I Don’t Care About the Story, I Want a Cat ～Transmigrated into an Otome Game～ - Chapter 24

The Royal Academy

The children of aristocratic families in the Kingdom of Rudusia tended to enroll in the Royal Academy after finishing primary education at home.

Children of commoners could also attend. However the tuition and the cost of commuting was quite high. So usually only commoners with the financial means, or those who showed academic potential and could get in with a scholarship would attend the Academy. 

Admissions started from the age of 14. There was no fixed curriculum or number of years a student had to be enrolled in school. Each student learned the necessary skills and knowledge in their chosen field, and would graduate once their professors approved of their knowledge. Therefore the time of graduation varied depending on the student.  

It was compulsory for the eldest sons of noble families to attend the Academy. 

The Academy offered more than just academics to the students. 

Children of aristocrats from both within the kingdom and abroad attended the Academy. It was a place where they could make connections and learn to socialise with others within their ranks.  

It was common for families to have a townhouse in the Capital so their children could go to the Academy from there, even if their territories were farther away. However it was a custom for sons of the Royalty or high ranking aristocrats to live in the dorms under the pretext of ‘widening their horizons by living together as a group’, and so, eventually, everyone started living in the dorms. 

With that said, there wasn’t a dorm for girls so the female students lived in their homes in the Capital, or stayed with a relative while attending school. 

It was only recently that girls started attending the Academy. In Amy’s parents’ generation, girls would gain their education from a governess before marriage. Any learning outside the home was limited to etiquette classes or finishing schools. 

In recent years, the conflict with neighbouring Kingdoms had subsided and the situation had become more peaceful giving the officials time to finally turn towards education, and so they had made it possible for girls to attend the academy as well. 

However, compared to boys who went to school for an average of three years, girls didn’t spend that much time in education and would usually graduate in one or two years. 

A lot of the female students got engaged early and would only attend the Academy until they got married. 

Amy, who had memories of her previous life, felt a bit uncomfortable at the difference in status between men and women, and the fact that education wasn’t compulsory here. However, thinking more about it, she realised that the education system in Japan was also established only a few decades ago. 

It wasn’t until after the war when women’s suffrage was granted in Japan. And about 30 years ago, the admission rate in universities was only about 30% for both men and women. The gap in education was even greater in rural areas. This world wasn’t that much different in that sense.

But even so, the marriage age here was still too early for her. 

The ‘norms’ of the previous world that Amy knew was limited to contemporary Japan, which was nothing but a small fragment of a long history and a vast, wide world with different customs. She’d begun to realise this extent of her knowledge even more since she reincarnated. 

There was no way she could confirm the vague recollections she had of her previous world that she learned in her history class. But she did know that it wouldn’t be fair to judge the present world by comparing it to the recollections of her past. 

While it was inevitable to compare this life to her past one, there was no need for her to decide which one was superior or inferior to the other. This world had its own history and systems which made it only natural that the way of doing things would be different here.  

Surely people from her previous life would raise objections to the differences in opportunity between men and women here. And usually, in transmigration novels, they would work hard to bring about societal changes, but for Amy this was the ‘norm’ now. 

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It was afternoon and the sunlight filtering through the leaves cast beautiful shadows on the floor of the corridor. Amy was sitting on the terrace of a room which overlooked the garden. She was currently having some tea with a friend after having finished her foreign language class. 

They were surrounded by other young ladies of similar age. Aside from the classes, the facilities in the school were available for the use of both girls and boys. However, this room had become a hang out spot for the girls after they started gathering here to relax and talk. It was very rare to see a male student enter here. 

Today as well, the tables were filled with groups of three or five girls dressed neatly in clothes typical to a student. They were laughing and whispering to each other as they sipped tea in dainty cups clutched between both hands. It made for a lovely view. 

The tables were covered with lace cloths and attendants swarmed the room serving tea and sweets to the girls. The room was adorned in soft, pastel colours with fresh flowers always decorating the space inside. 

A piano was placed on one end of the room and was usually occupied by one lady or another, usually skilled in playing, who had been coerced to perform by the pestering of her friends. The tune of the piano would flow gracefully through the open terrace to the garden beyond. 

Everytime Amy stepped into this room she’d feel like she’d walked into someone’s wedding reception or a banquet with the way the room was decorated, and the way some girls here were dressed. 

“Haha you look distracted, Amy. Are you worrying about Tiger again today?”

“Well, even if you say that, Rosalind, you look like you want to go back home as soon as possible to see Posha.”

“Ah, is it that obvious?”

“It’s because I feel the same about Tiger.”

Amy smiled and tilted her cup towards her school friend, Rosalind Knolls, Daughter of Count Knolls. 

She had brown hair and brown eyes. She had a plain face which wasn’t very pretty, but she wasn’t ugly either. Both her height and physique were average, and there was nothing about her that stood out. She looked like she was a bit shy, like a ‘wallflower’.

However, after talking to her Amy found she was quite level headed, and had a caring  temperament like an older sister. She was the oldest among her siblings. Amy, who was the youngest, got on surprisingly well with her.  

Her eyes were thin and would narrow into thin lines whenever she smiled. Amy found that oddly nostalgic and familiar. And so Amy, who was usually shy with strangers, found it incredibly easy to talk to her, and they became close friends pretty quickly.

However, the topic they bonded the most over was, without question, cats. 

Actually the two, who were now recognised as good friends by everyone in the school, hadn’t had their first meeting here but rather at one of the Cat Association parties thrown by the Duchess Coverdale. 

Rosalind was a year ahead of Amy at school since she had started before her, and lived with a relative near the school. 

She had gone out with the lady of the house during a holiday and they had stumbled upon an injured cat.

Rosalind grew up in the country estate of Count Knolls in a region rich in nature, and their territory’s main specialty was in cows and dairy products. Hence, she had been surrounded by animals ever since she was a child and couldn’t overlook the small injured cat. Cats were useful in catching mice at the barn so there had been many cats back in her home.

It was then when she first met Amy who was in the middle of healing magic training, working alongside a veterinarian she had met through the Duchess. 

Amy had been the one to administer healing magic on the cat that Rosalind had picked up. The cat had then been sent to the Coverdale house for recovery. The cat was wary of people but seemed accustomed to being taken care of and looked after, it seemed as if it had been someone’s pet. 

It was common knowledge to the pet owners in the Capital that they should go to the Duchess if their pet ever went missing. And so the cat was left with her in case its owner came looking for it. However, a month passed and no one showed up to claim it, and now missing pet posters had gone up.

In the end, Rosalind, who had visited it regularly during that month, decided to adopt it.

The cat had bright orange fur and hazel eyes. It was similar to an orange tabby, except the fur at the base of its throat, its legs and its stomach was pure white. 

She named the cat Posha. After its recovery Posha became quite mischievous and would often get into trouble with the wife of the relative’s house Rosalind was staying at. However Posha was good at being spoiled and soon had won over everyone in the house with her cute looks; she became an important part of the family. 

“Oh yeah, the winged toy you gave me before was really good!”

“Tiger likes it too so I figured Posha would as well. Ah, do you have a colour preference for the feathers?”

“Not really… but if I had to choose I’d pick orange, like Posha’s fur.”

“Well then I’ll have to go with black.”

“Haha, you mean Tiger colour.”

The two talked happily, their conversation revolving around the shenanigans of their beloved cats. From the tables around them, they could hear other girls talking about rumours or trends in the Capital, or who was getting engaged to whom, but the two girls didn’t pay any mind to such conversation.

It had been a month since Amy started attending the Academy. Her school life was going well so far.