Beneath the classroom window, the former Student Council President, Merise, could be seen trudging along, drenched in filth and trash.
Class wasn’t even over yet, but she was fleeing the Academy in disgrace. Camilla clicked her tongue.
“She’s getting back exactly what she did.”
The current target of the students was none other than Merise. And Camilla was the one who had orchestrated it all.
‘I used the Recording Orbs for a little blackmail.’
It hadn’t been hard to obtain footage of President Merise and the Student Council officers bullying other students.
With that footage in hand, Camilla visited every Student Council officer except the president.
And she threatened them. That she would release the footage.
‘So what?’
‘What crime is it to push around the powerless a little?’
‘It’s not like we killed anyone, right?’
The officers’ first reaction was indifference.
They didn’t even have the notion that the footage spreading would seriously harm them.
Camilla gladly shattered that delusion.
‘I’ll carry this footage and follow you for the rest of your life.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll show up at every place you work from now on, and at your wedding too. I’ll come to every party you attend and play the footage — every single day, so everyone around you sees it and it never fades.’
‘......!’
‘I’ll make sure the whole world knows what kind of human you are. For life.’
That was the end.
At the promise — made in absolute earnest — to use all the power of House Sorpel to spread the footage forever, their faces went white.
It worked because the speaker was Camilla “Sorpel,” and they knew full well the weight the name “Sorpel” carried.
If someone else had made the same threat, it wouldn’t have landed. They would have only spat rough curses — Who do you think you are, threatening us?
In fact, some had protested their abuse. But all that came back was ridicule; there was nowhere to seek help.
Everyone averted their eyes from the officers — or, precisely, from the power their parents held.
This was why victims had no choice but to run even with excellent evidence like footage right before their eyes.
‘Honestly, that might have been the right choice.’
The perpetrators’ backing was far too strong to fight head-on.
If they made it public, it would likely blow back on them; they had to give up.
“Camilla, are you sure you’re really okay?”
“Stop fretting... Don’t make that face. Here, eat this, Laila.”
Camilla placed one condition on the trembling Student Council officers.
She would not release the footage. In return, they were to sever all ties with Merise.
When the officers looked at her as if to ask, Is that all?, Camilla nodded. Because that alone was enough.
After that, she reworked the footage so that only Merise appeared. With Ravi’s help.
‘What is this?’
‘It’s a video of trash doing trash things.’
‘What?’
‘Can you blur the face and modulate the voice of everyone in here except one woman?’
‘What are you up to this time?’
‘A good deed.’
‘I’m busy.’
‘Do it and I’ll get you a top-grade mana stone.’
‘...Spell it out. What exactly do you want?’
She had asked for mosaic blurring and voice distortion for the people in the footage, and the results came faster than expected.
In less than a week, a school-violence perpetrator video starring Student Council President Merise alone was released to the world.
“Everyone’s poison is up.”
Why was only Merise shown? Why were the others’ faces hidden?
Questions chased questions — until the officers themselves, who pretended not to see their president, answered them.
Those who noticed the officers’ cold shoulder toward Merise did not miss the chance.
Victims who had been tormented by Merise Gabuel and her Student Council cronies began pouring their energy into tormenting her.
They returned exactly what they had suffered.
It was all expected. Everyone at the Academy knew who the perpetrators in the footage were, even if the video pretended otherwise.
The Student Council’s authority crashed into the ground. Not only Merise — the Council itself was no longer an object of fear.
What would happen to her next was easy to guess.
“Still, since her family has power, won’t it be wrapped up soon?”
Watching Merise stumble along, Laila grumbled, sounding a bit wronged.
It seemed she had learned, plainly, how easily the rich and powerful commit crimes and smooth them over.
“Marquess Gabuel is probably in chaos right now.”
“Huh?”
“I told you.”
That she had more than people thought.
Camilla popped a tart piece into Laila’s mouth, diverting her attention as Laila looked at her, asking for details with her eyes.
With Laila’s delighted voice — this is so good — as background music, Camilla stared absently at Merise’s back as it neared the school gate.
Before touching Merise, she had already moved against Marquess Gabuel.
After all, whatever anyone said, the reason Merise had been able to run wild at the Academy was the weight of Marquess Gabuel’s power.
The marquess’s main business was, undeniably, mana stones. And Camilla, by luck, had the power to disrupt that business.
Once the mana stone business wobbled, shaking the others was nothing.
After setting the board to send the father and daughter packing, Camilla visited the parents of the Student Council officers.
And she threatened them the same way. She demanded that those, large and small, tied to the marquess’s enterprises sever all dealings with him.
“They even had the nerve to act like parents.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s a thing.”
The perpetrators’ parents, pretending to think of their children’s future, sided with her.
But would they have decided that way if the marquess’s business had still been cruising along?
‘That no one can know.’
Nobles weigh the family’s profit above their children.
In any case, staring at the marquess as his mana stone business shook, they must have run countless calculations.
If they backed him to the end — was that worth risking enmity with House Sorpel?
The answer to that question put brakes throughout Marquess Gabuel’s ventures.
Dealing with that, House Gabuel was now in utter disarray.
Given how quiet they’d stayed despite knowing who released Merise’s footage, it was obvious.
Camilla hadn’t hidden that she was the one who released it.
There was no special purpose.
‘There was simply no reason to hide it.’
It was the same meaning as when Merise had sent the footage to the victims’ parents without fear. So what, even if they found out?
“What do you think happens to Merise?”
“Who knows.”
Even Camilla didn’t know what came after. She had only laid the board a little. As Merise had done.
Merise had lost the title of Student Council President, and the officers could no longer enjoy their private “games.”
The Council had lost every trace of its former authority.
“Whatever happens, I’m stopping here.”
Whether more victims appeared or not was no longer her concern. Past this point would be pure meddling.
This time was the same. If the target hadn’t been Laila, she would never have stepped in.
“Anyway, I don’t think we’ll be seeing her around the Academy anymore.”
With Merise’s receding figure fading to a blur, Camilla shut the open classroom window tight.
Chapter. Club
DADADADA!
“......?”
At the sound of someone sprinting toward him, Arsian instinctively flared his Killing Intent.
Then, recognizing the face, he erased it at once and looked puzzled.
Smack!
A small fist flew at his head — so unlike her usual self — and he didn’t even react.
“What are you doing?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For letting me hit you.”
Because the runner was Camilla.
Arsian stared, dumbfounded, as she suddenly rushed up and gave him a light cuff on the head.
“What are you doing. Why are you hitting me.”
“Just... seeing you two suddenly made me mad.”
Camilla shot a glance at Arsian and at Petro, who was snickering beside him.
‘In all those many lives, why didn’t you do what you always did this time!’
Why, why!
She felt her temper spike ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) anew.
Before she had fully entered this world — in the repeating lives the original Camilla had lived — those two always helped Laila.
‘Then why...!’
She couldn’t understand why, in this life, they had done nothing.
She had waited with patience — They will. They’ll step in soon. Things will run roughly the same... — but in the end, she had stepped in and handled it herself!
“Thanks to you, I was very busy for a while.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s a thing.”
“...You hit someone out of nowhere and that’s your excuse?”
“I said, it’s a thing.”
Camilla answered brazenly and flicked her head aside.
“......!”
And met Petro’s eyes square on. As always, he was watching her with a gentle smile.
“I’m ready to be hit as well, Camilla.”
“No, I... don’t particularly feel like hitting you too......”
This man is strange lately!
At some point he had dropped the “Lady” and begun calling her by name, and now he’d started coming at her like this out of nowhere.
‘Why? Why?’
Red — since when did you act like this to me!
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
“You said ‘you two’ just now.”
“So?”
“You said seeing us made you mad.”
“And?”
“Then why’d you only hit me?”
“......”
“You should hit that man too.”
“...Arsian.”
“What?”
“Do you know you’re a lot like our brother Ravi?”
“Don’t insult me.”
...Quick on the uptake, aren’t you.
Camilla slid her gaze away. When she did, Petro came back into view.
He drooped like a puppy abandoned by its master, and Camilla let out a short sigh.
Why that face when I said I wouldn’t hit you.
‘He’s definitely gotten strange.’
Camilla gave a small shake of her head and began to inch backward.
Now was not the time to stand around idly facing this man, Petro.
Ever since that day — since she had unleashed House Jevillan’s swordsmanship at the hunting grounds — she had been avoiding Petro as much as possible.
If they met, it was obvious he would ask when she had learned his house’s swordsmanship. And what was she supposed to say to that?
‘I can’t very well say I learned it from a ghost!’
More precisely, it had been a ghost possessing her body and wielding the sword, but there was no way to explain that cleanly.
“Camilla.”
Petro called out to her urgently.
