Chapter 26 – People Who Don’t Know Their Place
Looking at the pile of fruits and vegetables on her plate, Teresa frowned.
This... this wasn't right.
She had clearly meant to go for meat dishes, something hot and cooked to fill her belly—so why was her plate full of raw vegetables and fruit?
She wasn’t some kind of animal. What was she supposed to do with all these plants?
She stood up, intending to get another plate of meat, then sat back down again.
Wasting food was a bad habit. No matter what, she would finish this plate of greens first.
Teresa picked up her dining fork and speared a piece of victory fruit, lightly placing it into her slightly parted lips. She chewed unhurriedly, savoring the moment when the thin skin burst open and the juices exploded on her tongue.
The fruits and vegetables tasted fresh—no trace of preservative or pesticide-type alchemy potions.
By rights, fruit in another world like this should be very expensive. After all, they had a limited shelf life. Fortunately, this world had alchemical substances that served as preservatives or functioned like pesticides.
But like chemical agents in her previous world, these things were inevitably harmful to the body. Nothing could beat fresh, all-natural produce.
Perhaps only the Divine Princesses of Coleman Academy got to eat such fresh and natural fruit for free.
Did elves have a different sense of taste from humans? Teresa hadn’t liked fruit or vegetables much in the past. She would have preferred gnawing on free dry bread with cold water over eating fresh produce. Yet now, she found herself enjoying them thoroughly.
Teresa's dining manners were elegant—perhaps even she hadn’t noticed. Her movements were leisurely, like a stroll through a quiet garden, yet her eating pace remained quite efficient. Her petal-like milky lips parted slightly as she calmly placed slices of vegetables into her mouth. She methodically cut the fruits into bite-sized pieces and set them aside at the edge of the plate. Once the vegetables at the center were gone, she would begin on the fruit.
Watching her eat was like enjoying a refined form of performance art—unconsciously drawing the eyes of those nearby.
Unfortunately, the heavens are rarely so kind. The world never lacks people with an inflated sense of self and a lack of discernment.
"Little miss, is this your first time visiting our academy’s dining hall? Why did you only choose vegetarian dishes?"
Teresa's brows knit together slightly. She truly disliked being interrupted while savoring her meal, and she was generally averse to overly familiar strangers making conversation. Still, out of good upbringing, she replied with a soft "Mm" and offered a polite yet distant smile, hoping the other party would let her eat in peace.
However, she had overlooked something: if this person were truly well-mannered and understanding, he wouldn’t have chosen to interrupt someone at mealtime in the first place—nor would he fail to pick up on the expression on her face.
Seeing that Teresa didn’t immediately reject him, the thick-skinned young man pulled out a chair and sat right beside her.
Teresa’s hands never stopped moving, quietly chewing on vegetables with tiny, rodent-like sounds, as if a hamster was nibbling on leaves in peace.
Though she disliked people who couldn’t read a room, she might have tolerated some casual small talk if he were just a stranger. But this man wasn’t just any stranger...
The moment he opened his mouth, Teresa knew exactly who he was—an acquaintance. And not one she particularly wanted to see.
Cole. He had once been a Divine Princess of knight rank in Teresa’s team at the time of enrollment, but left after the Astrid incident.
To be honest, Teresa didn’t really blame these former teammates who had abandoned her.
A wise bird chooses the right tree to nest in. They had never been through life-or-death battles together. Cole and Laini had both left her, the Blind Divine Child, for another team with far more promising prospects. Teresa didn’t resent them for it.
She had some understanding of their family situations—both were in dire need of social status that would be publicly recognized. It was only natural for young people to be eager to succeed.
They had parted ways peacefully. Teresa hadn’t tried to stop them or delay their pursuit of brighter futures. But what chilled her a little was the fact that when they left the team, they hadn’t even said goodbye. They didn’t see her even once before quitting the team, as if staying near her would bring bad luck.
What was that supposed to mean? Were they afraid she wouldn’t let them go?
Teresa had assumed that even if they parted ways, they could still greet each other when they crossed paths in the future. Now it seemed that was unlikely. After all that had happened, future encounters in the academy would probably just be awkward—they’d pretend not to know each other, each keeping their heads down and going their separate ways.
So when Cole started talking to her, Teresa didn’t say much—just nodded politely and responded with a few vague sounds.
"Little miss, you’re probably not one of this academy’s Divine Princesses yet, are you?" Seeing that Teresa was unresponsive, and after cycling through a string of tedious small talk, Cole finally couldn’t help but reveal his true intent.
"Sir, that’s a rather inappropriate question. A month ago, none of us were this academy’s Divine Princesses, were we?"
"Haha, that’s true. Judging by how you look, you haven’t undergone Divine Awakening yet, right? Want me, someone with experience, to give you a few pointers?"
Cole grinned broadly, the words “buttering up” practically written all over his face.
Teresa rolled her eyes inwardly.
"Someone with experience”? “Give pointers”? It hadn’t even been a few sentences and he was already positioning himself above her. Was this supposed to be building rapport?
Then again, he probably never considered her to be his equal in the first place.
"I wouldn’t want to waste your valuable time, sir. That won’t be necessary."
"No worries at all, no worries. Helping out a junior schoolmate is the right thing to do!" The self-important man clearly didn’t understand her polite refusal and kept going like a seasoned instructor who wouldn’t shut up.
This blonde girl might have a scar on her face and not look all that pretty, but her figure was still pretty good...
While one-sidedly chatting with Teresa, Cole was also eyeing her up and down. Although the scar on her face lost her some points, that gifted figure at such a young age and that skin fairer than frost or snow made Cole subconsciously swallow a mouthful of saliva.
Teresa’s brow twitched ever so slightly. She gently brushed her bangs aside, sighing inwardly.
Not everyone in this world was a gentleman. And not everyone could understand what was being said beneath a polite rejection.