A week had passed since the start of the new semester.
After a long, stress-free summer, students were once again trying to adjust to the rhythm of classes, training, sparring, brewing potions, researching runes, attending clubs, and assignments.
"What's wrong with you? Are you sick?" a blonde-haired girl demanded, glaring at Maya with an offended expression on her face.
"I'm fine," Maya said, standing and brushing the dust off her uniform.
"Then why are you acting like this?"
"Acting like what?"
"As if you don't care that you lost to me! Ah, I see." She folded her arms, lips curling into a smirk. "You're trying to get on my nerves by pretending not to care. Haha. Cute. It won't work, though. You lost. I won."
Maya raised a brow and uttered, "...Uh, sure. Let's go with that."
The girl watching Maya with a left eye that was twitching was Grace Hartley, the little sister of the prodigy Gerald Hartley.
Grace was an exceptional beauty with buttery blonde hair that was a rich, creamy shade, seeming to catch the light. It wasn't quite platinum, but there was a luminous quality that almost glowed. It was currently in a half-up, half-down style, but usually, it flowed smoothly down her back like silk.
Her eyes were a striking pale color, a faded green, and were heavily lined with dark makeup that emphasized their almond shape.
There was a sharp and almost cynical gaze behind them.
Her physique was curvaceous, and even the school uniform couldn't hide the way her body flowed; her bust was generous, and her waist was defined, making her figure a perfect hourglass.
Her beauty was a combination of classic features and a modern edge. Her fair skin, sharply defined features, and blonde hair created a glamorous yet slightly dangerous aura that suited her status as a noble.
A soft oval face, her cheekbones were high, and her jawline was a perfect balance of sharp and smooth.
And right now, she looked like she was about to explode. A thunder cloud was starting to form above her head.
Maya, meanwhile, calmly sheathed her daggers. The two had been rivals since their first semester, though "rivals" might've been a generous term.
It started when Maya scored one point higher than Grace on a written exam. Grace's pride, expecting first place as usual, cracked. Second place was nothing to scoff at, and most people would celebrate the silver medal, but not her.
Then, during a sparring exercise, she went easy on Maya because she assumed she was weak due to being a commoner who was attending through the scholarship program and paid for it with a humiliating defeat.
The third incident sealed their enmity, at least in her eyes: Maya accidentally walked in on Grace crying after being scolded by her parents. Maya had tried to comfort her. Grace took it as pity — the ultimate insult from the very person who was the cause of her pain.
Ever since, Grace treated their every encounter like a war.
Maya? She saw it as competing with a moody friend.
In truth, Maya didn't care much about test scores. She usually cheated — invisibly snatching cheat sheets from teachers, memorizing them, then writing just enough correct answers to seem believably smart without exposing the fact that she knew the answers beforehand.
As for sparring, she did care, just a little. For the most part, their fights were close, with the winner only being decided at the very last moment.
But that was only because they fought without star abilities. If Grace ever used hers seriously, Maya wouldn't last a minute once her invisibility wore off.
With how little she cared about it and the fact that Grace wasn't exactly high on her list of priorities right now due to other priorities and concerns she had, that little care she had was completely gone.
At least for now.
Obviously, Grace didn't know any of this. She didn't know that Maya was a cheater. And she didn't know that, unlike her, who treated their rivalry like the most important thing, it was usually an afterthought for Maya, who just used their sparring sessions as a way to improve rather than to prove her superiority.
"I took time out of my busy day to spar with you," Grace said, clearly fishing for validation. "Do you even understand how valuable my time is?"
"I also took time out of mine," Maya replied. She wasn't trying to mock Grace, but it did somehow end up coming out like she had intended to do so. "Anyway, I've got a club meeting. See you next session."
Grace stared, teeth grinding. As Maya walked off, she stomped the ground like a child denied dessert, threw her weapon down, and let out a sharp, frustrated exhale.
"Is this because of that Agnus boy?" she muttered.
Rumors had already spread that Maya and some other girl whose existence was too insignificant for Grace to memorize her name had arrived at school in the same car as Bell Agnus.
She knew him. Everyone did. But she knew him more than most.
They'd crossed paths plenty of times at noble gatherings: balls, parties, banquets hosted by merchants desperate for status, coming-of-age ceremonies, etc.
Her impression? A noble in name only.
Bell lacked the grace, posture, and etiquette expected of a duke's son. He acted like some half-educated fool who had stumbled into wealth and status. A disgrace to his last name.
So why was her rival spending time with him?
Was he threatening her? No, Bell didn't have the spine or brains for that. He'd get caught within the first day.
Were they… dating?
No. No no no. Impossible.
Grace refused to believe that someone she grudgingly considered her equal would lower herself for someone like Bell Agnus. Even if he was the son of a duke, only a gold digger would attempt to match themselves with him.
Her rival was not a gold digger. She was broke, that was true, but she was worthy of being her rival, and her rival would never.
Then why? Why was she with him?
Grace wanted to get to the bottom of it.
Scoffing, she snatched up her weapon and marched toward the student council office.
* * *
Bell already knew what was coming. The first major plot event from the novel.
He wasn't sure if it was still going to happen due to butterfly effects and his existence, but when he saw Maya looking anxious in the car that morning, he suspected it hadn't.
"Is something wrong?" he asked her casually, hoping to pry it from her without revealing that he knew.
For a moment, she hesitated to answer, but decided there wasn't a need to keep it a secret, "Well, last week, I may or may not have been nosy and was listening in on a conversation the teachers were having in the teacher's lounge."
'Mm, that's a change. She overheard it in the hallway in the novel.'
Perhaps it wasn't what he was thinking.
"I heard them talking about this student who came to class the first two days of school, but the past four school days, they've not been to any of their classes. Any attempt to contact them resulted in nothing. And they couldn't find him in the dorms either. They, and I too, just assumed he was ditching classes. They were just worried that if he skipped too much without an explanation, he would have to pay the fine."
Never mind. It was what he was thinking.
"But?" Bell asked, knowing what her response was going to be.
"But…" She glanced out the window. "Last night, I got a mission from my god."
Receiving a divine mission meant a god had deemed the follower strong enough to unlock another star. If they wanted to open a star that cost more points than the mission would give, the god would then provide them with more missions until the starwalker (followers of gods who can unlock stars in their god's skill tree) had enough to pay for the star.
You'd think that starwalkers would exploit that system by just accepting mission after mission without unlocking any stars, collecting more and more points.
But there was a reason why your body had to be at a certain level to handle each star.
The points were called points, but really, they were stored godly energy that could be used to create a link between the human and the ability that the god was technically lending to their followers.
Only a fool would store so much of that godly energy because it would lead to poisoning that had a death rate of 100%. You could only avoid this poisoning by simply unlocking stars with the points rather than accumulating them.
If you stored just enough points to have plenty without crossing into poisoning, you could theoretically unlock multiple stars at once. But that carried its own risk — your body might collapse from taking on more than it could handle.
So the general consensus was simple: only absorb as much as you're ready for, and the one who knows best about how much that amount is, is your god.
Don't try to outsmart your god. Just be a devoted follower.
Sarakit, sitting across from them, tilted her head. She was already numb from the fact that Maya would go around eavesdropping on people's conversations without permission. "So… can you tell us what the mission is?"
She was asking cautiously because some divine missions required the person to do something without others knowing or helping. She didn't want to step on Maya's shoes.
Maya thought about it for a second and deemed that it was fine for others to know. "It's simple. I just have to find the missing student."
"Did your god specify that you have to find them?" Bell asked.
"Yes."
This was the same as in the novel.
Bell leaned back into his seat and opened his book, continuing from where his bookmark was.
"Okay. Then we shouldn't inform the school that this kid is an actual missing person," Bell stated, mid-sentence.
Sarakit frowned, her eyebrow raised.
"Wait, you mean we're not reporting a missing student?" she asked. "What if their life is in danger? Shouldn't we get all hands on deck to save them?"
Bell's calmness made her uneasy. Is this really the same man who saved her grandfather without asking for anything?
Maya agreed with his statement because, although there was another person's life potentially at stake, it was rare for gods to hand their followers divine missions. If she were to miss the opportunity to get stronger due to her morals, then she wouldn't have lived a life of stealing and blackmailing to begin with.
"Don't worry," she reassured Sarakit, who looked like she was in turmoil. "If I feel like I'm out of my head and that I'm wasting too much time, I'll abandon my mission and let the school know."
Sarakit sighed, torn between reason and trust. She didn't want to break her benefactor's faith by going behind his back and letting the school know the truth. Especially not when she owed him so much.
She was still in the midst of paying back the dragon eye, even though he stated he didn't need to be paid back.
And there was even more debt she had to pay back. All the money he's spent on her, her research funds, which she was blowing through in many failed experiments. The living expenses. Getting her parents high-paying jobs as chefs in their kitchen.
There was also this.
And that.
And that as well.
That too?
Her expression froze as she mentally tallied the list.
Oh my, she had a lot more debt than she realized.
A zipper appeared across her lips and closed with a zip!