<h4>Chapter 119</h4>


    Thanks to the ring Sarkegar had given me, I could change my appearance at any time, so I hadn’t been paying much attention to how I looked.


    When I’d initially used the ring to set my human appearance, there was no need for me to deliberately make myself look unattractive. I might not have been the kind of handsome that would catch everyone’s eye, but my face was definitely on the good-looking side.


    Up until this moment, I hadn’t given it any thought.


    I remembered Vertus flipping his gaze between me and Connor Lint and saying that there was something more important that Connor Lint should be considering than munication skills”, but he’d left his sentence unfinished.


    It wasn’t any special technique or method ofmunication that mattered; it was because Reinhart was handsome...


    He had refrained from saying this to avoid hurting Connor Lint this whole time.


    However, Connor Lint kept striving for what was out of reach, and he’d ended up revealing it directly.


    “... So that’s what it was...”


    “It’s not that you’re unattractive, Lint. It’s just that Reinhart is, well, quite handsome.”


    Connor Lint stood there with his mouth agape, speechless.


    There was no need for any grand statements or special methods.


    Reinhart was just handsome, and that was all there was to it. Naturally, it made sense that Connor Lint, who was rtively less attractive, wouldn’t fare as well.


    In other words, it was only natural that a sparrow would achieve different results from the stork that it was trying to emte.


    “By the way, Reinhart, it’s quite surprising that you didn’t know this. Don’t you look in the mirror?”


    “Uh... not really?”


    Vertus let out a sigh. “I think your face has yed a pretty significant role in you managing to stay on good terms with your schoolmates, despite all the various troubles.”


    <i>‘Is that the case?’</i>


    Was my appearance ying such a significant role without me knowing?


    <i>‘Does it follow, then, that Riana, who has no particr interest in me, readily agreed to go and have a bite together because of this?’</i>


    Had I been terribly unattractive, Harriet would have disliked me and ignored me from the moment I first teased her. Was it ultimately because of this appearance buff that I was able to chat with her and engage her in various conversations?


    Could the same be said for Adriana?


    Appearance.


    It really was important after all...


    Even though I wasn’t exceptionally handsome, I felt lucky that I had created a good-looking face for myself.


    Connor Lint remained silent for a while, then he looked at me.


    To be exact, he red at me.


    “Reinhart...”


    “... What is it?”


    “From this moment on, you’re the enemy of all men.”


    “What are you talking about?”


    Connor Lint, outraged, suddenly shot to his feet.


    “It’s no wonder why you, with your despicable personality, can chat away happily with thedies!” he yelled. “It’s all because of your damn face, you bastard! I... I can never ept someone like you!!”


    It was so tantly outrageous that, instead of getting angry, I almost found it funny.


    No. If Vertus knew that it was because I was handsome, then the other guys should have been able to tell as well. Wasn’t it somewhat ridiculous that he was acting as if he was just realizing it now?


    “Huh... Why is that fool acting like that?” I said.


    “Why? He just seems very naive, that’s all,” Vertus said with a chuckle.


    Anyway...


    From the next day onwards, the hostility shown to me by the brothers that made up the idiot trio grew even more intense.


    ***


    Reinhart had been a celebrity from the start of the semester after dueling with an upper-year student. It was originally supposed to be a duel with a second-year student, but a third-year student stepped in as his champion, and the fact that this champion was defeated in an unsightly manner only made Reinhart even more famous.


    This helped build a rather positive image for Reinhart.


    Recently, however, he’d been frequently seen hanging out with the even more famous Olivia Lanche, and that had altered the general sentiment about him in a subtle and strange manner.


    Everyone seemed to look at me as if thinking, “What’s with him? How did things turn out like this?”


    Olivia Lanche had been following the path of a priestess of Ouen, the god of purity. Therefore, she had been the subject of much attention. Despite this, though, she had not been involved in any scandals or controversies. Of course, it was now an open secret that she had since abandoned her faith.


    In any case, it was true that questions had arisen regarding Reinhart, who had suddenly started to capture Olivia Lanche’s interest.


    Naturally, there was some hostility mixed in. Not only among the first-year students, but also among the students in the upper years. A subtle animosity toward Reinhart was gradually arising, especially among the male students.


    In the Royal ss, there were clubs, and thergest by far was Grace, a religious activity club, but several minor clubs existed as well, albeit few in number.


    Among them was a newspaper club called Monthly Royal ss, which, despite its small size of only three members, published a monthly magazine.


    Of course, a monthly magazine published by merely three students didn’t attract much attention from Royal ss students. If one were to judge by the richness of content alone, the publications made by the Temple Times, a central press club that was open to the entire middle school division, were much better. After all, it had over fifty members. Even if the Royal ss was considered special, the number of students thatprised it was exceedingly small.


    The content featured in the Monthly Royal ss publication was either a mishmash of articles from the Temple Times or careless, inconsequential gossip. Topics such as who was not getting along with whom, who seemed to like whom, or trivial things like ss poprity polls.


    However, no matter how indifferent everyone else was to these stories, to the members involved in producing the publication, these stories were significant.


    They had to decide what topics to cover for the magazine, what thetest news was, and what the readership was interested in.


    Naturally, all the original feature articles that had been nned beforehand were scrapped, since the current hot topics in the Royal ss were Olivia Lanche abandoning her faith, and the suddenly in-favor Reinhart.


    “There’s something to write about everyone, if you dig deep enough.”


    “Exactly.”


    And here, we had Leiter Zabri, a fourth-year student in the Royal ss and the club president of Monthly Royal ss, who was among those who disliked the rapidly-emerging Reinhart.


    The other two members felt the same.


    They even harbored suspicions that perhaps it was Reinhart who had led the Saintess of Eredian to abandon her faith. Although the sequence of events was misconstrued, to those who were unaware of the true details, it seemed usible that Olivia had abandoned her faith because of Reinhart. Indeed, the way Olivia treated Reinhart was unlike how she treated anyone else.


    “Dig up something. If there’s even one scandal, let’s tear it apart.”


    “Let’s show them the power of the press.”


    “Roger!”


    These three were exactly the type of people who should never work in the media.


    ***


    The two other members besides the club president were dispatched to first-year sses A and B respectively to investigate this guy named Reinhart. They approached all the students they could get a hold of, iming that they wanted to conduct interviews.


    Since they were upper-year students, the first-year students did not turn them down.


    “Reinhart? Oh, he’s a hard-working guy.”


    That was Vertus’s straightforward response, the first to be interviewed.


    The next one caught for an interview about what kind of person Reinhart was, was Connor Lint.


    “... They say he’s handsome, but honestly, I don’t see it. <i>Tsk</i>, such a leech of a guy...”


    Without realizing it, Connor Lint had ended up praising Reinhart before quickly taking his leave, not wanting to think about him anymore.


    The third-year student named Edian, who was covering ss A, had never actually seen Reinhart before. Therefore, he included a question about whether Reinhart was considered handsome on his list of questions.


    “... I’m not sure.”


    That was Ellen’s response when asked if she thought Reinhart was handsome.


    “What kind of person do you think he is?” was the next question posed to her.


    “...”


    Ellen pondered over the question for quite a while, but ultimately couldn’t give an answer.


    “I don’t know,” she replied, then went on her way.


    “He’s a total jerk. I don’t even want to think about him! He pretends to be all that with nothing to his name and is obnoxiously annoying! And he’s always bullying me too!”


    That was the response of Harriet de Saint-Ouen, a first-year student.


    Believing that he had found a good lead, Edian asked her various other questions. He clearly disliked Reinhart.


    “In what way does he bully you?”


    “S-Sorry...? Oh, um... What is this for? Why are you asking me that?”


    “Oh, I’m with the Monthly Royal ss club, and for this issue, we’re trying to feature a student named Reinhart.”


    Upon hearing that, Harriet’s expression turned into one of rm.


    “Ah... So whatever I say will be published in it?”


    “Exactly. What do you think? Is Reinhart, in your opinion, a bit of a... bad guy?”


    Harriet looked around quickly, ensuring no one was listening, and then lowered her voice.


    “Well... He’s not entirely bad, actually... I’ve received a lot of help from him too... It’s just... I don’t know. He’s a jerk, but... not entirely terrible, I guess...”


    “Oh, r-really? People say Reinhart is handsome. What do you think about that?”


    “Wh-What?! That, that beggar, good-looking? How is he good-looking at all?! He’s not, not at all handsome... Eek!” Harriet rambled nonsensically before running away as if trying to escape.


    The next interviewee was Cliffman from ss A-5, who often crossed paths with Reinhart on the training ground, but had never actually spoken to him.


    “... He might have some rough edges personality-wise, but he’s diligent. I think he’s someone with grit. Especially the way he keeps at it, even after getting beaten up so much...”


    Cliffman regarded Reinhart’s perseverance highly, and noted how he continued to train even after losingprehensively to Ellen every time.


    As for his appearance, Cliffman gave a lukewarm assessment, suggesting that he looked decent enough.


    Next up was Kaier Vioden.


    “That crazy bastard... Wait, hang on. You said this is for the magazine, right? So it’s going to be published in the paper?”


    “That’s right.”


    “Then I’m not going to say anything.”


    Kaier, perhaps fearing future retaliation from Reinhart for saying anything out of turn, quickly made his exit.


    Following that, Edian met Riana de Granz.


    “Handsome? Hmm... I think so, yes.”


    “Anything else?”


    “His impact during thest group mission was significant. People don’t usually dislike someone who puts effort into everything they do, no matter how odd their personality might be, right? It’s more like everyone hase to acknowledge him after that... But honestly, I don’t know him well enough to say more.”


    Riana seemed to hold a moderate level of goodwill towards Reinhart.


    Next, Edian met Erhi de Raffaeli.


    “... Well, I don’t know what else to tell you except that I think it’s best not to interview Reinhart himself.”


    “Why? Once I finished interviewing his ssmates, I was going to interview Reinhart himself.”


    “Given that twit’s personality, he’s likely tosh out.”


    “... But would he really do that to a senior?”


    “You haven’t forgotten that his opponent in the duel was from the third year, have you?”


    “Oh.”


    Edian realized that interviewing Reinhart himself was definitely not a good idea.