Demon King of the Royal Class

Chapter 385

Freshman, A-1, Liberto de Gardenia... I didn’t expect him to speak so rudely to a senior from the same Class A.

‘Do you want to get your ass beaten up?’

Liberto seemed taken aback by my sudden outburst, and the temperature in the room dropped even further.

“... Sorry?”

“Are you running your mouth because you want to get your ass beaten up, you little brat?”

This guy was royalty. Heir to a kingdom, no less. He probably never heard such foul language in his life. That’s why he looked visibly flustered, clearly not expecting this.

“Are you insulting me, the legitimate heir of the Gardenia royal family?”

“...”

His words left me momentarily stunned, and I rubbed my face a few times to clear my head. Feeling a bit more composed, I walked over to Liberto, who was glaring at me with youthful defiance.

“Yeah.”

And then...

Smack!

“Ugh!”

I smacked him on the head.

“W-what are you doing...!”

He cried out in shock, falling to the ground and wrapping his hands around his shins.

“I, a commoner, have publicly insulted and smacked the heir of the Gardenia royal family.”

Thud!

“Ugh!”

“So what are you going to do about it, you little punk?”

Smack! @@novelbin@@

“Ugh!”

The kid, now clutching his side, rolled around on the training ground floor.

“Didn’t you hear that your status doesn’t matter when you’re at the Temple?”

Status was meaningless at the Temple. Everyone was witnessing this firsthand.

The kid, still in disbelief that a senior who claimed to be a commoner would mercilessly beat him, lay sprawled on the ground, stunned.

“Get up, you brat.”

“Y-you’ll regret what you did to me la—”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Gasp!”

I drew my leg back as if getting ready to kick a ball, and he gasped and curled up.

He was scared. He seemed bewildered by the fact that he was scared and losing his composure in real-time.

“Do you really want to be beaten up like a ragdoll?”

“...”

“Do you want to get beaten up? Hey. Answer.”

“Uh, uh...”

“Answer with yes or no.”

“N-no...” he mumbled in a small, timid voice, and I slowly stepped back.

“There are always those who only understand after getting beaten up. Get up.”

“Ugh...”

“Are you going to get up or not?”

The students, both male and female, who were witnessing a senior calling for an assembly and then beating up a classmate, were frozen in shock. Lucinil, in particular, stared at us with her eyes wide open.

I watched as Liberto got up, glaring at me with his teeth clenched. This kid still hadn’t learned his lesson.

“If you’re confident, hit me.”

“...”

“But I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

“...”

“Are you going to do it or not? Hurry up and decide.”

He seemed to be seriously contemplating it.

Was he really considering taking me on?

Other students began whispering.

—H-hey, isn’t that senior... that person?

—The one who won the first-year tournament at the last festival.

—Y-yeah, I think I saw him.

Come to think of it, if they had spent their middle school years at the Temple instead of entering as first-years, there were plenty who might have seen my face.

Liberto didn’t know me, but there were those who recognized me as the winner of the first-year tournament.

Hearing that, Liberto’s face turned pale.

“N-no... no, I’m sorry...”

The words “winner of the first-year tournament” seemed to be enough to instill some manners into this disrespectful kid. Seeing him finally lower his eyes, I glanced around at the other first-years.

I had really set the tone for the year. This wasn’t why I’d gathered them, but things just ended up this way. I could already feel them trembling, trying not to make eye contact with me.

The year before, when we were freshmen, Rudina had tried to give us a hard time to show that status didn’t matter, and I had ended up doing exactly the same thing. Even though Rudina had failed, I’d unintentionally succeeded too well.

This had unintentionally turned into a situation where I was essentially saying, “You guys thought you were going to have a fun time at the Temple? Not a chance!”

“Now, wait. I didn’t call you here to say this kind of thing...”

Creak!

“Freshmen! Are you all here?!”

And then, the door to the training grounds swung open, and Harriet de Saint-Ouen stepped into view with an expression full of anticipation.

“Uh... you...?” Harriet muttered as she looked at me, confused as to why I was there.

But her gaze quickly shifted to the line of freshmen in front of me.

The freshmen were lined up in a row. On the far right was Liberto, looking disheveled (and clearly showing signs of being hit). Everyone had their heads down, and the atmosphere was solemn. Harriet’s mouth dropped open in disbelief.

“No. Hey. This is...” I stammered.

“You, you... you trash!” Harriet shouted.

Smack!

“No, it’s not...! It’s not what it looks like! Well, it is, but it’s not!”

“You, you! Of all people! You!”

Thud! Thud, thud, thud!

“Wait! Please, listen to me!”

Of course, my excuses didn’t work at all.

***

The freshmen, who had just witnessed a senior who was setting the mood suddenly get beaten up by a female senior with braided hair, stared at us in bewilderment, unable to comprehend the situation.

Harriet seemed to have come to the training grounds not to hold an assembly for the freshmen but to get to know them. She had been looking around and stumbled upon this scene.

In the end, I was dragged away without even having the chance to talk to Lucinil. After being forced to return to the second-year dormitory, Harriet sat me down in the lobby.

“I’m genuinely disappointed in you,” Harriet said with a serious look.

“No... it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?”

I tried to explain the situation, but things quickly got more bizarre.

“What’s going on?” Ellen asked as she approached us with a towel around her neck. She had definitely noticed Harriet’s angry expression.

“He had assembled the freshmen and was scaring them.”

“Scaring...? Like when we were freshmen...?” Ellen asked.

“Exactly! And you hit someone, didn’t you? The one on the far right! Right?”

“Well, yes, I did hit him! But...!”

Ellen listened up to that point and then just stared at me.

Contempt... That was what I felt in Ellen’s gaze. It was such a despicable act that even Ellen couldn’t remain indifferent, especially since I was the one who should have known better than to do such a thing.

“No, listen to me!”

I felt wronged.

I had done what I did for a good reason, but feeling wronged about it made me feel a bit pathetic. But still, I felt wronged!

***

I sat Ellen and Harriet down and explained everything properly. I had just gone there to introduce myself, but the Number 1 kid suddenly provoked me. That was the gist of it.

In the end though, I could not dispute the fact that I had hit him.

When Harriet heard about how that arrogant first-year student had started with, “Are you calling us to assemble when you’re just Number 11?” She was left speechless.

“... It’s a miracle he’s not dead,” she said.

Harriet’s reaction suggested that, knowing my temperament, it was surprising he hadn’t been left half-dead.

“You held back well. Good job,” Ellen said.

‘What is this? I hit him. It’s true that I hit him. Yet knowing how much of a jerk he was, they’re both praising me for not hitting him more.

‘Is a jerk forgiven just for being a little less of a jerk? I feel good, but something feels off!’

Anyway, it felt nice to be praised, but it felt like praise I shouldn’t be receiving.

“I should probably talk to the freshmen. Warn them to be especially careful around this senior.”

“It seems like something that... needs to be done.”

In the end, they decided to assemble the freshmen to warn them to handle the explosive material known as Reinhart with care. Even Ellen agreed.

‘No, really, I didn’t intend to hit him...’

In the end, my attempt to have a one-on-one conversation with Lucinil failed in a bizarre way.

***

In the original storyline, the second-year Class A students would have been assembling the freshmen to discipline the arrogant ones, just as they had been disciplined by the current third-years when they were freshmen.

However, the current second-year Class A students had become gentle souls uninterested in such things, and Reinhart, in an attempt to meet Lucinil, had ended up unintentionally taking on that role.

As a result, Harriet and Ellen gathered the first-year freshmen again to spread a different kind of warning. Instead of the stern male senior who first assembled them, a calm and composed female senior and the female senior with braided hair who had just beaten up the ill-tempered male senior appeared.

Even though they didn’t look intimidating, the freshmen were just as tense, having witnessed the earlier scene.

“We’re not here to scold you. After what happened earlier, we wanted to tell you something. I’m Harriet de Saint-Ouen, Number 4 in second-year Class A.”

“Second-year, A-2, Ellen.” Ellen introduced herself briefly.

The two seniors who had come now had a completely different aura. Unlike the previous senior who seemed ready to pounce on any mistake, these two showed no signs of wanting to scold anyone.

And just as someone had recognized Reinhart earlier, there were freshmen who recognized Ellen as well.

“Um... aren’t you Miss Temple?”

Miss Temple.

At those words, even the freshmen seeing Ellen for the first time felt their eyes go wide.

Ellen simply nodded, as if winning the Miss Temple contest was neither a point of pride nor shame.

“Yes.”

And the female freshman who recognized Ellen naturally recognized Harriet too.

“You’re the one from the Open Tournament, right? I saw you! You beat the fifth-year senior!”

“O-oh, uh... really? W-well... I didn’t win, though...” Harriet blushed and stammered, unused to such situations.

“You forfeited, but you didn’t lose!”

While Reinhart, who had won the first-year tournament, was impressive, Harriet had made an even greater impact by winning one of her bouts with Olivia Lanche, a fifth-year, in the Open Tournament. Their match was so intense that it had practically destroyed the arena.

The first-year freshmen began to look at the two in awe. The first senior who had called them to assemble was the winner of the first-year tournament, this calm-looking senior was the Miss Temple winner, and the cute senior with braided hair was the one who had beaten a fifth-year student...

Even within the Royal Class, the second-year students of Class A seemed extraordinary, leading the freshmen to form their own impressions. Lucinil watched the two with interest.

“Ah-ahem, a-anyway. We didn’t gather you here to scold you but to tell you something.”

Harriet cleared her throat a few times, trying to regain her composure, then began speaking to the freshmen.

“The one who came to see you earlier is Reinhart. He’s a troublemaker that even we can’t handle, so don’t provoke him. Especially you.”

Harriet pointed directly at Liberto on the far right.

“Me? Oh... okay.”

“Reinhart went easy on you.”

Even though he felt wronged for being hit, hearing that he’d gotten off lightly was even more frustrating. But Liberto, having seen Reinhart’s actions, realized he had completely misunderstood the Temple.

This was what it was truly like. It was a place where if you flaunted your status, a commoner could easily beat up someone of royal blood, and you just would just have to take it. It was a place with no one to complain to. Even after being hit, seniors would come and tell you that you got off lightly.

Strictly speaking, the Temple wasn’t exactly like that. But how could the freshmen know that Reinhart was just an exceptionally strange case?

They were left with the impression that the Temple, and especially the Royal Class, was inherently like this.

“Be careful in the future. He’s petty and will remember your face.”

Harriet said this without realizing the weight of her words. She was basically saying, “You’ve been marked by Reinhart.” It’s often those who are unaware who speak the harshest.

“Be careful.” Ellen, who had been quietly watching Liberto, added briefly. “You might get hurt if you’re not careful.”

Liberto’s face turned even paler at Miss Temple’s calm advice.

Ellen had said it with genuine concern, warning him not to speak carelessly because there might be dangerous people like Reinhart around. However, to the listener, it didn’t sound like that at all.

In the end, despite saying they weren’t there to scare them, Harriet and Ellen ended up intimidating the freshmen just like Reinhart did. Still, they managed to lighten the atmosphere a little after that. As Harriet talked to each of them about their majors and showed a slightly awkward side, they realized she wasn’t such a scary senior after all.

“Did you skip a grade?”

“Yes, I’m thirteen. I’m majoring in magic,” the silver-haired girl, Lucinil, said with a bright smile, causing Harriet to flinch as if her heart was being squeezed. She almost reached out to pat her head but stopped herself.

“What’s your talent?”

“Destruction magic.”

A talent in Destruction magic... It didn’t match her cute appearance, but talents didn’t necessarily align with looks.

Harriet smiled brightly after hearing Lucinil’s answer. “Magic? Are you interested in the Magic Research Club?”

“The Magic Research Club?”

“Yes! It’s a club within the Royal Class... Actually, that troublemaker from earlier is the president. But he’s not really a bad guy... Once you get to know him, he’s actually a really, really good person.”

Lucinil’s lips curled slightly at those words.

“Ohh... really?”

Unintentionally, Harriet ended up helping Reinhart.