Crystal Miller considered herself a mostly normal girl, but she still believed that her intuition was a little sharper than most. She often discovered that things that looked obvious to her required normal people to pay quite close attention to even begin noticing.
For example, she could already tell that the girl with a pale face and shivering legs in front of her was from a family that probably spent more on a single pair of shoes than her own household's net expenses for a year.
This was even without any branding on any of the items the girl was wearing. Normal people wouldn't think twice, but Crystal was sure that every single thing on her body was probably custom made. It's strange how the same uniform could look entirely different when made by different people using different materials.
Normally, Crystal would never approach such a girl herself, but something about her frail and innocent appearance drew her in. Looking at the schoolgirl in the sailor's outfit with long chestnut brown hair, pale face, and dizzy golden eyes, it was hard not to feel distressed with just a look.
Given that there was no one else nearby that could help, she couldn't help but step forward to offer this girl her hand.
Emilia looked at her in confusion for only a moment before putting her palm in the heroine's outstretched hand. It would be incredibly rude of her to reject such an offer at this point, and would probably leave a negative impression on the heroine.
'What bad luck… how come the heroine is here so early in the morning? Isn't she someone who spends all her time studying for scholarships?'
Cynthia was also slightly confused. "I don't know. From what little I saw in the plot, she always barely arrived before the school bell rang. I guess it was different for the first day only?"
Emilia sighed. Oh well, she could only improvise now, and just hope to leave a good impression. No plans could be successful without any adjustments, after all.
She tried to give the heroine a grateful smile, although she wasn't quite sure how it looked due to her dizziness.
"Thank you for the help."
The heroine led her slowly towards the gate by her hand. "No problem, you looked so shaken that I couldn't just stand by. Would you like me to take you to the infirmary?"
Emilia shook her head gently in rejection. It's not like she was sick, and missing class at this point would just ruin her plans further.
"No please, I'll be alright, but thank you. My name is Emilia White."
Crystal was shocked when she heard her family name. The White family owned the 'White Deer' corporation, and was one of the most influential and richest families in the city. Even if Emilia was only a distant relative to them, she must be incredibly rich.
Even if she was surprised, the other girl did introduce herself so politely. So she squeezed their hands together in a strange form of handshake, feeling a little stupid after having done so. But this girl's palm was really soft, much softer than her own! She guessed that perhaps such rich girls were just built differently.
"C-Crystal Miller, nice to meet you."
Emilia's smile was slightly teasing. "Likewise. You look so smart and cute, are you in class A?"
Cynthia's thoughts were in disarray. 'E-Eh? What's going on? Is my villainess flirting? Is she actually flirting with the heroine, of all people?! Is our mission going to fail?!'
Crystal's face turned red. How could it feel bad to be called by a beauty like Emilia? Although she hadn't yet seen what the other girls in the school looked like, she didn't think there would be many on the same level as this girl.
"I-I am, and thank you for the compliment, but I don't think I'm cute at all…"
Emilia smiled, already feeling a little less dizzy after circulating the void formula in her head for the last few minutes. She allowed Crystal to keep holding her hand though, completely ignoring her system's whining.
'Cynthia, if you don't shut up, I'm going to summon you out just to kick your butt once we're alone.'
'S-Sorry!'
Although in her mind she was slightly annoyed, she continued her conversation with the heroine smoothly. It's a good thing she was used to having multiple conversations at once with some annoying diplomats, or Cynthia would really be in for a good beating.
"Kindness and cuteness go hand in hand. And since you have both, it's even more noticeable. Hope we get along well in the future."
Crystal's heart skipped a beat when she felt Emilia squeeze her palm, hurriedly letting go. The other girl giggled before heading towards the school gate by herself, followed by the embarrassed heroine.
She let out a sigh of relief when she noticed that Emilia seemed to be lost in her own world, not paying her anymore attention. She should have known it was a bad idea to approach her!
Although it was not unpleasant at all, she had the feeling that whenever she talked to this girl, it would be like playing in the palm of her hand.
Even if this was her first time speaking with a real rich daughter, she had to say she was both impressed and terrified.
When she first came to know that aside from the merit based classes A, B and C, the Imperial Academy of Excellence still had a class S full of rich children that were given a seat just because of very generous donations, she thought they would mostly be arrogant and rich idiots.
Well, she had to admit that her generous scholarship was surely partially funded by those rich idiots, but Emilia alone had made her rethink her premise. Maybe they weren't all idiots, or even arrogant. Maybe they didn't excel in academics simply because they didn't need to?
In any case, she decided that it was better if she stayed away from them in the future.
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Meanwhile, although Emilia was quite surprised by the unexpected meeting with the heroine, she thought it turned out pretty well in the end.
The heroine must already have a pretty good impression of her, and she must be looking forward to meeting her again with excitement!
Cynthia wasn't so sure. "Aren't you so confident? What if she thinks you're just a scary villainess?"
Emilia's tone was condescending, as if talking to a complete idiot. "Don't be silly, Cynthia. Just look, Danielle is rich, beautiful and elegant. If she's kind to someone and even compliments them, what idiot would actually want to stay away? Also, when combined with my charm, can that silly little girl even resist?"
"What charm?"
Ah, she could feel a vein almost pop!
"Cynthia! You want me to call you out and beat your ass?!"
Her system seemed to have completely gone off topic, no longer even caring about the heroine. "Fufu… it's really funny how you're scolding me without changing your outward expression at all. Ahahahaha… please don't do this again or I might actually get hurt from laughing too much, ahaha…"
Emilia's neutral expression actually shifted a little as she grit her teeth. "This brat!"
Although no one else was there in the classroom yet, Emilia paid close attention to her expression management when talking with Cynthia because she didn't want to look like a lunatic if someone did accidentally see her. But this little bastard-bitch of a system actually dared to make fun of her for being so diligent!
Cynthia stopped rolling around in laughter in the system space when she heard Emilia check her status.
"W-What are you doing, Emilia?"
—Checking status of Follower Summoning…
—Current Followers:
—Cynthia: 7 hours 36 minutes 44 seconds left. (Not Summoned)
"Hmmm… I wonder what kind of things I can do in seven hours? Ahhh, there's so many ideas, so little time!"
After getting her cheeks squeezed out of nowhere the first time she was summoned, Cynthia was actually slightly worried that her partner didn't respect her at all! She might actually beat her up!
"E-Emilia, I was just joking, you know. You came to the school so early like an idiot, if I didn't talk to you to pass time, wouldn't you be bored to death?"
Emilia raised her brow, as if considering something. "Like an idiot, you said?"
Now her system really sounded panicked. "N-No, I mean, I mean you are just so insightful and smart that you knew the heroine would come early today. B-But of course, we need to pass time now, right? So what's wrong with a little fun?"
Emilia decided to let her off for now, well, maybe she'll be punished a little the next time she's summoned, but that's still letting her off in her books. To be a useful and efficient partner, it looks like this system of hers needed a lot of training!
"Humph, only an airhead like you would think I came here so early just to waste time, right?"
Even though she felt a little cowed, her system still squeaked out. "W-Who are you calling an airhead?!"
But Cynthia could only keep the rest of her grievances to herself and shut up as another student entered the classroom shortly after. Not surprisingly, since there was no one else in the room and the only other person was herself, the student approached her with a smile.
Although all of the children who would be sharing 'class S' with her were from rich families, it's not like all the rich families in their city were a tightly knit group. Especially in the younger generations, only families that had close ties with each other would have their children play together.
When it came to 'Danielle', her only childhood playmate was the hero—Amos Black. As a sheltered rich girl who had been homeschooled all the way till freshman year of high school, no one had even seen her face.
In fact, if not for Amos, it was impossible for Danielle to have a poor reputation. But even if that was the case, whatever poor reputation he had created was just hearsay that no one would truly believe without seeing for themselves at least once.
In other words, not only could she easily tear such flimsy bad reputation apart, she could also use it to turn the impression around on its head. Doing things in such a way would not only reverse her own impression, but also plummet the credit people gave to the hero's words in the future.
And depending on how obvious he had been in trying to damage her reputation, it might even end up hurting his own.
Emilia smiled brightly at the approaching short black haired girl. As the first person she met on the first day of school, a good first impression could easily make a lifelong friend.
The neatly dressed girl was softened by her welcoming smile, and introduced herself warmly.
"Hello… my name is Dixy Brown, and you are?"