The Girl Found a Family... Right? (1)
The sunlight burned with unusual ferocity.
That heat was proof enough that the season of the strengthening sun had come stealing in on light feet. The southern continent, as a rule, had no sharply drawn seasons and was known for a cool climate, yet the domain that held Pendragon ran unusually hot. Scholars guessed that the fire-essence cradled in Mount Bulkan, which stood near Pendragon's lands, ran wild every summer and made the weather heavier than anywhere else.
On a continent where mana, mystery, and fairy mischief all lived side by side, however, the phenomenon was hardly strange, and few people found the abnormal weather odd. So long as it was not like the East, where failed magic had brought on a Great Rain Season of half a year of falling rain, or the Central Continent, which had earned the fairies' wrath and suffered a Great Blizzard the whole year through, Pendragon might even count itself lucky that nothing but the heat ran wild.
And so—
"They may call it a summer recess, but those of you who know will know. For the next two months we intend to conduct rites for the fairies, Mount Bulkan among them, and you must understand that we humans are not the only beings living on this continent. You must understand that we are merely one among the countless groups that coexist here with innumerable races, with nature, and with all the rest. It means we must not act as that arrogant empire did, as though we were the masters of the continent, and furthermore—!"
......Well. So he said.
Boiled down, it amounted to this: even heat that ran this wild was something one ought to live grateful for.
"When is this going to end?"
"Shh. What are you going to do if he hears you?"
"I'm only saying it because I feel like I'm about to drop from dehydration..."
"Then wouldn't collapsing be better? They'd move you to the recovery room."
"What are you, some kind of— genius?"
The students listening to the dean's hour-long address had passed boredom and arrived at suffering. They were gathered in the hall, but with several hundred bodies packed tight, even the hall stayed hot. Forced to hear the same lines repeated for more than an hour in that swelter, of course their faces went dizzy.
And even so, there was no one who could say a word to the dean. Who would dare talk back to a former chancellor once praised as a wise minister in the age of the Military God? Small wonder, then, that a student or two felt their minds snap.
"Lady Karin, can't you stop the dean somehow? He's your grandfather."
"Believe me, I'd love to, but once Grandfather starts a speech, not even kin can stop him. To cut him off, I suspect you'd need at least one of his close friends to drop in out of nowhere."
"And who would that be?"
"Hmm. The former head of Tristan, or His Majesty the King... or someone like Duke Felicia. He doesn't have many close friends."
"...So the wise move is simply to hear this speech out."
If the people she had named actually appeared, that would be a disaster greater still. The noble young lady who had hung a shred of hope on the idea whimpered and sank where she stood. Karin let those beautiful deep-violet eyes shine and offered only a polite smile.
A smile that somehow looked like a mask. Unlike the way she was when she dealt with a certain unbearably timid boy with messy gray hair, she was peculiarly short on life.
And then—
"Nnngh..."
"......"
"Haaaa..."
"...My lady?"
"Haaaaaah!"
"...Irene?"
"Hm? Did you call me?"
"...Haha. You seemed to have something on your mind."
Call her my lady and there was no response. Call her by name, and she reacted. Karin had never felt she lost to anyone on looks, but set beside the girl in front of her, she had little choice but to come up short. Among the countless mystery-races, merfolk, birdfolk, and fairies were counted foremost for their beauty, and this girl—with mysterious blue jewel-eyes that seemed to take after a fairy, and hair like gold thread worked by a goldsmith—was beautiful enough to charm even other women.
Irene Windler. A mage everyone was certain would represent not merely this generation but the age, and the Academy's greatest celebrity, well known as the adopted daughter of the Duke of Galahad. Others did not dare sit beside a girl like that, or even linger near her, so Karin had ended up at her side whether she liked it or not.
She was beginning to think she ought to have sat somewhere else.
"Y-you've been sighing so heavily since a moment ago. I wondered if something was wrong..."
The girl was advertising her gloom so openly that Karin could hardly keep from speaking. Irene kept breathing out sighs, and Karin, left with no other choice, addressed her.
Whereupon—
"Sorry. I don't want to make a show of it, but there's just something weighing on my mind."
"Oh dear. That must be hard."
"The thing is... ahh, it's nothing."
"If you say so..."
"But still!"
"......"
...Ah. This girl's personality was a nuisance.
She knew it on instinct. Pretty face or not, this one was a handful, and speaking to her had clearly been the wrong choice.
...I miss Derek.
A boy like a gray puppy, cute in the way he reacted. She would much rather enjoy those fresh, flustered responses than play counselor to a girl she was not even close to.
Even so.
"Hm? Lady Karin, are you very hot?"
"Eh? Ah... it is a bit hot, isn't it?"
"Right. Then."
Tak!
Whoosh.
"...Oh my?"
"Hehe. Cool, right?"
"Yes. It really is..."
The girl's water-aspected mana swept over her once, and Karin savored a refreshment that could not have been improved upon. Not only the sweat, but even the dust and the grimy residue of her body seemed washed away in an instant, and yet that freshness and that coolness kept holding. Karin blinked.
"I may not look it, but I'm a mage of water and wind. This much is simple. Hehe."
"My! That really is amazing!"
Karin decided, with a little more sincerity this time, to fuss over the girl and coo. Do something charming first, and fondness rises. That was human nature.
Karin Allensia de Guinevere. All things considered, she thought she might even become friends with this troublesome girl.
...Irene's worry was nothing so grand.
Has my presence gotten way too thin?
Call it a question of whether she had any presence at all, or say that her chances to talk with a man she fancied were dwindling. Somehow...
Your screen time has dropped, yeah. If this were a movie or a drama, you'd be the cameo who shows up once and then gets written out.
Nnngh!
A one-line kill from the ghost girl, and she had no way to deny it! Irene wanted to curl up and suffer.
But.
If I act like this, I'll look so petty. I'm glad Levi is safe, but...
There was a source behind what had cowed Irene Windler and driven her into this worry, a problem that was not quite a problem, and if she stayed upset she felt she would turn into a truly awful woman. That was the trouble: she could not even properly show that she was hurting.
Levi Fault. The friend who had returned safely to the Academy, and the very existence that had lately been threatening Irene's presence and dragging her down into gloom.
...Am I just that small-hearted?
You're only figuring that out now?
You're supposed to be on my side!
And what about you is cute?
...Tch.
Irene was the most aggrieved girl in the world.
It had been a week since the girl, Levi, returned safely to the Academy, and everyone had welcomed her back.
"Bear-Girl, you're really all right now??"
"I'm glad you came back safe, my lady."
"Vanishing without a word isn't like you, young lady."
Worry, relief, and nagging laced with advice followed her for a while, but Levi took every bit of it with a bright face.
"Thank you. And... I'm sorry, everyone."
They had failed to see her for only a few days, yet she had grown far more mature, and her classmates simply judged that Levi had suffered enough in that span to mature. No one asked for the details. They only guessed that the instructor must have distinguished himself.
...And sure enough.
"I-Instructor?"
"Th-those bandages, what on earth!?"
"...Did you fight a hundred trolls or something?"
The instructor appeared wrapped round and round in bandages. Students who knew his extraordinary strength even cried out in shock. That man, hurt like that... Would you believe they felt a chill of fear, wondering if some sealed ancient monster had been revived?
But as if their worry and their fear were nothing at all, the instructor said, flat as ever:
"Adults always have circumstances children don't know. Don't pry."
He brushed the concern aside and nagged just as he always did.
"...That doesn't really seem like a fitting example for right now..."
"Hey now!"
"......"
"Anyway, all of you get this straight. Bear-Girl never turned in a withdrawal form or whatever it was. A stormy rebellious phase just came over her, and she skipped class without leave. That's all."
"I'm that age?"
"It varies by person. It can show up early, or it can show up late. It just came a little late for Bear-Girl."
"......"
"An-swer."
"A-ack!"
...And so Levi's little escape came to a slapdash end, though plenty of questions remained. Why had the instructor come back so badly wounded, and Levi Fault...
"Ah, you don't have to call me by the name Fault from now on. ...I threw the family name away."
"...?"
...why she had come to discard her surname, her house. Questions went unanswered in every direction, but the students folded them away. Yes. What mattered was that the girl had come back, wasn't it? They resolved not to make much of it.
......But before long.
"Ah, Instructor. If I wanted to apply to be an Academy assistant instructor, where would I do that?"
...They found themselves facing a girl who had gone past shock and into an extreme choice, and not caring was no longer possible.
Watching Levi Faul— no, Levi— set her feet on the assistant instructor's course, people were aghast.
Especially one of them.
"L-Lady Levi! Why would you walk into this sea of fire of your own free will?!"
Damian Paulet. Lee Han's assistant instructor—his slave—had long since lost any trace of the well-dressed young master from the entrance ceremony. His face was so haggard that calling him brother to a ghoul would not have been an exaggeration. Not every assistant instructor ended up like that, of course. He was simply suffering more than most because Lee Han dumped every last task on him.
But no one failed to understand that Levi meant to become an assistant instructor in order to come in under him, and Damian Paulet had no choice but to try to stop her. In so many words:
Hey. Past that point is hell.
The thought rose on its own.
Yet for all that worry, the girl cheerfully submitted her application and joined the assistants in short order. Everyone went pale with shock, but...
"Hmm. This is actually manageable?"
The girl only blinked, because the work of an assistant was too easy.
"Eh?"
Had Damian been milking his suffering? Not quite. Even with two assistants, the labor remained brutal. The girl's sense of it, however, was different. For someone who had truly spent nineteen years in days steeped in hardship, adversity, and misery, work like this was—how to put it.
"It's so easy I was surprised. Hehe."
"......"
Yes. It was simply easy, and comfortable. She later heard that this was the moment Damian Paulet came to fear her and to respect her. In the blink of an eye the girl adapted to the work and kept showing them a new side of herself. She trained harder than before. She grew closer to the students than before, and treated them more gently. And more earnestly than before...
"Master, how am I supposed to do this?"
"Master, you're not tired, are you?"
"Master—!"
She attended the instructor with perfect courtesy—no, with utmost devotion. Watching a girl who seemed somehow bolder, and brighter, one could almost picture the freshness of lush summer greenery. That was how full her face was of nothing but clear, bright life, without a shadow of darkness anywhere.
...And so the students grew curious all over again. What on earth had happened to the girl—no, what had happened between the instructor and the girl?
And Irene Windler, watching all of this...
"Huh?"
She found in the girl's gaze the trace of an affection so pure it was almost holy, and ended up wearing a foolish look herself. The direction that purest love was aimed...
Arin. I think you've picked up a rival on the maid's level.
"......"
...seemed to be a certain stolid knight.
Irene felt a massive sense of crisis. She already had a formidable rival in a maid who combined a golden retriever's lovableness with a fairy's mysterious charm, so why did another rival like that have to appear? And so—!
"Hmm. In short, a friend has become your rival in love, and you're feeling complicated about it."
"N-no, it's not like that..."
"What do you mean, no? It's obvious just looking at you."
"......"
"Oh ho."
Well, look at this.
This is more fun than I expected.
She had only been listening to kill the boredom, but the more she heard, the more interesting it became. Of course it was. Set beside a grandfather—no, a dean—who had already spent an hour saying the exact same thing, a young girl's fresh little love story was far more entertaining. One had to compare the right things with each other.
Hmm. Not bad, that man.
Interesting as it was, admiration for the other party slipped out of her. To think he had monopolized not only the love of the Academy's greatest beauty, but even that of Lady Levi, whom the men of the Academy called their first love... Well, I'll be.
Young Lord Roen. I didn't take him for the type... so he does know how to catch a woman's heart?
Because Irene never said who the object of that longing was, a peculiar misunderstanding took root in Karin, and Karin found herself newly impressed with the lion of the North.
...Though she could not quite bring herself to imagine that the object was a certain knight drawn in an entirely different art style.
Meanwhile, the knight had skipped the closing ceremony. Reckless as he was, missing it risked being summoned by the dean all over again, but fortunately—
"Ho ho. We meet again so soon."
"......"
...a privilege of the powerful seemed to have removed any danger of a summons.
Marquis Jenimia. He had come looking for Lee Han. Lee Han made no effort to hide his sour expression as he asked.
"Did you come for revenge... sir?"
"Ho ho, drop the courtesy. It doesn't suit you, and it's terribly awkward."
"Easier for me, then."
"Impudent, ho ho! And yet, strangely, it's pleasant to hear."
"......"
...He quietly opened the distance. Watching the marquis close in while pretending they were already intimate made him feel awkward for no good reason.
"The other day you were every bit as fierce as a lion, and now you're meek as can be. Heh heh."
"I do know the proper occasion, at least."
"A man who knows the proper occasion thrashes every one of my knights?"
"Nobody died. That's enough."
"...This side of you is thoroughly detestable."
But soon enough—
"And yet even that is to my liking."
The marquis had already taken a liking to the knight called Lee Han, and so he found no fault in the man's conduct or his words, whatever they might be. An incompetent man's arrogance was an eyesore, but the arrogance of a capable strong man was simply confidence.
And so the marquis said:
"Revenge and the like don't interest me much. Ah, I can't speak for my knight order. Quite a few of them are already training on injured bodies, so next time they won't be easy to face."
"That... I'm looking forward to it."
It was certainly welcome news. They were not running. They wanted to settle the score. This was, without question, good news.
...However.
"...What?"
At the next words out of Marquis Jenimia's mouth, Lee Han had to snap shut the distance he had opened. And for good reason.
"To begin with, neither of us has a taste for long talk, do we? So I'll give you only the conclusion. That girl who was to marry into my house. —I've simply decided to take her as my daughter."
"......You skipped far too much of the middle."
For the man had begun to spit out nonsense that was hard to believe. This old fellow...
Has the heat gotten to him?
And so, once again, he found himself aiming a thoroughly disrespectful look at the marquis.