9384-chapter-75
The Despot Club (1)
“Did you hear? A new art teacher is coming today.”
At the news from the classmate in charge of the rumor, the students sitting in front of their canvases in the atelier began to buzz.
“She was supposed to start next month, but she had to come in early because the teacher gave birth earlier than expected.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“My father heard it directly from the vice-principal.”
“It seems to be true.”
“I heard she’s really elite.”
“Isn’t the vice-principal a parachute1someone being hired or promoted through the influence of a high-ranking official; so maybe like a nepotist?”
At that remark, the student who brought the news shook his finger, saying that he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“How could the vice-principal, who is a commoner, have such power? He should be busy taking care of himself instead of poking his nose into other people’s business.”
At the word ‘commoner,’ the commoner students gathered in the corner looked at the noble ladies for a moment.
This is Molniski Ladies’ Academy.
It was founded as part of a national policy to cultivate female talent, but after being turned into a private school, the boundary between commoner and noble students was becoming more and more pronounced.
Although they were in the same class and taking the same classes, they were divided into two groups to the point where they could not say they were classmates.
There was no bullying or anything like that, and everyone was kind and affectionate, but scholarship students from commoner families could never join the group of noble ladies, and noble ladies would not hang out with commoners outside of class.
This was true not only for this class but for all classes in the school.
“Then is the vice-principal a parachute?”
“I don’t know about that. One thing for sure is that he’s a relative of Baron Lanzkoi.”
“Oh, the person who died unexpectedly recently?”
The noble students all shuddered with a chilling expression.
“Isn’t the world really scary? He was attacked by his assistant.”
“That’s right. There’s really no one to trust, is there?”
“They say you don’t catch a black beast with a white one2In other words, it is said that animals always try to repay the favor they receive, but humans (black beast) swallow what is sweet and spit out when it is bitter, so they often betray and even harm those who helped them. Therefore, it means not to give affection or help to people, and that’s exactly what it looks like.”
“You’re right. Isn’t it safer to associate with people of the same status?”
The leader of the commoner scholarship students was about to stand up at those words, but his friends held him down.
“Hey, calm down.”
“That’s just something they want us to hear.”
“What can we do about it anyway?”
“He’s ignorant, anyway. He’s a black-haired beast. Saying things like that after picking up some saying from another continent.”
One of the genetic characteristics of the neighboring country, the Sharmante Empire, was their black hair.
Even in the Hersen Grand Duchy, where their ancestors came from, they had silver hair, so black hair was very rare for people in the western continent.
If they wanted to apply it here, it would have been appropriate to change their common brown hair to black.
Therefore, it was a proverb that did not apply in the western continent.
“Well, that incident wasn’t good, but anyway, the Lanzkoi family has been a family of artists for generations, right? And since the late Baron Lanzkoi recommended her to the school before he passed away, she must be a talented person even without looking at her skills.”
“I’m excited to hear that.”
At that moment, the door opened and the vice-principal of Molniski Ladies’ Academy came into the atelier.
“Everyone, be quiet, quiet.”
After she lightly clapped her hands twice with a refined gesture, the students who had been chatting comfortably sat up straight and elegantly greeted her.
They had been trained in posture and etiquette since they were in lower grades, and now their bodies were so well-trained that they could pop up at a moment’s notice.
“I can feel the atmosphere of learning in this class. I came here to tell our students something before class. Originally, the principal was going to come out herself, but as you all know, she’s not feeling well.”
Madam Borodin did not disclose to the outside world that she had been captured as instructed by Nikolai.
The plan to hit Molniski Ladies’ Academy first was to prevent other southern nobles, including the Oksana Grand Duchess faction, from leaving or reorganizing ahead of time.
In fact, even if Nikolai had not warned her, Madam Borodin was already struggling with the fact that she was involved in a murder case in the school or in her own family.
Officially, she was on sick leave and temporarily went to another city for treatment.
The school and her family knew that much.
Since other nobles were involved in corruption, it wouldn’t matter if other nobles were involved and died together. But adultery was a different matter.
If it were known that Madam Borodin was involved in an affair with Baron Lanzkoi and nearly got killed, not only would the Borodin family be ruined, but she would also be completely buried in high society.
Anyway, it was quite an advantageous situation for Nikolai and Katya thanks to Madam Borodin’s voluntary confession.
“So I’ll introduce her like this. Come on in.”
The vice-principal gestured towards the door.
Tap, tap.
With the sound of high heels clicking, a platinum-blonde woman walked gracefully and quietly into the atelier like a ballerina.
“Hello? My name is Alyona Lanzkoi and I will be teaching you art from today. Nice to meet you.”
Katya smiled at her juniors in front of the lecture podium.
* * *
Two hours ago.
“Ah! I’m late! Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Katya got up screaming and hurriedly looked around the room without a moment’s rest.
“Calm down, Tia.”
“What kind of teacher is late on the first day?”
Nikolai held his wife’s hand as she hurriedly came out of the bathroom after washing up and getting dressed, and he sat her down at the dining table.
“Sit down for now. We need to have a meal.”
“Ugh. Grand Duke, it’s not about breakfast right now?”
“Is there something more important than this? I can’t stand to see you hungry.”
He said as he guided a spoon into Katya’s hand.
The table was already filled with a feast, arranged in advance by the hotel staff.
“Even if we’re busy, I’ll make sure you have breakfast.”
“But my hair is a mess right now!”
Nikolai held a hairbrush in his hand and stood behind her.
“I’ll brush it for you, but you need to eat first.”
“Can you do it?”
“What’s so difficult about it? Just brushing, right?”
“Ouch!”
As he forcefully brushed her hair, the comb got stuck halfway, causing Katya to scream and turn around.
Nikolai absentmindedly continued brushing from the scalp, but it wasn’t the right method for Katya’s thick and coarse curly hair.
Besides, she had dyed her hair to hide her natural strawberry blonde hair, making it even more tangled.
“Are you doing this on purpose?”
“Sorry. Did it hurt a lot?”
He answered, flustered.
If it were Alyona, she would have handled it skillfully, but Nikolai had never attempted to style a woman’s hair before, especially not with such high-difficulty hair.
It would have been great if she had brought her lady’s maid Alyona with her, but Katya deliberately left her safely at the Duke’s residence because she was preoccupied with finding the assassin who had sabotaged their carriage.
After much consideration and attempts to brush her hair without causing pain, Nikolai finally figured out a method and started brushing her hair from the bottom up, gradually working his way up.
Thanks to him, Katya was able to finish her breakfast in the meantime.
“Grand Duke, you are more talented than I am.”
Nikolai stood behind her as she looked at herself in the mirror and reached forward to touch her forehead.
He touched his own forehead with his other hand and shook his head before turning her around and pressing his forehead against hers.
Katya was surprised by the closeness of his face and closed and opened her eyes repeatedly.
In the meantime, their foreheads and noses touched briefly and then separated.
“You still have a fever.”
“No! My fever has gone down!”
She denied Nikolai vehemently and he went into the bedroom with a fierce expression before coming back out.
Katya, who was trying to escape through the front door, was quickly caught by him from behind.
“Oh, you’re really feeling better?”
“What do you mean by feeling better. See, the potion works better, right?”
She said as he poured the potion into a deep spoon-like ladle and quickly put it into Katya’s mouth.
With a swift motion, she swallowed it and stuck out her tongue in disgust.
When they arrived at Vasnetsov and her fever didn’t go down after getting wet in the rain, Nikolai bought a potion, but Katya ran away, refusing to take it.
So they agreed to take the potion today if her fever didn’t go down.
“Ew, I said I’m not taking it!”
When Nikolai put a cookie in his suffering wife’s mouth, she calmed down like a dragon that had been tamed.
“Well done.”
He gently stroked her hair as she became more peaceful.
“Grand Duke, do you realize that you are treating me like a child?”
“Why are you a child? How can I sleep with a child.”
“What are you talking about? Someone might misunderstand! We just held hands and slept together yesterday!”
“Just holding hands made me feel so excited that my body and mind were shaken. Who’s responsible for that?”
“The perverted Grand Duke.”
Nikolai burst out laughing at her stern yet cheeky retort.
Until recently, she had kept her distance from him because of his status as a Grand Duke, but every time she acted provocatively and broke etiquette, he felt happy.
It felt like they were getting closer.
“Let’s go. We’ll be there in no time if we ride the horse. I’ll give you a ride.”
Her husband’s wicked hand reached out, and Katya pretended to resist but eventually took it.
“A recommendation from the principal?”
The vice-principal asked the unannounced visitor, blinking her eyes.
She lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose and looked at the letter of recommendation again before raising her head with narrowed eyes.
It was undoubtedly the handwriting of Viscountess Borodin.
Katya had set up the character in her fake resume as the granddaughter of Lord Lanzkoi, Viscountess Borodin’s husband.
“Yes. Haven’t you received any communication? I thought you were going to work today, so I took the time to come over. I’ll have to tell my great-grandfather there was a mistake.”
Katya spoke with a natural charm.
The character in the forged resume was set as the granddaughter of Viscount Lanzkoi, the father of Lanzkoi, who was a merchant in the southern region.
Of course, the recommendation letter from Viscount Borodin was genuine.
It had been sent from prison due to Nikolai’s not-so-subtle coercion.
“Oh, is that really necessary? Why don’t you start your lessons today as scheduled. I’ve been very rude.”
The vice-principal, who was worried about offending Viscountess Borodin, immediately backed down.
That’s how Katya infiltrated Molniski Ladies’ Academy.
To stop the misdeeds of these damned nobles at the Despot Club or wherever and make them pay for their sins properly.
