“Every member of the Rosebud Fencing Academy is an orphan from the city; we don’t carry out any kind of selection process,” Elincia said, her voice carrying over the music and the guests' chatter.

Lord Osgiria’s expression remained unchanged, but thanks to [Awareness], I noticed the hints of an arrogant smirk tugging his mouth.

The nobles joined heads, murmuring and exchanging furtive looks, but I pretended not to notice. We were in trouble. The revelation might have come too early. The humble origin of the Rosebud Fencing Academy wasn’t a secret, but I wanted the nobles to have a general idea of my kids' competence before the big reveal. Without having anything to show in terms of achievements, Prince Adrien’s patronage was our only lifeline.

“A team of orphans… how picturesque. Just make sure the Aias kid doesn’t turn them into little thieves,” Lord Osgiria said as he stood and elegantly put the chair aside. Without saying a word, he turned around and left our group. That was enough for half of the nobles to leave us.

My blood froze.

Lord Osgiria was an intelligent man, tortuous but intelligent. Without resorting to violence, he had managed to undermine my character. I memorized the faces of the nobles who abandoned our group. If anything, I knew those under the influence of the Osgirian faction.

I turned around to face those who had stayed: high-rank soldiers, wealthy merchants, and members of the low nobility. Most of them seemed unsure if they should stay or follow Lord Osgiria.

“So, Prince Adrien is interested in a team of orphans. Quite intriguing if you think about it more than a second,” Lord Vedras said as he glared at Lord Osgiria’s back. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you better, Robert Clarke.”

I silently thanked him. No one in the party would risk their reputation for a no-name Scholar like me. However, Lord Vedras’s presence seemed to reassure my audience.

“Sorry, I got caught up,” Elincia whispered under her veil.

“Don’t worry about it. They weren’t our target audience in the first place,” I replied, putting my hand on hers. There was nothing we could’ve done. Lord Osgiria was out of our weight class. He was Prince Adrien’s problem.

I fixed my jacket and focused on Lord Vedras across the table.

The duke was the real question mark at the party. I wondered if he was on board with Prince Adrien's plan or just interested in what I had to say; the new trade route would greatly favor Vedras dukedom. I looked around, searching for Sir Janus, but the man was nowhere to be found. If I had to guess, he should be hiding from his old classmates in one of the rooms annexed to the ballroom.

“Now that Negative Nancy is gone, I would like to know more about the Kingdom of Connecticut,” Lord Vedras said, summoning the flying tray for the sixth time that night and grabbing a glass of amber-colored hard liquor.

Unlike Prince Adrien, Lord Vedras seemed utterly out of his element at the party. He was drinking too fast and seemed to be counting the seconds for the party to finish. If I had to guess, Lord Vedras was an outlier. All important nobles were combatants while he was a crafting class.

“Show them the cars!” Elincia said, interrupting my thoughts.

“We’d love to hear about cars,” a young woman sitting a couple meters from us cheered. She wore a white and red dress with a necklace of the red falcon catching a fish—the symbol of Ducal House Jorn, the northmost territory of the kingdom. Her skin was pale, and a hastily made hair bum held together by a wooden stylus crowned her head.

Compared to the rest of the nobles, her outfit was sloppy, as if she had put it together in a rush.

“So, cars…” I said as I channeled my mana.

Without realizing it, Elincia had put me in a tight spot.

Despite the Silence Pact between the System and me being erased, that didn’t mean telling the whole truth would be safe. Any sane noble would want to replicate the technology of my world to have an edge over the competition, and I wanted to avoid any forceful attempts to get that knowledge from me. I decided to go vintage.

“Cars are interesting but not as useful as a cart with a good horse,” I replied, summoning the illusion of one of the early cars constructed, a little more than a tricycle with a small engine strapped to the back.

With a hand movement, I expanded the illusion to match the actual size of the antique car. As clunky as I tried to make the movement look, it still surprised the nobles. Elincia seemed bored, which wasn’t a surprise, considering she was used to another level of speed. I gave her an apologetic look.

“Do you mind if I draw a sketch?” The young woman from House Jorn asked.

“Please, be my guest, Lady…” I replied. Then, I realized I didn’t know her name. I hoped my words didn’t come out offensive. After Lord Osgiria’s demonstration of contempt toward the orphanage, I had to be careful not to jeopardize the opinion of the other nobles.

“Jorn, Lady Jorn,” she casually replied, pointing at the necklace.

I couldn’t tell if she was making fun of me. Like Prince Adrien, her expression was indecipherable. [Awareness] couldn’t tell me if she was playing or being serious.

“Silly me,” I replied, trying to play it cool.

Lady Jorn pulled out a sketchbook and a charcoal pencil and started drawing with a fast and steady hand. I couldn’t tell if she was letting the System assist her, but I could tell she was good. The car seemed to come to life on the yellowy page. Soon enough, Lady Jorn was wholly absorbed in the activity.

Crisis averted.

Elincia elbowed my shoulder, not subtly enough for the nobles not to realize and just violently enough to prompt a few laughs.

“We are waiting,” Elincia said.

“Right, let’s continue with the lesson,” I replied without skipping a beat. “Next slide. Wright Brothers’ first glider. Probably the most important thing that has ever come out from Ohio.”

I looked across the room at the nobles fluttering around Lord Osgiria. If he wanted to compete for attention, I was down for a fight. I shrunk the car and left it near Lady Jorn so she could finish her sketch in peace. Then, I made the glider grow until it was half the size of the original. Several guests turned their heads around to watch the mysterious contraption.

“This is one of the first versions of the Wright Brother’s glider. Who can guess what this hulk does?” I asked with my best teacher's voice.

“Glide, evidently. Nomads of the Sahnar Kingdom have similar vehicles they use to glide through salt flats,” Lady Jorn replied without raising her head from her sketchbook. I had taught enough know-it-all kids to recognize one. I wondered if she was a Scholar.

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“Good instinct,” I replied, making the glider take off and fly over the heads of the dancers towards Lord Osgiria’s group. Then, the glider turned around and returned to our table, catching the attention of most of the nobles.

“It glides through the air!” an old, bald Baron said. “These would’ve been useful during the Sky Pirate era.”

“And without any mana involved,” I replied to everyone’s surprise.

Lady Jorn gave me a suspicious look before resuming her scribbling. She hurried to finish with the car to start the sketch of the glider. After the initial reluctance to engage with my demonstration, the nobles slowly put their reservations aside and started asking questions. I tried to dance around hard physics, claiming that all the gadgets I had shown them were mere experiments of famous Tinkerers without real use in everyday life.

Other than Lady Jorn, the audience seemed to buy my lies.

Elincia raised her eyebrows, judging me for the river of blatant lies that was coming out of my mouth. It was better to keep it that way; just entertaining enough to keep them focused on my illusions but not enough to leave nobles wanting to develop aeronautic warfare.

Lord Osgiria and his clique watched my illusions across the ballroom, but as curious as they were, none dared come near to examine them more thoroughly. I lost the notion of time as I amazed the guests with my illusions. I felt like a fair charlatan showing eye-catching yet useless gadgets to the unsuspecting bystanders. Gradually, as the night progressed, my audience thinned. As interesting as my illusions were, nobles had much more to do.

[Awareness] fed me with snips of conversation at the nearby tables. Trade agreements, exchanges of favors, marriage lobbying, promises of military aid, and much more were happening around my humble illusion. A kingdom was moving, alliances changed, and I was trapped as a circus monkey.

After several hours of illusions and dozens of invitations to have dinner during the week, I was left alone with Lord Vedras, Lady Jorn, and Elincia.

“It is surprising you kept their attention for so long,” Lord Vedras said as he sipped from the umpteenth glass of wine of the night. I would’ve expected the man to be more inebriated, but I noticed he took sips from one of his potions occasionally.

An anti-drunkenness potion sounded pretty handy.

“Aren’t you going to join them, My Lord?” I asked, hoping for the wine to have loosened his tongue.

“Let’s say that after months in the front line, I’m glad to be among fellow non-combatants,” he replied, lost in his drink.

Lady Jorn left her sketchbook for the first time in the night. She had moved to our table at Lord Vedras' request, so I assumed she was highly positioned in the kingdom’s politics. She had to be closely related to Duke Jorn.

“For combatants, war is a sport. The more you kill, the more you improve, the more powerful you become. That only serves to make combatants vacuous, murderous muscle-heads,” Lady Jorn complained, seemingly ignoring that ninety percent of the party and most of the high nobility were combatants. “If support classes ruled, the kingdom would be in a way better standing.”

Lord Vedras raised an eyebrow, and I refrained from making any comments.

“Are you an Alchemist too, Lady Jorn?” Elincia broke the awkward silence.

The young woman shook her head. “I’m a Scholar… and I don’t want to bring Victor Osgiria back to the conversation, but I also find it hard to believe that someone who became a Scholar at twenty-two is better than someone with seven years of experience. Even with all your previous instruction, there are things you can only accomplish with a Class.”

My hunch was correct. Lady Jorn was a Scholar, which was fairly obvious in hindsight, considering she was omnivorous and insatiable for knowledge. No matter what I showed them, she sketched, took notes, and asked dozens of questions. Everything while maintaining her smarty-pants aura.

“It’s rude to force others to show their Personal Sheets, Lyra,” Lord Vedras scolded her. “Even more if you are a noble putting pressure on commoners.”

The girl wasn’t having any of it.

“Personal Sheets are something to be studied, not hidden away. You, as an Alchemist, might want to keep your recipes hidden, but we Scholars wear our titles like badges of honor,” she replied, unapologetic.

Then, with a gesture of her charcoal pencil, a System prompt appeared from thin air.

Name: Lyra Jorn, Human. (Bright)

Class: Scholar Lv.28

Titles: Insufferable, Jorn Heir, Crush on Mentor, Copper Scholar, Adept Orator, Adept Investigator, Journeyman Mathematician, Novice Ecologist.

Passive: Riding Lv.3, Eidetic Memory, Mana Manipulation, Awareness.

Skills: Identify, Magical Ink, Minor Illusion, Ward, Silence Dome, Invigoration.

I felt like I was seeing something I shouldn’t. Lady Jorn, however, was unfazed, at least on the surface. Her titles weren’t half bad for someone as young as her.

“I have nothing to hide. If the System decided to put all of that into my Personal Sheet, then I shall not be embarrassed,” she said, despite her cheeks catching a slight shade of red.

Considering Lord Vedras and Elincia’s expression, the girl was totally making a fool of herself. I took a long sip from my glass of wine. The secondhand embarrassment was getting to me, but she remained stalwart, showing her Character Sheet to everyone who turned their heads to our table.

“I have nothing to be ashamed of,” she muttered, turning redder by the second.

I fought not to hide my face beneath my hands as I wondered why people suddenly decided to put themselves in that situation. Lady Jorn’s chances to save face were almost nonexistent unless any of us reciprocated. I sighed and summoned my own Character Sheet.

Name: Robert Clarke, Human.

Class: Scholar Lv.15

Titles: Out of your League, Hot for Teacher, Confidant, Classroom Fiend, Researcher of the Hidden, Favorite Teacher (97), Father Figure (2), Master Tutor, Headmaster, Silver Scholar, Delinquent Reformer (5), Stalwart Mentor (7), Making the Difference, Role Model, Expert Mathematician, Expert Physicist, Adept Historian, Adept Linguist, Journeyman Biologist, Novice Chemist, Novice Orator.

Passive: Lv.5 Swordsmanship, Mana Mastery, Awareness, Master of Languages.

Skills: Identify, Stun Gaze, Intimidate, Minor Illusion.

Lady Jorn gawked at my Character Sheet with wide-open eyes.

“Curious. Both of you—” Lord Vedras said.

“It’s a Scholar thing. Everyone knows it,” Lady Jorn quickly replied.

“Right…”.

The table fell into an awkward silence. Despite Lord Vedras and Lady Jorn being part of important ducal families, they had little to no chemistry. They exchanged brief news from their relatives –Lady Jorn’s father was serving in the army, and she hadn’t seen him in a couple of years- but the conversation died out before I could learn anything about the high spheres of the kingdom.

“You should be teaching at the Imperial Library,” Lady Jorn said.

“Are you attending classes there?” I replied, but my question seemed to put her in a difficult position. Lady Jorn’s mask showed a slim crack for the second time in the night. My teacher’s intuition told me Lady Jorn was hiding something.

“Something like that,” she sparsely replied, grabbing her sketchbook and shielding herself from further questioning.

For an instant, she looked as young as Firana.

People of this world took around three years to hit level twenty and the first ‘softcap’. Lady Jorn was Lv.28, which meant she should be in her early or mid-twenties. On the other hand, the [Bright] trait might have significantly boosted her progress. At least in appearance, Lady Jorn didn’t seem to have reached drinking age yet.

Asking Lady Jorn about her academic problems might have been overstepping the boundaries of our non-existent relationship, but I couldn’t help but feel worried. If anything, Lord Vedras was the one who should be asking. If I had followed the conversation correctly, they were distant relatives. The man, however, was more interested in Elincia’s explanation about the local alchemy ingredients.

Suddenly, Lady Jorn’s eyes shot wide open, and her face became paler than usual. A shiver ran down my spine. Standing beside me was a massive man with blonde, almost white hair. His coal-black eyes stood out against his red and white silk surcoat with a red falcon catching a fish embroidered on his chest. The bird was so realistic that it seemed about to flutter off the fabric. He had made no sound, nor had my [Awareness] detected a single mana particle coming from his direction.

The charcoal pencil fell from Lady Jorn’s stained hand and broke over the table.

“Hello, father. It’s been a while, uh? Two years? I’m a Scholar now,” she said with a trembling voice. Her whole body trembled.

“I just had a conversation with Preceptor Holst about your third year at the Imperial Library,” Lord Jorn said softly. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on its ends. I had never heard such a calm yet menacing voice. “He told me you were expelled during the first semester.”

“I swear to the System it wasn’t my fault,” Lady Jorn said, her expression overrun by panic.