Chapter 208: Festival Night (5)
Usher Pou Bianca. 18 years old. Originally from Usher, the Divine Bow Palace. Early admission to the Colosseo Academy.
As a member of the festival organizing committee, she found herself in the middle of another annoyance.
"Hey, there... I've been watching you all this time, and I like you!"
The boy standing in front of her, holding out the letter, was someone she remembered seeing a few times in her joint class with Hot Class.
Bianca frowned. She stroked the fake mustache at the base of her nose.
Bianca studied the face of the boy in front of her again.
Her sharp eyes sparkled as she fired a needle from a hundred paces away.
"Caked-on makeup -13 points, flaky skin -11 points, unkempt eyebrows -12 points, incongruous lip tone -14 points, cuts from shaving -4 points, untrimmed nail cuticles -4 points, mismatch of personal color and clothing -5 points, split ends of hair from excessive bleaching -8 points, awkward cross-dressing -22 points, total score of 7 out of 100.
The boy in front of her was quite handsome, but he didn't reach Bianca's aesthetic threshold.
The cross-dressing was an additional point deduction, as it looked very sloppy.
'If you were dressed as a woman, you need to be pretty. It's not even pretty. I don't need anything that isn't pretty.'
From a young age, she loved pretty things.
Pretty clothes, pretty food, of course.
Pretty dolls, pretty weapons, pretty men, pretty women, pretty horses, pretty saddles, pretty horseshoes, pretty carpets, pretty carpet cleaning brooms, pretty carpet cleaning broom holders....
As such, Bianca was known for her demanding aesthetic, even within the Usher family.
So much so, in fact, that she handpicked her nannies as babies.
Maybe that's why? Bianca wasn't interested in men.
Men are basically ugly. They don't dress up or take care of themselves as much as women do.
If they happen to wear makeup to look pretty, they're called unmanly even amongst themselves.
So Bianca's entire life has been about getting attention from men.
To her, men were basically ugly creatures, people she had nothing to do with in her life.
That's why, since the beginning of the semester, she's been asked out countless times by seniors and classmates alike, but she's always turned them down.
'Bianca! Would you like to go see the newly released play 'Worn Out Newbie 2'?
'I've seen all three.'
"Bianca, have you had dinner? If not, would you like to join us?
'I already ate lunch for tomorrow.'
'Bianca, let's go worship at the temple this weekend!'
'I'm a heretic, I believe in voodoo.'
'Hey, Bianca, when are you free this weekend? Try to find some time.'
'I don't have a weekend.'
'Bianca, why don't you go to.... this Christmas?'
'No.'
I'd rather hang out with pretty girls, but I never felt like hanging out with ugly guys.
The only exception would be Tudor, the little bully I grew up bickering with?
'... but I can't help but like pretty people.'
I blamed myself for this personality and tried to change it, but I couldn't change my taste.
How can I change the fact that I've been insisting on pretty women since I was a baby, even for my nanny and maids?
If I could find a guy who could score at least 20 out of 100, I'd be happy, but there weren't many of them in the academy.
And even if there were men who barely met the physical requirements, none of them were of such great ability or status that she, the eldest daughter of the Usher family and head of the Cold Class, would dare to approach her first.
'Yeah. I'm me, and I don't have to change who I am to fit in.'
So Bianca had given up on meeting and socializing with men since she started school.
... but.
Now, her resolve has long since been shattered.
'100 points. One hundred points!'
Vikir is in the kitchen, stirring a pot full of stew with a ladle.
Bianca's gaze half unraveled at the sight of him.
Crazy. Giddy. Ecstatic. Dreamy and Decadent.
She had never seen such dangerously beautiful things, not even among her own kind.
Where the hell did that nonsense come from?
It's like a character ripped off the page and popped out of one of those cringe-worthy 19th-century doujinshi comics I read as a kid.
And not just any character, but the decadent heroine of the story itself.
Bianca was grateful to her parents at this point.
They had given her the eyesight to see a needle in a haystack from a hundred paces away, so of course she should be grateful.
'Wow... how can a man be so pretty, there's nothing to see.'
Even from a very long distance, if you energize your eyes with mana, you can see things as if they were right in front of you.
So Bianca continued to marvel as she handed out flyers for a bar from miles away.
Skin as white and smooth as ivory, without a single blemish, eyelashes so long and luxuriant they seemed to fall and pile up, eyebrows so dark and straight, and eyes as red as a lake of blood beneath them.
I always knew he was good-looking, but the makeup made him even more insane.
No wonder onlookers were swarming around him with mana screenshot cameras.
'Should I take a mana screenshot too?'
Despite the bustling crowd of people dressed as zombies, skeletons, ghouls, vampires, death knights, witches, werewolves, and more, Bianca couldn't take her eyes off Vikir.
Just then.
...Bam!
Bianca's shoulders shook once.
palalag-
A few flyers in her hand fell to the ground.
Her shoulders bumped together in the bustling crowd.
"Oh really, where are your eyes...."
Bianca turned her head with an annoyed expression.
But then a face caught her eye.
Bones. A skull mask, and a pair of glowing, bloodshot eyes.
"Huh!
Bianca gulped down the wind.
[....]
A woman dressed as a skeleton was staring at them.
A chill ran down her spine that was almost indescribable.
The skull mask and armor were too elaborate for a Halloween costume.
'..., she looks real.'
Bianca swallowed dryly.
She'd never been pushed in a energy fight before, but for some reason, she couldn't use her energy against the skull-masked woman in front of her.
There was an overwhelming aura emanating from her, not mana or aura, but a presence, a class apart.
Then, a hoarse voice came from within the skull mask.
[Be careful].
It said. It sounded as if it was giving the insignificant bug a pass for once.
"...."
Bianca couldn't say anything in response to that, though, and could only lower her gaze.
'Keep your mouth shut and your eyes down.'
Instinctive warnings screamed in her head.
It was the creepiest thing I've ever experienced in my 18 years of life.
None of my classmates, not the skinny kids, not the weight-lifting seniors, not even my professors, had ever given me the creeps.
...No.
If I had to pick one, it would be Prof. Sady, the only one with the same level of creepiness.
The hairs on my body stood on end, and my back was damp with sweat.
Feeling like a hedgehog in front of a giant pit, Bianca backed away, forgetting to pick up the flyers that had fallen to the floor.
[...ung].
The skull-masked woman snorted and turned away as if she wasn't worth dealing with.
Judging by the condition of her skin, body shape, and voice that occasionally peeked out of her mask or armor, she was around the same age.
But the presence she exudes overwhelms Bianca, the Usher family prodigy and top enrollee in the Cold Warrior Class.
" ... Who the hell is that?"
She must be a student at the Academy if she's taken the trouble to dress up in a Halloween costume like that, and if she is, there's no way Bianca wouldn't know it.
"Maybe he's from Magic Tower or Varangian, but I don't think there's anyone of her caliber there. ...Maybe a returning student?"
Bianca broke out in a cold sweat and backed away, moving at a shuffling pace, heading for the newspaper publisher's bar.
The solicitation stops here.
Her legs were shaking from the terror she'd just endured.
'I'll go back to the bar and ask Vikir for a shift. Honestly, I think he'll do a better job of bringing in customers than I will.....'
Bianca was somewhat confident in her cooking, so it was a more efficient decision.
And she needed to get away from that murderous woman as soon as possible.
'...What's wrong?'
Bianca quickened her pace.
The kitchen of the newspaper's bar.
Toward where Vikir was.
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