Filisia, Somehow a Little Off
The textbooks had arrived, and Tillysha was flipping through this Introduction to the Linguistic Systems of the Continent.
This was a foundational textbook that introduced the linguistic systems used across the entire continent and also served as the basis for learning linguistics.
After studying a few pages on her own, Tillysha learned that the human language on this continent, also known as the Common Tongue, somewhat resembled Latin from her previous life, at least its phonetic spelling and characters were strikingly similar.
However, it seemed either due to long-term separation or the inherent differences in their original cultures, there were discrepancies between the Common Tongue of the White Glass Kingdom and the Empire, with differences in the spelling and pronunciation of some words.
The language of the demi-humans was relatively close to human language, indicating there had been some cultural exchange between these two races in ancient times. Clearly, both had sprouted from the seed of the ancient Imperial tongue and then diverged onto completely different developmental paths.
As for the elven tongue, it stood uniquely as its own linguistic system, with only one language belonging to the elven linguistic system.
Tillysha continued to flip through it and discovered directly after elven language was the language of the high demons.
The language of the high demons?
In the introduction for the high demons’ language, it seemed many words overlapped with elven words, some even being exactly the same, and quite a few grammatical rules were also incredibly similar to the elven language.
The author claimed it was probably a coincidence, or another possibility: in ancient times, elves and demons might have had certain connections. But considering the elves’ reclusive nature and their current irreconcilable enmity with demons, this possibility was almost zero, so it more leaned towards the former—a mere coincidence.
Elven language and demon language……
For some reason, linking these two words together made Tillysha’s brain feel like it had been pricked by a needle, with a sharp flash of pain before fading, making her doubt whether the previous ache was just an illusion.
Tillysha left her room and went upstairs to the second floor, looking at the study where Princess Filisia was tutoring Wenfu with her homework. The little kitten was on the table, nodding, and Filisia was gently explaining the problem-solving methods to her. Under the soft lamplight, the scene looked quite warm.
It had been almost a month since classes started, and the Brilliant Sun and Moon team still had not decided on the semester topic.
The semester topic at Coleman Academy was different from other academies—it must be related to the Demon Race to count as an official topic. Other topics would earn points, but the rewards probably wouldn’t even cover a toothpick.
Taking on commissions from the city’s Adventurers Guild, like finding cats, dogs, or rabbits, could also count as topics. With the bonus points from winning the freshmen tournament, the semester could be easily managed, but doing that would be far too embarrassing.
Even teams with mediocre or subpar configurations wouldn’t bother with the kind of commissioned tasks your top-tier fully equipped group just handled. Wouldn’t that make everyone else laugh their heads off? Totally lacking ambition, not worth it.
Of course, everyone rejected Filisia’s suggestion—it was too dangerous. Although they were the top-tier team of Class One at Coleman Academy, the Demon Races were still Demon Races.
That was a power even the Empire couldn’t withstand. They were fine with poking around the edges, but going in solo would be disastrous. Ruglien is not a place anyone can tread lightly.
At this moment, Filisia said something to Wenfu and rose to walk towards the door.
“Hey? Isn’t that Miss Tillysha?” Spotting Tillysha, Filisia smiled.
“Could I ask you for a favor?”
“What is it?”
“There was supposed to be tutoring tonight for Wenfu. Could you handle it?”
“I’ve got some things going on.” Filisia added.
“No problem, Miss Filisia, go ahead and take care of your matters.”
“Thanks. When it’s your turn next, I’ll take over for you.” With that, Filisia left.
Tillysha looked at Filisia’s back as she descended the stairs, mulling it over.
Something had been off with Filisia these days; she rarely stayed home. Except for training time, she was always running out somewhere. Tillysha didn’t know what was happening.
As the team leader, she should care if a teammate was behaving unusually, but since Filisia wasn’t speaking out, Tillysha didn’t feel right to ask either. After all, the team was still in the initial period of adjustment, and excessive questioning about such private issues might cause resentment.
That evening, Wenfu somehow seemed extra dull. Tillysha taught her countless times, even almost outright giving her the answers, and Wenfu only then realized and calculated the final answer after quite some effort.
This kid…
Even Tillysha felt a headache.
Wenfu wasn’t incapable of learning, but she simply wasn’t that interested, yet she didn’t want to let down her teammates’ expectations. This led to Wenfu nodding off and then forcing herself to stay awake, resulting in her learning efficiency being multiple times less efficient.
At the Brilliant Sun and Moon team, Wenfu could be described as a completely and utterly problematic child. Dillin even had a plan in place to prevent Wenfu from falling behind in the study schedule. The other four would take turns tutoring her after they’d finished their homework from last night.
Everyone agreed with this.
Incidentally, Filisia had never missed her scheduled tutoring days until today.
Was there something important?
Tillysha glanced at the wall clock—it was almost half-past eleven.
There was class tomorrow; it was time to sleep.
As Tillysha prepared to head back to her room, she walked past Filisia’s room and paused, knocking on Filisia’s door.
As expected, there was no response. The room was pitch black through the crack in the door.
Was she not back yet at half-past eleven?
Tillysha gave up on going back to bed, went downstairs to the living room, and waited.
Around twelve-thirty, there was a faint ‘click click’ sound from the courtyard gate followed by quiet footsteps entering the courtyard gate. Filisia opened the house door, and when she saw the light still on in the living room downstairs, she was surprised.
“Miss Tillysha, haven’t you gone to sleep yet?” Seeing Tillysha sitting downstairs drinking tea as if waiting for someone, Filisia was slightly taken aback. She had tried to suppress her voice so as not to wake her teammates, not expecting Tillysha to be waiting upstairs.
“Is that so? Aren’t you also still up?” Saying this, Tillysha glanced at the wall clock, the implication clear.
“Sorry, I came back a bit late.”
“Miss Filisia, weren’t you out exercising?” Tillysha suddenly asked as Filisia kicked off her boots and changed into slippers.
“Uh, I had a little business today.” Filisia seemed to be trying to mumble her way out of it.
“What business made Filisia so preoccupied she skipped her regular exercise?” Tillysha, holding her tea, pressed on relentlessly, clearly not willing to let the matter slide so easily.
“I went to the training ground.” Filisia’s eyes flashed with surprise but remained calm.
“Training ground, hm.” Seeing Filisia’s attire, her hair damp, it seemed she had indeed sweated a lot previously.
Tillysha stood up and walked over, lightly grasping Filisia’s wrist.
“…”
“How does it feel, Filisia?” Tillysha looked at Filisia who showed no expression, but the barely concealed twitch hadn’t escaped Tillysha’s eyes.
Filisia instinctively wanted to pull her hand away, but Tillysha’s fingers didn’t budge an inch.
“Normally, you would come back from the training ground in sportswear, but today, you are unusually dressed in a coat.” Tillysha’s smile faded. “Miss Filisia, it’s not cold at home. Could you take off your coat?”
“…”
“Or does the coat hide some secrets that shouldn’t be seen?”
“…”
“The time is late, there are early classes tomorrow. Miss Tillysha, you should go back to sleep.”
“This can wait.” Tillysha was relentless, her emerald eyes fixated on Filisia. “Are you injured?”
“During training, injuries are inevitable.” Filisia continued stubbornly, her excuses rather clumsy.
“Then it must be really interesting that even Aistride couldn’t hurt you. Perhaps there are hidden dragons and tigers in this academy, even among the freshmen?” Tillysha raised Filisia’s arm, intending to roll up her sleeve.
“How exactly did you get injured?”
“This doesn’t concern you!”
Pausing after Filisia’s slightly raised voice, the scene fell into silence.
“… Sorry, I lost control of my emotions.” Realizing her outburst, Filisia apologized and hurried upstairs. “Miss Tillysha, you should also go rest. I’m fine.”
“…” With somewhat hurried footsteps, the living room was left with only Tillysha.
Recalling the scene from just now, Filisia was like a completely different person. The moment she looked up, any trace of the knight’s usual tolerance and friendliness vanished, replaced with a sinister fierceness.
Though they had only been living together for a month, Tillysha could judge that this wasn’t the Filisia she knew.
What happened to make Filisia’s emotions so agitated?
Tillysha reflected on all the incidents in the past month.
From the beginning of school, Filisia had seemed particularly belligerent. Hearing about the rookie matches, she had proposed that the team sign up right away. Because her opponents kept canceling, her emotions had shown tremendous fluctuations. She often asked Tillysha and Aistride to practice with her.
Tillysha had assumed it was simply Filisia’s nature, but now it seemed…
Could it be because she wasn’t satisfied with the rookie matches?
Where did Filisia go tonight?
“Huff…” Tillysha rubbed her forehead. There was already one problem child in the team, and she didn’t want another one so soon after the school term started, while they were still in the adjustment period.
She had to find the root of Filisia’s abnormal behavior, but based on Filisia’s reaction, directly asking her wouldn’t work.
Hopefully, this was just her being in a bad mood.
After all, a girl has those days during a month when her mood can get extremely irritable.
The night passed.
The next morning, Tillysha woke up as usual, ate breakfast on time, and dragged Dilin down as well.
“Isn’t Miss Filisia’s portion of breakfast larger today?” Tillysha noted the breakfast placed in front of Filisia’s seat and the empty chair.
“Eh? Miss Filisia didn’t come down to eat?” The ever-busy Wenfu in the kitchen poked her head out and was surprised by the untouched breakfast placed by Filisia.
“Didn’t you know if she ate?”
“Because Miss Filisia usually gets up very early, I always prepare her portion in advance so she can take it with her.” Wenfu was also surprised upon seeing Filisia’s untouched breakfast. “Did Miss Filisia not eat breakfast today?”
Just as they were discussing without a conclusion, a somewhat sluggish footsteps came from the second floor.
It was Filisia.
Tillysha squinted.
The Filisia from this morning seemed extremely unusual.
In the past, Filisia woke up on time every morning for training, day after day, never once late, always full of spirit, making people can’t help but admire the spirited knight.
But today, those ruby-like beautiful eyes lacked vigor and the usual brilliance, filled with only a vacant look. Her uniform was messy, with the collar not even flipped, and her skirt was wrinkled.
At this moment, even Aistride and Wenfu noticed something was off.
“Filisia-nee, is something wrong?”
“Are you feeling unwell?”
“No, it’s just that I didn’t sleep well last night. Thank you for caring.” Filisia took a moment to realize Aistride and Wenfu were speaking to her. She forced a reluctant smile, nodded at them, then focused her gaze on Tillysha with another apologetic smile. Dragging her long, lustrous amber hair, she slowly walked to her seat and started eating her breakfast.
Seemingly because of yesterday’s matter, she appeared reluctant to engage with Tillysha.
A strange and somewhat eerie atmosphere spread across the dining table.
Tillysha kept silent. Naturally, “Dillin” stayed quiet the whole time. Aistride clearly sensed something was off with Filisia but felt it wasn’t her place to inquire about her privacy, especially since Filisia herself said she just hadn’t slept well. Wenfu, meanwhile, buried her head into the food.
The entire squad fell into an unusual atmosphere.
It was far too abnormal.
Filisia, who was usually so disciplined, was never one to skip daily training, rain or shine.
If Tillysha had any doubts yesterday, today she was almost sure something was clearly wrong with Filisia.
But Filisia wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t respond to anything, leaving Tillysha in the dark.
A few more days passed, and it was time for the class team competition.
The so-called class competition involved intra-class matches, where teams within the same class simulate combat against each other. This way, students’ training doesn’t fall behind.
Although the prince and prince node don’t share classes, their class number is the same, and this time everyone is participating—absolutely no forfeits.
The internal class competition uses a melee model, not one-on-one. That is to say, a melee within the A-Grade Class Three, on the training ground. Three teams would separate into three factions, and besides their own faction, all other factions would be considered enemies.
However, the rules this time were a bit different.
In the past, the eliminated teams were out, and the remaining team won. This year, to foster better synergy among the freshmen, an additional rule was introduced.
At the start, a ‘Commander’ would be randomly assigned. If the player assigned as Commander were eliminated, the entire team would be disqualified.
