Fine. That old bastard had made his move.

Vinny had thought of a good method.

In that case, he might as well beat them at their own game.

They wanted to monitor him, didn’t they? Then he would let them monitor him. Whatever they wanted to see, he would show them, and make them believe he really was exactly the kind of person they imagined.

Fine. If she was playing dumb, then he would play dumb too. If she wanted to play dumb and stab him in the back, then he would play dumb and stab her right back.

“Oh, sorry about that, Margaret. I just miscounted the number of names on the list.” Right after Vinny finished his previous sentence, he immediately changed tack with the next one.

“Miscounted the number of names?” Margaret’s star-bright eyes widened slightly. “Was it too many, or too few?”

“Obviously too few. Why else would I be telling you?” Vinny said, amused. “But even if there were too many, it wouldn’t matter. It’s only one extra person. What’s the big deal? I’m the vice president of the card-player-soul club. My prestige and power in the club are limitless. Adding one more slot would be a matter of minutes.”

“Is that allowed? But... would that not be rather improper?” Margaret looked troubled when she heard that. “I know you mean well, Senior Vinny, but would that not be unfair to the other new students who wish to join your club?”

“???”

Vinny tilted his head, his expression exactly like a classic meme from his past life: excuse me?

Had this woman really not heard that he had only been casually giving himself an excuse to back down?

Did she truly not know, or was she pretending?

Vinny tried imagining that she was pretending.

Damn. If so, this woman’s scheming might run deep. From top to bottom, she gave off the scent of a fake-innocent manipulator.

Forget it. In any case, that had only been part of his own act-dumb routine. The other side would probably secretly interpret it as, “A gross loser guy forcibly showing off in front of a pretty girl to win her favor.”

“Um, Sister Vanessa, actually, I feel like this fake can’t out-fake you.”

“Shut up. Since when was this any of your business? And that is obviously not the point, all right?” Hearing the little angel’s jab inside his Sea of Mind, Vinny snapped back irritably.

But since no one except him could hear the shield talk anyway, he would let her say whatever she wanted.

“I was joking. Don’t worry. There really is a slot. It just depends on whether you’re willing to join, Margaret.” Vinny raised an eyebrow.

“Truly? Then... wonderful. I am willing to join.” Margaret was overjoyed.

“Fine, suit yourself. But will those little companions of yours agree?” Vinny asked.

“I will tell them afterward,” Margaret said with a nod.

“Fine. But if anything happens later, or if they don’t agree, that has nothing to do with us.” Vinny made the point clear first: this was her own choice.

“Mhm.”

“Here. Fill out this form. From today on, you’ll be a member of my card-player-soul club.” Vinny took a form and a marker from the booth drawer and handed them to Margaret.

“All right. Thank you, Senior Vinny.” Margaret seemed very curious about the form Vinny had handed her, but the light was too dim and she could not see it clearly, so she cast a spell.

[Illumination Art]

A small orb of light slowly rose, illuminating the surrounding area until it was bright as day.

Vinny watched this scene with a frown.

Her affinity with the light element was not low.

By his rough estimate, it should be above excellent. As for whether it had reached outstanding, that was harder to say. An outstanding light orb should not be this weak.

Of course, it was also possible she had not used her full strength. After all, in front of him, her “great enemy,” she definitely would not show everything she had. No matter what, she would keep something hidden.

“Senior Vinny, may I use this stool of yours?” Margaret asked politely.

“Sure. Do whatever you want.” Vinny did not care. Though that stool was club property, it was not anything precious. Besides sitting on it, its only other use was probably as an emergency weapon for hitting people.

Vinny stood beside her with his arms folded and watched as Margaret thanked him, moved the stool over, smoothed the back of her skirt beneath herself, and sat down properly. She held the pen in one hand, braced the form with her elbow, and with her other hand lifted a strand of cherry-pink hair that had fallen down. The light from [Illumination Art] shone across her long, thick pink lashes. She was breathtakingly beautiful.

Oh? She really does have the air of a proper lady.

Vinny rubbed his chin and evaluated her inwardly.

He could tell she had received ladylike education from childhood. Either that, or she was extraordinarily gifted. Those habits seemed carved into her very bones. If that were not the case, she could not have performed every motion so smoothly and naturally.

As the saying went, amateurs watched the excitement, while professionals watched the technique. Vinny could tell from these tiny habits what level of education she had received growing up.

It seemed the Church of the Dawn had not just randomly grabbed someone off the street and brought her over to act as the Dawn Saintess. They might have been playing this game for a very long time.

Then came the question. Since they had been playing it for so long, was it possible that the pink-haired girl before him knew nothing about it?

In the night, Vinny’s gaze kept shifting.

Under the light of [Illumination Art], the girl’s eyes paused for a long time on every line of information. It looked as if she were thinking it over again and again, making sure the information she filled in would not have any mistakes.

As if she were afraid she would fail the review.

This gave Vinny a certain feeling.

This girl named Margaret was a little too serious. It was only an application form to join a club. She could fill it in casually. Rather, as long as someone filled it out—even if all that person wrote was a name—it would pass.

This was starting to torment Vinny. It was clearly something where she only needed to write her name, yet she insisted on filling out every single item so seriously. What was this? He was still standing beside her.

But he was the one who had asked her to fill out the form, so he could not very well scold her for it. After all, it was not wrong for someone to fill in a form seriously, was it?

“All done, Senior Vinny. Please look it over and see if there are any problems. I can change them.” About half an hour passed. Vinny was almost rusting in place by the time she finally handed over her form in satisfaction.

“Mm.”

Vinny said nothing. He took the form and looked at the elegant, exquisite handwriting. Cover up the name, and someone might think it was a book-borrowing list written by some famous author.

“How is it? Please see whether this is acceptable. Are there any parts I need to revise?” Seeing Vinny look blandly at the form she had filled out, Margaret seemed a little nervous.

“As expected, I still did not write it carefully enough, did I? Should I write it again?” Since Vinny kept saying nothing, Margaret thought there was something wrong with what she had written, or that it was not detailed enough, and politely made the suggestion.

Holy shit.

You still want to write it again?

You want me to stand here like I’m being punished for another thirty minutes, don’t you?

“No. No need. This is already fine.” Of course Vinny could not agree.

“Then, Senior Vinny, do you think it is all right?”

“Mm. Barely.” Vinny gave a dry cough. “All right. Go back and wait for the notice.”

With that, Vinny turned to leave.

“Senior Vinny?”

“Mm? Is there something else?”

“Senior Vinny, you still have not told me where I can find you,” Margaret added.

“Oh, right. Good reminder.” Vinny pulled over a piece of paper and wrote his class down for Margaret.

“Senior Vinny, your handwriting is very unique.” Margaret repeatedly turned over the line of writing on the paper Vinny had given her.

She was practically blowing this flattery into the sky. She could even praise a line of words he had casually written, huh? That was way too obvious.

Was she kidding? Did he, Vinny, not know what his own handwriting looked like?

Was this “unique” of hers definitely not veiled mockery?

“How unique can it be? It’s just a few hooks and strokes. Fine, if it’s unique, keep it. Don’t lose it.” Vinny pursed his lips. With that, he picked up the stool and the recruitment slogan and turned to leave. “See you around, Margaret.”

“Ugh, I’m exhausted. Seriously.” The thought that he still had to move the things back to the club this late made Vinny complain.

He took out the key, opened the door, stuffed everything inside in one go, then carried Margaret’s form to the desk. After searching for ages, he finally found the club seal that had been thrown into some forgotten corner.

See that? No one had expected them to actually recruit a new member. Not a single person took the club seal seriously.

Vinny laid the form flat on the desk, stamped it, then casually tossed the seal back into its forgotten corner.

Barring the unexpected, it had nothing else to do this semester. It could go cool off on the side.

After locking the door, Vinny yawned as he walked back toward the dorm.

Just as he passed the commercial street, a dark figure suddenly sprang out of a pitch-black patch of grass.

“?! Who’s there?” Although this was Carillian Academy, Vinny still went on guard.

“Me. Me.” However, the dark figure clearly paid Vinny no attention. It was as if the figure had not heard him at all, rolling around on the spot. Its behavior was extremely strange.

What the hell?

Vinny stared at the scene in astonishment.

That was a person, right?

That should be a person, right? He had just heard the figure speak.

But Vinny was not entirely sure whether that dark figure was human. After all, its behavior was so bizarre that Vinny began to doubt its species.

“Hey? Are you... all right?” Vinny tried calling out.

“My, my... my treasure. My treasure is gone!” The dark figure’s voice rose and fell dramatically, its volume rapidly increasing, filled with hysteria.

“Calm down, friend. Explain clearly. What treasure of yours is gone?” Vinny frowned.

“My treasure! My treasure is gone! Who? Who did it?!” The dark figure rolled back and forth on the spot. A pair of old eyes were packed with bloodshot veins, as if he were about to stare flowers out of the ground.

But no matter how he looked, nothing would grow out of the pitch-black ground.

“I say, old sir, why aren’t you sleeping this late at night? Why are you going crazy here?” Vinny could not help saying. “Hurry back and sleep. Whatever you lost, find it tomorrow. In the middle of the night, how are you supposed to find anything? You’re better off going back to bed. Maybe you just forgot where you put it, and you’ll find it the next day.”

As Vinny tried to persuade him, he also felt something strange.

Why did this old man’s voice sound a little familiar? It was like he had heard it somewhere before.

“Old sir?” Seeing that the old man was not listening to him at all, Vinny moved a little closer. Since there were no streetlights around this area, he could make out the other person’s facial contours by the bleak moonlight.

A little familiar.

Wait. Wasn’t this...?

Vinny remembered.

Was this deranged old man not the old man from the mirror shop the other day?

Vinny remembered that this old man had already been rather crazy. He had treated a mirror that had broken at home the previous week as a treasure and had messed with him for half a day.

Now he looked even crazier. Had he switched to a new kind of performance art?

Wait. He said his treasure was gone. Could he mean that broken mirror?

At this thought, Vinny’s expression grew even stranger.

Some people really had too much free time on their hands.

Wait. Could this person actually be mentally ill? Had he just happened to take medicine that day, so he looked relatively normal, while today he forgot to take it, so his madness had grown worse?

“Old man, when you say your treasure is gone, do you mean that mirror?” Vinny was still wondering if he could help the old man somehow. But the moment the old man heard the word “mirror,” he seemed to trigger a stress response and shot to his feet.

“My mirror! You— You stole it. So it really was you who stole it! Give it back to me!”

“No, are you actually insane?” Vinny looked at the skinny old man whose eyes were completely bloodshot and confirmed that the man was not quite right in the head.

What mentally normal person would treat a broken mirror like a treasure, hide it so carefully, then go feral like a mad dog after seemingly losing it?

Vinny felt that if he stayed here any longer, this mad old man would bite him, so he hurriedly left.

“Seriously unlucky.” Vinny looked back from far away at the old man going mad in the grass and shook his head.

There really were strange things one after another. But thinking carefully, had there been any shortage of strange things happening to him?

Vinny left and returned to the dorm.

“Miss Holy Shield, you said before that Margaret was fake. How could you tell?” Vinny asked inside his Sea of Mind.

“Her aura is very similar, but there are many parts that are completely different. It would be hard to explain in detail. But if you are asking how I saw it at first glance, Sister Vanessa...”

“Mm.” Vinny nodded.

“Uh, well.” The little angel seemed to be organizing her words. Only after a long while did she continue.

“By feeling.”

“By feeling? Then why didn’t your feeling recognize me at first glance?” Vinny teased.

“That is different. Who told you to wear such a perfect layer of disguise, Sister Vanessa? Besides, when you manifested the Blessing Angel bloodline, did I not recognize you?”

“When I say feeling, I mean something very profound. Now, that feeling is especially obvious. I am certain she is definitely not a member of House of Facilis.”

“Oh? Why?” Vinny asked curiously.

“Uh... if I say it, Sister Vanessa, you must not get upset.”

“How would I get upset? Do I look like such a petty person? Go on.”

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