Chapter 281: No Class At All

“Helly?! What happened to you…?!”

“Haa… I’ll tell you later.”

As if she had no energy to explain now.

Hailga postponed answering her childhood friend’s question, then struggled to get up and staggered past the signpost.

It wasn’t just her clothes—she herself looked completely tattered.

“Hey… I’m sorry…”

‘Did she feel guilty seeing Hailga’s disheveled state?’

Even though she was in just as bad shape, Risi timidly approached Hailga and offered an apology.

“No, it’s fine… well, not really. But you don’t need to apologize, Senior Risi. I was the one who went after your treasure first… and this is just training, after all.”

Hailga’s condition seemed to be the result of her own doing.

After defeating the Confession Villain with her Fire Fist, she must have felt confident and looked down on Risi, who was considered the weakest among us.

Or maybe she didn’t have enough treasure and time was running out, leaving her no choice.

Either way, it looked like she bit off more than she could chew.

I could roughly imagine how the fight went.

Hailga probably tried to bind Risi with Aether-reinforced wire, just like she did with the Confession Villain, planning to take her treasure.

But Risi’s strength, enhanced by [Giant’s Strength], was incomparably greater than that of the Confession Villain.

She must have snapped the wire with her monstrous strength and instead stolen all of Hailga’s notes.

‘Still, seeing both of them looking like they rolled a few times on the ground… Risi probably held back so Hailga wouldn’t get hurt, and Hailga fought with all her might…?’

Just as I finished that guess and deactivated the [Character Analysis] skill—

“Hailga, I’m sorry too.”

This time, Vigdis apologized to Hailga.

It seemed Vigdis was the one who had taken the treasure Hailga found, forcing her to attack Risi.

“You don’t need to apologize either, sis. You just did your best in training, right?”

Hailga showed a generous attitude again, forgiving Vigdis without holding a grudge.

Then she turned her gaze to the next person she expected to speak—

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Since everyone was apologizing to me… I thought Your Highness the Imperial Princess might do the same?”

“There’s no need for an apology, is there? We merely participated in training and tried to achieve our goals.”

“Right. I was just checking.”

After listening to the exchange between Fjodra and Hailga,

I looked at Reysir and spoke.

“Don’t you have something to say to me?”

“Sorry, but I’m not returning the treasure I took from you.”

“……”

Unless he added interest, there was no point in returning it now.

I’d still face the penalty anyway.

But I couldn’t help finding the Protagonist of Another Novel’s words irritating.

“Oh! There’s Svein! You were waiting for him, right?”

As I glared at the Protagonist of Another Novel, debating whether to kick him,

he pointed somewhere, trying to divert my attention as if he sensed my mood.

His intention was obvious.

But since he was right that I was waiting for Svein,

I postponed kicking him and looked in the direction he pointed.

The last person to arrive didn’t run straight to join the others. Instead, he walked slowly, rummaging through the nearby bushes.

Only his steps were slow.

His hands, parting the bushes, looked very busy.

From that reluctant appearance, I could easily guess how many treasures Svein had.

He hadn’t reached the five needed to avoid the penalty,

but he couldn’t quite give up and abandon hope.

“Looks like you’re short by one.”

Just as I was thinking that, Svein’s expression crumpled.

“That’s true… but I’m not giving it to you!”

He probably thought I was going to take his things again.

I understood why he said that,

but I didn’t understand why he crossed his arms over his body instead of clutching his bag with both hands.

‘Don’t tell me… he also took out the treasure notes and hid them in his clothes?’

Whether Svein came up with that idea himself or if Fjodra or Hailga had spread the strategy,

I didn’t care. So I just did what I planned.

“Yor. Give that in your hand back to him.”

“Meow.”

Yor replied with an expression that seemed to say, “I knew it.”

As a wise baby dragon, he must have realized why I had been waiting here.

Yor glided over to Svein,

then transferred the Yeouiju from his right hand to his left and extended his palm with the note on it.

Svein picked it up with a doubtful look, unfolded it, and stared at me with wide eyes.

“Ah… this…?”

“Wasn’t it originally yours?”

“W-well, yes, but…”

“It’s something I no longer need anyway. Thanks to someone…”

I momentarily looked away from the dumbfounded Svein and glared again at the ‘someone’ I had just mentioned.

That ‘someone’ gave an awkward laugh, “Ahaha!”

I narrowed my eyes at how annoying that was, just as—

“Hey… um, thank you, senior.”

“You should. Even if I hadn’t taken it, Pret would have stolen it anyway for sure. And Pret wouldn’t have returned that note at this timing.”

After replying sharply to Svein’s thanks, I turned around and walked past the signpost.

I felt fortunate that the Original Work Betrayer’s hostility toward me seemed somewhat diluted.

‘Even though I ended up having to face the penalty… I’ll let go of what can’t be helped and focus on the good points.’

It was really lucky for me that Svein had secured exactly four treasures—one short of the quota.

Thanks to that, I could return a useless scrap of paper to its original owner, receive thanks, and look good.

‘I had been waiting just in case, but I never expected things to fit together so perfectly for the best outcome!’

This must be what they call turning misfortune into fortune.

It was a good thing I remembered the use of the last treasure note and came back early to wait.

I felt proud and pleased secretly—

“So you did have more treasure notes after all?”

Reysir, who had followed me past the signpost, said this.

Even though it was over, he was persistent.

“It wasn’t me; Yor had it. So I didn’t lie.”

“Then the part about you not finding any treasure yourself?”

“That’s also true.”

“But then the numbers don’t add up… Ah! Did Yor find one?”

Finally.

It seemed time to say what I had been swallowing.

“Unfortunately, Yor also never succeeded in a single treasure hunt.”

“Then where did that one come from?”

“Pret gave it to me.”

“Huh…? You didn’t take it from him? He gave it? To you? Just like that??”

It was a question I didn’t need to answer.

Because someone else would clear up Reysir’s confusion for me.

“Yes, that’s right! I just gave it to him! I wanted to get closer to Senior Karbaldr.”

“Trying to build a friendship with a piece of paper smaller than a palm? That’s pure thief mentality.”

“Ahaha! But I only had the mentality of a thief, right? Meanwhile, Senior Reysir’s actions were those of a robber. You took Senior Karbaldr hostage, threatened to hurt him if he didn’t stay still, making him and his familiar unable to move, then searched through his clothes and took what you wanted.”

“I thought it might be something like that… Were you watching? Hiding?”

“Yep!”

I expected this.

It wasn’t just me; Reysir had also been watching, and I’m sure the readers had guessed too.

Pret had secured enough treasure notes, so he wouldn’t have gone for the spoils like Fjodra.

Instead, he was interested in me and Reysir.

If he heard us fighting, it was natural for him to come and secretly watch.

“…Since when?”

“From when Senior Vigdis climbed on top of Senior Karbaldr and placed her hand on his chest?”

I didn’t expect this.

Not that I didn’t know Pret saw me fighting Vigdis—

I didn’t expect Pret to say something that would easily lead to strange misunderstandings.

“Th-that was an accident!”

“Does it matter? You’re engaged anyway.”

“Still…! That’s a bit…!”

As Vigdis flustered, “Ahem! A-hem! Hm, hm!!”

The person who had us do the treasure hunt appeared with a loud fake cough.

As if he could no longer tolerate the chaos.

Naturally, everyone’s eyes gathered on Bjorn alone, and he finally spoke.

“Well… um… what should I say first… Haa—.”

He had drawn everyone’s attention with his cough, but he couldn’t get a proper word out. With an expression of disbelief, he looked into the distant sky and sighed deeply.

Then he suddenly took a big breath and spilled out the following:

“I never thought I, a mercenary, would have to say this to children of noble families…! Kids, please act with some class!! Putting your hands inside clothes, ugh…! Even if it’s between the same gender, don’t you think that’s too much?! I even took out an observation artifact because of this?! I couldn’t bear to watch because another dangerous situation might happen!! I just thought you were innocent children, so I gave you a treasure hunt game combined with training…! How, how could you…!”

At this moment, it wasn’t a coincidence that all the female students blushed with embarrassment.

Seeing that, it was clear the strategy of hiding treasure notes inside clothes had spread, and they had wrestled each other to take them.

I also felt my face heat up and glared at the Protagonist of Another Novel, who was the instigator of this situation.

But he shamelessly shook his head as if he were hearing someone else’s story.