In the northern branch of the Olsyvia Academy, the Filomina Academy. Bella was currently travelling on foot with Ivy, as well as Noesha and the other loli maid-servants. Even though they could have simply waved down one of the academy"s taxi carriages, Bella wanted to enjoy the academy"s scenery, which was why they were currently travelling by foot.
As an academy built for n.o.bility, the Filomina branch Academy didn"t feel like a typical academy, but more like a gathering ground for the rich and powerful. The Filomina branch"s school was purposely divided into three separate campuses by the academy administration, these three campuses were arranged to mimic the fiefdoms of n.o.bility.
The students of the Filomina branch were divided into the three campuses based on their peerage. The students from Baron and Knight families were cla.s.sified as low-tier n.o.bles and attended cla.s.ses in the comparatively ordinary "Silver Campus". The buildings in the Silver Campus was equivalent to a neighbourhood in which moderately-wealthy commoners would live in. Students from Count and Viscount families were cla.s.sified as mid-tier n.o.bles and their campus was the "Golden Campus". The Golden Campus was much more luxurious and distinguished than the Silver Campus and could be compared to a neighbourhood of considerably wealthy landowners.
Bella and the others were heading for the "Jewel Campus" which was the campus for students that came from the families of Dukes and Marquis, the gathering ground for the high-tier n.o.bles. As soon as Bella and the others entered the Jewel Campus, one of the campus" carriage taxis arrived beside them. These carriages were exclusive to the Filomina branch and even though they were of the same specifications as the other carriages within the academy, they were much more luxurious and comfortable. This time Bella didn"t refuse the offer and quickly boarded the carriage along with the other beauties in her group. There were simply too many buildings within the Jewel Campus and Bella was afraid of being unable to find her way around, taking a carriage taxi would completely avoid this problem.
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The Filomina branch"s Jewel Campus, in front of school building #1. Over an hour after leaving the dormitory district, Bella and the others finally arrived at the building in which Bella would be attending cla.s.s today. It wasn"t anything unusual for 1st-year students to take such amounts of time to arrive at their cla.s.s building on their first day, the Jewel Campus was simply too big.
In front of each school building within the Jewel Campus was a specialized "fixed-point" teleportation formation, through which new students can use to transport back to their dormitory district"s teleportation formation after their first day at the school building, "connecting" the two formations and allowing the student to travel back-and-forth between their dormitory district and their school building. Of course, the teleportation formation here also had a price for each use, which was also 1 silver coin. The only difference between the pricing here and that of the Olsyvia Academy"s others was that the price was on a per use basis instead of for each person, meaning that it was ma.s.sively cheaper to travel in larger groups.
This was the first time that Bella had encountered a situation in which an entire multi-storied school building belonged to ONE cla.s.s, the Filomina branch"s "Elite" cla.s.s. The cla.s.ses within the Filomina branch were also decided based on the student"s peerage{1}. Knights and Barons in the normal cla.s.s, Viscounts and Counts in the advanced cla.s.s, while Marquis and Dukes were naturally placed in the elite cla.s.s.
The system for deciding cla.s.ses was one of the Filomina branch"s traditions and it eliminated the need to hold ranking fights between its students. There was only one way to be placed in a higher cla.s.s, and that was for the student to raise their own peerage. Bella had originally planned to show off a bit during the ranking fight but this system had stolen that chance from her.
The Euphemia royalty branch also had a similar system for a.s.signing cla.s.ses, based on the student"s lineage and "purity" of their blood. Only those who were directly related to the emperors and were legitimate children birthed from mothers of n.o.ble or royal status could attend the Euphemia branch"s elite cla.s.s. Under comparison, the Filomina branch"s system was much fairer, at least one"s peerage can be elevated if they worked hard enough, but their bloodline was decided from birth and couldn"t be changed no matter how hard one worked.
However, this system also worked into Bella"s favour. The suspected male Saviour, Scout, even though he was from the Octavian Empire"s Brad family, due to his previous reputation as a worthless waste of resources, he wasn"t the successor to the peerage of Marquis, which was currently held by his eldest brother.
Scout himself had also wanted to "play the pig to eat the tiger", so he had willingly entered the normal cla.s.s. The normal cla.s.s used the #3 building and was separated from the elite cla.s.s" #1 building by the advanced cla.s.s" #2 building, meaning that Scout shouldn"t be having any interactions with Bella anytime soon, so their "harem building" plans wouldn"t conflict, at least for now.
The entire Olsyvia Academy was divided by cla.s.s and not by grades, which was quite a different system from what Bella was used to. Back on Earth schools were divided by both cla.s.ses and grades, but it was different in this world. Even though the Olsyvia Academy had a 6-year educational system, and students of each year would get a symbol to signify which year it was for them at the Academy but this was still different from the grades system back on Earth. The symbol that students got only showed how long that they had spent at the academy and not their abilities, it was quite common for 6th-year students to get beaten to a pulp by 1st and 2nd years as age didn"t directly translate into power, making it useless to split the students up into grades.
The new students cla.s.s meet and greet for the elite cla.s.s was to take place in the 1st school building"s reception hall. When she entered the reception hall, Bella had a strange feeling that she had walked into a high-end banquet hall.
The design of the 1st school building"s reception was elaborate and luxurious in design, suitable for the high peerages of the students within the elite cla.s.s. The reception hall took up the entire top floor of the #1 building and seemed to have everything that one could want at a party: performances, dance floors, and various snack bars, and was large enough to easily hold a thousand students. There were already quite a few students present, but there wasn"t much attention paid to Bella"s entrance as all of them were focused on the female dancers that were dancing on the stage.
It seemed that it was also Ivy"s first time here as well, as it was evident that she wasn"t used to the scene before her. As Bella and the others were at a lost for what to do, a beautiful looking girl that was pa.s.sing by them suddenly stopped beside Bella and studied her for a moment before approaching Bella. The girl was wearing the standard Filomina branch"s female uniform and had the symbol of a 2nd year on her shoulder as well as a white armband around her right arm.
"Excuse me, but are you d.u.c.h.ess Bellina?"
"I am, but… I don"t think I"ve ever seen you before?"
"Neither have I actually, I"ve just heard a bit of how you look from my father. Allow me to introduce myself, I"m Jenny. You"ve met my father, Duke Brack already, I believe. The rumours were false after all, your looks were rumoured to be… very… average."
Brack Jenny, the only daughter of the Manasville Empire"s Duke Brack as well as his successor. Originally, Duke Brack still had a few sons, but when he had fallen sick and everyone believed that he wouldn"t survive, his sons had turned amongst themselves and fought to succeed the position of Duke from their father. In the end, none of Duke Brack"s sons had survived the infighting and ironically, Duke Brack had made a full recovery.
At that time, the still young Jenny had remained by Duke Brack"s side, taking care of his frail and sickly body, unable to stop the fighting between her brothers. At the end of it all, Jenny had become the only surviving child of the Duke and naturally became Brack"s successor. Due to the fact that Duke Brack was the richest person within the Manasville Empire, there was never a lack of suitors pursuing Jenny and the fortune that came with her hand in marriage.
However, after witnessing her own brothers kill each other in a struggle for power, Jenny had a dark shadow over her heart and had always turned away those suitors as she felt uncomfortable around men who weren"t her father. A while ago, Duke Brack had mentioned Bellina to Jenny but had also told Jenny to stay away from Bellina as he believed that she was "dangerous", but when asked by Jenny, he couldn"t explain exactly why and where Bellina was dangerous.
Duke Brack didn"t know much about the inner workings of a girl"s heart and didn"t know that his warning had the opposite effect of evoking Jenny"s curiosity towards d.u.c.h.ess Bellina. Propelled by her strong curiosity, Jenny approached Bella, only because she wanted to see what exactly was so "dangerous" about this blonde beauty.
"Ah, so you"re the daughter of Uncle Brack! Jenny, you"re also a student from the elite cla.s.s?"
"Of course, are you lost? Follow me, I"ll help you find a spot, most new students have a hard time of finding their place around here on their first day."
Bella couldn"t express the amount of grat.i.tude she had for Jenny"s help, ma.s.sively increasing her affection level towards this golden-haired beauty. Bella was a bit peeved at Duke Brack for not introducing such a beautiful daughter like Jenny to her earlier. Jenny wasn"t only beautiful, there was also something different about her airs when compared to other daughters of n.o.ble families like Ivy. It was probably the difference in the upbringing as Jenny was raised as the successor to her father"s peerage of Duke.
Within the hall, apart from students were also quite the number of waiters and waitresses, with almost all of them being handsome guys or beauties, it was quite evident that the attendants working here weren"t any normal people. However, it seemed that none of the servants were any older than the students of the elite cla.s.s, and Bella was a bit curious as to their ident.i.ty.
"Miss Jenny, do you require any service?"
"Miss Jenny, would you like some high-quality wine?"
On their way, at least a dozen handsome looking waiters had greeted Jenny but had all been turned down. Following beside her, Bella was just the tiniest bit disappointed, why was it that no one greeted her? The body of Felia that she was currently using was also that of a beauty, so it was strange to her that no one would come and try talking to her. No one approached Ivy either, nor the lolis behind them, which was to be expected as they were still dressed as Bella"s maidservants.
"You sure are popular, Jenny! Everyone"s coming and greeting you, but as for me…"
"Er, d.u.c.h.ess Bellina… I forgot that it was your first time here, I"ll have to explain some things to you. All of these attendants are students of the neighbouring Antonia Academy, they"re here to work part-time, as well as to… you know…"
After Jenny"s explanation, Bella learned that all of these waiters and waitresses were all students who were currently attending the nearby Antonia Academy. The Antonia Academy was basically just an "arts school", their students would be able to earn a daily base salary of 20 silver coins by working as attendants here, and that didn"t include the various tips that the elite cla.s.s" students gave. This price was something that only the elite cla.s.s was able to pay, the neighbouring advanced cla.s.s and normal cla.s.s didn"t have the ability to pay such a large salary for these attendants every day.
The attendants who were able to work here were all carefully selected, meaning that their looks would all be rather good and desirable. Compared to the Euphemia branch"s elite cla.s.s, it was much easier to earn money from the Filomina branch"s elite cla.s.s. Due to the royalty wanting to preserve their reputation, they weren"t very likely to host such lavish and open-minded parties on a daily basis.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, the attendants would only choose new n.o.bles as their targets, as they didn"t dare to take the initiative and offer their services towards the n.o.bles of older and more traditional lineages. This was one of the differences between new and old n.o.bles, and it was quite normal for them to greet Jenny, who was a newer n.o.ble herself. For people like Ivy who were born into an established and renowned house of n.o.bility, the attendants could only offer her their services if she asked for them, this was another tradition of the Filomina branch.
While Bella was also a new-blooded n.o.ble, the reason why no handsome waiters approached her was due to Noesha and the other three loli maidservants, they didn"t dare to approach Bellina with her own servants around her, the attendants wouldn"t approach unless requested. Bellina was the first female to hold the peerage of Duke in the Coristel Continent"s long history, so her name was still fairly well known.
When asked what kind of other services that the attendants could provide, Jenny looked a little unnatural, and a little bit shy, refraining from answering Bella"s question. Bella then looked towards those male students who were "interacting" with the waitresses, groping and feeling the waitresses up with no resistance at all from them, instead, they returned a smile as if inviting the students to go further.
Bella quickly realized what kind of "services" that these attendants were offering. If it wasn"t for the fact that everyone in here was still in their academy uniforms, Bella would have thought that she accidentally walked in on one of those 18+ and immoral "banquets" that the rich people back on liked to enjoy. Only later did Bella discover that she was too naive and that those special "banquets" did in fact, exist, as she would receive an invitation herself not far in the future.
"Don"t misunderstand, d.u.c.h.ess Bellina, I"m not that kind of person. Most of those who enjoy that sort of "service" are the students with the peerage of Marquis. The students who are Dukes with real power and authority, enjoy a different kind of… well, all I can say is that they don"t enjoy females…"
Under Jenny"s lead, Bella arrived at a group of seats close to the stage. The seats here seemed to have been reserved by a student a.s.sociation or something else similar, as there weren"t many other students here. There were already a few female students seated here, but each of them sat some distance from the next, seemingly having done this purposefully in order to give off the impression that their relations.h.i.+ps with each other weren"t the best.
Jenny led Bella and the others to a row of seats behind these girls. Even though Bella couldn"t see the faces of the girls in front of her, but just from their figure, Bella was able to tell that their looks wouldn"t be that bad. The seats closest to the stage had been divided into several regions, evidently reserved for those student a.s.sociations with power.
"d.u.c.h.ess Bellina, Miss Ivy, please take a seat here for a while, I"m going to go greet a few friends of mine. Even though you girls aren"t members of our a.s.sociation, but they shouldn"t mind the few of you sitting here."
"Sorry to trouble you."
After Jenny left, Bella and Ivy were about to turn their eyes towards the stage when they spotted a small figure approaching them from the right.
"Err, you"re looking for?"
Bella turned to look at the loli(?) that had approached them. This was a rare flat-chested "loli" with short black twintails. Even though the loli wore a gothic lolita dress, her skirt wasn"t very long and it was easy to see her pale and slender legs that weren"t covered by the loli"s short socks.
The black gothic lolita dress was decently designed and was quite evidently one of Earth"s styles. The only defect was that the dress seemed to have been designed by an amateur as Bella quite easily spotted a few flaws with just a few glances.
If she hadn"t seen the small b.u.mp on the loli"s pale neck, Bella would have thought that he was a cute looking little girl. The face of the "loli" was unnaturally beautiful and even shocked Bella, who had already seen countless beauties.
Apart from this, there was a red armband around the right arm of this fake loli, an item that was only worn by presidents of the Olsyvia Academy"s recognized student a.s.sociations. Around the right arm of Jenny who had just left, was a similar armband, but her white armband represented her status as vice-president. The crest on the two armbands was also different, meaning that they belonged to different student a.s.sociations, the fake loli"s a.s.sociation crest was a strange pair of angel wings.
"Big sister, the clothes that your house"s maidservants wear are so beautiful! Can you tell me where I can buy a set? I want to get a set for myself."
"Uhm, can you not be so soft-spoken? I"m having a hard time accepting it. Anyways, aren"t your own clothes pretty good as well? There shouldn"t be a problem if you don"t buy any new ones…"
"The clothes I"m wearing were designed for me by Ese-senpai and even though they"re quite good looking, but they"re still not as beautiful as the clothes that those little sisters are wearing."
"Er… Ese designed these clothes for you? How would she know…"
"Yes, but don"t tell anyone else, big sister! Ese-senpai told me not to tell anyone else when she had designed these clothes for me. Oh, I almost forgot to introduce myself, I"m the president of the Cross-winged Angels student a.s.sociation, Selena Charlotte."
Charlotte really wanted those beautiful looking clothes and hadn"t even thought before selling Ese out. Bella hadn"t connected Ese to being a transmigrator before, and what Charlotte had unknowingly helped Bella out quite a bit.
—TL NOTES—
{1} The student"s own peerage, not that of their family.
Ex. student from a duke"s family is only a Baron himself, he has to attend the normal cla.s.s.
—END—