Demon King of the Royal Class

Chapter 355

While this was going on, Ellen had just returned to the capital after resting in her hometown of Rijaiera. She was curious about the secrets of her hometown, but her parents only said it wasn’t time for her to know yet.

In the end, just like her brother, Ellen eventually came to possess two holy relics. She could have returned earlier, but she had delayed her return to become accustomed to using the Cloak of the Sun God.

Ellen intended to show the Cloak of the Sun God to none other than Reinhart first. She wanted to let him see that she had acquired a new relic in preparation for the battle against the Demon King.

She hadn’t yet decided how to explain the strange aspects of her hometown. After all, she would be explaining something she didn’t fully understand herself.

Reinhart didn’t share his secrets, so was it okay for her to share hers so easily?

No, perhaps if she shared her secret, he might feel compelled to share a bit of his own out of guilt. Ellen held onto that vague hope.

Honestly, nothing else mattered. She had been away for too long and wanted to see Reinhart as soon as possible.

She wondered what he had been doing all this time. Despite his bad temper, he wasn’t lazy, so he had to have been busy with various training activities.

Ellen was eager to return quickly from Rijaiera. Reinhart would have had to practice swordsmanship with someone else in her absence, and there were two people who came to mind as potential sparring partners for Reinhart.

Sabioleen Tana, the first-year dormitory supervisor, or...

“...”

Olivia Lanche, the fifth-year senior.

The thought that Reinhart might be training with that unpleasant senior made Ellen want to return even sooner, since she knew of Olivia’s odd behavior.

As soon as Ellen passed through the warp gate in front of the Temple, she hurriedly entered the Temple. She wondered if Reinhart would scold her for being late, but she hadn’t been away for that long.

Caught in unnecessary worry and anxiety, Ellen took the tram to the Royal Class dormitory. Of course, Reinhart wasn’t training with Olivia.

“Reinhart... He hasn’t been seen since yesterday,” said Cliffman in response to Ellen’s query about Reinhart’s whereabouts.

***

It was not publicly known that Charlotte, Sabioleen Tana, and Reinhart had gone to the Demon King’s Castle.

Since it was the vacation period, Reinhart could have gone somewhere for leisure and might be absent for a few days. If so, where could he have gone?

Ellen could wait in the dormitory for Reinhart to return. There was not much to be concerned about. Still, she was eager. She wanted to show Reinhart the new relic quickly and discuss various things with him.

She was strong, and confident she would become even stronger. Reinhart would be angry if he heard it, but he was still weaker than her.

While she might feel some guilt about giving away the village’s treasure that her parents had entrusted to her, if Reinhart wanted it, she believed it was better for him to have the Cloak of the Sun God than to see him die.

She was curious about how Reinhart would react when he heard about all this, which made her want to see him even more.

Where had Reinhart gone? It didn’t seem like he’d told anyone where he was going.

She wanted to ask Harriet, but Harriet was also absent from the dormitory, and when Ellen checked in with the Magic Research Club, she learned that Harriet had been conducting magical research at the imperial palace lately.

Ellen didn’t know why Harriet would need to go to the imperial palace to conduct her research, but that told her that Harriet and Reinhart weren’t together.

Next, she decided to check elsewhere.

Knock, knock.

Olivia Lanche opened the door to her room in the fifth-year dormitory and looked at Ellen with a cold expression. “What is it?”

Ellen quietly looked up at Olivia, who seemed somewhat different from before. Olivia, who usually wore an annoying smile, had a rather cold air about her, without even a hint of a smile. This unexpected change left her feeling rather uneasy.

Ellen wasn’t intimidated by Olivia’s demeanor though, and got straight to the point. “Do you know where Reinhart is?”

“He’s not in the dormitory?”

“I heard he left yesterday, and I thought you might know something about it,” Ellen replied.

“Tsk, he’s off having fun without telling me again,” Olivia grumbled, sounding a bit hurt, then flashed a sly smile at Ellen. “But knowing that you don’t know where he is either makes me feel a little better.”

“...”

Olivia was picking a fight with her, as usual.

Since she didn’t know Reinhart’s whereabouts either, Ellen had no further business with her.

“If you don’t know, then I don’t have anything else to ask you.”

“Yeah. Get lost.”

Bang!

“...?”

Ellen quietly stared at Olivia’s door, which had been slammed shut.

If she was someone who had thorns hidden under a warm and welcoming facade before, she now seemed more like a hedgehog. As Ellen walked down the fifth-year dormitory hallway, she couldn’t help but take note that Olivia had changed from before.

Harriet was conducting magic research at the imperial palace and Olivia was holed up in her room. No one in the dormitory knew where Reinhart had gone. That left Ellen with only one place to go. Unless Reinhart had left the capital entirely, there was only one place he might have gone: the Rotary Club.

It didn’t matter if he wasn’t there. It had been a long time since she’d sparred with the white-haired ahjumma. Ellen left the dormitory, just moments after her arrival.

***

Ellen generally wasn’t very interested in others. She had changed a bit after becoming friends with Reinhart, and she tried to take an interest in her friends. Fundamentally, though, Ellen was indifferent and inattentive to the events around her. Therefore, the people she paid attention to were few in number.

As a result, Ellen didn’t know much about what the Rotary Club was. She only knew it was a group led by an unusually strong white-haired ahjumma. She was curious about what the white-haired ahjumma did, but she never delved too deeply. She only knew that the ahjumma got angry when called “ahjumma.”

However, she had a rough idea that Reinhart’s secret was related to the Rotary Club. The Rotary Club was connected to a Thieves’ Guild, which implied that Reinhart was involved in something akin to a criminal organization, and his secret could be linked to that as well. That was the extent of her understanding.

The white-haired ahjumma would often beat her up when she visited, but Ellen hadn’t had much reason to visit her lately. Ellen left the Temple and headed to the new headquarters of the Rotary Club. After the incident where Reinhart had gone missing, she had formed a sort of connection with the Rotary Club.

Ellen knew that their situation had improved significantly after the opening of the magic train station shops. However, she was still curious about the true nature of the Rotary Club hidden beneath the surface.

Ellen believed Reinhart’s secret had some connection to a criminal organization, and she believed the white-haired ahjumma was suspiciously strong because she was the head of a formidable criminal group.

Because of this misunderstanding, Ellen accepted the suspicious facts surrounding her without question. ‘She must be a heinous criminal, but since she’s important to Reinhart, I shouldn’t be curious,’ was her line of thinking.

Thus, Ellen never crossed that line.

Ellen was wandering outside the Rotary Club headquarters when someone remarked, “Oh? It’s Reinhart’s girlfriend.”

“...?”

The people at the club headquarters had seen Ellen a few times before, so they recognized her.

‘Girlfriend.’

Ellen tilted her head in confusion at the word, but she bowed slightly to the club member who recognized her.

‘Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Girlfriend.’

The word echoed strangely in her mind.

Then, another club member next to the one who called her Reinhart’s girlfriend tapped his shoulder.

“Hey, what are you saying? Reinhart hasn’t said anything about that himself.”

“Oh, is Adriana his girlfriend then?”

“If he’s left her here, doesn’t that say it all?”

‘Adriana...’

Hearing that name, Ellen’s head tilted even further.

‘Why would the Rotary Club people know about Adriana, the senior who dropped out of the Temple?’

Bang!

“Ah!”

Suddenly, the headquarters door burst open, and someone rushed out. It was the white-haired ahjumma.

She seemed to be fleeing from something, looking terrified. Her hair was covered in white foam, as if she had been doing something.

An angry shout came from inside.

—Aren’t you coming back here?! You need to rinse out all the foam!

“No! I don’t want to wash my hair! Why do I have to wash it every day?”

—What are you talking about?! Hey! Stay still!

The white-haired ahjumma was still yelling in panic but stopped when she saw Ellen standing there, staring at her.

“Oh... you?”

Someone else rushed out from the headquarters. Her black dress was soaked, as if something had happened to her.

“Oh... you are...?”

It was Adriana, the former senior at the Temple.

***

Adriana dragged Loyar, who had run away while she had been washing her hair, back inside to finish the job, while Ellen sat quietly inside the boss’s office on the top floor of the Rotary Club headquarters. Ellen knew that Adriana had dropped out of the Temple, though she didn’t know the detailed reasons behind it.

Ellen knew that Reinhart had become acquainted with Harriet’s parents because he had visited the monastery Adriana had returned to after she’d dropped out. She had heard from Reinhart on the last night of the festival that Adriana’s monastery was in the Duchy of Saint-Ouen. It was the same night that she saw Olivia Lanche and Adriana returning to the Royal Class dormitory late at night. She didn’t know what the situation was or what had happened afterward.

However, it seemed Adriana hadn’t returned to the monastery, but was instead staying at the Rotary Club headquarters. While it didn’t seem like a matter she had to concern herself with, a strange sense of unease still stirred within Ellen.

Most notably, the expression Adriana had when she encountered Ellen... The clear look of surprise on her face gave Ellen the feeling that there was some significant secret behind it all.

After some time, Adriana, wearing a clean white dress, came up to the top floor of the headquarters. The white-haired ahjumma was nowhere to be seen, and Adriana was alone.

Adriana and Ellen weren’t particularly close, but neither were they on bad terms like Ellen was with Olivia. Adriana was a senior who had been friendly towards Reinhart, but was no longer at the Temple. They had been senior and junior, with no real connection.

“Ah... um... Ellen, right? It’s been a while,” Adriana said, smiling awkwardly as she sat across from Ellen.

“Yes, it’s been a while,” Ellen replied.

She had no right to interrogate or question Adriana.

Adriana had come on her own to meet Ellen, who had been waiting, as if she felt she had to face her.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” Ellen said.

“O-Oh... Well... things happened, and it just happened to turn out this way...” Adriana replied with an awkward smile. Ellen was convinced that Adriana wasn’t good at lying.

“Reinhart isn’t here, is he?” Ellen asked, addressing the main reason she had come, though she wasn’t sure if it was truly important anymore.

“No, he hasn’t been here. Is there something going on...?” Adriana asked with concern, and Ellen shook her head.

“No, it’s just that he wasn’t at the Temple, so I thought he might be here. There’s nothing going on. Even if there were... I wouldn’t know about it,” Ellen said.

There was no reason to share unnecessary details.

Even so, Reinhart was involved in various things that she did not know about. The fact that Adriana was staying at the Rotary Club was likely due to something Reinhart had done. Even so, Reinhart wasn’t obligated to share Adriana’s personal circumstances with Ellen.

But the sight of Adriana and Olivia returning to the Temple late at night... Their tense expressions... And Reinhart’s reaction, as if he knew something... What was that all about? What could it have been?

“Why are you staying here, if I may ask?” Ellen inquired.

Adriana fidgeted with her fingers, clutching and releasing the hem of her dress.

“Well... There was an issue at the monastery where I was staying. I couldn’t stay there anymore. So... I asked Olivia for help, and Reinhart said he could find a place for me to stay... and that’s how I ended up here,” she explained.

Once again, Ellen thought that Adriana was a terrible liar.

***

Reinhart wasn’t at the Rotary Club, and Adriana had lied to her.

Ellen didn’t press Adriana further, as there was no reason to. Besides, the white-haired ahjumma had barged in with a towel around her neck and whisked Adriana away, saying something incomprehensible about needing to play with her.

Ellen returned to the Royal Class dormitory. Reinhart was just away for a while. It was the vacation period, after all, so it was entirely possible.

Despite that, Ellen decided to look into this strange matter a little more. Asking Adriana more questions was impossible because of the white-haired ahjumma, but there was one more person she could question.

Knock, knock.

Ellen returned to the fifth-year dormitory and knocked on the door.

Click.

“... Why, what is it now? I told you I don’t know where Reinhart is,” Olivia snapped irritably as soon as she saw Ellen.

Ellen had wondered where to begin, and one question seemed to float to the top.

“You were with Adriana last time, weren’t you?”

“... What?”

Olivia’s already irritable expression hardened further at the mention of that name.

“I have something to discuss with her. Where is she?” Ellen asked.

Olivia stared at Ellen.

“What do you want to tell her? I can pass on the message.”

Her tone wasn’t one of annoyance, but a hint of wariness.

“It’s something I want to say to her directly,” Ellen said.

“...”

Olivia looked at Ellen for a moment before saying curtly, “She went back to the monastery.”

‘Another lie.’

This confirmed that both Adriana and Olivia were lying to her.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Even if I told you where it is, it would be hard to find. If it’s nothing important, just let it go—”

“That senior, Adriana.” Ellen tilted her head. “I just met her at the Rotary Club headquarters.”

Ellen’s remark caused Olivia’s expression to harden even further. “What?”

Ellen had led Olivia into lying and then caught her off guard.

“Senior,” she said, asking her the most important question of all, “Why didn’t you come to the Miss Temple Contest?”