Chapter 12: Practice of Showing Gratitude

"Yo, Monica. Good work. Have you managed to get in touch with the prince?"

The sun was already dark when Monica returned to her attic in the dormitory, and Nero, the black cat, came jumping in through the attic window.

Monica, who had been lying her face down on the bed as soon as she returned to the attic, got up lazily and shook her head helplessly.

At the moment, Monica was unable to interact with her classmates on a human level, let alone make contact with the prince. Given this situation, she wondered how she could get close to the prince.

While Monica whimpered in tears, Nero wagged his tail from side to side and said with pride.

"I've gathered some information! Now, praise me!"

"…Yeah. Thanks, Nero."

"Listen up and be surprised, the second prince is the student council president. This means, if you become a student council member, you can naturally get in touch with him."

Indeed, Nero's point was spot on.

The second prince and Monica were in different grades, so it was very difficult to approach him normally. However, if they become members of the same student council, she can approach him naturally. But…

"That's impossibleeee."

In order to become a student council member, one must have excellent grades. On top of that, one must also have connections with the students' council members.

"But, you know, Monica. You are that of Seven Sages. And a genius at that. So if you score really well on the next test, you could become a member of the student council, I think."

Monica silently shook her head and laid her textbook on the desk.

The textbooks were overwhelmingly about the history and foreign languages. When it comes to the knowledge required by a child of a noble family, this was only natural.

Monica's background was in all things related to magic. She knew a lot about the history of magic, fundamental magic, magic formulas, and the laws related to magic, but other than that her overall grade was below average except for arithmetic.

"Hey, you went to a school called Minerva, right? Didn't you study any languages there?"

"At Minerva, I chose Ancient Magic Script and Spirit Languages as my study."

If nobles in this country wrote letters in Ancient Magic Script and exchanged words with spirits, Monica's knowledge would have been very useful. But of course, neither of these was knowledge required by the children of nobles.

"What should I do, What should I do, What should I do."

Monica sat on the bed, hugging Nero to her chest whimpering.

Now Monica was no longer in a position to protect the second prince. All she could do was try not to drop out of this school.

No, even before that…

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"Today, I received kindness from two people."

Monica glanced at the ribbon on her desk and the wrapped nuts.

Despite Lana's high-handed attitude, she was the first person in her class who talked to her.

And the young man she met in the old garden, he had prioritized picking up Monica's nuts over his documents.

"Actually, I wanted to say "Thank you" to them, but…"

She could point out the mistakes in the documents, but because she was unable to say thank you properly, she felt what she did was so ungrateful.

Monica turned her gaze down, and Nero looked up at Monica.

"You were able to say "thank you" to me just fine. You just said that. I heard it myself."

"It was because… you're… not a human…"

Nero frowned like a human being, but then he suddenly had an idea, wagged his tail, and climbed down from Monica's lap.

"All right, then, I'll help you practice overcoming your shyness."

"Nero? Are you talking about that…"

"Yes. That's right."

Nero jumped onto the chair and gave a flick of his tail. Instantly, his figure contorted and the black cat became a mass of black shadows. Eventually, the shadow expanded and became a human silhouette.

Within two blinks of an eye, the shadow now took on color. As if the ink had been washed away, a smooth skin tone could be seen beneath the shadow.

"Look, how's that."

The person sitting in the chair was not a black cat, but a young man in his twenties with black hair and golden eyes. He was wearing a somewhat old-fashioned robe.

Of course, he wasn't human. He was Nero who had transformed into a human form.

She already knew that Nero could turn into a human being, and she'd seen him do it, but… her body cowered of its own accord at the realization that there was an adult male in front of her.

"N-No…"

Her eyes, which always looking down blankly, were opened to the limit, and her body was trembling.

She shrank back on the bed and held her head in her hands as if to protect herself.

"No… I don't want it… I beg you, Nero… Please turn back into a cat…"

She looked as if she was about to burst into tears, while Nero puffed out his cheeks in frustration. When he did so, he looked awfully young for a grown man.

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"Don't wanna. I mean, you can manage to talk to Lulu Runtatta, even with a slight stutter!"

Apparently, Nero was not interested in remembering Louis Miller's name.

For the time being, Monica insisted, correcting his mistake with Louis' name.

"Louis will slap me on the cheek if I don't answer him properly. In the worst cases, he would slap me back and forth!"

"Whoa… are you serious? He is the worst. Well, but I'm not gonna slap you! How about that? Ain't I pretty nice?"

Normally, it should be like that, but Louis was just being radical.

Even so, Nero snorted proudly then cornered Monica.

"Now express your gratitude, worship me, and say thank you to me."

As Nero crept closer and closer, Monica was leaning back while repeatedly opening and closing up her mouth.

"T-Tha… T-Tha… k…"

After barely spelling out a word, Monica's mouth began to mumble words that didn't make sense, then followed by a series of ragged breaths. Looking at her from the outside, she looked like a sick person.

Nero pouted his lips like a child in frustration.

"Oh, really? So you didn't want to thank me for infiltrating the school and helping out with the investigation? Oh, I'm super shocked. I feel hurt!"

"No, you got it wrong, I'm sorry…"

"I'd rather hear a thank you than a sorry. Come on, give your familiar some praise, master."

Nero then proceeded to loll his feet around on the chair in an ill-mannered manner.

Monica shut her eyes tightly, clenched her fists in her lap, and squeezed her voice out.

"T-Thanks for everything, Nero!"

"Oh, that's nice, keep going, keep going. Okay, now say ‘Lord Nero, you're the best!'"

"Lord Nero, you're the best!"

"Now, Lord Nero, you're so wonderful~!"

"Lord Nero, you're so wonderful!"

Seeing Monica's eyes became swirly as she recited, Nero rubbed his cheeks.

"I'm starting to feel like the bad guy who's brainwashing the good guys."

"You're so mean, Nero…"

"Meow! I was just doing it for your own good… hm?"

Turning his golden eyes to look out the window, Nero opened it and leaned in.

Monica hurriedly pulled at the hem of Nero's clothes.

"N-Nero! T-That's dangerous. You'll fall…"

"Hey, Monica, look. There's a guy in the boys' dormitory window. He looks suspicious."

"Eh?"

Monica leaned out the window alongside Nero and turned her attention to the adjacent boys' dormitory.

The windows in the attic were high enough to provide them a good view, but relying on moonlight alone was still too unreliable.

Monica activated her night vision and farsightedness magic with no chanting. This magic did not strengthen her eyesight but rather created a vision in her mind of a scene at some distance.

There's someone in the boys' dorm yard.

In Monica's mind, a picture of the boys' dormitory appeared. Focusing her attention further, she could see a person coming out of the first-floor window of the boys' dormitory.

He was wearing a hooded cloak over his head, so his face was not visible. However, through the hood, his black hair could be seen swaying in the air.

He was tall and slender and wore a fine frock coat under his cloak.

He stepped out of the first-floor window into the garden and disappeared among the trees.

"He's gone out of sight. Can't you do something about it with your magic?"

"My far sight is not clairvoyant. Once they're hidden behind an obstacle, I can't track them any further, but…"

Monica put her finger on her chin and squinted her eyes.

Right now, in Monica's mind, calculations were coming and going at a dizzying pace.

In those calculations, Monica learned one fact.

"I've met that person before…"

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