Villainess and the Stalker - Chapter 8 - Mysterious Furball

Chapter 8 : Mysterious Furball

After that, we bid our goodbyes to each other, but not before I made a promise to attend the regular morning assembly with him. Honestly, I had never expected that I’d make friends this fast, but this was a good sign.

After all, once I graduate from this academy, I’d have to live alone, and depend on myself.

Sure, my grandfather told me that I’d be going back to our country once I graduate, but I fear the reason for me to go back this time was to formalize my disinheritance.

This was because, even someone as powerful as my grandfather couldn’t just disinherit me without any reason. Thus, he would want to use my graduation as some sort of pretext to disinherit me.

And while he had shown me an undeniable kindness, my grandfather was still a strict person through and through. His decision to send me to this rural academy called Helios Academy was just the perfect thing to showcase his strict side.

I mean, our country alone already had several outstanding academies. And while Helios Sorcery Academy is ranked number one in the Kingdom of Helios…it’s ranking if it were to be compared with other countries academies, it would be…well, honestly, its ranking would be just too tragic.

And that’s why, I’m absolutely sure that my conjecture regarding my disinheritance was correct. I mean, why else would he send me here of all possible places? Really, it’s an extremely disheartening situation to me…

But as a result, I found a friend named Conrad.

Meaning that I could still rely on him even if my family disinherited me.

Well, I didn’t know how far I could rely on his kindness since we’ve only just become friends, but three years later…. Or rather two and a half years later, by then, perhaps, our friendship might have even deepened.

Oh well, there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the future anyhow. By preparing for it, my future…shouldn’t be that hopeless, right?

Thus, I resumed exploring the academy while musing over such matters, but….

「……. Too spacious…..」

I couldn’t help murmuring those words.

Though I had already known that Helios was an underdeveloped kingdom, I never expected it to have this much free land to build such a humongous academy.

The sheer size of this academy easily surpassed the size of the normal academy that I am familiar with.

Even though I had seen it on the map before I came here, now when I am actually strolling around the actual academy, it feels different.

Though the dormitory buildings and the school building of this academy took up a lot of land, there’s still a few buildings around the same size.

I think one day wasn’t enough to explore the entire academy.

It was now that I started to appreciate Conrad’s talent for finding shorter routes.

Although the passages that connected the dormitories and school buildings were easy to remember, they had too many similarities to the point that someone could easily take the wrong corridor.

I had a feeling I couldn’t get used to these corridors.

Thus, I decided to award another point to the information gathering ability of my friend.

「……. Eh? 」

Despite having had enough of this ridiculously vast academy, I braced myself to continue my exploration since I’d be staying in this academy for at least two and a half years. Albeit, understanding of the academy site was a must. And as if to cheer me up, a mysterious object suddenly passed by right in front of me.

Was it just my imagination?

As soon as I thought so, that mysterious object passed by me again.

「What…. In the Helios is that…..?」

I ended up speaking such lines due to that mysterious object, incredulity coloring my experssion.

That mysterious object was in the form of a huge ball.

A pure white fluff that was rolling on the floor….

As if it had a will of its own.

…. No, it did have a will of its own!

Or else, it wouldn’t have been able to move like that, in the first place. This place was Royal Sorcery Academy, after all.

This kind of a creature, popping out of nowhere, was well within the purview of my expectation.

The white ball inched closer to me and before it stopped.

And then, with a pop, it transformed into a completely different form.

「A…. Dog, No…. A wolf, perhaps? 」

This pure white dog could also be a wolf.

But, it seems to be a very young one.

Though it was taller than even me, though one could say that it was a normal mature dog, it might not be a dog.

This dog-like being kept staring at me while I pondered over what to do. Then, its head inched closer and it started licking my face.

So ticklish!

But it didn’t feel unpleasant at all!

Even when I looked like this, the animal tended to like me.

As for the reason, it might be because they are innocent beings.

Though it didn’t mean that they absolutely wouldn’t lie to me, compared to human beings in terms of honesty, they were leagues apart .

They rarely showed human-like emotions such as malice.

That’s why I love animals.

I found this dog is really cute, thus I stretched my hand and caressed its cheek.

Thereupon,

「….. Woof Woof.」

It seemed to relax as it heaved a deep sigh.

To me, it seemed friendly.

Though it often snapped back and bit my hand, he….. or maybe, she seems to be different.

Thank goodness!

As she was frolicking with me,

「Ha~Haa~…. EH, NO WAY! ? 」

A girl who ran from the far end of the corridor, with ragged breath, exclaimed as she looked at the dog frolicking with me.

The blue-eyed blue-haired loli was looking back and forth at me and the dog, as if she had just witnessed the end of the world.

I’m curious about her reaction, so let’s try asking.

「Are you….. the owner of this puppy? 」

「… Yesh.」

Replied the girl with a small voice that was almost nonexistent to human’s hearing.

「…. I see」

「So that means you’re chasing after her? 」

「……… Yes.」

Just when I was wondering from where in the Helios this furball had come from, its master came running to me, looking for her.

Honestly, due to this uselessly vast area of the academy, usually it’d take quite some time to find the puppy. But, this girl should have been able to locate this puppy without much effort.

I mean, this puppy was…

「This puppy is….. summoned beast, right? You didn’t actually have to run all over the place to look for her since you only need to cancel her summoning and resummon her again.」

Yes, this giant dog isn’t just your average animal, it was a summoned beast.

They were the existence that would only help humans after they were contracted and then summoned from various places using one of the special sorcery called ‘Summoning Arts’.

As long as one had formed a contract with them, the master could summon the summoned beast at once whenever they wanted and send them back whenever they wanted too.

In short, this girl didn’t actually need to chase this puppy till she was out of breath.