Shayla Belkadi knew she was different to everyone else from the beginning. Not because she was superior in every aspect that mattered – thought she still was, of course – but because the rest of people were non-sensical and annoying. She gave up a long time ago trying to comprehend people, and she lived like the only way she knew. Like Shayla Belkadi.

  However, it still bemused her seeing a person she considered intelligent rushing headfirst to their stronghold.

  It might not have been that secure as they didn’t have much time to prepare, but still. They had only been capable of reinforcing the ground and making hip-high walls with some crenellations. Not that effective, but it could save allies from a stray agate. Unfortunately for them, the first assault had been an aerial one which completely ignored those defenses.

  And something told her this coming assault was going to nullify them.

  Though why again is Christie rushing at us? Her mind instantly thought to some distraction and a hidden assault force, but using Control Watch high in the air only revealed an entourage behind the redhead, clearly visible. Prospection was also useless; there was no one on the ground nor any attempts of lapiloquia. Nor embed agates in the ground. She was previously aware of the possibility, but thanks to Echevarria, it was now fresh in her mind.

  It must be a trap in any case, for she doubted Christina Valasela would be that stupid.

  As far as she was concerned, this was her enemy’s last attempt. Perhaps they left a single person on their base and rushed towards the enemy one in the hopes of reclaiming it to win the exercise. Or perhaps it was the opposite, and all of her team was gone, only leaving her and two more alone, and this was an execution force. They might have only brought three because they thought they only needed three people.

  No, that makes no sense, why would they only use three attackers in any scenario? In every possible situation, it is better to attack with overwhelming numbers. So why? What is happening? What is the status?

  Her overthinking got the best of her, because she lost her one chance to take an early shot at her enemies.

  Which, in tandem, the enemies took.

  Judging from the velocity of the projectile, the shot agates were bearing Protect Summon Speed, so for that exact reason, Shayla heed no attention to them. They were easily dispatched by her orbital Protect Control-Summon.

  This was a marvelous series that used the tactic to bifurcate the linking of commands to virtually create an additional command slot by recycling on modifier command, ergo the compound word structure. These bifurcations were heavily mentally taxing even if they granted an additional slot on the right circumstances – or rather, they were specifically taxing because they granted the slot – but, fortunately, Protect Control was a passive series. And so was Protect Summon. Hyper-passive even, as her blond peer golemancer would say.

  So, in reality, she ended up with a horde of active series. Not perfect, but it could be way worse.

  And talking about non-perfection, so was the output of the commands. Indestructible, automatic defenders were good on paper, but in practice, they left a lot to be desired. They were useful only because her enemies were also scared of the Invert Summon Range series. And who wouldn’t? Especially when they were standing next to the one student who could keep it up indefinitely.

  The three enemies kept their distance.

  That was good and bad. Good because that meant her team still held the base. Bad because two thirds of the team were lapiloquists and they were on hard bedrock. We really should have thought about that better, huh.

  Then someone broke the stalemate.

  It was Christie.

  It happened so fast that Shayla had barely time to react. Not that she needed to, as she wasn’t the target of the attack. The redhead suddenly summoned a massive spike of agate. But her range was clearly limited, far less than fifty meters. Though that didn’t stop her from also making spikes of stone, expanding towards Agatha at surprising speeds.

  How is she doing that? The Intaksolfani frowned as her agates automatically shot more down. She shot some basic Amplify Speed ones to keep them on their toes without wasting too much brainpower. Lapiloquia is a megalithic discipline, stone should not move that fast. Shayla meant megalithic in both senses of the word. Lapiloquia was as potent as it was slow, yet Christie moved tons at the rate of several meters per second. Nothing worrying for a lithorist, but dumbfounding, nonetheless.

  Either way, the problem wasn’t that Christie had managed to hurt Agatha, but that she had gotten her attention. The blond golemancer grinned maniacally and lurched at the red-haired lapiloquist at the speed of thought. Other people might have gotten hurt by the sudden movement, or outright passed out, but not Agatha of Malachite.

  Classes and studying were always boring, and she didn’t want anything to do with warfare, but Shayla was incapable of removing her gaze from Agatha. People were annoying and boring, really meddlesome and irking, and whilst that crazy blonde was several of those, Shayla couldn’t deny she was highly amusing. The moment the petite lithorist entered in battle she became a whole different being, though both beings were equally interesting to her.

  Nonetheless, that didn’t stop the citrine-eyed girl from audibly groaning.

  “So that was the trap…” We are now down on our best asset. She groaned again. Time to try summoning any reinforcements we can.

  Shayla shot one of her spare agates high in the air – having sixteen had many advantages, even if their individual quality suffered – and once it had reached its apex, she gave it a series of commands. First Control Amplify Chill for a second, then Amplify Light Spark.

  Whilst the first series seemed a bit useless, this was a trick she had learned in her motherland of Intak Solfan. Lightning, especially from agates, behaved differently in different mediums. By making a potent burst of the Chill command, she was able to give her citrinous agates a different color of Light that wasn’t yellow. Momentarily making colorful lightning bolts of purple and blue, which light was further amplified by the homonymous command, even if the sparks were harmless.

  The perfect flare.

  Shayla had already expected that Listen and Sound agates would’ve been useless as they would be instantly recalled the second someone used the Invert Summon Range series, and instead of panicking over having the team communications down, she decided on a more primitive yet not any less effective system of communication.

  Light signals.

  Red attack, green incoming victory, blue regroup at base.

  Whilst she didn’t have any blue agates to make blue light, a bit of scuffed physics was enough to make the yellow light of her agates blue-ish for enough time for her surviving team to get the message. The reason why they didn’t use yellow or white light was because it could have been mistaken for sunlight if they weren’t looking up. Of course, Agatha had no idea about that as she hadn’t listened to her explanation of the plan and continued fighting Christie.

  Or at least, that was what Shayla would have liked.

  Are they… playing? No one in their sane mind would have had a thought remotely closed to that as Christie continued to throw massive pillars of agate at the blonde, and Agatha continued drifting on the skies and shooting the occasional agate at the redhead.

  But there were two significant clues that led Shayla to that conclusion.

  First, Christie was still moving. As scary as the redhead could be, she was no Agatha of Malachite. The tall girl’s strength lay elsewhere, certainly not in battle. So the sheer fact that she was still locked in battle meant that Agatha wasn’t going all out.

  And secondly… Those are pistachio gazes, not coffee ones. Unable to judge people normally, Shayla developed something close to a synesthesia-based mnemonic. The gaze of the average person was walnut, incredibly boring and basic stuff. The gaze of those driven by battle were coffee beans; something far fancier and energetic.

  But this nut she was seeing in the eyes now was different than the ones she was used to. Not a new one, but pistachio was a nut she normally correlated with desire. Pistachio was good, not like messy walnuts that spread shit everywhere. Pistachios were good tasting, elegant, and a perfect side dish. And she was seeing that her, the marvelous side dish that you wished there was more of it, but you knew that if you had enough of it, you would throw up.

  Shayla Belkadi was, indeed, a master of analogies.

  So she couldn’t understand why was seeing that kind of yearn in Agatha and Christie’s gaze as they were attacking themselves with enough might to kill the average soldier several times over.

  Focusing on her battle was impossible as her eyes were captured by the otherworldly dance that the two girls were having. One commanded small agates faster than sound, the other summoned waves and pillars of a flowing sea of stone.

  It didn’t surprise her when she was eliminated when her opponent exploited her lack of focus by using an Amplify Speed Spin agate that her poor quality and weak Protect Control Summon agates couldn’t stop even when working together. At least René Dago’s agate was fast enough to stop it without harming her. Though it had to burst out of her chest pocket, ripping it by the seams. Not that she cared.

  "Jersova yalacabasca!" Shayla cursed with a sentence in Salosa, so foul that it was incredible that linguistics could even come up with it in such a miniscule number of syllables, as the agate pulled a bit on her chest. And that did hurt a fucking lot.

  But she couldn’t even care about that or how her exam score had tanked because of that one distraction. She only knew that she wanted to have a dance like the one those two were having.

  ***

  The exam ended. Honestly speaking, it was a blurry mess for Shayla. She only knew that – as expected – Agatha ended up triumphant against Christie and that by then, the redhead had been the last enemy standing. Apparently, the fuckers of her team had ignored her regrouping orders and had assaulted the enemy base, which had gotten them eliminated. And because they still had a single Listen and Sound command pair of agates, they were able to coordinate a strike on Agatha, who was the last one standing on her team.

  That didn’t work great for them as the moment they interrupted her dance with Christie, Agatha promptly made short work of them. Though execution would’ve been a better description. Being able to use Protect Summon and Amplify Speed Control was just that horrifyingly effective.

  Not that Shayla could describe that scene in detail as it happened too fast even for her. She only knew that Sandra’s agate – the ones that protected the enemy team – came back slightly cracked when they saved the executed students. After René Dago personally announced aloud that those two were the last one remaining, the blonde golemancer sighed and put and end to her dance by also ‘executing’ Christie.

  The Intaksolfani didn’t fail to notice how the execution was like a soft caress compared to the fractured behemoth charge the petite lithorist subjected the rest of students to. That made her doubt if her fellow golemancer was even in the Fifth Stratum.

  Even the teachers admonished her on that, and they weren’t discreet about it.

  “Can you tell me why you ran the needless risk of keeping an enemy in a prolonged battle?” René Dago said sternly in soldier mode. Shayla didn’t like when the man raised his voice, she never liked when people did it. Of course, it was perfectly fine when she did so. The rest of people weren’t the Shayla Belkadi, after all.

  “I did so to fake weakness,” Agatha said with such tone that she even seemed to believe it. “If I was the last one standing, which ended up being the case, then every enemy would try to assault me at once without noticing that I was not pressed against a hard place in the slightest.”

  René Dago relaxed after hearing that, whether because he bought it or because he didn’t consider it worth to keep arguing, but Shayla just snickered at the exchange. That had been a pistachio gaze, not a coffee one. There hadn’t been a single thought of battle – if any thought at all – in Agatha’s mind at that moment in time.

  But that was all old news. What mattered was that the exams – and therefore the academic year – were over and she could finally rest. Because she knew she wouldn’t have much of one for a long time.

  Perhaps she was Intaksolfani, but the Skyscraper Academy instruction forced her into compulsory military service. Only five of them were mandatory, even if she was a lapiloquist – which normally meant a far more prolonged service, but she classified under elite soldier status, which had benefits – but that still was too much for her.

  She very much believed in violence, but she didn’t believe in getting killed because someone else wanted to get a bit richer. She was a merchant’s daughter, she knew all about war profiteering.

  No, she intended to apply to an agatecrafter-slash-golemancer position away from the frontlines. Her correspondence with her mother showed that there was a lot of money to be made soon, and that only meant that Crocheta was about to be at war soon. Not a surprise considering that Crocheta had been at war ten times in the last seven decades and annexed more than a couple of countries up in the north, at that.

  So, using her merchant intuition and a bit of underhanded tactics, Shayla had confidence in snatching a position building the lighting and plumbing infrastructure for noble households instead of needlessly dying in the frontline due to a stray agate. After all, she would be a fully-fledged military engineer and agatecrafter next year. You couldn’t ask for a better builder.

  Now she only had to wait before her ship back home for the holidays to arrive. She unfortunately wouldn’t be meeting with her mother this summer break, but at least her mistress and official husband would be present. The citrine-eyed girl almost felt like the rest of people when there were just numbers present, for mathematics was a cold and equalizing factor. No emotion, just fact.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Though she couldn’t bring herself to agree whether she hated feeling like the rest. After all, they weren’t Shayla Belkadi.

  With that in mind, a couple of days went by. Most students had left the academy yesterday as they had been finally been given their compiled grades, but a bunch still remained, probably still waiting for transport or just tying up some loose ends.

  Shayla casually strolled the corridors of the academy after coming back from the academy when she saw Agatha. She didn’t give her much thought as she always tried to keep human interaction to a minimum, but she couldn’t help to notice that she was alone, which was weird because…

  …she is always with Christie.

  The realization struck her harder than the raw flight instinct from when they found the charging behemoth on the final exam of the first year. When she saw the girl alone, something clicked inside her.

  The pistachio gaze… Shayla ruminated. It makes so much sense now! And then she couldn’t stop grinning.

  "Jersova yalacabasca!" Shayla greeted her peer golemancer with the most horrid of insults. A truly foul sentence, indeed. One that could outright be classified as a crime against humanity, and yet she uttered it as casually as breathing.

  “Uhm, hello, Shayla?” Agatha responded with a hint of doubt.

  “Where is this hesitation coming from?” She rushed to the petite lithorist’s side and walked alongside her, even if it just was the direction she was coming from.

  “Er... nowhere, really. It is just that I am unable to tell what that sentence means even after all these years.”

  “Oh, do not worry about it, just a traditional Intaksolfani greeting!” If you were greeting the murderer and rapist of your whole family in the deepest parts of the depths. “I was just wondering what you were doing here.”

  Agatha eyed her in suspicion, mostly because they were both aware that Shayla didn’t show interest in anyone besides herself. “Just taking back some books to the library that either Christie or I have picked up along the year.” She pointed with her thumb at the floating pile of books behind her.

  Shayla had focused so much on her theories and the blonde’s solitary state that she had obviated the massive pile of books being carried by a floating agate platform.

  “Let me help you then,” the dark-skinned girl offered with a smile.

  “Sure…” She couldn’t help but squirm – mentally, squirm mentally – at Agatha’s weirded-out face. It was truly a delightful expression.

  Both girls walked into the library, which was deserted by this point of the year. Though there were far more staff than normal. It was always open to them, but they had to work most of their time when the students were present. Perhaps the mess hall built discipline and companionship with the awful food, but the mostly noble students expected other people to do their beds and laundry.

  Shayla simply followed Agatha behind and sat down when she saw the girl place most of the books on the same shelf.

  “Are you not going to help me?” The sapphire-eyed girl asked after the fifth book.

  “I mean, it looks like you have got it all handled…” The citrine-eyed girl spoke softly and loosely.

  “Why did you even offer to help?”

  “Did I?” The petite girl looked at her with killing intent as she both frowned, squinted, and pouted. “Oh, then I misspoke. Anyhow, am I not perfect moral support?”

  Agatha muttered something under her breath, fast and unintelligible, and then sighed, only to continue putting the books back in their place. When Agatha looked like she was finally finishing up, Shayla stood up and then she saw it. Her.

  Christie was looking at them over from the corner of a bookshelf.

  Alright, that is scary, she thought. How long has she been looking at us? Something told her that not for long, because the two-meter girl was anything but stealthy. Redhead and tall, quite literally the antonym of subterfuge. But… if she is looking…

  That gave Shayla an idea.

  A horrible idea.

  An exciting idea.

  A tautology, for the most horrible ideas tended to be the most exciting.

  So she put it into action by slamming her palm against the bookshelf and trapping the small Agatha between the two. The blonde jolted from the sudden noise and turned to face her, thankfully in the opposite direction from where Christie was looking from. Perhaps a bit too forceful, but this was definitely the best idea she had had in a while. The instigator, the force of change. Hmm. Sounds good. The threat that needs to be dealt with. She wasn’t far from the only student in the academy whose brain might have been partially rotten by romance novels and little-to-none romantic experiences.

  Shayla was aware that she had packed quite the muscle mass after training all she could for lapiloquia, but that now became ever more apparent as she had the petite blond in front of her. Beneath her.

  Agatha was way thinner than her, and almost one head shorter than her.

  Even if the girl was a soldier like her and more than fit enough with all the pirouettes she normally performed, Shayla couldn’t help but only see a doll at this moment.

  “What are you doing, Shayla?” Agatha asked in annoyance. In her mind, Shayla was only pestering her right now. And she intended to change that. “Can you please allow me to con-“

  “You are cute,” Shayla interjected dryly and the petite golemancer’s reaction was instantaneous as she petrified on the spot.

  Agatha was left agape, with her eyes locked on Shayla. Normally, that would pester the muscular golemancer. Eye-contact was one of the things that irked her the most, yet now it felt delicious.

  She then closed her head on Agatha’s ear and she whispered, “Are you enjoying this?”

  The blonde instantly blushed at that. Yes, she was thoroughly enjoying being pressed against a wall by a woman taller and bigger than her. Shayla couldn’t blame her; she could see the appeal.

  That only made her grin more savagely.

  Then she looked at Christie’s voyeur spot.

  She was nowhere to be found.

  Fractures! The Intaksolfani cursed in her mind. Now she had lost most of her satisfaction. Why has she gone away? Did I mistake the nature of their relationship? She would find it deeply annoying if that was the case. She had intended to bait both girls until one blurted out something that they shouldn’t. Whilst she didn’t intend to do anything with the possible answer, getting to it would have brought her immense satisfaction.

  Satisfaction that it was nowhere to be seen, like Christie.

  Argh! She growled mentally. Change of plans. If I cannot annoy Christie, then I will annoy Agatha. Shayla couldn’t even fool herself, the use of the word annoy instead of bait spoke quite clear of her intentions. People were always so mundane and uninteresting, but these two finally showed her something worthwhile in people. It would be foolish to not follow that spark of interest when the world was so dull and monochrome.

  “You know, this is not the first time I noticed how you enjoyed this type of things,” Shayla whispered in Agatha’s ear with a honeyed voice, the hand that wasn’t pressed against the bookshelves running circles on the petite girl’s neck. “At first, I did it because I thought you were shy – it did get a reaction out of you every time I did it – but now I realize there was more to that. You like this, do you not?”

  Agatha mumbled weakly whilst looking away, which made Shayla more excited. Yet also it indicated to her that she had to step up her game. She grabbed the blonde by the chin and made her lock gazes again. Citrine meeting sapphire. Not agates like Christie’s colorful eyes, yet gemstones, nonetheless.

  “Louder,” the taller girl commanded as if the smaller one was her agate.

  The prodigious lithorist, the battle-crazed one that defied all odds, was nowhere to be seen. Shayla could only see a small reddening and panting girl. Agatha was enjoying this a lot. One might say even too much. And yet, she had the nerve to try to look away. It was so hard to bring herself to care about someone and even more so to communicate with them, yet Agatha refused her attempts. Instead of being the one making the annoyance, she was the one getting annoyed. Shayla kept moving her head around, but no matter how many times she forced their eyes to meet, Agatha kept trying to avoid her gaze.

  Nothing seemed to work, even pressing her body against the wall with her own did nothing – only making the pants grow hotter – so Shayla quickly grew annoyed. She was supposed to be the one who annoyed her.

  So she slapped Agatha.

  The petite girl looked at her dumbfoundedly, a hand placed on her reddening cheek. She wasn’t crying or in pain, just confused. That annoyed Shayla even further. Don’t look at me like that! You are the one that refuses to hear me! Are you not aware of how much this annoys me? I’d rather be sunbathing! And, of course, Agatha didn’t know. Why aren’t you talking me back? Not only did Shayla fail to communicate as they both stayed petrified looking at each other, but she honestly believed thinking her thoughts were enough.

  Is that how you want to play? The dark-skinned girl audibly growled, snatching Agatha’s hand and pressing it against the bookshelf. Then I will show you how to play.

  “Cute does not beat attractive,” she said sternly, derisively. “You are not that great of a catch, perhaps I should direct my sights on Christie. Yes, she had a far better body. What do you think?” Shayla grinned at her with unmoored viciousness.

  But what happened next was something that she couldn’t have expected in millions of lifetimes.

  Her expected outcomes were either outrage for trying to steal her partner or submission as Agatha seemed to enjoy forcefulness. Perhaps even trying to make Shayla join them in whatever they had.

  But not… this.

  “N-no… P-p-please, no-o…” Agatha of Malachite said weakly, between sobs, as she started crying. “Anything but her… She’s the only thing I have… I cannot care any longer about anyone but her. So not her… Me is fine! Just not Christie… Please! Please…”

  Shayla almost puked at the sight of the girl growing limp, not even being to struggle as she whimpered. Not only because she was now feeling awful at herself for inducing all of this, but because this wasn’t the Agatha of Malachite she knew. This wasn’t the soldier that fought against all odds and was unbeatable. She was supposed to infuse fear into her enemies, not succumb to it. Someone as strong as Agatha shouldn’t… get reduced to something like this.

  The nausea grew stronger the longer she looked at the hurt expression, somehow hurting her back. For better or worse, that reaction managed a better result at communication than any words they could have exchanged.

  “Uh…” Shayla didn’t know what to say. Her brain was pondering for the first time in her life that words might have weight associated with them. She knew this, of course. But it was another thing experiencing it. Just because she always ignored all the crap that came out of people’s mouth didn’t mean that it was the same for the rest. Perhaps… some people stopped to hear.

  The dark-skinned girl sighed – doing her best to ignore the inner voice that nagged at her and – produced a handkerchief out of her pocket. She freed the small, crying girl from her grasp and wiped her tears.

  “Was it that difficult to say that you loved her?” She inquired softly.

  Agatha looked up to her, her eyes no longer filled with fear but apprehension. The blonde didn’t gesticulate any word, just being content with a weak yet affirmative grunt.

  “If you love something that much, you should seize it,” she sighed again before leading the girl to a seat.

  ***

  That did not go as expected, Shayla pondered after leaving the library. In the end, it took Agatha five minutes to stop crying. She was well aware that the petite lithorist had many facets to her, but this one took her by surprise. Mostly because Shayla couldn’t say she had felt such potent love in her life. Not for family, not for friends, not for anyone. At most she felt carnal fascination, but that was it. And that left her more intrigued. Were people always this interesting or were these two just the exception?

  Perhaps nothing was going as she had idyllically pictured in her head, but she could still make it work now that she had confirmed their interest. But she wasn’t so sure about an actual relationship, that required more involvement.

  After that, her next target was Christie herself. Agatha’s reaction had startled her, but regardless of the outcome, Shayla knew that the redhead was bound to surprise her.

  “Judging by how she stalked us… probably jealousy,” she chuckled to herself as she spent the rest of the day looking for the nouveau riche. But that chuckle came out a bit somber. For better or worse, Agatha’s drastic reaction took a toll on her. For a moment she thought of stopping, but this was too novel of a feeling for her to ignore. Her mind demanded answers and her body craved that satisfaction of annoying them. As poorly as that had resulted with Agatha.

  She had higher hopes for the redhead.

  As tall and vibrantly-colored as Christie was, she was surprisingly hard to find. Her first option was the girl’s bedroom, but that place was empty, even after having summoned an agate across the door and snooping around with the Control Watch series. After all, Strata increased summoning range, and no one said one had to had line of sight with their summoning position.

  That had a lot of… horrifying implications, both visceral and perverted. Unfortunately for Shayla, it was not like she could keep agates with Invert Summon, Sound, and Watch Range active at all times. The concept of being spied on annoyed her, but she wouldn’t go as far as considering it unsettling. It helped knowing that most people couldn’t spy others undetected anyway.

  Once the sun had been setting for a while and threatened to bring the night at any moment now, Shayla finally found the redhead on the academy gardens. Judging from the way she was at an isolated gazebo with a kettle and a steaming teacup, it was clear that this wasn’t an improvised location.

  Oh, so you have been waiting for me? A toothy grin escaped the dark-skinned girl’s mouth. Shayla knew a trap when she saw one, but she would be fractured if she didn’t walk right into it. If anything that only made it more engaging.

  In an aloof manner, the merchant’s daughter strode over to the gazebo, nonchalantly sitting in front of the nouveau riche’s daughter. This gazebo wasn’t actually meant for tea-drinking or partying in general as it had no central table, meaning Christie had placed the kettle and cup next to her on the bench.

  For the first seconds, Christie ignored her and continued drinking from her cup, until she finally left the cup on its plate and let out a relaxed yet dignified sigh.

  “Mind if I ask what were you doing with Agatha at the library earlier this day?” Her tone was completely calm. Too calm, one might say.

  “Mind if I ask what were you doing watching us?” Shayla snickered.

  “Mind if I ask what were you doing with Agatha at the library earlier this day?” Christie reiterated with uncanny perfection. Every syllable pronounced with the same cadence and inflexion, almost as if she was reading from a script.

  That alerted Shayla enough that made her do something she didn’t like to do yet was doing awfully too much on this day.

  She looked at the eyes of Christina Valasela.

  Shayla and Agatha’s eyes were common and worthless gemstones, but Christie’s were the most noble of gemstones. Agates of clearly delimited green and red color, just like the massive amounts of agates she was known to summon.

  But stones now felt more appropriate.

  What Shayla was looking at was a set of dual cold stones. One color was brimming with indifference, the other blazing with rage.

  For the first time in her life, Shayla Belkadi felt killing intent.

  Her heart skipped a beat as she reassessed her thoughts. For better or worse, she knew that the redhead wouldn’t actually kill her. They were friends, after all. That meant that she had some leeway to annoy her before she might actually think about doing so. That would be bad.

  “You know what I was doing with her?” Shayla smiled at her, but Christie failed to react. Her gaze was dead. “Well, it had come to my attention that Agatha fancied women. First of all, there is nothing wrong with that. Intak Solfan is a mostly matriarchal nation, and my mother has some mistresses herself, so if anything, I do understand what it means. I cannot say I prefer any side above another, but it is true that women are more attractive than men in general. And even if they were not, they are more well-mannered.”

  Christie still failed to react, but at least she looked like she was listening to her. And most importantly, the redhead wasn’t surprised when she brought up Agatha’s preference, which basically all but confirmed that she was aware of it.

  So it was time to drive her point home.

  “And that got me thinking, Agatha did not look that satisfied,” the Intaksolfani flailed around her arms in a melodramatic manner to emphasize her point and exacerbate the annoyance. “Of course, it must be difficult being a woman like her in such a retrograde nation, so that got me thinking about how I should make her mi-“

  Shayla didn’t have time to finish her sentence.

  She didn’t even know what happened. Only that she was now on the ground and both her head spun and her ears rang. A concussion at the very least.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes to see that the redhead was on top of her, and as exciting as having a woman on top of oneself, the hands around her neck were a bit worrying.

  “I have been merciful so far,” Christie spoke with a megalithic tone as her hands slowly encroached with more and more pressure on Shayla’s neck. “I have given you the benefit of the doubt. I have allowed you to do as you please. But no more.”

  The massive girl’s tone was so cold that Shayla was practically forced into looking into her eyes. Her own citrine eyes were tearing from the pain and the shock, but Christie’s agate eyes were deprived of emotion.

  Christie encroached her body upon her, the weight of the massive girl crushing her. And it certainly didn’t help her neck. Shayla’s body tried to reflexively cough, but she wasn’t allowed to do that by the severe pressure the hand lock was exerting upon the neck. She could already feel her thoughts get lighter. It wouldn’t be difficult for the redhead to crush her windpipe at any moment now.

  Once Christie face was standing only a palm away from her own, she spoke again.

  “If you do not wish to know what it means to be suffocated in a tomb of stone, then you will stay the depths away from MY Agatha. Understood?” Christie’s tone was raised yet her mouth moved with unnatural tranquility, no shouts or unintentional spitting. This wasn’t an emotional outburst, but a cold and calculated action.

  The dark-skinned girl couldn’t even think straight by now, her thoughts a sluggish mess, but even with the lock on her neck she managed to awkwardly nod at the girl pinning her.

  Then, as if nothing had happened, the redhead calmly stood up, dusted her skirt, and walked away from the gazebo.

  “Glad to now we could understand each other.” That was the last thing she said.

  Shayla lay on the ground, grasping at the red and burning marks of her neck and gasping for air, as blood flowed back into her brain. One might think that Christina Valasela might be a weak woman after seeing her awful physical performance at the start of the academy, yet now Shayla’s windpipe showed quite the opposite.

  “That was hot,” she chuckled and coughed as her neck was quite hurt now, taking the redhead’s fury as a final confirmation of her supposition and a completion of her plan. “I wonder if they will let me join.”

  If nothing else, Shayla Belkadi was the world’s greatest instigator.

  Patreon to support me and read 20 chapters ahead of time!