Ten minutes later, after finishing the very last noodle, Lux leaned back in her chair and rubbed her slightly rounded belly, sighing in pure contentment.
"I'm full!"
Luke craned his neck to look into her bowl, and fell silent.
Good grief—there wasn't even a spoonful of sauce left.
For a second, he genuinely doubted reality itself. Was this really a normal amount of food for a girl?
Lowering his head, Luke was about to slurp a bite of his own noodles when something occurred to him.
"Isn't it pretty late? Why'd you come over this late?"
With that prompt, Lux remembered why she'd shown up at night in the first place. She said, "I figured there's something you definitely forgot, so I came to remind you."
Luke's curiosity rose. "What?"
Lux blinked innocently. "Did you do the weekend homework?"
Luke's chopsticks froze in midair. His expression went blank.
…Wait.
There's homework too?!
Seeing his face, Lux immediately laughed. "See? You totally forgot."
Only then did Luke dredge up a faint memory—yeah, there really was homework.
He'd almost forgotten he was technically still a student.
After steadying himself, Luke asked, "Did you finish yours?"
"I did," Lux nodded. "That's why I came to tell you."
"Hiss…"
Luke sucked in a sharp breath.
He was about to ask why she hadn't told him earlier, but the next second, he caught the gleam in those sparkling eyes—there was a very clear hint of schadenfreude.
This little—
She'd absolutely waited on purpose to tell him this late!
Lux lifted her chin slightly, looking down at Luke with open, smug pride.
That's right. She did it on purpose.
Just so she could watch him suffer through homework late at night.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Lux blinked, looking adorable—while the "I can't wait to watch this" in her eyes grew even stronger. "Tomorrow you can't seriously use 'I forgot' as an excuse, can you?"
Luke had zero doubt that if he tried that tomorrow, she would report him immediately.
Because "I forgot" and "I knew and still didn't do it" were two completely different crimes.
He never imagined he'd live to see the day he got ambushed by Miss Crownguard.
The next second, Luke's mouth curled into a cold little smile.
"Just in case you forgot," he said smoothly, "I'll remind you too. Teacher Mors also assigned us to copy the fourth poem in the language arts book twice."
Lux's smug little face froze on the spot. She stared hard at Luke.
"No way. I don't believe you!"
"Believe whatever you want," Luke shrugged, smiling like it didn't matter. "I'm just reminding you. Tomorrow Miss Crownguard can't use 'I forgot' as an excuse either, right?"
The exact same words—thrown right back at her.
Lux tried desperately to remember, but the most humiliating part was—
She'd genuinely forgotten how much homework there even was.
Did Teacher Mors assign copying poems?
Probably not…
But what if he did?
After wrestling with it for a while, she looked at Luke with stubborn conviction.
"I don't believe you! Unless you copy it once first!"
"Heh. Fine," Luke said. "I'm staying up late catching up anyway."
He quickly finished his noodles.
Then—right in front of Miss Crownguard—he copied out the entire fourth poem, painstakingly, stroke by stroke. Several hundred characters' worth.
Watching that, Lux couldn't sit still anymore. The firmness in her eyes cracked completely.
Oh no.
So she really did miss that homework.
"I'm leaving…"
She sprang up and hurried home.
Even then, she still grabbed an ice cream on her way out.
Luke stood by the second-floor window, watching Miss Crownguard disappear into the distance, and smiled coldly again.
If he had to suffer, she wasn't getting off easy either.
The next day—
Bang!
Miss Crownguard slammed two copied pages down on Luke's desk so hard it startled a bunch of students in the classroom.
But once they realized it was Miss Crownguard and the prince, they quickly looked away again.
"Teacher Mors never assigned this!" Lux snarled through clenched teeth, glaring at Luke's calm, indifferent face like she wanted to swallow him whole. "You lied to me!"
When she'd proudly presented the two copies to Teacher Mors like she was showing off, the response she got was that he'd never assigned anything like that.
In that instant, Lux realized she'd been played.
Sure, Teacher Mors praised her… but she still felt like she'd taken a massive loss.
Faced with Lux's fury, Luke simply turned his head, smiled faintly, and said nothing.
Yet Lux could read the message clearly in his eyes.
Yeah, I tricked you. What about it?
"Unbelievable!"
Lux nearly exploded on the spot, so angry she wanted to bite him.
This jerk—just to make her copy one extra time—had been willing to copy it once himself!
She'd been writing until midnight. Her hand still hurt!
What a perfect mutual-destruction move!
In the end, Miss Crownguard—dragged down one-for-one by Luke—sat back down. And in the little mental grudge notebook in her heart, Luke's name got another mark.
Ding-ling-ling~!
The class bell rang. Teacher Mors walked in, and the day's lessons began.
As always, time slipped by. In a blink, two days passed.
June 18th. Weather: clear.
At the Royal Academy—
When the morning classes ended, Teacher Mors paused at the front desk before leaving and announced something.
"Today's homework is still an essay," he said, looking over the students. "But this time it's different. Your essay will be entered into tomorrow's grade-level evaluation at the Royal Academy."
He continued, "The topic is unrestricted. Students who rank near the top will earn academic credits as a reward."
In the back row, Luke—who wasn't particularly interested—asked the girl beside him, "What are academic credits?"
It was a term he'd never heard since arriving at the academy.
Unlike him, Lux looked energized. She said mysteriously, "Academic credits are a really good thing."
Luke perked up a bit, sitting straighter. "How so?"
"Academic credits are a kind of reward point the Royal Academy gives out. They come with all kinds of privileges," Lux explained first, then put on a serious little face. "But that's not the most important part. Credits have one extremely important use."
Luke watched her intently.
Lux's eyes gleamed. "You can use them to take time off."
Luke's eyes lit up instantly.
A noble academy like the Royal Academy normally didn't allow absences unless you were sick.
Lux leaned in as if she could already guess what he was about to ask. "That's the point. With credits, even if nothing's wrong, you can still take time off."
Her expression was full of longing. "And yes—technically, if you have enough credits, you can take time off as much as you want!"
"!"
Luke practically sat up like he'd been struck by lightning. For the first time, real heat sparked in those usually lazy eyes.
If that's what credits mean…
Then first place in this essay competition was absolutely non-negotiable.
He'd been thinking of writing something half-hearted just to get it done.
Now? He had to take it seriously.
Lux was thinking the exact same thing.
For credits, she was going to burn every last brain cell on this essay.
By the time school let out in the afternoon, the two of them walked out side by side.
Looking around, a lot of students leaving the academy were holding ice cream.
Lux had one too. She scooped up a bite with a disposable spoon, tasted it, then frowned.
"Not as good as yours."
By now, ice cream had spread through Demacia's streets like wildfire.
There were cheap ones, and expensive ones.
But no matter which kind, the moment ice cream appeared, it kicked up a craze in the capital.
Almost nobody disliked a cold, sweet dessert that cooled you down in summer.
It sold like crazy—and Luke's regular ice cream had made him another tidy profit along the way.
The Royal Academy cafeteria naturally made "premium" ice cream.
It tasted like ice cream, sure, but compared to Luke's homemade version, it was far inferior.
Luke wore an expression of invincible enlightenment and sighed, "It can't be helped. I'm destined to be an insurmountable peak in Demacia's culinary world."
Lux—who usually contradicted him out of habit—had to nod this time.
"Yeah. True."
There was nothing to criticize about Luke's cooking.
More importantly, she didn't want to criticize him and lose access to food.
She could refuse to admit defeat anywhere else.
But against his cooking? She couldn't deny it.
The two of them climbed into the carriage, and it rolled through the capital's streets.
After a while, it slowed to a stop in front of a workshop.
They got down, pushed open the workshop doors, and walked inside.
"Your Highness! And Miss Crownguard!"
The first one to spot them was Maylee. She wore work clothes, and the workshop echoed with constant hammering.
"Where's Navis?" Luke asked, scanning the place.
This was the new workshop Fiora had found. It was huge, split into multiple sections, and the rent alone was eight hundred gold a month.
It was painfully expensive.
At the same time, she'd recruited thirty trustworthy workers with real craftsmanship.
For the early stage, that many hands were enough.
Their tasks were divided: one group made lead type slugs, and another group had already started forging parts for a hand-cranked printing press.
Navis had drawn up the blueprints. Luke provided references, ideas, and final review.
Ten workers handled the movable type.
The remaining twenty were paired up into ten teams.
Each team got a different blueprint. They only needed to produce the component they were responsible for—though the quality had to be excellent.
Once all the components were finished, they could assemble everything.
As for Navis, she'd been promoted—and now had her own private office.
When it came time to design the hand-cranked printing press, her genius finally got to run at full power. Luke only needed to stand to the side and provide ideas.
And the blueprints poured out of her hand one after another, as if they were being printed.
Luke had checked them repeatedly and carefully. Many of them were virtually flawless.
That feeling—like he'd stumbled onto a treasure—returned all over again.
On top of that, Demacians' work efficiency was downright absurd. The place was packed with motivated workers full of drive.
He'd thought printing would take time.
But now, the timeline could be drastically shortened.
Maylee answered, "Navis is in her private room."
Luke nodded and headed for Navis's office with Lux.
Watching them go, Maylee threw herself back into work with even more energy than before.
Over these past few days, she and her younger brother Korsen had grown more and more impressed with Navis.
Because they'd gradually begun to understand just how formidable she really was.
Whenever the two of them got confused and asked questions, Navis answered almost everything—patiently and thoroughly.
And her explanations were extremely easy to understand, often leaving them suddenly enlightened.
They realized the prince hadn't been wrong.
Navis might truly be a genius.
Over the past few days, they'd also realized that His Highness and Navis were working on something unbelievably impressive.
And that changed their mindset completely.
Just imagining that when this thing finally debuted, they might be mentioned too… made their blood run hot with excitement.
So the siblings worked harder and harder.
Two perfectly polished little workhorses.
By now, Luke and Lux had reached Navis's office.
When they opened the door, they saw her small figure sitting in a chair, a pile of books and papers stacked in front of her.
Luke glanced around. He remembered that when they first came, this office had been spacious and clean.
But now, just like Navis's bedroom, it looked like a disaster zone.
Maybe that was her special kind of talent.
Navis, who had been studying something, lifted her head. When she saw Luke, her eyes brightened behind her large round glasses.
"Good afternoon, Your Highness. Miss Crownguard."
After a few days together, she wasn't nearly as shy as she'd been at first.
"What are you working on?" Luke asked as he walked closer, glancing down.
Navis was sketching and marking up a blueprint. She answered, "That massage chair you mentioned—following your ideas, I'm trying to add more functions to it."
"Oh, that," Luke smiled. "No rush."
He couldn't help feeling moved.
Navis might be the most efficient person he'd ever met.
Efficient how?
Almost immediately after Luke left House Menck, she finished the speaking tube system.
The only thing holding her back had been a single line of thinking. Once that obstacle was solved, it was just a matter of building it.
Now it was installed in Luke's home, and after testing it, he was very satisfied.
Over the last two days, Lux had found it so fun that she wanted several installed in House Crownguard too.
And this girl even wanted to run a speaking tube line from Luke's bedroom all the way to her bedroom.
That way, she could ask him at any time whether he was making something delicious.
Luke had no words.
Even though the two houses were only about a ten-minute ride apart, it was still a huge challenge—but Navis accepted it anyway.
In Luke's view, back in his previous world, this distance would've been basically impossible.
But in this world, with runic creatures in play, everything seemed possible.
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