At the beginning of the game, all the love interests were on the 'stranger' level. The player needed to raise favorability points with them past the 'stranger' level and through the 'acquaintance' level to officially become 'friends' with them.

  This direct, albeit terse, acknowledgement was likely because she was Magnus' fiancée and had a certain amount of status as the daughter of a duke.

  "Noel," she said in an equally curt tone, nodding back at him. "It seems as though you were not being observant either."

  His grey eyes flashed as he scowled at her, but he said nothing else.

  She got to her feet as well and collected some of the books that had landed a significant distance away.

  The original Blythe probably wouldn't have done it for anyone other than Magnus, but Mira did feel a little bad for not noticing him.

  He recoiled when she returned to him with three of his books in her hands, holding them out to him. Instead of accepting them, he snapped his gaze up to hers, suspicion written all over his face.

  She half-expected him to demand something like ‘What are you doing?’ just like Magnus had.

  A purple light flashed, then a green one.

  Two separate notifications popped up.

  She blinked.

  She would’ve thought Blythe’s favorability points with Noel would be in the negative. Then again, it was implied in the game that many of the children of the nobility were acquainted through the many royal balls that had been thrown over the years. Daisy was an exception because she was the daughter of a poor baron in charge of a small fiefdom in the countryside.

  “My apologies,” she said reluctantly. "I was careless as well."

  Noel’s prickly attitude was easier to stomach when he was just a handsome face on the other side of the screen.

  Noel stared, his grey eyes suddenly wide.

  Mira was more startled by how much easier it was to raise her favorability with him than with Magnus.

  He took the books from her and tucked them into the large messenger bag he had slung over his shoulder. Pushing his silver half-rimmed glasses up on his nose, he looked away. His next words were so softly muttered that Mira nearly missed them.

  "The blame does not fall entirely on you."

  Then he stalked away, leaving her to recall the locker she was supposed to be look for.

  It took every ounce of her willpower not to run down the hallway searching for her locker in a frenzy—it would look extremely suspicious on Blythe. Mira broke into a brisk stride, her eyes scanning each locker she passed by for the information window that would pop up above the locker.

  Sure enough, each pop-up window told her whose locker it belonged to.

  She found Blythe’s at the center of the hallway. Rising panic hit her as she stood before the smooth, long door with a built-in handle. She pulled at it.

  Unsurprisingly, it was locked.

  There was no combination lock or any type of lock at all.

  In her desperation, she looked around to see if anyone else was using their locker.

  A girl several feet down the hallway came to a stop at a locker and placed her hand over the locker door. A blue glow emitted from it, then she pulled the door open. It reminded Mira of what Professor Easley had done with her hall pass.

  Heart in her mouth, Mira touched the locker door with her palm.

  As she waited for something to happen, cold sweat formed on her forehead. Maybe she would get sent home in disgrace. Was that a thing here? Would the professors call her parents?

  Finally, there was a soft click.

  Mira didn’t know what she was expecting, but, all things considered, it was a relatively normal school locker for an otome game villainess.

  A stack of binders and a few different types of bags—a backpack, a messenger bag, and a handbag—filled the top shelf. The middle shelf was lined with various textbooks, folders, and notebooks, and a sleek, shiny, silver box at the right end of the shelf propped those books up. When opened, it revealed a bunch of stationery like pens, post-it notes and other office supplies. On the bottom shelf of the locker was a zipped-up pink gym bag that looked like it was stuffed full of things. Beside it sat a fairly large black storage box with latches on its lid.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Apart from that, there was a large portrait of Magnus and Blythe, not dissimilar to the one in Blythe’s bedroom, plastered on the inside of the locker door.

  Mira shook her head at the sight of it.

  When she bent down, she found the white silk drawstring bag she was looking for, next to a small, fancy-looking metal box, tucked further in atop the black storage box.

  She grabbed the drawstring bag, checking that the linen blouse was indeed inside before sighing in relief.

  Out of curiosity, Mira opened the lid of the metal box engraved with floral patterns. Nestled within were several unassuming chocolate truffles in paper dividers. She frowned, bringing her nose closer to give them a sniff.

  They didn’t smell moldy and certainly didn’t look it. Had Blythe been keeping these in her locker for a midday snack or something? However, all the dividers were filled up with chocolate truffles—Blythe hadn’t gotten around to eating them.

  Before she could think twice about it, Mira put it into the drawstring bag along with the embroidery project. Maybe some chocolate would cheer her up. She needed after this morning’s events, and the day wasn’t even over yet.

  A crazy idea abruptly occurred to her. She paused and looked back down at the chocolates.

  There was no way these could be poisoned and meant for Daisy, right? She hadn’t smelled anything off, but poisoned chocolates would lose their purpose if they were easily detectable by smell.

  She looked back down at the box of chocolates and tested her ability to pull up information windows on items.

  How informative.

  At least she’d learned what the item actually was.

  During her walk back, Mira pondered on what the homemade chocolates were for. Blythe had chefs at home to do the cooking, so it wasn’t because she needed to learn how to bake. Moreover, making chocolates wasn’t a necessary life skill for anyone except patissiers.

  Unfortunately, she had yet to figure it out before arriving at the classroom. Professor Easley was seated at the teacher’s desk reading a book. ‘Quiet Embroidery’ was written on the classroom board. Interestingly, the font was different from the one on Professor Fulbright’s board. Even though they didn’t have to handwrite the letters, maybe the teachers had different fonts for their boards to differentiate between their classes.

  The professor took back the hall pass and placed it back in the drawer.

  “Thank you, Miss Ridge. I see you’ve found your work.”

  “Yes, Professor Easley,” Mira said, trying not to sound nervous like she always did when she had to interact with teachers or any authority figures. “Thank you for allowing me to retrieve it.”

  Professor Easley raised her eyebrows. Panic punched Mira in the gut once more before she was dismissed with a head nod and a glance in the direction of her seat.

  Mira hurried back to her workbench where Jessica and Sophie were peacefully and quietly working on their embroidery pieces, just like the rest of their classmates. Mira looked around. Everyone had their head bent over the fabric they were working on, their needles darting in and out of it.

  Her heart sank as she opened the drawstring bag, taking out the linen blouse and the tools that were inside: a few colorful skeins of embroidery floss and an embroidery needle. The embroidery hoop was already clasped over an area of the blouse, where something that—maybe—looked like flower petals were stitched onto it.

  She had no idea how to do this. The most she’d ever learned to do was sew a button back onto a shirt.

  Mira stole a peek at Jessica's work to her right. It looked to be the exact same thing as Blythe's half-done embroidery, except Blythe had clearly completed more of it than Jessica had hers. It was then that she realized Jessica was referring to a picture on the workbench as she embroidered. A quick glance around told her everyone had the same picture, so Mira reached into the drawstring bag to check again.

  Sure enough, there was a picture of a vibrant red rose that looked like a still life painting inside. She studied it.

  Blythe had already embroidered the outer petals, leaving the green stem and the inner petals to be finished. With some hesitation, Mira grabbed the skein of green embroidery floss and looked at it. Then she looked back at the picture. The rose's stem was thin and delicate. She tried to keep the image in her mind's eye.

  Amazingly, the moment she picked up the embroidery needle, her hands seemed to have a mind of their own. Her fingers pulled apart the strands of the embroidery floss before threading two strands through the needle.

  Without having any idea of what she was doing, Mira began stitching the floss into the linen material where the stem should be, as if the muscle memory in her hands rendered the action automatic. She sat there, astounded, watching her hands work on autopilot.

  For the rest of her time in the class, her project continued smoothly, with her hands seemingly knowing what to do as long as she could hold on to the image of the final product in her mind. They would automatically work on whichever part of the rose she focused on. Gradually, she recognized the pattern to the stitches her fingers made on the fabric through observation.

  Curious, she tried to mimic what her fingers had been doing, bringing the needle into the fabric. Her hands no longer felt like they were moving on their own. Instead, she was controlling their actions. She made a stitch that looked pretty good and then deliberately stopped to see if she could.

  Her hands stopped.

  She tried doing something else with them like touching the fabric of the blouse, and her hands moved just as directed.

  Then she cast her eyes on the picture of the rose and put the needle to the fabric again, intending to work on the embroidery. This time, she didn’t actively try to make a stitch by herself. Her hand wove the thread through the fabric without hesitation while the other hand held onto the embroidery hoop for support as if they knew exactly what they were doing.

  Once more, she attempted to make her own stitches and was rewarded with the complete control of her hands. But when she stopped putting in effort while still keeping the image of the rose in her head, her hands continued in their motions. When she tried to stop them, they stopped.

  Mira held her breath for a second, gazing down at the blouse and her hands in a mixture of bemusement and awe. Was it because Blythe had the Embroidery skill? And it was at Level 3, no less—although she wasn’t sure what Level 3 meant in practical terms.

  Regardless, it meant that she had one less thing to worry about in Embroidery II. At least she could do the assignment.

  The class went by without any further hiccups. Professor Easley went around the tables every now and then, checking on the students’ work. Occasionally, she would make a suggestion or comment for them to note, but she had nothing for Mira and her friends except for an approving nod.

  When Mira finally put down the needle for the last time to begin putting her things away like the others were doing, a blue notification light flashed across her eyes.

  She smiled faintly at the sight. Maybe she should grind it out a bit at home. No, wait—what was she thinking? She was becoming way too engrossed with this RPG-style system. It wasn’t her home. It was Blythe’s.

  The little blue bird burst out of the cuckoo clock on the wall to announce the end of class with its little tune. Professor Easley swiftly dismissed the class.

  Mira checked her class schedule. Beucian III, a language class, was next, in classroom 313. She remembered Daisy took Gyueric with Magnus, and they often partnered up during speaking practice in class in Magnus’ route.

  “I have Beucian III with you,” Jessica said, glancing down at her own schedule before slipping it back into her bag.

  Sophie pouted. “I’m still disappointed I couldn’t take it with you two.”

  The three of them were walking out of the classroom together.

  “You’re already taking Kirmilese with Blythe,” Jessica reminded her. “Beucian is such a common foreign language anyway. I’m only taking it because of you-know-who.”

  Sophie giggled. Mira smiled, feeling that it might be an appropriate response although she didn’t know who Jessica was referring to.

  “He will be so happy,“ Sophie said in a singsong, “when you give him your handkerchief.”

  Mira just kept the tight smile on her face, waiting for the topic to pass. She hoped they wouldn’t notice she had nothing to chip in.

  It sounded like they were talking about a guy that Jessica liked.

  While casting panicked looks around in the hallway, Jessica made a shushing motion at Sophie, who cleared her throat and excused herself.

  “I’ll see you both at lunch!”

  She sauntered off, waving at a couple of people who greeted her.

  Mira and Jessica continued on their way, heading for the nearest stairway down to the third floor.

  As they walked, Jessica talked about her progress in Beucian, which had been a decent amount over her summer vacation. Mira didn’t pay much attention beyond nodding and making sounds of acknowledgement.

  Tense from the thought of being exposed for overshooting the classroom door again, she kept her eyes peeled for the classroom door plaques as she got near enough to read one.

  After a couple of seconds, Jessica laughed.

  “You’re behaving as though we haven’t been attending this school for the past three years!”