Looking into this beautiful woman’s eyes, who had the same level of beauty as Nova, Vicente smiled at her and asked. “What does Miss Staples want with me?”
Meanwhile, Eve stared at the orange-haired woman, aware of her heritage after hearing Shelby’s last name.
‘Staples, huh? Isn’t that the family of one of the local barons?’ The blonde woman next to Vice thought, recognizing Baron Staples’ youngest daughter.
Vicente had easily recognized her but was not surprised that she was a teacher at this academy.
Only one in a noble family actually held the title of noble, and only one would inherit it if all went well. Everyone else in the family had to find their own way, especially the younger siblings of the heir.
But even if one stayed in the family to help the older sibling, helping out or even marrying into alliances for the family’s good, people like Shelby had the freedom to work and more.
Even though she was the daughter of a noble, she didn’t have the best of her family’s resources focused on her. Most of her father’s resources went to himself, his eldest son, and the rest was divided between 2 other children besides her and 3 of the baron’s wives.
Shelby received only a fraction of what her eldest brother earned, and even though that was a lot compared to 99% of the people in the Seidel Kingdom, it was not enough for her to be complacent.
In her spare time, she worked as a teacher at this academy and even went on missions for the local mercenary guild on weekends.
It was common for members of noble families to do this, so Vicente wasn’t as surprised as Eve, who had a very different view of the world than he did.
She heard his question and said. “Give me a minute, and we’ll talk.”
Shelby turned to her class and commanded. “Sit down and open your books to page 435. I want you to read the text that begins on this page while I talk to Mr. Fuller.”
“Huh? But teacher…”
“You are going to read the entire text.” Shelby looked at her students sternly, and the young man who was about to protest remained silent, afraid of this strict teacher they had.
‘Tsk! Teacher Shelby is too hard on us! Only that ugly deaf girl is treated differently!’ A young green-haired girl thought to herself as she looked at Nina resentfully.
Shelby then led Vicente and Eve out of the room, where there was a large corridor next to one of the gardens of this large academy.
Sitting on a stone bench, she looked at Vicente and said. “Mr. Fuller, I asked Nina to call you here not because of her but because of my curiosity.”
Vice sat across from her, looking into Shelby’s brown eyes as he gave her space to explain.
Eve stood behind him, frowning at Shelby.
“What’s that supposed to mean, Miss Staples?” She asked in place of her boss.
Shelby smiled, acting a little more docile than she did with her students. “Nina is a good girl. She is very dedicated and one of the smartest in the class. You should be proud of her.”
Vicente did not have much time to observe Nina’s studies, but Eve always told him what she saw of the girl. He was aware of that, so he said. “Yes, she has always loved to study since she lost her hearing. I think her world becomes less quiet when she reads her books. That’s why she likes to study so much.”
“Hmm, at first, I was worried about her because of her disability, but I soon realized how smart she was and started helping her for other reasons. To help her become a great magician in the future, perhaps a scholar.”
Some magicians focused their powers on the study of this world and magic. From the studies of some of them came new spells, magical technologies, medical treatments, pills, and so on.
But this was the rarest profession in Polaris Realm, with less than 0.01% of magicians pursuing this branch of study.
As a result, teachers at such academies, and even kings, encouraged young talents to pursue careers as scholars, often offering great opportunities to those with the ability to do so.
As a teacher, Shelby had seen this in Nina and now wanted to encourage her to become a scholar. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒆𝒕
But she talked to Vice and Eve about it to make it clear to them that there was nothing wrong with Nina. She had called them to this place for another reason.
“Anyway, Nina is doing very well. I like her very much, and if you allow me, I would like to continue teaching her. But I asked her to call you here for another reason, Mr. Fuller. I want to talk to you about things that have nothing to do with young Nina.” She said as she looked seriously at the black-haired young man in front of her.
“What exactly do you want? We don’t know each other, Miss Staples.” He said.
“Yes, but I had seen you before today and even checked you out.” She beamed, curious about the answers she might get from Vicente. “You made a deal with the Irwin family, didn’t you?”
Vice frowned but nodded affirmatively.
“Not only that, you met Baron Irwin’s third son, right? What happened between you two? I’m sorry to ask, but that guy and I had a bad relationship, and I’d like to know what happened to him.” She told, remembering how Sean Irwin had tried to force himself on her a year ago.
She had been a Senior Apprentice then and had been held down by two of Sean’s minions and had been helpless against him.
She hated him, hated nobles and heirs in general, especially her family, who had practically sold her to Viscount Symons before she was even born and promised her to his heir.
Vicente looked into this woman’s eyes and saw that she seemed to have a thirst for blood. But even if she were an enemy of Sean’s, he wouldn’t just tell her that he had put a bullet in that man’s head and killed him…
“I met him and talked business with him. I never saw him again after that. I only discovered he was missing when I did business with his father weeks ago.” Vice said, disappointing this woman a little.
“Is that so? That’s all that happened between you two?” She became more serious, looking at Vicente as if to threaten him. “I honestly don’t think so. Sean was not the kind of person who would do business with someone like you, Mr. Fuller. I think your meeting with him was probably not a calm one…”
Upon hearing this, Vicente narrowed his eyes, realizing that this woman was not as friendly as she had seemed a few moments ago.
“And when I examined you, I discovered something quite strange…” She smiled, remembering what she had seen on a recent trip to Martell Village. “You know what I found? You and your group have weapons, just like Cesar Mazantti’s group. What a coincidence, huh? Could it be that what you told me was all that really happened?”