Chapter 4 - Saints Academy [2]

Three towering mountains that reached the sky surrounded a place filled with students and instructors. It was the academy—to be specific, the Saints Academy. That was the given name of the academy Sian and Catherina were entering.

The academy had many buildings inside, such as dorms, training grounds, a cafeteria, and many other things. It was basically a city itself. Well, that was to be expected, after all, in order to house students from all three empires, the academy needs to have a large capacity to fit all of them.

The academy was surrounded by castle walls, which circled it like a barrier. There was only one entrance to it, and that was the front gate. Many students were going in and out of the gate, but they had to be inspected first and list their names to keep track of them or in case something unexpected happened.

The students of the academy have to wear something like a bracelet when they go outside, and with it, they will be able to send a signal of their location to the instructors if they are put in a dangerous situation.

Sian and Catherina passed through the gate easily; the guards knew who the girl was after all. She was famous throughout the whole academy for both her strength and beauty. So they let her pass easily, but for Sian, he was stopped before he was even able to follow Catherina inside.

"Wait! You stop right there!" The guard shouted, and Catherina looked back when she noticed Sian had stopped following her. She went towards the guard and handed him a letter given to her by her father.

The guard inspected and read the letter. Seeing the contents inside, he was shocked, and the boy he just stopped right now was given approval by the headmaster. He wanted to know the identity of the boy, but he didn't indulge in it further.

"He is my personal attendant." His curiosity was answered by the girl who handed him the letter, and the questions that filled his mind were gone in an instant. He then apologized for his rude behavior before letting them pass inside.

As they entered, they immediately saw the sight of two buildings from each side and a straight road ahead of them. They followed the road leading to a straight line until they reached a museum-like building, but it wasn't a museum; it was a library.

After that, Catherina toured Sian all around the academy, from the dorms where new students stayed, to a plaza, to the cafeteria, to the training ground, and finally to the place where they will stay.

There are still many things they haven't explored around the academy, but Catherina just toured him around like she did in the hotel for him to get familiar with it. Entering the inner part of the academy, they went to a place where houses circled around each other; it wasn't a full circle, though, as there was a gap for the entrance.

The houses had a gate of their own; after all, it was where the noble students of this academy stayed. There were also three other places like this, but unlike this place, you have to move each time you advance a year.

The housing system of the academy was like this: New students stay in dormitories, and after they move up a year, they move into a house of their own, but the thing is, they will be living with other students in that same house. It was the academy's way of making students interact and build close relationships with one another. Of course, since the houses where men and women stayed were segregated, there would either be a house full of women or a house full of men.

That was also why nobles had places for themselves. The academy built houses separate from the ones normal students use. After all, they had to consider their status, but this was only available to high-ranking nobles; nobles below counts weren't an exception.

Moving on from that long explanation, Sian and Catherina entered the gate using the ID she had and moved towards a house. But before they were even able to enter, a man stood in front of them, and with him, four other people also came. Two girls and two boys.

"It is a pleasure to meet you again, my lovely Catherina. How long has it been? Three months? It was quite a long time, and how my heart aches for not being able to see during that time." The man spoke and greeted Catherina. He put on a pained face when he said the words following his greeting and as he tried to grab a hold of Catherina's hand.

"Stop spouting nonsense and move." Catherina moved her hands to avoid his. Her words contained disgust toward the man in front of her. Despite that, the man just smiled; he was already used to this after all.

He was Evan Rose Magedon, the son of a duke from another empire, and the people with him were acquaintances of Catherina. When he saw them moving to her house, he followed along with them and waited with them to greet Catherina.

Three of them were children of marquises and counts, and one was a daughter of a duke. After Evan's disgusting words, they greeted Catherina, and she responded with a smile, unlike the look of disgust she gave Evan.

"I haven't seen you for a long time, Catherina. It's nice to meet you again."

"Me too. It's nice to see you again after your three-month vacation, and it seems that what Evan said was true. You did bring along with you a man."

A girl with brown hair gave Catherina a light hug as she said those words, and the other girl also did the same. The other girl had two almond-like blue eyes and long natural eyelashes. She had straight and silky silver hair hanging above her ass. She was also wearing a black dress with golden linings like a thigh-high slit with her legs covered in black and thick tights reaching just above her knee to show her thighs, and lastly, on her white-clothed breast, was a diamond-shaped crest that was probably the symbol of her family.

"May I ask the identity of the man behind you, my lovely Catherina?" Evan interfered, asking the identity of the man standing behind her.

"Who his identity is none of your concern. Perhaps he is my brother, perhaps he is my cousin, or perhaps he is m-my l-lover..." She spoke playfully, but when she reached the end of the sentence, she stuttered and her cheeks slightly turned red.

Evan knew she was just playing with him, but hearing that still annoyed him quite a bit, and he looked at Lax with scornful eyes. He didn't believe that man was her lover; after all, everything about him looked average, from his clothes to his face. That's why he judged him to be worthless and not befitting of Catherina.

Sian noticed his gaze, but he ignored it. He was focusing on something else right now. It was the brown-haired girl that greeted Catherina after Evan. Sian noticed that her eyes were darting around between Catherina and Evan, looking to be anxious about something.

Sian smirked as he just found out about something interesting. The girl noticed him looking at her with a smirk on his face, and he looked at Sian with a surprised face, but she immediately regained her composure.

"My lady, I think it is time for us to leave or we will be late. Rather than bothering with a pleading dog, we should be putting our things that we don't need to carry around in the house." The silver-haired girl held back her laugh when she heard Sian's words, but the same was not true for Evan.

"Pffft. Haha. You're right. Well then, see you later, Suyan, Mei."

"Then please excuse us ladies, we will now be taking our leave." Sian and Catherina said their goodbyes, ignoring Evan, who was looking at Sian like he was going to murder him, and the man behind him, who didn't say a word the whole time.

They left and went inside the house. As soon as they entered, Sian asked about their identities.

"Well, the man you just called a pleading dog was the son of a duke from another empire. The brown-haired girl was a daughter of Marquess Leonor, and as for the silver-haired girl, she is the daughter of a duke. They are all from the same empire."

"How about the guy who didn't speak a word since the beginning."

"He is. He is in the top ten ranking of the 4th heaven stage in the entire continent. He is the silent type of guy, but the strength he has is overwhelming, and..."

"And?"

"And he is my ex-fiance." The words that left her mouth surprised Sian a little, and his face started to darken. He didn't know why he was feeling this way, but he was in a bad mood. Of course, Catherina didn't fail to notice that, and she added a little more information.

"He wasn't really my fiance, but their household proposed a marriage between me and him. I didn't know at first, but when Father told me about the proposal, I got angry and rejected it with my all."

"So seeing me, his daughter, fully against it, he wrote a letter to the prince to cancel their proposal, saying that he wouldn't force her daughter to marry if she didn't want to."

Hearing her words, Sian's mood became better, and he now had a slight smile on his face. Catherina then went on to describe how she met the two girls in the academy, and afterwards they exited the house and headed to the first afternoon class.

As they opened the door to the class, the whole place became noisy, especially when they saw Catherina with an unknown man beside her.

She was known to be cold and aloof, but gentle and kind to the people close to her. But that's not all; she was also powerful enough to reach the top rank in her stage, making both men and women alike admire her strength and beauty.

So seeing her with a man and the fact that she looked quite close to him at that, they were shocked.

Catherina, however, didn't notice their gazes. She was busy explaining to Sian what the classes were about and how he didn't really need to attend any of them. She said that he was only here to be her personal attendant, so not attending class was fine.

"So if you ever get bored, you can just return back to the house using the duplicate ID, and I'll just call you if I ever need something. Got it?"

"Yes lady Catherina." They sat down and waited for the class to start. A few minutes later, a plain-looking woman entered the room. She was wearing a formal suit. A black blazer and a tight skirt.

In her hands was a book that looked like a grimoire. No words were needed to be said, and the class fell silent waiting for her to speak.

"Let us begin our class, but before that, welcome back in, returning from your vacation, Catherina, and let us welcome a new student of the academy." She greeted Catherina and turned her eyes to look at Sian after finishing her words.

"Me?"

"Yes you. Please introduce yourself to the class before we proceed with today's lesson." She spoke in a calm voice, making Sian look at Catherina for affirmation. She nodded, and Sian went and stood up from his seat and humbly bowed his head as he introduced himself.

"Nice to meet you all, I am Sian Snyder and the personal butler of Lady Catherina." He said it with a kind and sincere smile. His face was average, but his kind smile had a charm of its own, attracting some of the girl's attention in the room.