A few more days passed and things unfortunately have not gotten any better.

And by that, I meant I got even more people coming to find me to get acquainted with me in that way… Some of them had even dropped the pretext of trying to be friends and went straight to looking for marriage instead.

I feel that this needs to be said but the oldest student here is like only around sixteen you know? I'm already considered someone who is older than my peers since most of them start attending this school when they are ten years of age unlike me.

Which was why so many of them seemed to have adopted Odeta's way of addressing me by calling me their big sister.

Putting that aside, I was told by Katsuki that most of the marriage proposals I received were most likely instigated by the parents of those children who were trying to use them to get close to me.

As sad as it sounds, despite not knowing which family I belonged to, they were hoping that a child born between myself and their son would end up being just as talented as I am and bring more prestige to their house.

The only reason why no girls were asking to marry me was because no one knows I'm a futa here and I have yet to give any indication that I was one either.

I'm willing to bet that the moment they know that I have something else in between my legs, I would be receiving marriage proposals from the girls as well.

Best not to let anyone else know about it or else I would have to deal with twice the number of people I'm currently dealing with right now…

What's more, my birthday's coming up soon and I was already planning on inviting some of my classmates to come over as well. So I think I'd prefer that this event not become an awkward mess where it's just them trying to propose to me the entire time…

Ugh… I really want to go and strangle that stupid guy who caused this in the first place…

I let out a deep sigh as I slumped across the desk, feeling quite worn out despite it only being the middle of the day.

"Oh my, that's a pretty deep sigh even for you, Aster. Let me guess… Love troubles?" Lisa asked, acting the part of a caring, older sister.

I'm attending Lisa's class since it's the only one where I don't need to worry about my classmates giving me weird looks.

At least over here, only Lisa is giving me the 'I want you to bend me over this desk and fuck me until I pass out so bad' eyes while Aaron isn't looking.

I'm already used to that one so I can deal with it.

I sighed again, "Yes…"

My answer stunned Lisa for a moment, the Infrid obviously thinking that I might have found someone else I liked aside from her without her knowledge.

In fact, she seemed so mortified that her act shattered completely.

Thankfully, Aaron had his attention directed to me so he didn't see it, otherwise he would have known that Lisa actually has feelings for me and not him.

He smiled at me, "Oh I heard about it. You're getting marriage proposals from pretty much all the noble houses around right?"

Lisa quickly recovered when she heard that, "O… Oh. Ah, so that's what you mean. Well, that's just something that is normal within noble society I'm afraid. Since everyone knows you're a noble now, this isn't going to disappear at all."

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"Unnn… But that doesn't mean I like it…" I groaned. "Can't they all get the hint that I'm not interested?"

Aaron shook his head, "I've known the nobles to be especially stubborn. Plus the fact that Lady Aster is so talented, they have more reason to want you."

Lisa nodded, "It's made even worse when you're choosing to keep your family name a secret. Normally they would send these types of marriage proposals as a form of letter to your house. But since they don't know where it is…"

"They come directly to me instead…" I guessed.

Both of them nodded at me.

"There is one other way, Mistress," Katsuki spoke up from behind. "If you were to announce yourself to already be married, most of them would back off."

I tilted my head, "Why would that work? Isn't polygamy a thing here? I can take more than one partner, can't I?"

"You can, Mistress, but all of these people would like you to marry into their family instead. For Mistress, if you were to take a partner and let them marry into our family instead, most of them would choose to give up as marrying both Mistress and your partner into their family is much more difficult than just marrying Mistress into their family."

Ugh… Why does all this political stuff have to be so complicated…

Naturally, there's a lot of ways that I can solve this but most of them involve me revealing my family name to everyone.

Even if I got Katsuki to show that she's a maid of the Nilm family, the nobles might be able to narrow down the possible families I belong to, especially when we are in the capital.

The number of families that are able to employ maids from the Nilm family are quite well known and it wouldn't take them long to ask around if any of those families had a Meslatar child.

Sooner or later they would know that I'm from the Nilm family once all the possible options have been exhausted.

And naturally, that's something I don't really want so I'll probably have to endure this for the foreseeable future.

That was when I realised that Lisa was looking at me with a really ecstatic expression on her face.

Er… Didn't we agree that we will keep our relationship a secret until I graduate? In fact, we weren't even supposed to be in this relationship until I had graduated but our plans were brought forward because Lisa got affected by Delmare's Siren magic.

So err… Could we at least keep this one secret for now? Because I sincerely believe this would cause an even bigger uproar than what is currently going on actually…

Ugh… And here I thought that this semester would be more quiet and relaxing… Instead I get this…

Lisa must have realised I do not intend to make our relationship public yet so she continued with her lesson.

"Now, I guess we should continue. I've taught you the spell on how to create a [Spotlight], right? So let's see if you're able to do it, Aaron~" My Infrid asked with faux sweetness. "Aster, you can continue with the practice I have shown you last week in increasing your proficiency with it~"

I went ahead to do as she told while keeping an ear open to listen in on their conversation.

Aaron scratched his cheek, "Ah, I've been trying to do that on my own but I have yet to make progress on it… I just don't seem to be able to get the feeling of making light."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that~ Just knowing that you're doing so much in order to learn this already makes me proud of you!"

"A… Ah… Thank you Professor Lisa. You make it easy for me to persevere despite my failures."

"Oh my~ What a charmer you are~ I'm sure you'll be able to get a hang of it soon enough~ Here, let me demonstrate for you! 'Illuminate and drive away the darkness. [Spotlight]!'"

A small ball of light materialised in the palm of her hand, its intensity as bright as a candle flame.

"Now, give me your hand~" Lisa requested.

Aaron obeyed and Lisa reached out her other hand to hold on to his wrist to bring him closer while flipping his palm to face downwards.

In one smooth motion, she moved her hand that was holding the ball of light below his and clasped it, holding his hand with hers.

"Do you feel it? Even though it's a simple light magic, the mana itself is quite distinct too~"

Aaron blushed at the feeling of holding Lisa's hand, "I… I umm… I'm not so sure I feel anything."

"Oh, no need to rush~ Focus your senses on your hand and you should be able to feel it soon enough~ Oh my, are you ok? Your face seems to be a little red? Are you having a fever perhaps?"

"Ah, no! Not at all! Just… Just concentrating, that's all!"

"Fufufu~ I see~ Now feel my hand and sense the magic at your palm~ Can you feel it?"

"I… I feel it…"

"Fufufu~ That's good~ Feel it more~"

Now I feel like I should not have come here…

Here I am avoiding all those people who are trying to court me and I'm witnessing these two flirting with each other in class…

Even though I know Lisa's doing it with the intention of cucking him, she's acting so well that it's really hard to keep remembering that fact.

Ugh… And I was even hoping that this guy might be good enough to resist her charms but look at him… Just holding her hand and he's already blushing up to his ears… I bet he already has feelings for Lisa…

I feel a little bad for feeling this way but… I kind of feel a little happy to know that his situation is actually a little worse than mine, he just doesn't know it yet.