房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

"The food here is quite nice, I must say. But..."

Sitting at one of the tables in the Academy\'s cafeteria, Kierul took a bite out of a sandwich and nodded with approval of its taste, but then she furrowed her brows looking at her attendant.

"...what exactly are you doing right now...?"

She asked as the black-haired boy was leaning in his chair slovenly after he spread out the floral handkerchief so that it could hide his whole face.

"Patiently waiting for someone to start messing with me first so I could target them with my teasing until they either love me or hate me."

Zoemi shrugged his shoulders relaxing on the outside while keenly surveying his surroundings with the help of various star powers.

"You are a scary person."

"Aww, thank you! You too!"

The red-haired girl smirked, returning to her sandwich after getting praised.

"...by the way, I kind of expected you to invite young lord Victureo to eat together..."

Although it seemed that the pair will not talk until either one would accomplish their goal, Zoemi spoke up in a serious voice.

"He was absent during lectures up until now. Just like young lady Espine and his royal highness the first prince."

Kierul responded casually.

"According to people in my class young lord Victureo is trying to patch things up with his fiancee, young lady Espinem, but no one has any idea why the prince might be absent."

She revealed, swiping the crumbs of bread from the corner of her mouth.

"..."

Zoemi slowly sat upright without adjusting his floral handkerchief so his whole face remained covered.

"Since when they are engaged? Didn\'t we make sure to sour the friendship between Ehmi and Miriette? Was our intel wrong and Miriette wasn\'t just hanging around Victureos because Ehmi was her best friend and instead she actually liked the guy?"

An imprint of a face on a floral handkerchief furrowed its brows as Zoemi leaned in and rested his forearms on the table.

"It doesn\'t make sense, honestly. Espines don\'t need Victureos\' support, they are a powerhouse on their own, especially since in recent years lord Doregon has been amassing more and more forces under his banner... hmm, although that is also curious."

Kierul put down the partially eaten sandwich and also leaned in. She was also bothered by the information of her dream future husband being engaged to someone else, but from her reaction, she was more worried about the reason for the future marriage instead of an actual relationship between the parties involved.

"A duke is gathering forces but instead of doing anything to control him the royal family lets them arrange a marriage between their eir and the son of the kingdom\'s general... This sounds like complete oversight if not borderline idiocy."

The red-haired girl\'s expression darkened as she pointed out before leaning back in her chair and staring into the distance, lost in thoughts.

"True. But let me make something clear – the only people I can\'t mess with are the two princes, right? So you won\'t try to stop me if I snoop around while breaking up the bullshit engagement inconvenient for us both, will you?"

"..."

Kierul blinked a few times, looking at her attendant in shock. She didn\'t even need all fingers in one hand to be able to count the times when she saw him that upset about anything.

"...I will not, but if you will be like that then I have to add a new rule – do not kill or permanently damage young lord Victureo unless you can provide me with a husband of equal or higher social status and power..."

The red-haired girl took a deep breath and warned the black-haired boy, pointing her index finger at his obstructed face.

The moment he did that...

*WHOOOSH* *THUMP* *SPLASH*

A large cooking pot with gruel decided to expel all of its content, splashing the slush-like dish around the better half of the cafeteria.

All the affected students raised their voices to complain and curse at whatever joker decided to go through with the messy prank...

"...Leo..."

"!!!"

...but just when the cafeteria was engulfed in chaos - an attendant, whose floral hadkerchief covering his face as well as his clothes took in most of the gruel after he jumped out of his seat and portected his red-ahired master with his own body, spoke up in pissed-off voice and an unreasonable, monstrous pressure descended on the room – crushing the wills and pushing the words back into students throats.

"Is the favorite pastime of the so-called nobility to mess around with food?"

The black-haired attendant asked, reaching behind his head and untying the floral handkerchief before pulling the fabric down just so he could glare at now even more terrified students with his obsidian eyes.

Zoemi was keeping a serious, cold-as-ice expression but because of his horribly injured right side of the face, it looked as if he was grinning with bloodthirst.

*thump*

"GAH...!"

...without any warning, without any of the students making a move, someone pushed a certain green-haired boy under Zoemi\'s feet – of course to the shocked cry of the shoved gentleman.

"WHO DARED TO...?!"

The green-haired boy with a badge of a second-year student shining on his uniform raised his voice aggressively while getting up and glaring at his oppressor...

"H-HUH?! Wait, what?!"

Just to see the very same scarred attendant that he was still standing in front of him.

"What the hell is going on?!"

The green-haired boy called out, greatly disturbed while looking back and forth between Zoemi and his copy that wasn\'t even there before pushing him.

He must have never seen the work on the law of Emini in person because he was utterly flabbergasted at the sight.

"I dared to. You planted something weird in the gruel to mess up with the peaceful lunch, which got you on my shit list. My deepest condolences."

"H-hey...!"

The original Zoemi scoffed and stepped forward, shoving the green-haired boy back despite the protests.

"Wh-who are you to accuse me or anything?! I am Rio Zernestii Moyena!"

The green-haired boy got red in the face ad scoffed back right after regaining his balance.

"I am very fucking annoyed. That\'s who am I. Now better start apologizing before I will stuff into that pot."

*WHAM*

"GHU-UOGH...!" *thump*

The scarred attendant demanded and then immediately punched the green-haired boy in the stomach, knocking him down in a single hit without even giving him time to consider the demand.

"Ghueghu...!"

Rio threw up a little bit but decided to try crawling back up, baring his teeth in fury.

"You...! You have no idea who I am...! I am the older twin brother of Reo Serentii Moyena...! THE Reo Serentii Moyena! The prodigy inventor of modern magic artifacts...! We have the kingdom\'s prote-MPFGH...?!"

The green-haired boy growled and even started threatening Zoemi, which made the black-haired boy push the tip of his shoe into his mouth to stop the flow of bullshit.

"Oh, I recognized the family name. Young lord Rio, your father has the position of the treasurer of our beloved kingdom and just as you mentioned, your younger twin sister is a prodigy with magic gadgets. I have even been around your oldest brother a few times in the past. But you know what they all have in common?"

"GHUUUUEEEFGHHH...!"

The scarred attendant shrugged his shoulders dismissively and nodded, speaking lightheartedly while pushing his shoe deeper into Rio\'s mouth, reaching the throat and causing the green-haired boy to start gagging uncontrollably.

Rio tried to fight with Zoemi\'s foot, he even activated his enchantments and tried to push his leg away, grabbing the attendant\'s foot – and when that turned out to be futile, he desperately attempted to bite through the shoe to cause the black-haired boy to retreat on his own.

*THUMP*

"GHUUUEERGHH...!"

While frowning over Rio\'s drool getting on his shoe, Zoemi stomped his foot, slamming the green-haired boy to the floor and making him let out a sound of a toad getting crushed by a boulder.

"Hmm~!"

The scarred attendant snickered ad leaned down so even the barfy, snot-nosed, crying upperclassman could properly hear his next words.

"Neither of them messed with the food and covered me in gruel."

*splat*

Zoemi announced while wiping off the substance from his clothes and shaking it off from his fingers onto Rio\'s head.

"Yes~! That\'s right~! It was all you~! Now apologize and we can both go around our..."

*WHOOSH* *haaaaa*

The attendant cheered out with a devilish smile that looked both captivating and monstrous because of his injury, but he stopped talking when a weak wind-blade spell dissipated after hitting his torso.

"...that\'s how you want to pay...?"

Zoemi\'s eyes turned cold as he dusted off his shirt that didn\'t even get disheveled.

He straightened his back and raised his knee up, theatrically winding up to stomp down even harder on the wide-eyed and terrified Rio...

*SHING*

"Quarrels and disagreements between students should be handled by the student supervisor. There is no place for any public lynching. Stop your actions."

...the next moment a large blade of a comically wide sword cut through the air with a nice sound just to end up being pointed at Zoemi\'s throat when a short armored girl declared in a grim voice...

The girl approached Zoemi from the right side and was speaking to his injured profile, too worried about her fellow green-haired second-year student in trouble to ave a good look at him.

"And brandishing a blade against a victim is okay?"

Zoemi laughed, completely unbothered by the edge of the girl\'s weapon basically touching his skin.

"When comparing the crime to the punishment you tried to dish out it is obvious that you are no longer a victim yourself but an offender. Your action is unreasonable and that makes you the bad guy."

The girl declared coldly while glancing at other gruel-covered students.

"Heeeee~? Is that so~?"

"..."

Zoemi snickered and raised his head making the armored girl clench her hand on the hilt of her sword a bit harder in anticipation.