Chapter 19 : Caught in the Act?

Most of the time, Sheffil wouldn’t call himself a particularly disciplined person.

Sure, on weekdays, he was forced to wake up early because his dorm was so far from Jadecrest Academy, but on weekends?

There was absolutely no reason for him to get out of bed before seven-thirty.

If it weren’t for the guilt of wasting a perfectly good morning sleeping in, he would’ve loved to spend every day in bed until noon, waking up just in time for lunch.

After all, sleeping was just too enjoyable.

The past couple of days had forced him out of bed early for various reasons, but today?

Today, Sheffil was determined to make up for all that lost sleep.

“Sheffil must be thinking exactly that, huh?”

Dorothy Byrne, freshly washed and looking far too energetic for this hour, stood gleefully in front of Sheffil’s bedroom door.

Her bright red eyes sparkled with mischief.

Unlike Sheffil, Dorothy was a firm believer in early to bed, early to rise.

As his childhood friend and self-proclaimed role model, it was her duty to help him develop better sleeping habits.

“Open,” she whispered.

Her slender fingers touched the door, and with her chant, glowing blue runes shimmered into existence, hovering over the doorframe.

Golden lines unfurled from the center of the rune, forming a glowing rectangle just slightly larger than the door itself.

A flash of light followed, and the door vanished entirely—replaced by an empty golden frame and a square hole where the door used to be.

Wordspell: Gate—a fifth-tier space magic Dorothy had developed herself.

By embedding multiple magical scripts into the spoken word “gate” using wordspell techniques, she created a rune that, when infused with mana, activated a program that temporarily banished any inanimate object within its frame into phase-space, turning it into a usable portal.

The moment she stopped supplying mana, the spell would deactivate and return the object to its original place.

Thanks to this one spell, Dorothy had effortlessly crossed the threshold into fourth-tier sorcery, becoming the youngest witch in recorded history.

Wordspell: Gate quickly gained popularity across multiple fields for its ease of use and versatility.

Of course, none of that had anything to do with the fact that she was currently using it to break into Sheffil’s bedroom.

Stepping into the familiar space, Dorothy glanced around.

The room was as neat as always.

A small table and chair were piled with open textbooks, the bookshelf stuffed with comics and novels.

Aside from that, there was only a wardrobe and a bed squeezed into the corner.

Her target, of course, was lying fast asleep in that bed, snoring softly.

“Knew it. Still sleeping.”

Dorothy stifled a laugh, tiptoeing forward like a mischievous cat.

She crept up to the bed, leaned down, and peeked over the edge.

Sheffil was completely unaware, lost in a pleasant dream.

A small smile curled on his lips, as though something delightful was playing out behind his closed eyes.

“Sleeping like a baby. Did something good happen in your dream?”

She murmured, kneeling beside the bed and resting her elbow on the mattress, propping her chin in her hand as she stared at his sleeping face.

The face that usually teased or smirked at her was now calm and peaceful.

Even to Dorothy, who had grown up with him, this side of Sheffil felt new.

They’d been like this since they were little.

Skipping class, passing silly notes during lectures, and coming over to wake Sheffil up early on weekends so they could spend the day together.

“You know, if you’d just keep your mouth shut, you’d actually be pretty handsome. Why’d you have to go and ruin it by talking?”

She chuckled to herself, then reached out and touched his cheek.

Her pale, slender fingers traced gently from his forehead down the side of his jaw, curling under his chin before playfully pinching his nose and letting go.

She giggled at the fleeting look of discomfort that crossed his face.

Once she was done toying with his face, her gaze drifted upward to the top of his head—and that ridiculous streak of white dye.

For some reason, Sheffil had recently chopped off the waist-length hair he’d been growing for five or six years and gone with a short cut, topped off with a glaring streak of white.

His fashion sense had shifted too, swapping his signature long black coat and slacks for trendier clothes.

But beyond the hairstyle and the clothes, he was still the same old Sheffil.

She hadn’t asked why he’d changed—it was probably just something one of his weird friends had recommended, and he decided to try it out.

That said, Dorothy really didn’t like the new look.

Especially that white streak.

It gave her a strange, uncomfortable feeling—like he suddenly looked like someone else entirely.

If he didn’t baby that white tuft like it was his most prized possession, she would’ve snipped it off herself ages ago.

Oh well.

She, Dorothy the Magnanimous, was generous enough to tolerate it.

As long as Sheffil didn’t cross any lines, she wouldn’t interfere in his life.

However…

“You seriously had the nerve to sneak off and hang out with Jianle without telling me the day before yesterday? You’ve gotten bold, Sheffil.”

She straightened up and looked down at him with a half-smile.

“Leaving your adorable childhood friend behind like that,” she said as she pinched his nose again, hard.

“Running off to spend the night with another guy while ditching your roommate?”

A cold voice suddenly rang out behind her, cutting her off mid-rant.

Dorothy’s blood ran cold.

That voice—

She turned around slowly, only to see the white-haired girl who was supposed to be in the dorm—Jianle—standing right behind her, arms crossed over her flat chest, staring down at both her and the still-sleeping Sheffil with a blank expression.

As if his dream had turned into a nightmare, Sheffil’s smile instantly faded.

“J-Jianle?!”

Dorothy jumped up from the floor, instantly letting go of Sheffil’s nose.

She forced a laugh, trying to suppress the panic flashing through her eyes.

“W-what are you doing here?!”

In that moment, a very specific scene from one of the romance mangas she read popped into her mind: the one where the wife gets caught cheating by the husband.

“You’re the one who left a note saying you were coming here, remember?”

Jianle said flatly, ignoring Dorothy’s terrible attempt at playing innocent.

She held up a small piece of paper—the same one Dorothy had scribbled a note on yesterday.

“When I woke up this morning and saw you hadn’t come back all night, I figured I’d find you at Sheffil’s.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Haha, it’s not like that.

I mean, it’s not not fun, it’s just—we were just catching up!

It got late, and I didn’t want to head back in the dark.

You know how close I am with him…”

“And what about me?”

Jianle cut her off coldly.

Her expressionless face somehow looked even more frigid than usual.

“You’re close with him.

He’s close with you.”

“Then what about me?”

“Wh… what do you mean?”

For the first time, Dorothy had no idea what Jianle was getting at.