adele said nothing in particular and just smiled. Then she looked to the side and said.

“Vincent. Promises are supposed to be put in writing as a contract.”

“Adele knows so much.”

“So let us write down on paper right now that you will save money for me.”

As expected. Just what is this child Adele? To think she would plan to use the ducal family’s wealth to enter the academy.

She seemed far too much like a corrupted adult who had been knocked around by the world.

The sorcerer shuddered, goosebumps rising on his forearms.

Cheerful Vincent, who had no idea what the sorcerer was thinking, nodded his head vigorously. If Adele said it was right, then it was right.

“Then I will write the contract.”

“Ah, no. Doing that carelessly is dangerous……”

The sorcerer’s faint concern seemed to not quite reach Vincent’s ears.

The sorcerer had never once lived a conventional life. Yet for some reason, being around Adele made him feel as though he himself had become an enormously ordinary person.

To think that the day would come when he, who had lived without being bound by the rules of the world, would say that signing a contract carelessly was dangerous.

The sorcerer, feeling an inexplicable sense of distress, let out a deep sigh.

At times like this, the best course of action was to change the subject.

“By the way, have you already decided on a department? What remarkable academic enthusiasm.”

“Don’t you know? I will follow wherever Adele goes.”

The sorcerer let out another deep, deep sigh. To think this little one was already chasing after a girl.

‘I am not usually this kind of person, but around these two I keep wanting to nag.’

Looking closely at Vincent’s face, it did hold the fate of someone who could abandon even his country for a woman.

‘Surely it would not actually come to that……’

Even so, for fate to be this nakedly visible meant he was a person with a very strong will of his own. In other words, a madman who lived and died for love.

Looking at things now, it was obvious that the object of that love would be Adele. And the probability of it remaining so going forward was very high.

Vincent was like a duckling that had recognized the first person it saw as its mother and followed them around, so he would likely regard Adele as his master for life.

Was it that only strange people were drawn to Adele’s side, or was it that ordinary people became strange by being at Adele’s side?

While the sorcerer was pondering this seriously, Adele answered the question.

“I plan to go to the swordsmanship department.”

“Swordsmanship?”

The sorcerer imagined Adele gripping a sword with arms grown longer as her body developed. He had not seen many women holding swords, but it suited her quite well.

Come to think of it, Adele did not suit books. Even if she sat quietly reading a book, if something rubbed her the wrong way, she would probably tear it to shreds and cause a commotion in the library.

No, the premise of her sitting quietly reading a book might not hold up in the first place.

“You thought well. In my view, you need to keep releasing your energy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

The sorcerer tried his best to ignore the chilling feeling he suddenly felt and whistled, looking away. As he turned his head, something large was visible approaching in the distance.

What kind of monster is that now?

The closer it got, the more the ground seemed to shake with a thudding sensation.

‘How vigorously is that person walking. The ground is actually shaking, right?’

As the man gradually drew closer, his face became identifiable.

The reason that person looked frightening was not only because of that fearsome scar on his cheek or the unkempt beard.

Every aura emanating from the large man was heavy. It was obvious that any ordinary person who came even close would have their entire body tense up and be unable to breathe properly.

Whether he was deliberately giving off such an air or not was unclear, but he was not someone one particularly wanted to approach.

At a glance, did he not seem like a person of a completely different nature from himself, a sorcerer?

At that moment, Adele watched the suspicious figure drawing ever closer and muttered.

“What is this? Has he come to take it back?”

“Do you know him?”