The Duty Of An Academy Student Should Be To Study - Chapter 67
Episode 67
Rose returned to the dormitory from the Conway’s townhouse and collapsed onto the plush sofa.
“Rose! Are you okay?!”
Briley immediately stuck close, shouting with a worried voice. Rose lay askew and replied with just blinking her eyes.
“Uh… yeah…”
“Did… anything happen?”
Briley sat down next to Rose, hesitating. Rose found Briley’s reaction perplexing. She hadn’t said anything to Briley and had just left, so why was Briley so concerned?
As Rose relaxed and started pondering, Briley whispered.
“There’s something I need to apologize for.”
“Why?”
“Since you received that letter in the morning, you’ve been acting strangely all day…, I ended up reading the letter secretly without you knowing!”
Briley hung her head low, on the verge of tears. Rose slowly recollected the events of the morning.
‘Did I just leave the letter in the drawer and walk out?’
It seemed like Rose had been scatterbrained. Listening to Briley’s words, she gradually pieced together what had happened.
Briley spoke with a trembling voice as if she might burst into tears at any moment.
“I shouldn’t have secretly read someone else’s letter… The seal on the envelope looked strangely familiar, and I got so worried about you. I’m sorry…”
“No, you don’t have to be this sorry, Briley. But did you happen to mention the letter to Jasper?”
Briley nodded slowly with a downcast expression.
‘That’s why… there was a reason Jasper came.’
Rose didn’t feel angry at Briley at all.
She knew Briley hadn’t acted with ill intentions. She shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if Briley hadn’t told Jasper.
Rose shivered, thinking that Jasper might still be there, giving her a lengthy lecture.
Rose patted Briley’s slumped shoulders.
“It’s okay. Thanks to you, I got out of it without any trouble.”
“…Really? But why did Ethan Conway call you?”
“Oh, well… there was a misunderstanding. It’s resolved now.”
“What kind of misunderstanding?”
Rose hesitated for a moment. She wondered if she should talk about it, but she felt that if she didn’t confide in Briley, she would be too frustrated.
Rose spoke softly while fidgeting with her fingertips.
“Lord Conway misunderstood the relationship between Jasper and me.”
Briley furrowed her brow and muttered.
“I knew it… I figured as much. What did he say to you when he called you?”
“Jasper has someone he’s engaged to, so he told me to back off… something like that.”
Rose didn’t go into detail about how Ethan had insulted her.
Now that the misunderstanding was cleared up, she didn’t want to badmouth Jasper’s family. She didn’t have the energy or desire to be angry right now.
Rose tried to brush off Ethan’s words with the same nonchalance she had used to handle the mockery of noble-born students when she was a freshman. She believed that a good night’s sleep would help her clear her mind, and she had too many other things to worry about right now.
With the preparations for the contest starting in earnest, she knew she would be busy until summer vacation.
‘Jasper… he’ll handle things on his own.’
However, Jasper’s words from earlier suddenly came to her mind.
“We have no feelings for each other.”
Yes, he had made it clear like that.
Rose felt a strange sinking feeling, but she didn’t dwell on it too much, attributing it to the aftermath of her encounter with Ethan. Moreover, she was preoccupied with Briley, who was angrily berating Ethan.
Briley’s face had turned bright red, and she was pouring out her anger.
“If he’s a noble, so what?! Who does he think he is to order people around? This guy treats you like some sort of nuisance. That noble engagement stuff—our Rose couldn’t care less!”
Rose nodded in agreement, realizing that Ethan had done well not to say those words to her directly.
Nevertheless, as Briley fervently vented her anger, Rose felt oddly comforted. Watching Briley’s intense reaction, she even let out a subtle laugh.
Briley mumbled under her breath as she jutted out her lower lip.
“Rose, how can you laugh at a time like this? Are you okay?”
“In the moment, I felt upset, but… I’m trying not to dwell on it now. No matter how much Lord Conway scolds me, I don’t think I need to be shaken by it. After all, I didn’t do anything wrong in the first place.”
“But isn’t it even more infuriating to be treated unfairly when you didn’t do anything wrong? It’s unjust!”
“Well, you could see it that way. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. What can I say… there are plenty of times in life when you’re going to get your ass kicked.”
Rose’s voice was composed. She was a very practical person, having spent most of her early years struggling and persevering. Given her experiences, it was almost inevitable for her to become this way.
In a world where injustices were widespread, she knew that if she let herself be crushed every time, she wouldn’t be able to live properly. That’s why Rose had learned to focus only on what she needed to do and not get consumed by her emotions.
Even if the world constantly tried to shake her, she had vowed to overcome it. She had carried that resolve with her since she left Quilts and came to Berkley Academy.
Suddenly, the vivid memory of Ethan dismissing her came to her mind—the face that couldn’t believe a common girl could be skilled in magic engineering.
When she graduated and entered society, there would probably be more people like Ethan who thought that way. She knew she would face such situations frequently, and oddly enough, Ethan’s attitude had fueled her determination.
‘…I told him I had no right to meddle. That’s right.’
Rose knew that she couldn’t become a part of the Conway family herself, nor could she take Jasper’s place by his side. She had no desire to do so.
‘But the things I create will find their way into his life.’
She wanted to create inventions that would become indispensable in people’s lives, even for those who had previously ignored her.
Rose’s eyes, which had been weary, suddenly brightened. Setting her mind to it and establishing a goal made her feel better.
To achieve that, she knew she had to take the first step.
‘To win the contest.’
She wouldn’t settle for a simple wish; she was determined to make it a reality.
* * *
Inside the dirty and narrow alleyways of the harbor city, a skinny middle-aged man was trembling uncontrollably.
“Ugh, ugh…”
The man hid behind a trash can, his body shaking. He listened intently to the voices coming from the other end of the alley.
“Find that bastard!”
A group of menacing men roamed around, shouting.
“If we catch him this time, we’re going to cut off his wrist.”
“How much did that George Bell bastard steal?”
The trembling man, George Bell, crouched down even further. The stench of garbage clung to his body, and it would probably take a while for that smell to fade away. But for now, he had no choice.
George anxiously chewed on his lips.
It had been about a month or two since he escaped from the capital.
Rose had taken his last source of funds, the house papers. He had lost the trust of the pawnbrokers and could no longer keep his feet on the ground.
George had once thrived in the city, but now, with his former glory faded, he had fled to the harbor city. With no money to his name, he was forced to take on any kind of labor he could find.
Among the worst was the job of gutting fish.
With his newly acquired money, George Bell searched for a nearby gambling house. The level of gamblers here was incomparable to the capital; they were far less sophisticated.
Quickly, his money began to swell, and George felt victorious. He firmly believed that Lady Luck was on his side. However, luck did not last forever.
A high-stakes gambling game involving gangsters opened up, and George lost all the money he had won.
‘Darn it, darn it, darn it…’
To recover his losses, he borrowed money from various sources. Strangely, he kept losing the borrowed money as well, and now he found himself being chased by the gangsters.
‘If I get caught, what will happen…’
He might end up as a slave, sold off to the gangsters. Unlike the well-patrolled capital, the outskirts near the sea were overrun by gangs. In recent years, the situation has become even more dire, likely due to international gang activity.
‘I shouldn’t have gotten involved in a gambling game with gangsters.’
George felt tears welling up in his eyes. He regretted how he had ended up in this situation.
Then, as always, he rationalized it:
‘If Rose hadn’t abandoned me back then, I would never have left the capital.’
George Bell had only suffered losses from a gambler named Wonder Laquoi and had fled here.
What if he had staked his last fortune and won against Laquoi? Laquoi was known for betting big on games.
‘Those house papers… If I’d won them, I’d have let us all live off the land.’
George couldn’t help but resent Rose every time his emotions swung. Even in the gambling den, he would occasionally bring up Rose’s name.
‘I have a daughter attending Berkley Academy, but she acts like she’s the only one who exists. She doesn’t care about her father and spreads rumors about me to everyone.’
Of course, most people didn’t believe George’s words. They found it hard to believe that the daughter of such a pathetic man could attend Berkley Academy.
After fleeing the harbor city, George had hidden aboard a ship, evading the gang’s scrutiny. That was when he had disappeared. Those who had not received the mountain of debts George had left behind were furious.
If they couldn’t find George Bell, they would find his family and pressure them to repay the debts.
And if George Bell’s words were not just empty boasts…
His daughter would be at Berkley Academy.
The gang was seething with anger as they headed to the capital to find a student named “Rose Bell.”