I lead Ronan to a secluded area in the building’s hallways, as we don’t have time to find a better place. Once I’m satisfied that no one will overhear or interrupt us, I ask:

  "Are you okay?"

  I look into his eyes. They’re too big for his face, but at least he no longer looks as cadaverous as when I first met him. It’s clear that he eats well now, and he’s getting sunlight.

  "Yes, my lady. I apologize for worrying you."

  I don’t sense any distress in him. Instead, he seems… is he happy?

  I remain puzzled for a few seconds before I understand: I think he’s happy that I care about him. Whether it’s because no one else ever has—his parents certainly didn’t—or because I’m supposedly his "lady," I’m not sure.

  Okay, not important right now.

  Let’s get to the point.

  "Ronan, your roommate is telling everyone that you grabbed him by the neck, lifted him, and threatened him. I don’t know what to think about that because I already know Damien is a lowlife who would make up anything."

  "But that’s true."

  Talking to Ronan is always surreal because he drops statements like this while staring at you with those big eyes, as if nothing’s wrong, with a mix of innocence and detached analytical logic.

  Honestly, I wouldn’t pay a single penny to know what’s going through his mind right now.

  "You did that?"

  "Of course, my lady. He suggested kidnapping you to do things too horrible to mention. So, I scared and threatened him. I thought that if I took a more forceful or definitive action, you wouldn’t take it well."

  Yeah. Should’ve expected that…

  "If you do something definitive or forceful, you’d actually get locked up."

  "But, my lady, that would only happen if I were incompetent enough to leave evidence pointing to me."

  "Right. Well, I appreciate that you limited yourself to just threatening him. What he suggested to you—imagining that he thought you were as vile as he is—is horrifying."

  If Damien ever tried to attack me outright, I could defend myself just fine. But with his medium affinity for darkness, he’d try to catch me asleep or drug me. A shudder runs through me. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl.

  "Besides, he’s also spreading other rumors. Fortunately, they’re so absurd no one will believe them. Or at least, that’s what I thought until Sol came to me with a new one."

  "Rumors, my lady?"

  "Yeah. He’s claiming that you forced me." It’s hard to even say it. It’s humiliating—for both me and Ronan. "That one collapses under its own weight because neither I nor anyone in our group would still be eating with you or inviting you to a dungeon raid after something like that. However, he must be conspiring with Sol—or she’s just delighted to spread more rumors—because she’s already been heard saying that you sneak into my room at night."

  "That’s all absurd, my lady," he tells me without losing his composure. Good thing, because I had no idea how he would react. "I would never dare harm you. Should we use them to investigate the resurrection spell?"

  "No."

  Okay. That sounds more like Ronan—because I think he’s serious. Like he’s found a way to kill two birds with one stone.

  "You’re right. If the spell worked, they’d still be alive."

  I glance around. The hallway, rarely used—and even less so at this hour, when everyone is in the dining hall, dorms, or classrooms—remains empty.

  "Listen, we need to stop them both. Sol… well, you’ve already heard that Vincent is handling her. As for Damien… I don’t know what to do right now. Going to a professor and telling them what Damien suggested won’t work if he denies it or claims it was a joke. Better, keep an eye on him."

  "In the dormitory, I always do. One of my rats spies on him from under the bed. That’s when Bob, Joe, and Tom aren’t in the closet."

  Yeah. The guy’s plenty creepy.

  "It’s late, we need to hurry, or we’ll be late for class. Ronan, be careful, okay?"

  His face and eyes light up as he realizes I’m genuinely worried.

  "Of course, my lady. I understand that I must be very careful, especially if Duskmere might be watching me."

  That’s not what I meant. It almost sounds like I’m encouraging him to do something to Damien.

  "Besides, I’ll need your help for training. And Joe’s. I saw his aim in the dungeon—does he have a mastery in archery?"

  "He told me that when he was human, he was a soldier and very skilled with a bow. The other day, I took them to touch the stone slab, and I saw that his mastery level is high."

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  "You took the skeleton to touch the slab?" I ask, astounded. That would’ve never even occurred to me, and if the professors had caught him, I can’t imagine how they’d have reacted.

  "Yes, of course." He shrugs.

  "Alright, I’ll need him. We’ll talk later. Let’s go to class."

  We walk together in silence, keeping a brisk pace until we reach the classroom. The professor is already inside, but at least there’s still a minute left before class starts, so he doesn’t say anything.

  We each take our seats, and I inhale slowly and deeply. I need to clear my mind of everything except this class so I can focus and learn.

  Sol and Damien’s mess, the intense training both the pup and I need—those are for later.

  Basic Magic Principles—the name of the subject—let’s go!

  We’re in the third class when one of the assistant professors enters the room, interrupting the lesson. He walks up to the teacher, whispers something, and immediately, she looks at the prince.

  "Your Highness, Theodore, Alistair, Darius, Bianca, Mary, and Ronan—please report to the headmaster’s office."

  Immediately, I turn toward the others. The three childhood friends glance at each other, confused. My eyes meet Ronan’s and Mary’s.

  This must be about the dungeon—there's no way they'd summon the exact seven of us who cleared it yesterday otherwise.

  Amid murmurs of intrigue from the other students, we leave the classroom and follow the assistant professor to the headmaster’s office. As we walk through the hallway, several professors watch us curiously. There are also a few soldiers here, and I recognize some of them from the fortress’s garrison in the desert. The headmaster’s door is open, and his secretary raises an eyebrow at us.

  "Go ahead, they’re expecting you," she says without getting up from her seat.

  The assistant professor steps aside to let us pass, and Vincent goes in first. The headmaster is there, along with the noble from Krab fortress and the colonel I had the dubious honor of meeting shortly after arriving at the academy—when we signed the confidentiality contract.

  On the headmaster’s desk sits an enormous, jewel-encrusted golden chest, shining so brightly that I’m not surprised it attracted so much attention. The soldiers must have drawn quite the crowd bringing it here. More importantly, the headmaster hasn’t ordered the door closed.

  "Come in. I must say, I’m impressed. Baronet Jorund was kind enough to personally deliver the materials you left in the dungeon—and this boss chest. Judging by its size, you defeated an elite boss." He pauses briefly. "In an intermediate dungeon."

  Uh-oh… how am I supposed to explain this?

  The dungeon levels, ranked in ascending difficulty, are: novice, apprentice, intermediate, veteran, elite, master, epic, and infernal.

  The so-called impossible level dungeon I faced—the one that only people from another world could enter—is probably a separate category. Besides, that one was considered impossible only relative to my own strength, as it had analyzed me before I entered. Here, an infernal-level dungeon is an excruciating survival test, nearly impossible to clear, even for the highest-level warriors and mages with a well-structured and capable party.

  In any case, it seems they won’t interrogate us to figure out how we managed this. Instead, the crown’s representative is naturally eager to credit the prince.

  "Congratulations, Prince Vincent," the colonel says, his tone brimming with pride as if this were his own achievement. "You’ve upheld the honor of the royal family."

  "Thank you, Colonel."

  "The colonel is right, Vincent. Your brother, in his three years at the academy, never accomplished something like this. You and your group"—I notice they’re assuming he led us—"discovered a secret elite-difficulty level in an intermediate dungeon. I have no doubt that you succeeded thanks to your leadership skills and the outstanding performance of your team. You have high affinities for light, darkness, and water. That alone makes you the best dungeon party this academy has ever had the honor of teaching. If we also consider your leadership, Alistair and Darius’s swordsmanship, and Bianca’s earth magic support, it’s truly a shame that you won’t be able to compete together in the third-year tournament. My sincerest congratulations to all of you on this achievement."

  "Thank you for your kind words, headmaster. My teammates helped me a great deal, even in making decisions during battle. Ronan has great potential as a strategist."

  The colonel turns to look at Ronan, his eyes gleaming with a greedy interest.

  Oh, damn. This is the first time someone has looked at Ronan like that—as if he were a valuable asset to be controlled.

  "Please, Vincent, do the honors," the headmaster says, gesturing toward the chest.

  If I remember correctly from what my otome-loving friend told me (since I never got to clear an elite dungeon myself), these chests can only be opened by the person who landed the killing blow or by someone who significantly contributed to the kill. It’s all based on probability—the more you contributed, the higher your chances.

  Vincent glances at all of us, deep in thought. None of us make any move to step forward and open it, so he finally approaches it himself. To the colonel’s visible disappointment, he fails.

  "Your Highness, is it possible that someone else delivered the final strike?" the colonel asks.

  "Well, we’re not entirely sure what happened in that chamber… Try it, Theodore."

  And so it goes—first Theodore, then Alistair, then Darius.

  The headmaster, the colonel, the baronet, and even the professors watching from the hallway are visibly stunned by how bizarre this situation is. I have four words for this, borrowed from my past life: I'm freaking out.

  "Your bear was there, Ronan. Maybe it was the one that killed the boss," Vincent suggests, motioning for him to give it a try.

  Poor Vincent looks genuinely lost—he has no idea what happened inside that chamber since the zombie bear had blocked his view.

  "You really don’t know who killed the boss?" the headmaster asks.

  "There was the bear, scorpions, a golem, and the lich…" the prince begins, recounting the chaos. "We also found an absurdly giant scorpion pincer, but I never actually saw a creature that large."

  "I see," the headmaster says, though he still looks unconvinced.

  Ronan steps forward and tries. My heartbeat speeds up for a second—but no, he can’t open it. Since he’s the only who got an assist, that means the chest belongs to me.

  Right here? In front of everyone?

  I gently push Mary forward, making her step up before me. I need time to think.

  "What should I do?" I whisper to Ronan as she approaches the chest.

  "I advise you not to open it. Pretend you can’t, and tonight I’ll send Bob, Tom, and Joe to steal it. There must be something valuable inside, and that way, you can keep it, my lady. After all, the chest chooses its owner."

  "Oh, sure…" I mutter sarcastically.

  I wasn’t asking so we could steal from our friends—I just don’t want to reveal that I was the one who killed an elite-level boss.

  Of course, he’s not entirely wrong. If the chest contains something that boosts my mana or intelligence, I wouldn’t want Theodore to take it. But regardless of the chest’s selection, we agreed before entering the dungeon that all loot would be shared. That’s what’s fair.

  "I'm sorry," I hear Mary say.

  Alright, so she can’t open it either. Then I notice everyone looking at me.

  "Bianca, it must have been you. Come forward," the headmaster says kindly.

  I nod and walk forward, but internally, my mind is racing.

  Do I take Ronan’s advice and risk getting into serious trouble if we get caught? Or do I open it and let everyone realize something strange is going on with me?