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Hearing Crystal's provocative words and looking at her clearly condescending attitude, not to mention Randy, even his two friends almost fell over in confusion.
What kind of a confession was this?
Randy could obviously tell that Crystal's attitude towards him was anything but friendly. But although he didn't know how he had offended this girl, he was sure that it must be because of a misunderstanding.
And since she was a close friend of his 'little sister', it was best to clear it up before it caused bigger issues. Nodding to himself, Randy resolutely raised his hands in surrender. "I think there must be some misunderstanding? My friends just followed me on their own, but if you want to talk in private, I can—"
Crystal had obviously never done this kind of thing before, and it truly was nerve-wracking for her to confront someone like this. If she had not made ample mental preparations, maybe she already would have started having thoughts of backing out.
Still, Crystal didn't dare give herself the chance to skirt around the issue. She had to be blunt and direct, and hammer her point home in the boy's head before leaving.
The blonde girl frowned. "Never mind that. I only called you here today to make one thing clear, and if you don't mind them listening, I won't care either."
Randy couldn't help but gulp. "W-What is it?"
All kinds of bad thoughts swirled around his head. Did Crystal feel dissatisfied that he was above her in the rankings this time? Did she think that he had cheated in some way to get that score? But he truly had learned a lot while teaching Emilia! And it wasn't his score that went unreasonably high, but Crystal's that dropped. How could she blame him?
Crystal walked towards the trio domineeringly, and pushed her index finger to Randy's chest, making the boy flinch while the other two blinked in shock. "Listen, regardless of what anyone else has told you, you can forget about ever getting together with Emilia, understand?"
It took them a moment to process her words, having never expected her purpose being that, of all things.
Hadn't it been a while since the rumors surrounding Randy and Emilia stopped? Was Crystal reading the old newspaper?
Randy was also confused, just like his friends, especially since he had long since stopped considering Emilia a potential love interest. "Eh? But I—"
'Already gave up on that a long time ago' was what he was going to say, but Crystal didn't allow him to speak.
The blonde girl sneered, the expression looking completely uncharacteristic on her face. "I think you should know better than anyone else how much sincerity you hold in your heart when it comes to treating Emilia as a fiancée, no? Since you're not sincere enough, and there are others—like myself—who are willing to treat her right, please don't bother her anymore, understand?"
While Randy was stunned into silence, it was Thea, the sister of Theo, who pointed a finger at the girl in shock. "Eh? Y-You are—"
The dark-haired twintailed girl vaguely recalled that her brother mentioned how embarrassed their mom had made him in a party while trying to set him up with Emilia, who was clearly into girls, and combined with what Crystal said, she couldn't help but make some conjectures.
Hadn't these two been incredibly close recently? And maybe Emilia also changed her class just so they could sit on the same bench!
All of Thea's rapidly forming 'conspiracy theories' came to a grinding halt, however, when Crystal stepped back and puffed out her chest. "That's right, I love Emilia."
There was a moment of shocked silence after the blonde girl's proud declaration.
While the others still couldn't form a response due to their shock, Crystal glared at Randy. "I know that I am not in a unique position, and frankly, had you been sincere enough, I might have barely been able to accept it. But I will never allow someone like you — who does not even look at her the way a lover should — to taint her heart, or worse, hurt her. Understand?"
Seeing how the boy remained silent even after she waited for a while, the blonde girl shook her head. "If you're dissatisfied later after you've finally mustered enough courage, I will take you on in any non-physical challenge any time. As someone who used to be in class A, and having even exceeded my rank in this exam, I'm sure that won't be an unfair match, right?"
Randy finally snapped out of his shock, and almost cried out loud. 'Miss genius, just because you slacked off for one exam and I barely squeezed past you due to some circumstances, would I start having delusions now?!'
Even if he was given twice as much time to prepare, and even had the time limit to solve the exam removed… he still wouldn't be able to do what this girl had done.
Even if he was overconfident, Crystal was still the girl who had broken the highest score record of the entrance in the academy's history. To put it simply, she was on a different level compared to every other student in the Imperial Academy, and Randy knew that very well.
Maybe if she messed up in the next exam as well, some would really start having doubts. As it was right now, though, no one dared to mock her.
Fortunately, Randy never intended to compete with Crystal in the first place. After all, Emilia was now his 'little sister', and even if he didn't help her hook up with a cute girl, how could he start becoming a roadblock instead? Impossible.
But never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that Crystal, one of the most beautiful and indisputably the most intelligent girls in the Imperial Academy, would be the one chasing after his little sister. "I-Is it really true that you love Emilia? You're not saying that just because you think I'm not good enough for her, right?"
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