Even in another world’s academy, there were still the typical school legends about strange things that happen during or after midnight. In the school that Bella had attended back on earth, there were also quite a few such legends flying around but were all just baseless rumours. In this world, however, there existed people who could even summon an entire horde of undead, so there should be at least some truth to the rumours in this academy. The inhabitants of this world shouldn’t be scared by undead so easily as they’ve most likely already seen a few undead in their time, so the beings behind the rumours were most likely something even scarier.
The book ‘Strange Happenings of the Olsyvia Academy at Midnight’ was something that Nina had mentioned to her, a book that recorded all of the strange and supernatural things that happened within the Olsyvia Academy. The book was written by the founding president of the News & Information Association and was sealed away as a forbidden book by the St.Louis branch’s high echelons, the reason being that the authour had died an untimely death while in pursuit of something recorded in the book.
The News & Information Association’s founding president was a member of the St.Louis branch’s elite class and would have had a bright future ahead of him after graduation, having the ability to at least become an archbishop. However, the state of his body after death chilled others to the bone, as it seemed like the president had been scared to death with a look of absolute terror still frozen on his face. To be able to scare someone who possessed the ability to become an archbishop to death, whatever had done so was definitely… After the incident, the book was sealed into a sacred item by the first student council president of the St.Louis branch and then handed over to the Olsyvia Academy’s main student council to be locked away.
‘Strange Happenings of the Olsyvia Academy at Midnight’ became one of the 【Four Forbidden Texts】 and gradually faded from the students’ memories and Bella only found out about it after Nina brought it up during a conversation while they were enjoying lunch. The other three books had also been sealed away by the main student council and were most likely kept in the same place.
Bella didn’t want to obtain this book out of curiosity but because she wanted to find a new headquarters for the Rose Society. The association’s previous office wasn’t exactly in a good location, constantly being under the Golden Legend’s supervision. Recorded in the forbidden text were supposedly several locations within the academy that had been purposely hidden from the students and removed from any maps, all sealed away after some unspeakable things had happened within them.
Even now, there was no association that dared to try and incorporate these forbidden areas into their territory, not even those with excessively powerful combat abilities like the Brotherhood or the Iron Cross dared to step foot in these areas. Bella’s aim was to obtain this book and its information on these forbidden locations and use that to help turn these areas into part of the Rose Society’s territory.
Bella was well acquainted with the Church of Light’s four holy maidens so there shouldn’t be much problem with permission from the Church. As for the mysterious evils within those forbidden grounds, well… Bella and the other members of her Dark Sanctuary weren’t exactly human themselves and were most likely even more sinister existences than whatever those forbidden grounds held.
“I’ve already helped everyone in this dorm to sign up for the Rose Association, if anyone doesn’t wish to do so, you can still step out now?”
“Nee-san, I have no problems joining. Ese had asked me to join the Euphemia branch’s student council earlier but I turned her down by saying that I don’t have enough time.”
“I also have no problems, Bella. The Rose Society’s Marlie is one of my few friends and I’m all for joining her association.”
Responding to Bella’s inquiry, the two who had arguably the best relations with her, Kriss and Lisha quickly agreed. Elena, Noreya, and Ariel all lacked an association themselves so they also expressed their consent. The rumours about them had scared off most people and no one had invited them to join an association, especially Elena due to her rumour of being cursed, with everyone giving her a wide-berth wherever she went.
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Several days later during the Olsyvia Academy’s opening ceremony that was taking place in the central Francis branch. This day was one of the few chances for all of the academy’s students to see each other as well as all of their teachers. Apart from the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the school festivals, there weren’t many chances for students from all five branches to be present in such numbers.
Bella had left quite early with the members of the Rose Society that had moved into the suite next door as all of the girls in her own suite were students of the Euphemia branch for royalty. The students for this ceremony were seated by which branch they belonged to, meaning that they were separated from Bella during this event. Noesha and the other lolis were left behind as well due to their identity as Duchess Bellina’s ‘maidservants’ and weren’t able to attend this event that was only for the Olsyvia Academy’s students.
“Head chair Natasha, you’re following me again? Is their no one else capable of this task within the Disciplinary Committee, but they would have to be even more beautiful than you…”
“I’ve already told you that we just share the same path and nothing else, don’t overthink it, classmate Bellina.”
As usual, the head chair of the Disciplinary Committee, Natasha had left at the same time as Bella and the others. Following beside her was the student council president Lucia who had a helpless look on her face. Lucia flashed Bella an apologetic look, as she still hadn’t been able to carry out her promise of enjoying afternoon tea together due to the constant interference of Natasha.
Lucia’s promise had been to enjoy afternoon tea with whoever was fortunate enough to obtain the seat of honour but had failed to mention a specific time. Natasha had taken advantage of this loophole to stop Lucia from having a meeting with Bella. Lucia also had quite a few questions that she wanted to ask Bella but because of the fact that she shared a suite with her best friend Natasha, she hadn’t been able to find a chance to talk with Bella alone.
Following even further behind them were a few shady figures that had currently taken cover behind a large tree. Bella didn’t even need to look back to know that these were members of the Golden Legend. When the members of the Rose Society had moved into Bella’s dormitory building, the president of the Golden Legend had sent a messenger to Bella with an invitation. Inviting Duchess Bellina to a private banquet that Carlos was holding, on the spot Bella had seen that her name had been written over that of a hastily painted over Jarvan.
In response to such an insincere invitation, Bella had naturally rejected it. There was no point in going to such a banquet after making a foe of Carlos back at the auction, she knew that it was best to have as little interaction with him as possible for now.
Bella’s rejection had naturally offended the entire Golden Legend. If it wasn’t for her peerage of Duke, Bella would definitely have already suffered at the hands of the Golden Legend’s close ally, the Dark Mask gang…association. A few students from the Francis Academy who had resisted against Carlos previously had supposedly been forced into quitting school by members of the Dark Mask using unspeakable means. Due to the lack of material evidence, the Disciplinary Committee had been unable to take any meaningful actions towards the Dark Mask.
For the past few days, every time that Bella has left her dormitory, members of the Golden Legend have always attempted to block her path and cause some trouble for her. Coincidentally, due to the stalkerish behaviour of the Disciplinary Committee’s head chair, Natasha, the Golden Legend members didn’t dare to actually show their faces and could only watch Bella from afar and wait for a moment when Natasha left her side.
Due to the fact that Natasha unintentionally spared Bella much pestering, Bella didn’t have any complaints about the head chair’s stalkerish behaviour. She decided that when she had to chance to enjoy tea with president Lucia, she would also thank Natasha for her help.
There were quite a few students on their way to the opening ceremony and Bella’s group pulled a lot of attention. Most of the attention was focused on Nina and the other rich beauties from the Rose Society while Bella was largely ignored. There were loads of beauties in the Olsyvia Academy and Bella’s substitute Felia could only be considered a beauty of normal level, impossible to have attracted so much attention is such a little bit of time.
The other members of the Rose Society could all be considered more beautiful than Felia and honestly, their looks weren’t far behind that of Natasha and Lucia behind them, meaning that they could contest the rankings of the academy’s top 10 beauties. Along with their wealth and position, there was no end to the line of male students that wished for the hearts of the Rose Society’s members.
However, like the Golden Legend’s members, they didn’t dare to approach the girls due to the presence of Natasha. While the Olsyvia Academy didn’t have any rules against student relationships, but they definitely didn’t promote relationships in public and it definitely wasn’t worth getting caught by members of the Disciplinary Committee for.
The large square at the centre of the Francis academy had been divided into five districts to accommodate the five branch’s students. When they arrived at the student reception, a beautiful looking archer received Bella’s group and told them that she would be responsible for taking them to the area occupied by the Filomina branch’s students as it would be rather hard to get around such a large crowd without the directions of someone who knew the way.
“Eh, president Britney, why are you a guide here? Even though this year’s opening ceremony is being hosted by the Francis branch but couldn’t you have sent the other members of your student council to receive this year’s new students? There’s no need for you, the student council president, to come down yourself.”
“President Lucia, I… we’re a little short-staffed today which is why I’ve come to help, this classmate here is Duchess Bellina, right? You girls can follow me, I’ll take you to where the rest of the Filomina branch is seated.”
“President Britney, I can show Bellina the way…”
“President Lucia, I insist that you let me be the guide!”
Before Bella could say anything, president Lucia who was behind her spoke to the beautiful archer. Through their discussion, Bella learned the identity of the girl that had been acting as their guide, she was rather surprised that the student council president of the Francis branch, Britney had come down and was working as a mere guide. Britney’s golden hair was done up in a ponytail that was both simple and natural.
There were rumours that Britney’s family used to be of the nobility as well but had gotten on the wrong side of someone with power and had their peerage stripped, becoming that commoner that they were today. One of the factors for the rumour was the fact that normal commoner families wouldn’t be able to have children with golden hair, which in this world, was a symbol of nobility.
According to the gossip papers that the News & Information Association and the Aesthetics Research Club pump out, this Britney was also one of the ten top-ranked beauties. As the student council president of the commoners’ Francis branch, Britney gave people a down-to-earth and sincere feel.
Of the beauties that Bella had met so far, apart from Angel and Mia, Britney was probably the most innocent of them all. When she had seen them earlier, Britney’s eyes had stopped on Bella for quite a while, her blue eyes unable to hide her secrets.
Those eyes were that of someone who had a request, Bella had seen the same look when Mia and Angel were acting like spoiled children and asking Bella for more new clothes. Bella didn’t know what this student council president wanted from her, but it seemed as if Britney wanted to wait until they were out of the public eye before showing her true intent.
“Classmate Bellina, I’m warning you. Don’t lead president Britney astray or teach her anything strange, she’s a really innocent girl!”
“Natasha, I’m a good person, so why don’t you believe me!”
“You don’t look like it, just know that I’ll be keeping my eyes on you!”
Britney led Bella’s group to their seats and then left with president Lucia. When she left, Britney had looked at Bella a few more times but could only helplessly leave due to the presence of Natasha.
The students in the Filomina branch all chose to sit around the people that they were close with and away from those who they didn’t like, the relations in the branch were quite evident. Bella had quickly spotted a few familiar faces seated at the back of the noble students. The Golden Legend and their president, Carlos, took up most of the seats at the very back, it wasn’t unnatural as this was already Carlos’ third Olsyvia Academy opening ceremony and he was probably already tired of hearing the same speech over and over.
Apart from Carlos, the more senior students all chose to sit towards the back, leaving the seats closer to the front for the new 1st year students. This was the first time that Bella had seen Carlos, the president of the enemy association who had constantly been taking land from the Rose Society. Bella had left in a rush back at the auction and hadn’t had the time to pay attention to the Golden Legend’s members.
Carlos looked a little different from what Bella had expected, he wasn’t exactly one would think of as being the scum he was at first glance. If one looked at him from a true female’s perspective, Carlos could also be considered quite handsome, after all, he was ranked in the top 10 male students by looks. If only he was also a member of the Brotherhood, then Bella wouldn’t have to make an enemy of him…
Seeing the arrival of Bella, there was no change on Carlos’ face as he maintained a casual conversation with the members of his association around him. Seeing that Carlos didn’t try and cause any trouble, Bella decided to ignore him for now.
Apart from Carlos, there was another group of students that caught Bella’s attention. At the centre of them was the normal class’ Scout, the youngest son of the Octavian Empire’s Brad family’s current head. Over the past few days, Scout had been secretly fighting against Bella(without her knowledge) to make the headlines of the school papers but had always lost, leaving him rather gloomy.
Scout had already gathered quite a number of lackeys after he had turned his life around following his fall from his mount last month, his power and abilities suddenly skyrocketing, earning himself the chance to attend the Olsyvia Academy after beating his eldest brother in a martial competition.
The young lady who had withdrawn her engagement with Scout due to his previous reputation as useless now seemed as if she wanted to turn back. However, Scout had adopted the ‘ignoring’ method of getting girls and hadn’t spoken a single word to her.
This was the first time that Bella had witnessed one of these cliche main characters rise to the spotlight, she decided to just keep observing him until absolutely necessary. Scout should one of those transmigrators that were arranged to enter this world by another dimension’s male Creator, meaning that he was naturally an enemy of Bella, who was backed by the female Creators led by Vianna. However, now wasn’t the time to fight with Scout.
Scout didn’t pay much attention to Bella either, there were many beauties within the Olsyvia Academy and Bellina could only be considered a typical beauty. Scout’s goal was to make all of the ‘10 schoolyard beauties’ part of his harem and didn’t have any thoughts about the comparatively normal Bella.
The third familiar face that Bella saw was the fake loli, Charlotte, who was currently sitting with members of the Brotherhood. After their last meeting back at the auction hall, for some reason, the fake loli had yet to speak to Bella again.
During the Olsyvia Academy’s opening ceremony, apart from the principals and other high-ranking members of the academy’s staff, the five branches’ student council presidents also made an appearance as VIPs. Beside the central platform, all of the VIP seats had already been filled. Due to the fact that Bella was sitting rather close to the front, it was quite easy for her to see all of the Olsyvia Academy’s student council presidents.
From a glance, Bella noticed that all five branch presidents were female, without a single male mixed in and even more surprising to her was that the main student council president was also quite the beauty. The VIPs made a sharp contrast with the elderly principals and staff on the platform beside them, it was fortunate that there were some beauties to look at during this ceremony, or else quite the number of students would probably ‘use the washroom’ in the middle of the ceremony and never return if they had to look at a bunch of old men the whole time.
