Enid had just stepped out of the central city tower and was on her way to the Nature Faculty tower for class.

  In the plaza between the two buildings, she spotted a young human woman standing there, staring at her with a stern expression.

  Enid didn’t recognize her.

  She planned to simply walk around her. But the moment they passed close enough to brush shoulders, the woman spoke.

  "Professor Enis Florand. Your background is a mystery. You don’t even have a promotion record or a single paper to your name. And it looks like you don’t have the most basic manners, either."

  Since the woman knew her alias, Enid realized she couldn’t just leave. She had no choice but to deal with her.

  Enid turned slowly, a little like she couldn’t be bothered. The woman’s face hardened even further.

  "They say your background is unclear, and plenty of people assume you’re from some hidden noble household. Maybe they’re wrong. Because the Professor Enis standing in front of me looks lazy, lacking in etiquette, and nothing like a lady raised with proper noble social training."

  Enid thought, well, here it is.

  Antonio had warned her that some people would resent a sudden appointment and come after her for it. She just hadn’t expected it to happen this fast.

  Not yet sure what kind of person she was dealing with, Enid decided to answer politely first, then choose her tone based on the response.

  The woman waited, clearly expecting Professor Enis to react to the jab with anger, humiliation, or cowardly silence.

  Instead, Enid’s calm smile didn’t change at all, as if she hadn’t heard the insult in the first place. She even extended her right hand.

  "Hello. I’m Enis Florand. It’s nice to meet you. And you are?"

  That threw the woman off.

  Enis didn’t get flustered. She didn’t bite back. She didn’t even look wounded. She just held out her hand, smiling.

  Was she too dense to catch the sarcasm, or did she simply not care?

  The woman hesitated, then quickly recovered. She seemed to sense that Enis wasn’t reacting like most people would, and she had no choice but to take the handshake. Her smile was stiff, polite on the surface and cold underneath.

  "My name is Caroline. I’m from House Fleurien. You can call me Caroline de Fleurien. And you"

  The moment Enid heard the surname, she understood exactly what she was looking at.

  Fleurien was a name with weight, one of the Empire’s Ten Ducal Houses.

  Caroline de Fleurien had deep midnight-blue hair, tied in a simple high ponytail that fell to her waist. Red eyes. A striking face. A tall, slender build. Crisp, immaculate clothing.

  Those details made it easy to place her. A direct-line Fleurien, the third daughter of the house, twenty-four years old.

  And her role at the academy was no small thing, she was the dean of the Spellcraft Faculty.

  Young, noble, powerful.

  Which meant she was probably the type who held her pride high, took order seriously, and hated seeing someone “parachuted in” without climbing the usual ladder.

  All right. Assessment complete.

  Arrogant, socially rigid, obsessed with rules and her own standards. Annoying, but manageable.

  Enid might have lost memories, but she hadn’t lost social instincts.

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  So before Caroline could finish, Enid smoothly cut in.

  "What an honor to meet you."

  Then Enid turned on the kind of polished conversation that came from long experience.

  "I’d heard about you even before the opening ceremony. A young lady from House Fleurien who achieved remarkable results in Spellcraft at such a young age, a genius who became dean while still in her prime. Not just gifted, but hardworking too. You’re exactly the kind of mage people look up to. I’m truly glad to meet you."

  Caroline blinked.

  She was here to challenge Enis, wasn’t she?

  At the academy, professors were either hired after major achievements with unanimous approval from the deans, or appointed after the upper administration officially recognized their academic level.

  Caroline belonged to the second path.

  She started as an assistant, then rose through the ranks, and eventually became dean of Spellcraft.

  Step by step, she earned it, becoming the youngest dean in the academy’s history and a high-tier ninth-ring spellcaster.

  People liked to credit her terrifying rise to her bloodline and the kind of talent that got labeled “genius.”

  What they ignored was that Caroline’s real foundation was her own effort and discipline, the kind no one saw in public.

  And there was something else no one knew.

  Caroline absolutely hated being judged through the lens of her lineage.

  Her strength was beyond dispute.

  But Caroline was simply too young.

  Privately, plenty of people didn’t truly accept that she had what it took to be a dean. And because she came from a great house, there were always people who had opinions about her.

  That included rival families, and Antonio’s political opponents. They claimed she only became dean through connections, and that her so-called genius title was nothing but a carefully packaged lie.

  Those research papers?

  Paper fraud wasn’t exactly rare. Obviously nobody had looked too closely because of pressure.

  If Antonio hadn’t backed Caroline so forcefully, she might not have secured the position at all.

  So Caroline hated rumors, hated laziness, and absolutely hated unfairness, especially the kind where someone unqualified still got favored and promoted.

  And this new Professor Enis hit every single one of her nerves.

  No achievements. No official credentials. Unknown strength. A Nature Magic caster. No clear peers for comparison. And even Enis herself seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, as if the Empire had never heard of her until yesterday.

  Was that supposed to be believable?

  If Enis had shown up as an assistant, fine. Even as a lecturer, Caroline could have swallowed it. But professor, right from the start?

  To make it worse, Enis was the perfect weapon for anyone who wanted to attack Antonio. She was exactly the kind of appointment his enemies could point at and say, see, he’s no different.

  So in short, Caroline couldn’t stand Enis.

  Unless Enis actually had something real to back it up.

  Caroline was young, though, and Enid could read her like an open book. This girl was the type who only spoke as equals with people she approved of, who craved recognition, and who desperately wanted others to see her effort and her results.

  Enid leaned into that psychology without hesitation.

  She poured on praise, smooth and endless, and every so often dropped in a few technical terms, just enough to keep Caroline off balance and impressed.

  Under compliments that worked almost like a charm spell, Caroline forgot, for a moment, what kind of attitude she had planned to bring into this conversation.

  The method was working. Very well.

  When Caroline was floating, dazed, and barely remembering why she came here in the first place, Enid decided the timing was perfect and delivered the finishing touch.

  "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time. Talking with someone as brilliant as you is just genuinely fascinating. You must have a lot to handle today, don’t you?"

  Caroline, still half-stunned, nodded.

  "Ah. Yes. You’re right. I do have a lot to do."

  Enid kept her smile gentle and went in for one more clean strike.

  "Then I won’t keep you. Maybe we can pick a better time to talk again and get to know each other properly. I’ll let you get back to your work. Goodbye."

  "Right. Goodbye. See you next time."

  It wasn’t until Enid had walked a good distance away that Caroline finally came back to herself and remembered she was supposed to be giving Enis trouble.

  Caroline let out a quiet laugh. She knew she’d been seen through, and she had been handled with embarrassing ease. That high elf was not as simple as she’d assumed.

  Maybe she really did have something up her sleeve.

  "More interesting than those old fossils, at least. Fine. She doesn’t look stupid, and she’s actually kind of fun to talk to. I’ll watch her for now."

  That afternoon, several students and teachers swore they witnessed something bizarre.

  Caroline, the young dean of Spellcraft, looked the same as always on the surface.

  But the way she walked, the tiny shifts in her unconscious gestures, the atmosphere around her, all of it screamed that she was in an unusually good mood. It was so obvious it almost felt like her happiness was spilling out of her skin.

  What could possibly make the famously strict, sharp-tongued Dean Caroline that happy became a long-running mystery on campus.

  Of course, that was a story for later.

  As for Enid, who had just finished dealing with her “problem,” she thought.

  "Dean Caroline is still too young. How could she possibly be a match for me?"

  Then she remembered Caroline’s dazed, pleased expression and had to admit something else.

  "Young people like Caroline and Kasim are way more entertaining than that little old man Antonio."

  At that exact moment, Antonio was sipping fine tea in the headmaster’s office and suddenly sneezed.

  "Huh. Feels like someone’s talking about me. Probably Enid, right?"

  Not long after, Enid finally reached her classroom in the Nature Faculty tower.

  She adjusted her appearance, steadied her mind, then pushed open the door.