How Could the Villainous Young Master Be a Saintess?

At night, the arena at Carillian Academy had always been an extremely lively place. Its crowd was complicated, packed with all sorts of grinders from every corner. Even the spectators who came to watch the show were usually people resting in the stands after tiring themselves out with training, while also taking the opportunity to observe other people’s tactics and see whether there was anything worth learning.

In a certain sense, Carillian Academy itself was basically one giant ranked ladder. Once matchmaking found you an opponent, it became a contest of who could grind harder. The reason Vinny had never really felt that was because he was not normal either. He had cheats. There was no need to undergo some life-or-death trial and comprehend the Way between the edge of life and death. One click was enough. You get it?

That said, logically speaking, his advancement should have been smooth sailing. He should have been rising effortlessly through the ranks, just waiting for one chance to soar. Yet somehow, he had nearly died several times. When counted that way, he seemed no different from those people who needed to comprehend a breakthrough on the line between life and death in order to advance. In fact, the hardships Vinny had suffered and the beatings he had taken were far beyond anything they could compare to.

Vinny glanced over once, then went back to eat.

At a crucial time like this, he absolutely could not fumble. The best improvement he could make was to maintain his condition and avoid any accidents.

The next day, during the last class of the morning, Vinny and his entire class arrived at the arena.

This class was combat class, and the teacher did not continue pressuring them. Everything that needed to be said had already been said. The rest would depend on the students’ own will and determination.

Class soon ended, and they entered free-practice time. Vinny watched his classmates sparring. Back in first year, so many people had come looking for him to practice. But now that they were second-years, there was not a single one. Once free training began and everyone started looking for partners, the moment they saw him walking over, they all hid far away. Vinny could not find a sparring partner at all.

When the female combat teacher saw Vinny slacking off to the side, she turned a blind eye. Vinny’s grades and strength were plain for everyone to see. She had heard that in last semester’s practical combat, he had defeated the fourth-ranked student in the year with considerable ease. All she could do was encourage everyone not to fear powerful enemies and to bravely go up and try. That was all.

Besides, this child Vinny had slowly grown stronger under her own witness. She had personally watched Vinny transform from a newcomer who could not beat anyone and whom no one thought highly of into what he was today. It was fair to say she felt deeply moved.

Although every teacher believed the students they taught were the strongest, she felt that both objectively and subjectively, the students in her class had the greatest potential among the second-years to defeat the upperclassmen.

For example, Aesphyra, Isatia, and Vinny. The three of them were strong enough to fight very well even among the third-years. In this Chosen Tournament, she had high hopes for all three.

Vinny yawned as he watched Shicodale spar with the other students.

Yes, even that introverted little dummy Shicodale had someone looking for him to practice together. It was a girl from their class.

As for where Aesphyra and Isatia had gone, those two seemed to have quite a lot to say to each other. After free activity began, they went off to a training field on the side and started fighting with perfect tacit understanding, as if they were standing back-to-back and holding hands.

Of course, “back-to-back and holding hands” was just a figure of speech. The two of them did not actually do that. But if one was talking about tacit understanding, they really did have it.

Vinny got bored watching Shicodale practice with that girl, so he went out into the corridor alone and took a walk.

The arena was divided into many training fields. To prevent them from disturbing one another, soundproof walls that reflected sound stood between the training fields.

However, while Vinny was in the corridor, he could hear many sounds coming from the other arenas.

One pit for each radish. Most training fields probably only had one class in them. Carillian Academy’s arena was still quite large.

There was just one exception.

That training field had gathered a large number of people, many of whom clearly did not belong to that class.

“?”

When Vinny saw something lively happening, of course he wanted to go over and join the crowd. He was also very curious why so many unrelated people had gathered here.

“How perfect! Lady Margaret.”

Before Vinny even squeezed into the audience stands, he heard someone sigh in admiration.

Oh??

Vinny knew who the main character on the training field was before he even saw.

So he was not in such a hurry anymore. He leisurely found a high seat in the stands and sat down, observing the match below. That dazzling, beautiful cherry-pink figure stood out especially on the training field.

Vinny spotted her at once. Margaret, dressed in pure-white training clothes, had tied her cherry-pink hair into a high ponytail. She stood on the training field in high spirits, maintaining an elegant bearing while holding a one-handed training hammer.

As for her opponent, that girl seemed to be under tremendous pressure. She held a polearm and seemed rather exhausted from defending.

Judging by the look of things, the two of them had already been fighting for a while. But Margaret did not look as if her condition had dropped at all. Her movements and bearing still displayed the full grace of a lady. One could not even find a single strand of hair out of place.

By contrast, her opponent, the girl wielding the polearm, had already been beaten until sweat covered her forehead. It was obvious she was facing immense pressure.

A polearm against a one-handed hammer, when neither side was wearing armor, gave the polearm an enormous advantage. And she still could not win??

Vinny was astonished.

But considering Margaret was suspected to be one of the top five first-years, it did not seem too difficult to understand.

He just did not know her exact rank.

Still, now that he thought about it, had this many people gathered here?

Vinny swept his gaze over the surrounding students. They definitely were not all from Margaret’s class. There were students from other classes as well. He did not know whether they were first-years or upperclassmen, but they had gathered here and were talking animatedly.

The focus of their discussion was naturally that dashing, beautiful pink-haired girl on the training field.

“That pink-haired girl—is she that Facilis student?”

“Yes, it has to be her. I really didn’t expect this. After such a long break in the line, the Facilis Family actually still preserved a true descendant.”

“Did you see her appearance? She reminds me of last year when we were still first-years and visited Saint Selena Cathedral. My heavens, she looks so much like the Dawn Saintesses in the portraits from past generations. The first time I saw this Student Margaret, that was exactly what I thought. She’s practically a living Saintess.”

“What do you mean practically? She is the real Saintess. She’s a true descendant of the Blessing Angel bloodline. It’s just that before this, the Church had never let her appear in public in order to protect the true Facilis bloodline.”

“If that’s the case, then it seems to explain what’s going on with the Facilis Family on the surface, doesn’t it?”

“Shh, keep your voice down. The walls have ears.”

Indeed, the walls had ears.

Vinny sat behind them. These two students had not noticed him at all. Or perhaps they had noticed him but did not know him. At least, Vinny did not know these two.

However.

Hadn’t he heard this kind of rumor somewhere before?

Ahh! These people are so infuriating! In the Sea of Mind, the little angel wailed in anger after hearing what these people were saying.

If they could hear me speak, I’d curse them bloody! What kind of people are they? They can’t tell true from false, yet they’re here giving commentary!

That Margaret is obviously imitating Big Sister Sophia’s style. They can’t even see that?? The little angel was indignant over this.

All right, calm down. Vinny, on the other hand, did not react much. He sat there with his arms crossed, like a statue of the Buddha.

Still.

As he stared at Margaret, Vinny’s brows furrowed tightly.

Even now, he still had not figured out what exactly was going on with Margaret.

Naturally, he was not referring to that old bastard the Pope. He was referring to Margaret.

What exactly was going on with her? And what was she thinking?

Now that he thought about it, she seemed to have said yesterday that she had been frail and sickly when she was young.

However, it was also possible that she had deliberately revealed that information to him.

After Vinny learned who was on the training field, he had assumed the surrounding audience was probably all Church-background students. But looking at it now, not all of the spectators had Church backgrounds.

The news that a descendant of the Facilis Family had enrolled spread like ink dropped into water, quickly diffusing until it stained the entire cup. At this point, the only people in the whole school who probably did not know about it were the kind of students who spent all day holed up in laboratories, single-mindedly researching academics, isolated from the world and countless versions behind on the news.

And after throwing Margaret into Carillian Academy, the Church of the Dawn had announced nothing. Or rather, it had only announced a few extremely fragmented pieces of information and left everyone else to guess.

They understood very well that not everyone would necessarily believe what they announced themselves. People were more willing to believe things they had judged and inferred on their own.

However, Carillian Academy already had an apparent descendant of Facilis right there. Although the Church had said nothing with this move, it had also said everything.

When it came to matters like this, people were very enthusiastic about filling in the blanks and making guesses. There were probably already many people who had combined the partial information released by the Church of the Dawn and imagined an entire melodramatic drama.

For example, the idea that the Church of the Dawn had originally released false information in order to preserve the true Dawn Saintess bloodline. Although the Church had not explicitly stated this, through a few official scraps of phrasing that seemed to avoid mentioning the matter entirely, yet whose every tiny detail was filled with information, it could largely guide everyone’s thoughts and imagination.

What these two people were saying was probably only one version among them. As for how many versions there were now, and how ridiculous they had become, Vinny felt this was something he should ask Luna.

While Vinny was thinking, he discovered that Margaret had already taken absolute advantage on the training field. In fact, she had already won. Her opponent had been beaten to the point of having no path to victory.

But perhaps out of consideration for her opponent’s dignity, Margaret did not directly defeat her. Instead, she kept dragging the fight out.

“Still, credit where it’s due, this Student Margaret’s close-combat style is a little strange, isn’t it? She clearly has such a huge advantage, but it feels like she can’t take down her opponent for a while?”

“What’s strange about it? You can’t even see this? She’s taking her opponent’s dignity into account. She chose not to defeat her directly and instead made it look as if she couldn’t do anything to her either. That way, in the end, everyone will think her opponent exhausted her stamina and lost helplessly, giving her opponent a dignified exit.”

A student voiced a question, and the friend beside him, who was more skilled in close combat, quickly saw the trick and corrected him.

“Ah, so that’s what it is? She really does have the legacy of the previous Saintesses.”

What legacy? the little angel retorted. Big Sister Sophia would never do something that pointless, okay?

Listening to the little angel’s retort, Vinny also found it somewhat amusing. Who in this era had ever seen Sophia? The ones who had seen Sophia, even if they were not dead, were old men and old ladies with one foot in the grave.

However, one thing was certain. The Church was already impatient.

Impatient to push Margaret into the position of Dawn Saintess, and to replace the Saintess’s image recognized by the public with Margaret’s image.

Vinny stood up and was just about to leave when a somewhat familiar voice called out to him.

“Vinny.”

“Hm?”

Vinny felt that voice was somewhat familiar, but as for where exactly it sounded familiar from, he could not quite say. In any case, he had heard it somewhere before.

He turned around. When he saw the face he had not seen for a long time, it took Vinny a second before he realized who the person in front of him was.

He was also an old acquaintance. Logically speaking, he should have enrolled in Carillian Academy last year. In the plot, calling him important would not be quite right, but calling him unimportant would not be quite right either, because he was connected to an important plot point.

That was right. He was the man specialized in arresting the original Vinny on all sorts of occasions, someone who could be called one of the original Vinny’s strictest fathers.

Bern.

“Bern?”

Seeing Bern again, Vinny’s expression only carried a little surprise, but he quickly accepted it.

With Bern’s strength, entering Carillian Academy sooner or later was a given. It was only because he had encountered Vinny, this uncontrollable factor, that he had been eliminated.

As for Bern’s character, how should he put it? Vinny felt he was not bad. At the very least, he was much better than someone like Caron.

So even though there had once been old grudges between them, Vinny held no malice toward Bern whatsoever.

“It really is you?” Vinny raised his brows. “It’s been a long time. If I remember right, the last time we met was at the kingdom’s banquet.”

“Mm, it’s been a long time.” Bern also nodded at that.

“You entered Carillian Academy? Congratulations.” Vinny sincerely congratulated Bern.

“Thank you.” Bern could feel that sincerity. He nodded and accepted Vinny’s praise.

The way the two interacted did not resemble old enemies at all. No matter who saw them, no one would think these two had once been sworn rivals who found each other intolerable.

“Still, with your strength, entering Carillian Academy was only a matter of time. It’s not strange,” Vinny said, giving an extremely objective evaluation.

“Then I’ll thank you for your high opinion.”

“How did you perform this year? Pretty easy, right?” Vinny chatted with him as if they were two old friends who had not seen each other in a long time.

As for why there was no real resentment, it was because Vinny felt there was no need.

The conflict back then had indeed started because the Vinny of that time had gone too far.

The current Vinny’s views on many things were completely different from before.

For example, right now, as long as a person was not bad, Vinny felt everything could be discussed.

“It was all right. After all, I prepared for this for another year.” As Bern spoke, he looked seriously at Vinny. “So the process wasn’t as stressful as I imagined.”

Vinny knew that since he could say that, he had probably spent this entire year diligently improving himself. As for “not as stressful,” that was even more of an understated way to put it. This guy had probably swept straight through the whole thing.

“What rank are you in the year?” Vinny asked curiously. “Of course, if you feel like that’s private, you don’t have to say it. I’m just asking casually.”

“You’re being too serious. It isn’t private. You can even see it on the year ranking.” Bern shook his head. “Just barely top five.”

“Impressive.” Vinny did not stint on praise at all. “I’m not even top five. From that, it seems my win over you last year really was an extraordinary stroke of luck.”

“Is that so?” Bern lifted his gaze. “I wouldn’t dare accept that statement. You defeated Young Master Eric, the fourth-ranked student in the year, just last semester, and it was a complete victory.”

“You know about that too?” Vinny was somewhat surprised.

“After Young Master Eric returned, he told me when we were chatting,” Bern answered.

From the look in the other person’s eyes, he could also see just how much the present Vinny had changed compared to the past.