Transmigrated As The Villainess' Boyfriend With A... SSS Harem System?

Vauxol's second question fell over the classroom.

"Which family ruled the northern crystal veins before the signing of the Third Seal?"

I looked at the blackboard. Crystal veins. North. Something about the Analazze. Chapter twelve of the history book was still blurry in my memory.

Layda leaned toward me. Her shoulder pressed against mine. This time she didn't whisper. She slid her notebook between us and pointed to a line with her fingertip.

'Analazze. They lost control after the Battle of the Cold Pass.'

I copied the answer into my notebook. My handwriting trembled. The feeling of a girl's arm who wasn't Lianza against mine, added to the prince's hand on her forearm, exasperated me.

"Thank you," I told her again, this time in a murmur.

"That's what we're partners for," she replied with a shy half-smile.

Vauxol walked between the rows. He stopped by our desk. His eyes went from my parchment to Layda's. Something in his expression tightened.

"Sir Elcronne. Can you answer the next question without assistance?"

Without assistance? I felt a stab of dizziness.

"Of course, Professor," I lied. The truth was I didn't have the faintest idea.

Vauxol crossed his arms.

"Name the three terms of the Treaty of Ashes and explain which one was violated by House Jahke."

Three terms. Treaty of Ashes. My mind searched through the gaps of paragraphs I'd skimmed. Chapters I ignored believing they were irrelevant.

Silence. The entire classroom was expectant, waiting to see what the bodyguard of the D'Tariel heiress, and also member of the least relevant house in all of Earolden, would answer.

But there was something even worse. Lianza's eyes. I felt them piercing the back of my neck from the last seat of the sixth row.

Layda moved her notebook toward me. I didn't look.

"The Treaty of Ashes..." I said, pretending to dig through my memory. What I was really doing was looking for an excuse to see the notebook Layda had moved toward me.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and made a visor so the professor couldn't see my eyes darting. And I took advantage of those seconds to read what Layda's notebook said.

I read the lines as fast as I could.

I placed my hand on my chin and opened my mouth to pretend I had just remembered, then straightened up.

"The first term established free trade of crystal between the three houses. The second, the prohibition of weapons and the use of Empero in civilian zones. The third, inter-house marriage as a guarantee of peace." I paused to see if I had said enough.

The professor kept looking at me, expectant. There was still information missing.

As I went back to pretending I was thinking, Layda underlined two lines.

I repeated the whole thing. Same hand on my brow, same visor.

"House Jahke violated the second term first. They deployed Empero Knights and Ladies in the city of Valah."

Vauxol studied me for three seconds that felt like more than half an hour to me.

"Acceptable," he said, and kept walking to the next pair.

Acceptable. Not correct. Much less excellent. Acceptable. Knowing my answer was mediocre made me feel inferior.

Ardwyn, six rows back, leaned toward Lianza. I saw his hand move over the desk. His fingers brushed her forearm. A brief touch. Deliberate. Which Lianza didn't pull away from because doing so would cause an unnecessary incident.

Lianza touched the left lens of her glasses.

A gesture. Brief. With her index finger, she adjusted the glass as if she were repositioning it. But I knew that gesture.

It was our signal.

We had invented it in the second week, during a dinner where her father had pressured her about the prince.

Touching the lens meant: 'I can't take it anymore.'

Ardwyn leaned in again. His lips moved. I couldn't hear. But I saw how the nails of the hand holding her quill were still white.

Layda moved closer. Her elbow rested on my forearm.

"Sir Da... Dariel," she whispered, "would you like to study this in more depth?"

Her voice was soft. The typical voice a commoner new to the academy should have. But when she finished speaking, when the shy smile still occupied her face, her eyes changed.

A blink. Less than a second. The warm brown vanished, replaced by something else. Something that measured.

Then it disappeared. Her eyes went back to being the same as always.

"Dariel?"

"Sure. The library is usually empty at this hour. After class."

"That's great!" she exclaimed, and lowered her voice. "It's just... I don't know anyone here. And you were the first person who treated me with kindness. With the angel thing and all that."

The angel fallen from the sky. The cursed phrase that almost condemned me with Lianza. The one that would haunt me through every hallway of this academy for the rest of the year, or until they found a new mockery.

"Yeah. Well. See you at the library."

I looked back again. Lianza hadn't taken her eyes off her notebook. Her index finger slid over the lens again. Two times.

'At the limit. At the limit.'

Ardwyn whispered in her ear. His hand was still on her forearm.

The sound of metal bending under someone's fingers reached me.

It was Lianza's quill.

Vauxol announced a five-minute break. The nobles stood up. The murmuring returned. Ardwyn stood up unhurriedly, smoothed his cape, and said something to Lianza before walking toward a group of nobles who waited with bows.

Lianza stayed seated. Alone. Without taking her eyes off her notebook. Her Empero was so dense it looked like she was covered in water. She was controlling it the best she could to not release it, but part of it seeped through the cracks of her control, which made it tremble from time to time.

I wanted to go to her. Take her hand. Tell her that Layda didn't matter. That everything was part of a plan I couldn't explain.

But if I approached now, without the excuse of being her bodyguard to follow her through the hallways, with Layda watching and Ardwyn observing from the other end of the classroom, I would confirm the rumors.

The Dog at Her Heels running to his mistress.

Ardwyn would undoubtedly use it. And Lianza would hate it.

I stayed in my seat.

The break was over.

Vauxol returned, starting class again.

And I crossed my fingers, staring at the ceiling, hoping the professor wouldn't ask me another question. Or worse: that the System's third mission would appear in the middle of class.

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