While Student Council business was always plentiful, members who arrived at the Student Council room around seven in the morning to start working were exceedingly rare in the academy.
At this moment, within the spacious and somewhat empty Student Council room, there was only a single petite figure pacing anxiously back and forth across the polished wooden floor, her soft footsteps sounding exceptionally clear in the quiet room.
Yelena Furst was a third-year student at Glory Cael Academy and, theoretically, Vivian's senior.
However, this title of senior was practically nonexistent on her.
There were two reasons for this:
First, she was born with an extremely youthful baby face, paired with a petite frame under one hundred and fifty centimeters tall and big, round, timid eyes. She looked completely like a student who had just entered the Middle School section, and was even occasionally mistaken by first-year underclassmen for a cute junior who had lost her way.
Second, she had an introverted and timid personality, spoke in a soft voice, and panicked easily when facing trouble, lacking any of the maturity and presence expected of a senior.
Over time, both the Student Council and classmates who knew her unconsciously treated her as a junior or a mascot in need of care.
At this moment, however, this mascot senior's heart was filled with immense anxiety and unease.
“Uwah... Th-The President specifically asked me to come so early... Is th-there some very important task that must be handed to me?”
Clasping her hands tightly against her chest, her fingertips turning white from pressure, she whispered to herself with tension written all over her round face:
“B-But... I just got discharged from the hospital a few days ago... and I'm not in very good shape... Can a useless and unlucky person like me really complete a task assigned personally by the President? What if I mess up again and cause trouble for the President...”
Yelena's worries were not without reason.
Aside from her appearance and personality, she had another trait that caused her immense distress: she was exceptionally unlucky.
Whenever work from the Disciplinary Committee fell into her hands, no matter how simple and routine it was initially, it would always somehow turn troublesome, even escalating into a minor disaster.
For example, she once received a report stating that a small group was brawling in a corner of the training grounds.
This was originally one of the most routine matters for a Disciplinary Committee member to handle.
Yelena plucked up the courage to go. Yet just as she approached, stray shockwaves from the brawling students' magic clash somehow struck an area nearby where discarded training dummies were stacked.
The mountain of heavy dummies collapsed with a crash. Though no one was directly hit, the rising dust and loud noise drew the duty professor.
Believing a severe accident had occurred, the professor urgently evacuated students from several nearby training grounds, only to discover in the end that it was all a false alarm.
Yelena, meanwhile, was criticized for failing to contain the situation in a timely and effective manner, thus causing chaos, even though the main fault did not lie with her.
For another example, she was once instructed to go to the library to remind several students who were talking loudly and disturbing others' studying to quiet down.
This was supposed to be the simplest verbal warning.
However, when she walked into the area where those students were, her foot tripped on something. Losing her balance, she pitched forward with a gasp, flailing her hands in panic, and coincidentally knocked over a heavy ancient volume that a student was reading from a nearby bookshelf.
The loud thud of the ancient volume hitting the floor and the pages scattering everywhere instantly threw the entire reading area into an even greater uproar.
Instead of completing her task of warning them, Yelena became the main culprit behind disrupting library order. She received a harsh scolding from the librarian and ended up having to help gather the scattered pages for nearly an hour.
The most severe incident occurred last month.
She received an anonymous report claiming that Chloe Ivy, the Second-year Representative of the Department of Alchemy, was suspected of conducting unauthorized experiments outside of designated hours using unregistered dangerous materials.
As a Disciplinary Committee member, she had a responsibility to go and verify this.
Harboring immense anxiety, she arrived outside the underground alchemy laboratory. Her finger was raised, yet before it even touched the thick soundproof door panel—
“Boom—!!!”
A deafening explosion, accompanied by blinding fire and violent air currents, burst out from inside the door without warning!
She didn't even have time to clearly see or sense any specific danger before everything went black, and she completely lost consciousness.
When she woke up again, she was already lying in a ward at the academy affiliated hospital, her whole body wrapped tightly in snow-white bandages, looking like a freshly excavated mummy.
The subsequent investigation revealed that it was indeed a minor experimental mishap caused by Chloe Ivy, though its power was far beyond expectations.
Yelena simply had 'too good' luck, happening to appear at the absolute wrong place at the wrong time.
The physical trauma brought by this unprovoked disaster had not fully healed, and the mental blow made things even worse.
One night during her hospitalization, she was sleeping deeply under the combined effects of medication and fatigue when a sudden clamor woke her up.
Through her bleary vision, she saw a blond figure standing before her hospital bed, shouting and crying out something toward her.
When she barely brought her gaze into focus and saw that face—overly handsome even under the dim ward lights—immense fear seized her instantly.
Greg Sass.
One of the people she disliked and feared the most in this academy.
In Yelena's memory, Greg Sass had always been that arrogant scoundrel who used his family status to run roughshod over the academy.
Violating school rules was a daily routine for him, and provoking professors happened all the time.
As a Disciplinary Committee member, duty dictated that Yelena pluck up the courage several times to step forward, point out his wrongdoings, and attempt to dissuade or record him.
Yet every single time, all she received in return was an impatient glare from Greg, along with that curse-like taunt:
“Where did this kid run out from? Beat it! Stop getting in my way!”
A kid... A kid again!
What Yelena hated most was people treating her like a child because of her appearance!
She was clearly already a third-year student!
“What's wrong with looking a bit young?! I have plenty of suitors too, okay!”
This sentence had been screamed internally countlessly many times. Yet facing Greg's arrogant air and the unhidden contempt in his eyes, Yelena, naturally timid and cowardly, could only swallow down the retorts and grievances surging to her lips every time, her face flushing as she lowered her head and silently stepped aside.
What made her feel even more helpless was that even the President, when occasionally asked about Greg Sass's disciplinary violations, seemed to display a certain attitude of avoidance or reluctance to look into it deeply.
This left her even more at a loss on how to deal with this evil young master.
Therefore, that night in the hospital, when she was woken by Greg and even vaguely heard him utter threatening words like “If you dare speak of this, I'll kill you,” Yelena's scare was accompanied by the re-firming of a certain conviction in her heart:
“Greg Sass... is indeed a terrifying troublemaker! In the future, I must do my best to avoid everything related to him! I will absolutely, positively never get involved with him again!”
However, fate seemed to love playing malicious jokes on her.
“She is Yelena Furst, a third-year student and current Disciplinary Committee member. This is Greg Sass, who has temporarily joined the Student Council Disciplinary Committee at the Headmistress's request. For the coming period, you will be responsible for guiding him through the basic work and procedures of a Disciplinary Committee member.”
The doors to the Student Council room were pushed open, and as two figures entered, the morning sunlight cast long shadows across the interior.
President Vivian's cool, steady voice echoed clearly through the empty room like a judge striking a gavel.
Yelena looked toward the sound and saw the calm-faced President, and...
Behind the President stood a figure with hands in pockets, an unwilling expression, golden hair sparkling in the morning light, handsome to the point of dazzling—yet a figure that instantly froze her blood.
Greg Sass.
Time seemed to freeze at this moment.
Yelena's big round eyes widened to their absolute limit, filled with ultimate horror.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She felt a wave of dizziness, and an icy chill shot straight from the soles of her feet to the top of her head.
G-Guide him? Greg Sass? Disciplinary Committee member?! Me?!
No—!!! This is impossible! This must be a nightmare! A hallucination caused by side effects from yesterday's medicine! Wake up, Yelena!
The overwhelming shock exceeded the endurance limit of her fragile nerves.
Everything went black before Yelena's eyes as a buzzing echoed in her ears. Her petite body tottered, and then, very decisively, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed limply backward.
In the final instant before her consciousness sank completely into darkness, the last remnant of her hearing caught that demonic voice saying:
“Hey, I say... has your Student Council's operations expanded to hiring child labor now? Isn't this a bit illegal?”
Before losing consciousness completely, Yelena let out an almost imperceptible, near-desperate smile.
Immediately after, darkness swallowed everything whole.
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