Guide to the Education and Training of Girls with Mentally Abnormalities

Chapter 13 The Price of Dreams

Edith yawned wearily as she entered the mansion gates, greeted respectfully by her servants. Alicia, pacing anxiously in the garden, immediately approached her.

"How is it? How is it?!"

"My dear sister, you have no idea how terrible this week has been."

Edith glanced at Alicia, who looked like a wilted eggplant in a market, her ponytail swaying wildly with her exaggerated body language.

"In this snowy weather, where the wind can blow icicles from the eaves and kill rats, your poor and lowly sister has to bear the title of 'misbehaving heiress' and walk on the dirt of the lower streets under the astonished gazes of everyone, just to get some pocket money. She has to find the adventurer you mentioned from the crowd of people as crowded as ants, and follow him like a cockroach-like tabloid reporter in the capital."

"And all of this was just to report his boring activities to the high and mighty young lady of the Enfield family to satisfy her delusions and fantasies about childish love."

The girl, looking utterly dejected and annoyed, glanced at the small bag in her sister's palm.

"My dear sister, I am your beloved younger sister."

"You'll have to pay more."

"But this is already..." Alicia bit her lip painfully, but seeing Edith's nonchalant expression, she had no choice but to take out the last check from her wallet. "This is all I have."

"Hehe, if I were to be even more generous in front of someone I like, I'd be even more so." Edith beamed, winking playfully. "I'd definitely win his heart easily, right?"

Alicia snorted.

He is different.

Alicia noticed the Duke of Enfield walking through the mansion's hall, talking to his butler, and coughed softly. "Let's go to the garden."

"Alright, my respected elder sister." Edith smiled, but to Alicia, this harmless expression on her less-than-obedient sister's face didn't seem like an angel's descent that had turned her to good; rather, it looked like a clumsy disguise by a demon from hell.

The two walked to the depths of the garden surrounded by hedges.

"What does my sister want to know?" Edith tilted her head, her ponytail hanging obediently at the back of her head.

"Um... how has he been lately?" Alicia became shy at the mention of Edmund, especially in the cold winter, her rosy cheeks were as dazzling as a red rose suddenly appearing in the white snow.

"How does it look? That's a question worth considering."

Edith looked up as if she was thinking.

"I think he looks great, no dark circles under his eyes, and he walks with big, fast strides, like a tiger with a spring in his step, I almost couldn't keep up."

She looks great and has no dark circles under her eyes.

He didn't look well the day he left me.

It seems that Mr. Edmund got plenty of rest after leaving the adventure group.

"Is it because I'm not good enough that I'm causing Mr. Edmund so much trouble and worry?" Alicia reflected.

"Is there anything else?"

Alicia's throat tightened, and she licked her slightly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.

"For example, where does he live?"

Edith immediately looked troubled.

"Sister, experienced adventurers like these are as sensitive to sight as wolves are to the smell of blood. I was only following him for a short distance when I was almost discovered."

She shook her head, looking at Alicia with pleading eyes as if afraid of being punished.

"I'm sorry, my dear sister, I've done everything I can, but even my personal maid, who is skilled in tracking, couldn't find the adventurer's residence without disturbing him."

"Besides, Father probably already knows that I sneaked out of the manor during my confinement period. I dare not and cannot leave the manor again—you wouldn't want your own sister to be kicked out and left to wander the streets for such a trivial matter, would you, sister?"

An overwhelming sense of loss rolled and fell into Alicia's heart like a piece of rotten wood.

Grayish-white steam escaped from the girl's mouth and dissipated.

Alicia patted Edith on the shoulder, but before she could say anything encouraging, Edith continued.

"But it seems he's taken on a new student."

"A new student?!"

Edith blinked.

"I don't know how that gentleman taught you, but if going to the pedestrian street is normal behavior for teachers and students, then he must be his new student."

shop?

Alicia took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.

It's not unusual for a great adventurer like Mr. Edmund to take on a few students.

As for shopping...

Maybe he's going to buy training materials for adventure: after all, he and Eywen had already worn out those two wooden swords.

In the blink of an eye, Alicia reverted to her usual kind and amiable "ladylike" demeanor.

But everyone knows that the pedestrian street is a place that sells high-end custom-made clothes and luxury goods. In addition to clothing stores, it is also full of high-end art salons and cafes.

In other words, the pedestrian street is a filthy place filled with the stench of illicit romance.

Why did he take his students there to wander around?

Alicia could almost see Edmund, whom she longed for, doing the things she dreamed of on the street with a girl she had never met: the two of them strolling hand in hand down the street, whispering sweet nothings in the dressing room, sitting in a shop filled with the aroma of coffee and bread, admiring each other's eyes reflected in the sunlight and their own faces...

Her chest felt blocked and compressed, and the girl's breathing became uncontrollably rapid.

Calm down, calm down.

Alicia! Calm down!

His new student might not be a girl...

The people who went with him weren't necessarily new students...

Wait, it's not a girl?

Isn't that even worse?!

Is this why Edmund had absolutely no interest in his appearance, demeanor, or even his family background and social status?!

He likes men?!

Do not--!

Edith watched quietly as her older sister's expression shifted from "disappointment, relief, shock, to despair" in a mere second.

Snowflakes are falling, and the north wind is howling.

The cold air dispelled Alicia's wild thoughts.

Instead of getting bogged down here, why not ask the first eyewitness who is right next to you?

She grabbed Edith's shoulders as if grasping at a last straw.

"What does it look like? Is it male or female?!"

Which one?

"Huh!? There's more than one?!"

Are you asking about that teacher, or that teacher's 'student'?

"Of course it's that student! How could I not know whether my teacher is male or female!"

Edith had never seen Alicia so hysterical.

"Oh—that new student, she, she's a girl, a girl, with silver hair, shorter than you, and not as...full-figured as you. Her face was covered by a gray hood, so I couldn't see it clearly, but I'd guess she's not as naturally beautiful as you, sister."

"A woman." Alicia sighed with relief, but her emotions quickly returned like a lost stone falling into a lake, stirring up a torrent of bitterness.

She is inferior to me in every way, yet she can stand beside Edmund.

She lowered her head.

What is preventing me from being with him?

What is it that prevents me from turning my gaze to this land I love so much?

I'm not as voluptuous as you.

So he likes small girls?

Alicia scratched her head, standing in the garden staring blankly at the snowflakes falling into the soil and disappearing.

Edith quietly returned to her room.

She looked at the small, empty money pouch on the bed sheet in front of her and the silver and gold coins scattered haphazardly beside it.

Maid Willow quietly cleaned up the remains of the piggy bank.

The girl's fingertips traced the coins, and the slowly increasing number in her heart drew ever closer to the price of realizing her dream.

She was thinking about the little house where the person she longed for lived.

A long-term plan.

just now.

Almost there.

It was so close.

It was so close.