Let’s Block the Ruined Route in Advance Chapter 67

Thursday. 

 

Felix, Lucian, Cordelia, and Eileen gathered together at club time to begin scrapbooking the exhibit. Except, as usual, Laquerta was absent.

 

Unable to hide her discomfort, Eileen’s mouth hung open a little, and Cordelia, watching, patted her on the mouth.

 

“Eileen, mouth.”

 

Then, as if she’d been waiting for it, Eileen’s frustration spilled out.

 

“No, it’s Laquerta, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m worried!”

 

Lucian scratched the tip of his nose as he watched Eileen’s frantic face. He had a vague idea what was going on. He exchanged a glance with Felix, who had a similar expression.

 

‘Maybe he’s working outside the academy to please Eileen?’

 

‘Maybe he’s working out to improve his greatest weapon: his body.’

 

From their point of view, it was a bit of a relief to have one of their competitors gone. For Eileen, however, it was a bit of a blow.

 

‘I just wanted to stay together as much as possible because I didn’t know what was going to happen!’

 

The future clues she’d gotten were so bleak that she wanted to keep everyone as safe as possible.

 

‘There’s no immediate fix, so let’s use the cash funds to check with the information guilds.’

 

Eileen’s hand paused as she continued to glue, racking her brain furiously.

 

‘Come to think of it, Andrew did mention the Intelligence Guild, and I don’t know what that look in his eyes means.’

 

She glanced up and saw Andrew’s usual seat. But it was empty, as he hadn’t come to the club today. It was common for people to skip club because they’d already finished their exhibits, but Eileen felt a twinge of annoyance that Laquerta’s seat was empty as well.

 

“Again.”

 

Cordelia pressed her thumb firmly against Eileen’s furrowed brow, forcing it back into place.

 

“Ugh.”

 

“Too much. Eileen, you’re thinking too much.”

 

“What, I wasn’t overthinking anything!”

 

“Don’t even think about it.”

 

Cordelia tugged on Eileen’s scrapbook.

 

“Just finish this one. I don’t know about Laquerta, or whatever it is, but I can tell you’re troubled, and if you’re troubled enough to be troubled, isn’t there something you can do about it right now?”

 

“……”

 

“Let’s just get the job done and think about it. I’ll be there for you, if you need me to.”

 

Cordelia turned her attention back to her scrapbook. Eileen’s mouth dropped open at Cordelia’s skillful evolutionary work, and she went back to working furiously.

 

Lucian and Felix exchanged glances, then spoke up.

 

“Okay, I’ll get Laquerta.”

 

“I’ll get him right now and tie him up here.”

 

Then Cordelia slapped them with a scowl.

 

“That’s not right, you idiots.”

 

“What, idiots?!”

 

Cordelia stuck her tongue out at Lucian, who had gotten a little carried away. He was about to let out a yelp when he saw George approaching, and he stifled the seething inside of him.

 

George asked in a questioning voice.

 

“How are you doing, huh, Lucian, what’s with the look on your face?”

 

Lucian shook his head, holding back what he wanted to say. Cordelia smiled wryly in satisfaction.

 

Meanwhile, Jessie, who had gotten up to get a fresh newspaper, caught sight of the scene and chuckled inwardly, covering her nervous mouth.

 

At first, she was a little uncomfortable with the group barging in, but then she realized that they were a funny bunch.

 

Leaving them behind, Jessie grabbed a copy of the newspaper and turned to go back to her seat. Momentarily off-center, she stumbled and pushed against one of the desks.

 

“Oh, sorry!”

 

She looked down in surprise to find Neumann’s eyes wide with surprise. He shook his head and replied, “It’s okay.”

 

“You didn’t get any water spilled on you?”

 

“No.”

 

Nervous that he’d ruined someone else’s work, Jessie sighed and patted her chest in relief. 

 

Thankfully, Neumann had reflexively grabbed the bucket of water.

 

Her gaze involuntarily drifted to his scrapbook as she checked the pool. At the same time, a sincere exclamation of admiration escaped her mouth.

 

“Wow.”

 

Neumann’s scrapbook was a good piece of work, concise but with emphasis and annotation points.

 

It was thin, as if he was making it as an exhibit, but the extensive annotations scattered throughout the pages showed how serious he was about scrapbooking.

 

Jessie forgot her discomfort and spoke to him with pure admiration.

 

“You worked really hard on this,” she said, “and it’s a very nice scrapbook that I can see right away.”

 

Neumann’s mouth dropped open. His lips twitched as if to say something, then fell silent. 

 

Unable to find the words to respond, Neumann nodded slightly.

 

“Wait, your nose is so red.”

 

Jessie, meanwhile, was embarrassed by the fact that she had just complimented him and noticed her red nose in real time. In a moment of embarrassment, she turned away as if to flee, only to hear a small voice mutter behind her.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Jessie pretended not to hear and sat back down and opened the newspaper. She was still uncomfortable, but not in a bad way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

That night, Jessie baked cookies once again.

 

The rush leading up to the school event was exhausting, but this time with the oven was her most cherished break.

 

“I think I’ll make some for the dorm warden today.”

 

She looked down at her little checkerboard cookie, a mixture of beige and chocolate-colored dough. The cookie was unusually well baked today, and the top and bottom were uniformly beautiful.

 

The uniformity of the cookies reminded Jessie of Neumann’s scrapbooks. The neat, dense handwriting. The torn newspapers with their angles.

 

“Fascinating, though.”

 

Having elevated Neumann’s status from asshole to interesting junior, she found a paper bag for the cookies.

 

“Oh, there’s only a few left.”

 

She’d been baking a lot of cookies lately, and some of her supplies, including the wrappers, were showing their age.

 

“Guess I’ll have to hit the streets for a while.”

 

Muttering to herself, Jessie pulled out a small notebook and organized her purchases. There was a lot to do this coming weekend.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The nape of the creature’s neck cracked as it crawled out of the swamp. The Duke, his face expressionless, swung his sword in one sweeping motion, erasing the creature’s traces from the blade. Behind him, a woman with short, beige, wavy hair walked up.

 

“You’re the Duke after all, killing a demon of that caliber in one fell swoop. I guess you didn’t even need to send me here?”

 

“Bella Kamar. I thought your mission was to destroy the entity that was trying to escape the swamp.”

 

“It’s okay, I’ve already blocked it with a binding, it’s cleaner to kill it in one go, right?”

 

She spoke with a fierceness that belied her gentle eyes, causing the knights to back away. The duke took a few steps away from the swamp, and soon a blast of lightning rained down on the crystalline circle surrounding the swamp.

 

“See, neat, huh?”

 

Bella grinned mischievously and stretched. The duke didn’t answer her and hurried to prepare for his return.

 

“The Archmage…”

 

A voice muttered in the lightning-filled silence.

 

Bella Kamar. The eldest daughter of Treasurer Norton Kamar and the youngest Transcendent to earn the title of Archmage two years ago at the tender age of thirty-three, she was a mage with a particularly killing ability.

 

“Ah, the Duke will be attending this year’s Verotanis festival as well, I hear you have a great son?”

 

“I have heard that the eldest son of the Kamar has also been admitted this year.”

 

“Ah! Do you know Neumann? Yes, it’s amazing to think that he’s gone from being a little boy to the Academy.”

 

She stared boredly at the ash-turned demons, but at the mention of Neumann, she smiled broadly. Her face lit up with excitement.

 

“He was so cute when we were little, following me around, and he’s still cute now. I heard he went to the School of Magic, but I haven’t seen him since he was in the tower, so I’m looking forward to seeing him.”

 

The Duke nodded in sympathy as she genuinely looked forward to reuniting with her brother. He could still see the children running around the manor’s grounds as children. Feeling a bit of a connection, the Duke spoke.

 

“A School of Magic like yours, perhaps another transcendent will emerge from Kamar.”

 

Bella turned to face the Duke, her excitement still evident, and replied.

 

“Ah, that would be a stretch.”

 

The Duke’s eyes narrowed at the unexpected answer. 

 

“He’s normal,” Bella continued, removing the barrier she had erected to keep the demon at bay. “He’s average. No power, no sense. He’ll make a moderately decent mage, but not much more.”

 

The creature’s ashes scattered on the wind. The duke watched for a moment, unable to find the words, until the ashes disappeared completely.

 

Bella’s eyes sparkled as she thought of Neumann, as if she were telling him something precious. But the words that came out of her mouth were not.

 

“It doesn’t matter if he’s a little weak, the world can’t have only geniuses, and I don’t care about marquises and stuff, so he can make a living off of that, right? He just needs to be cute, Neumann.”

 

“…You didn’t say that to the kid, did you?”

 

“What?”

 

Bella tilted her head as if she didn’t understand.

 

“Why not?”

 

The Duke closed his eyes and sighed. With a short shake of his head, he sheathed his sword.

 

“Have you ever imagined how a tree would grow under a closed ceiling, Bella Kamar?”

 

With that, the duke turned and walked away without another word of farewell. Bella stared after his back, then replied to the air.

 

“Why do you even think about it, when you’ll never reach the ceiling anyway?”