Chapter 61

I dozed off a bit while thinking about life, things are going alright I guess, but holding back is a real challenge, plus I feel like something is fundamentally wrong with me.

Although I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly, I just feel it, like something that’s supposed to be there isn’t, like something important is only half there.

This generates a weird discomfort, it’s not pity, nor is it a desire to forgive or give up, and it’s something more physical, connected to me as a living being rather than me as a thinking being.

This feeling intensified during my sleep, next thing I know I’m grabbing the wrist of someone who was about to touch me and I wake up.

’Saint what’s she doing here?’

"U-Urk P-Pandora is hurting"

I release the wrist I reflexively grabbed.

"What are you doing here?"

"T-The Helper said you were in the infirmary after coughing up blood s-so I came to check on you"

"I told her it wasn’t necessary" I see the ’Helper’ curled up in the chair across the initial point.

"Whatever, I’m going to class"

’Gross taste...’ I couldn’t fully contemplate what my dream meant, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like they took a sweet from me at the best part.

"C-Classes are over already" Saint informs.

’Slept longer than expected’

’A system alert...so I really was a baby’ While I’ve thought about this several times, seeing the system also consider me a baby is kind of funny.

It makes sense my status remains the same while my intellect grows, after all babies have less intellect and self-control than children, but the difference I notice now is almost negligible.

’In the end, I’m still a child’ My desire to kill is practically the same, although I feel my ability to see and manipulate mana has improved greatly, I can also discern visual characteristics and details better.

Overall a minor improvement, but any improvement is welcome.

"A-Anything wrong Pandora?" Saint asks with a nervous tone.

"None, just good news, in fact wonderful news" I wonder what kinds of things I’ll gain when I transition to the teenage phase and the adult phase.

I get up from the bed and stretch my body a bit.

"Oh yeah, almost forgot...Good afternoon Saint Rosaline" She trembles as soon as she hears the greeting, it’s already a psychological thing ingrained in her mind.

Ironically, it wasn’t unintentional, Kaelith said that whenever she greeted her, she would purposefully make it something bad, and after doing this for so long, Saint has developed a natural fear of the greeting given by Kaelith.

So now, even though there’s not a hint of malice, Saint can’t feel comfortable with my greetings.

"Y-Yes g-good afternoon Grand Duchess"

"Pfff, sure, see you in class Saint Rosaline" She couldn’t even muster the courage to call me Pandora.

I soon walk to my room, I missed half the school period but I can claim I was feeling sick, after all I have many witnesses who saw me coughing up blood.

A week has passed, it was a rather tedious week, I didn’t learn anything new, and Riko seems to think we’re friends or something, because he follows me everywhere I go.

During meals, those assholes come and sit down without being invited and try to include me in the conversation.

Of course, initially I didn’t pay attention, but I soon realized I need to be friends with them, so accepting the friendship is the right choice if I want them to reveal their unique abilities.

Another slightly annoying thing was that there was a mana bomb in front of my room, when I opened the door, a barrier trapped me with the bomb, causing my uniform to be completely destroyed.

The culprit was obviously caught, as the responsible party confessed to being the guilty one, and it was obviously Celeste and her crazy tests, although she used the excuse that no one got hurt and nothing was broken to try to reduce her punishment.

Which is a complete lie, because I got hurt and my uniform was destroyed, she received a warning, although normally the punishment would be harsher, the principal knows about the strange dynamic between her and me.

Today will be my second week here at this academy, and there will be a party, of course the party has nothing to do with me, it’s something the students do to celebrate the end of the semester.

I arrived practically at the end, so you could say I missed a quarter of the annual content, although this was solved thanks to my excellent theoretical grades.

"Dress...I think I’ll go with the dark blue dress with black lace" It’s not a bad design, I personally think it looks good, Shogo when he saw me in the dress said "Mommy" and then gave a thumbs up.

I judge it was an absolute approval, so I decided to go with this outfit.

"Wear this one Shogo" I put a pink maid dress on her to match, although the black doesn’t look bad, I think the pink makes her even cuter.

"So cute I just want to put you in a little jar" I hug her tightly, lifting her off the ground.

"Okay, remember Shogo, don’t make a mess, don’t use magic, and don’t use your tentacles under any circumstances, okay?"

"Mommy" She nods quickly, she’s practically never left the room, so she must be excited to go out.

I soon leave the dorm room and go to the ballroom with Shogo. When I arrive, I am greeted by a security guard who quickly lets me in.

I look at the architecture of the ballroom, it’s a very large place that has a dome-like shape, it seems to have 2 to 3 floors, although the third floor, if there is one, cannot be accessed from this part.

"Hohoho, look who’s alive and kicking, Pandora...who’s this cute little thing by your side?" Celeste soon comes to greet me.

"This is Shogo, my personal maid" I hold Shogo’s shoulders and place her in front of me.

"How cute, I have a cute maid too, but she has a difficult personality"

"Must have reflected the owner..." I murmur.

"Did you say something?" She asks, slightly confused, not having heard.

"I said you must be a good owner"

"Owner? But she’s a maid, not a slave..."

"Hahaha, of course, I apologize for the confusion"

"Putting that aside...you owe me for blowing me up with a bomb" I don’t care about money, but I won’t let this go cheap.

"S-Sure, hohoho, it was just a friendly rivalry greeting" She says evasively.

’I’ll put explosives in your room’

"Shogo, you can go explore if you want, but be careful" I let Shogo go, as she seems excited to look around.

"Back to the explosives..."

"W-Well, it was great to see you, but I have to go." She quickly disappears.

"Hello, Pandora"

I look at who called me.

’Tsk Lionel D’Auberon’ That damn brat again.

"Hello, Lionel, do you need something?" I say politely to maintain respect, although the disdain is clearly visible in my gaze.

He kneels on one knee and says to me with a smile:

"I wanted to apologize for the incident last time, you were completely right, it was my fault, so I decided to invite you to a dance."

’It won’t be good to refuse’ He was the first person of all to invite me to a dance, in nobility, image is valuable, if I refuse him, hardly anyone would invite me to dance again.

Which would naturally isolate me from the parties at the academy, so refusing him now is bad.

’Tsk, if I had known, I would have asked Riko to dance with me’ It’s more acceptable to dance with him than with this worm in front of me.

"I humbly accept your apologies, and I also accept your invitation, let’s dance." I accept politely to maintain the image, his color also doesn’t lie, he clearly hates me.

I take his hand as he guides me to the center of the ballroom. Several couples have formed and are forming to dance as the orchestra plays a slow-paced song.

We start dancing, following the rhythm.

"You’re very good, Pandora" He compliments, remarkably an honest compliment. But it’s obvious I would be good, dancing in the end is just a movement, I easily learned most of the dances by watching once.

"Likewise" I give an insincere compliment, he’s not bad, but he’s not great either.

Soon the dance ends and we move apart a bit. One thing I found strange the whole time was his scent, I wanted to deny it, but there’s something about him that smells really good.

To the point where I really wanted to search his body and find what was smelling so good. It’s an attractive scent that really messes with me.

"Pandora, could you come with me to a more private place?" I nod, I really want to know what’s emitting this wonderful scent.

Soon we arrive at an empty room, he walks to a table, takes a while, and grabs a bottle of wine.

’FUCK, WHERE DOES THIS SCENT COME FROM?’ It’s already bothering me, even with magic I couldn’t find the source of the scent, and it’s too good, good to the point of annoying me for not knowing where it’s from.

He soon pours a glass of wine and hands it to me.

"For you, Pandora, think of it as my way of reconciliation"

’This glass also has that good smell’ I take the glass and slowly smell it, it’s the same scent that comes from him, it’s tempting.

I drink the glass, savoring the flavor.

’It’s not the wine...some addition?’ The taste is divine and the smell is wonderful, but clearly it’s not coming from the wine, there’s something more.

’...hot...’ Soon my body starts to heat up.

’This feeling is similar to when I was with Elena...or when I masturbate thinking about Mikael...’

’This son of a bitch drugged me’ It doesn’t seem like a common drug, I feel like my thoughts are quickly getting blurry, if my tail was here now, it would be swinging like crazy.

’I won’t give this bastard that satisfaction’ I pretend to be normal while my mind searches for something to satisfy me, soon my mind reaches Shogo, I need to find her and go to my room.

"I’ll be leaving now, Lionel" I say, placing the glass on the table.

’If I had known, I would have tried to control myself more’ But the scent was so good, I couldn’t think rationally when I smelled it, I just needed to drink the wine.

"W-Wait, Pandora, are you really alright?" He asks, not with concern, but rather disbelief in his voice.

This only confirms that he drugged me.

"Yes, I’m fine, but I need to go find my maid now, thanks for the wine, it was great" Every second it gets harder to hold back, as soon as I leave the door and close it, I hear glass breaking, he seems to have gotten irritated.

If I were normal, with this level of lust, I would have thrown myself at him and had sex, but I’m not normal, this drug is undoubtedly potent enough to make me do that.

But I would never accept having anything intimate with a piece of trash like that against my will, I quickly run through the corridors, it’s getting worse by the second.

’I need someone, someone...Shogo...where are you’ Worst time for this, I don’t have enough rationality to use magic, even spreading my mana is difficult.

"Found it...Good enough" I quickly advance to grab my target.