'Royal Knights'?

Perhaps the principal had already lectured the teachers to make sure things didn't go in an 'unwanted' direction, because despite the commotion on the day before, the teachers' attitude towards Emilia remained the same as before. It was as if nothing happened.

The students, on the other hand, were an entirely different story.

Dorothy, a chubby girl from class C looked at her friend skeptically. "You mean she calls herself 'the princess'?"

Her friend Penny was the shortest girl in class C, and also perhaps the most easily recognizable person in the entire school, at least in her opinion.

She barely reached four feet in height, but her ponytail was just as long. If not for her tying it up a little higher, she would literally be sweeping the ground whenever she walked.

Even if someone could forget Amos Black's striking silver hair and eyes, they could not forget Penny after meeting her once.

Penny flicked her signature ponytail haughtily, hitting her friend's chubby cheeks with a 'thwack'.

The other girl was already used to this, of course. This is why she was Penny's only friend.

"Isn't it quite fitting, though? The youngest daughter of the richest family in the city, and she's so pretty!"

Looking at her starry eyes and blushing cheeks, Dorothy had an awful premonition.

"Don't tell me… you're not just saying that because you have a huge crush on her, right?"

The blonde huffed. "That's right! So what?"

Dorothy sighed. It was also worth mentioning that Penny was the most arrogant and whimsical girl she had ever met.

All of her 'crushes' were extreme for a few minutes, and then she forgot about them. But at least they had all been boys until now.

And wouldn't Penny's mom have a heart attack if she heard about this? She hadn't even managed to get a boyfriend yet, and she was already so jaded that she started going after girls?

"Ugh, aren't there so many boys in our school? Isn't that silver-haired boy so cool? Why not go for him instead?"

Penny looked at her friend in disgust. "Ewww… did you not find anyone else to ship me with?!"

The chubby girl blinked. Why was she acting like it was not a handsome boy but a filthy pig?

"What's wrong with him?"

The blonde looked at her friend as if looking at an idiot who didn't even know the most basic stuff.

"Ahem, to be honest, I forgot. But that's not important! I think I heard some nasty rumors about him. So he probably has some sick fetish or something!"

Dorothy of course knew Penny was an idiot, but she also knew her friend wasn't a liar. If she said she had heard some nasty rumors, it can't be nothing. Even if she doesn't remember now, it must have left a negative impression at least.

"Ugh… you really can't judge people by their looks, I guess. But that's all the more reason not to believe that girl either!"

In the chubby girl's mind, both Amos and Emilia were from a different world from herself, and belonged in the same category.

"That girl? You mean my princess?"

Dorothy felt a headache coming. The school hadn't even started yet, right? And wasn't Mr. Jefferson's period first today? How will she survive? Also...

"… Since when did you start calling her that?"

The blonde girl folded her hands over her puffed out chest. "Since I became the chairwoman of 'Princess Emilia's Royal Guards' club!"

"T-There's a club for that, already? Didn't you not know who she was until yesterday?"

Penny nodded. "There is one now. Well, there will be if my application passes. I submitted it before coming to class!"

"Wow… you're fast."

Penny smiled, like a little devil. "Wanna join?"

"… Sign me up."

----------

Since the Imperial Academy did not have a middle school, the freshmen high schoolers were mostly unfamiliar with each other. They were all newly admitted, and most of them met each other for the first time only once school started a few days ago.

So in the first week of school, there was no one that could confidently say who was the best among them at any particular thing, be it study, sports or even appearance.

Emilia understood that this was the most efficient period to establish a reputation, which was why she had started working on it from day one.

After all, a positive reputation in school was important for the next steps of her plan.

Her first target on the day school started was making sure that any notoriety that could be leaked into the school due to Danielle's past behavior would be dismissed as baseless. In addition, she had to make sure that the hero couldn't easily ruin her reputation with just a few words.

To that end, she had pulled Dixy to her side first. And then in a series of happy coincidences, not only did she mange to neutralize the weight of the hero's words, she even managed to injure his infallible image. This was despite his formidable background and outstanding appearance.

Cynthia's voice couldn't hide her excitement.

"It's quite amazing how far the hero is from his past life. He should have already been the undisputed heartthrob for most girls, and a charming prince who could do no wrong."

"But your monkey-brain sidekick somehow managed to make him the closet boy-lover who trash talks his childhood sweetheart because he's insecure about his sexuality… Won't the hero kill your monkey if he finds out she did it?"

Emilia shook her head. Also... why is it that even Cynthia insists on ridiculing her poor informant as a monkey? Well, unlike Dixy, at least Cynthia's words wouldn't be heard by Koko, and wouldn't end up making her throw a tantrum.

Besides, there was no need to be scared of retaliation from her enemies while taking action against them. Because they would harm her anyway when they got the chance, regardless of whether she had previously spared them or not. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been her enemies to begin with.

'Don't worry. Since she's sworn allegiance to me, I shall protect her.'

"Well, I suppose there's no need to worry too much about your monkey. The hero seems to only obsess over the heroine and the villainess anyway. Even if some things change because of you, I doubt his core personality will change much."

'Mhm… that's good. It will be easier to make them hate each other this way.'

The hero's hatred for the villainess really was quite obsessive and unreasonable. No matter how Emilia thought about it, even if a rich beauty like Danielle fawning over him failed to obtain the hero's favor, she hadn't yet done anything to attract his hatred either.

Moreover, this was a girl whom he had known since childhood. And at least in the beginning they must have got along well enough for the villainess to fall in love.

For the hero to absolutely hate the childhood friend that loved him, to the extent of completely ruining her and her family, there had to be a reason that went far deeper than that.

Cynthia thought so too. Although a part of his hatred definitely got amplified by the villainess's harassment of the heroine, the root was surely somewhere else.

"I think it's because of ambition. The hero doesn't want to live in the shadow of the 'White Deer' family. If he married Danielle, then even if he ended up owning everything in the end, he would forever have the shadow of the villainess's charity in his heart. So I think he just wants to snatch everything forcibly instead."

Emilia smiled. 'It doesn't matter what he thinks.'

"Uh…"

'All I need to know is that he hates 'me', and that is good enough to make sure our mission goes well.'

And this was why, on the second day itself, she had made sure that she had a good reason to interact with the heroine regularly. Of course, the fact that she could learn things much faster with her help was just a bonus.

And her image among the students was already pretty solid now. Which should also influence the heroine's impression of herself somewhat, right?

Although she would probably have been fine with just making sure there were no negative rumors about her and slowly proving herself through performance and behavior, Emilia knew that was too risky.

Not only was it not enough to cement a good image of 'Emilia' in the minds of the students as firmly, she could not wait for something to go wrong, especially not with the hero still laying in the dark.

With his reputation in tatters, wouldn't he strike back at her as long as he found the opportunity?

Which was why she had taken such drastic measures.

So as soon as she got the clue for a bullying incident from Koko, she rushed right in to become the 'righteous heroine'. Unfortunately, not only did the bullies not cooperate with her and ended up running away without a fight, even the victim ended up not wanting her help and ran away!

If not for Dixy and Koko being there, Emilia would have chased after them and beat all three of them up till even their mothers wouldn't recognize them.

Of course, just because they ran away didn't mean they were safe forever. She would just have to catch them in class.

And that's what led to the incident yesterday. In some ways, things went even better for Emilia than she hoped.

If she had managed to end the bullying incident completely in private earlier, then there was a chance that it would take much longer for her reputation to spread. But doing things this way caused everyone to not only immediately know of it, but also diverted their full attention to her.

This would solidify her image in one fell swoop, with almost no opportunity for anyone to twist the facts or cover it up.

This was also why she had made sure to loudly announce her motives and reasons for beating the two of them up, and then even proclaimed to go after anyone who dared to bully her classmates.

And now, on the last day of school this week, all she had to do was make sure all her plans were still on track.

With all these preparations, what could possibly go wrong?