Is Irene Windler a Villainess? (1)
Cricket was one of the refined leisure sports of the nobility, a cousin to baseball, and at the same time one of the few games commoners knew just as well.
Unlike polo—the mounted mallet game—which demanded trained horses, a practice ground, and a full kit of equipment, cricket asked for nothing more than a ball and a flat bat. Anyone could play it.
Thanks to that, the sport had become popular enough to span nobles and commoners alike, and it was no exaggeration to say that everyone knew the basic rules.
Which was why.
"Is that all you can manage?!"
"Our old lady could swing a bat better than you!"
"Why—why can't you catch it?! It's dropping right in front of you…!"
…Well. That sort of thing.
Out on the cricket match—no, the cricket examination ground—the players, which was to say the cadets, were hurling balls, whipping bats, and going half-mad in the scramble to catch anything that flew.
By pure chance, the two sides taking the exam were thick with the children of noble houses that stood for the South and the East. Fate had even split them onto opposing teams. Before long the southerners and easterners in the crowd were cheering along the lines of home, and that cheering had already overheated until the whole place looked one spark away from a brawl.
A territorial war wearing the name of sport. A War Game.
This was no longer a sporting contest, nor the exam subject of a handful of cadets. It was a war on which the pride of a domain's people hung.
Arno, who happened to be sitting the cricket exam himself, shook his head.
"…Lose this match, and I half expect a revolt back home."
"Not half. It will happen. There were academy seniors from territories already at odds who played a cricket match, and the citizens of the side that lost armed themselves with slings, surrounded their lord's son, and stoned him."
"D-did that senior live?"
"He's breathing. They say he just lives on as the worst traitor the territory has ever known."
"……."
"So we have to win, no matter what. I don't want to be branded a traitor. …And I don't want to die under a rain of stones."
"…Mm."
In that fashion, and through no one's intention, the cricket match grew interesting. The exam had been shoved to the back of everyone's mind. What remained was a kill-or-be-killed air, a hunger to beat the other camp bloody. The sword faculty, Arno among them, were beginning to worry they could no longer tell when the fistfight would start.
"Well, I'll be. This world has bench-clearing brawls too?"
Lee Han took in the way things were going and found it nothing but absurd. He had only come to watch, since the cadets he taught were playing, and the situation was running far more like a battle than a game. He had expected a noble sport to proceed with some elegance. Wasn't this more entertaining than most baseball, or most football?
And then there was the crowd.
"Am I watching European football? Why are there so many hooligans?"
Even the spectators were berserkers, every last one of them. At this rate he could easily picture some of them snatching up torches and setting noble carriages alight.
"It's a riot. A complete riot."
Was it because there was so little else to enjoy? People were dead serious about their sports. He guessed this face of it showed itself precisely because cricket was a familiar game.
"What if I spread football?"
Something like it already existed. He was curious what kind of waves it would make if he introduced the thing in earnest. Was this what they called intellectual curiosity?
He was wickedly entertaining the notion of bringing in modern football when a familiar face found him.
"Instructor?"
"Bear No. 11?"
"It's Barry, Instructor. We're not even at the training ground. Could you use my name?"
"You remembered the number perfectly, though."
"…Am I supposed to be grateful for that?"
"More to the point, why is Cadet Barry here?"
"Ah. I was earning a bit of living money. It's something of a peak season."
No. 11 Baldy—no, Barry Cops—scratched his head with an awkward smile. From an enormous pack he drew out cold drinks. Jerky, pretzels, and the like were stuffed in there as well, plainly meant for snacking.
"Hoh. You're allowed to go around selling that?"
"Originally, no. Everyone looks the other way. The ones who are always short on living money, like me, do it a lot."
"That so? I thought I spotted some drunks…."
"Haha. Selling liquor is illegal. The moment a crackdown squad shows up, you're getting hauled off."
"…There's a crackdown squad?"
Exasperated, Lee Han drew two silver coins from his clothes.
"One drink, and some jerky."
"…That's too much money."
"The rest is a tip."
"…Instructor."
"Study during exam season, brat. Don't turn it down because it wounds your pride."
"…I'll be loyal!"
"Do well on ordinary days."
"Yes, sir!!"
With a razor-straight salute, Barry accepted the two silver coins—a month's wages for a household of four—and handed over the entire bag. Lee Han had asked for one of each. The boy dumped the lot on him and left.
"I told you to listen."
Who had asked for all of it? Grumbling, Lee Han put a piece of the jerky in his mouth.
"Homemade? Well made."
A fine taste. Not a waste of the money.
To state only the outcome, Lee Han had dared to refuse Grand Duke Magnus's offer.
An ordinary knight, refusing a grand duke. An impossible thing. The grand duke could have taken it as an insult and ordered the man's head struck off. Instead—
"Why do you refuse?"
He only showed interest, eyes alight. It was a considerably good offer. Why refuse it?
And well he might ask. Handled right, it was the chance to marry into the grand ducal house as a son-in-law. A chance to rise in station. He might even have taken the name Lionel. So why give all of that up?
To that question, the answer Lee Han spat out was this.
"It just doesn't appeal to me."
…That.
At an answer worthy of being called a masterpiece, Grand Duke Magnus blinked, and Maximus clutched his stomach and rolled on the floor.
"Kahahaha! Brother, didn't I tell you! The man's a real piece of work—a real piece! To think there's a fellow who treats the great Lionel like a dog! Isn't he incredible!"
"…He certainly is. Haha!"
Yet the grand duke and the knight of the North did not look displeased. Amused, if anything. Perhaps it was the nature of northerners. Unlike the nobles of the center, who hid what they felt, these men held candor as a virtue, and seemed to rate heartiness higher still.
Grand Duke Magnus laughed long and hard, and then he said it.
"Even so, knight, always remember my offer. Lionel will welcome you, always."
He vanished still leaving the door open. A man like a storm. When he appeared he had looked vicious enough to sweep everything away on the spot, and even his leaving was a storm's leaving—gone without a trace.
"Next time, we settle it in a fight to the death. Wait for me, Rohan!"
"…You're doing that on purpose, aren't you?"
"Hm?"
"…Next time I see that bastard, should I break his jaw?"
Rihan, Rahan, and after that Rohan. A man who had renamed him three times. They said no younger brother lived up to his elder, and sure enough—unlike the grand duke, who had at least left a decent impression—this one had kept scraping at him to the very end! If he met that arrogant gorilla again, he would not let it pass so easily. Jaw or neck, he would snap one of them!
Besides the arrogant grappler of Galahad, Lee Han had chosen a new target to pound into paste.
But before that.
"Before any of that—should I wreck these Information Guild bastards first?"
The ones who needed wrecking ahead of the grappler and the gorilla were none other than the Information Guild. Take the money, do the work. How was it that every scrap of information was garbage?
The duke I thought was a murderer is just an ordinary, sane man. The one I thought was a rapist turns out more magnanimous than I expected. What kind of pattern is this?
Of course he could not judge everything from a single meeting. Even so, Lee Han trusted his own eyes and his instincts. In that sense, neither the duke nor the grand duke was utterly useless trash. On the contrary, of all the nobles he had met so far, they possessed the dignity and the ability most worthy of the title.
And so he settled on two broad reasons the Information Guild had handed over nothing but rubbish like this. One: they had truly gathered the information in a slapdash way. Or else—
Both of them thoroughly fabricated the information about themselves.
Whichever it was.
"…I'm tired."
Somehow the rate at which incidents occurred felt overwhelmingly higher than when he had been in the knight order. …Because he was at the academy?
"No. The problem isn't the academy. It's the people."
You know how it goes, don't you? In every academy story, the place stays peaceful until the protagonist shows up. And now, of all workplaces, his had two—no, three—leads of protagonist grade.
A regressor, some wastrel prince whose identity he couldn't pin down, and….
"—Instructor!?"
"……."
"Oh my, what a coincidence. Meeting in a place like this. Hoho…."
"…Hmm."
And the possessor right in front of his eyes.
Lee Han let out a low sound and thought it over again, freshly. This one, really.
She cannot act worth a damn.
Irene Windler came toward him with an awkward smile on her lips.
Shut up. Because of you, what am I even doing right now?!
Irene Windler herself wondered what on earth she was doing. Because of the ghost roommate who chattered at her noisily every single day, she had been made to put on makeup from the morning.
Th-then what, I meet him looking like a beggar?! I-I'm doing all this thinking of you, you—you girl!
Wh-why are you looking at me like that?
I do not have any shady thoughts! …But do I really have to do that favor?
Nngh…!
Irene Windler, who had not studied a single thing on the faith that the ghost girl had every subject memorized, reminded herself that she had no choice but to grant the request. She was first in the magic faculty, after all. Even if her marks came out low, there was no fear of expulsion, so a part of her thought, what did it matter if she failed an exam?
I can't bomb the exam!
For a girl who still carried an examinee's soul—one who had never sat the CSAT—nothing was more terrifying than a low score.
And so.
Th-the thigh. I'm only going to touch the thigh….
Glancing at the knight's thigh, which looked thicker than her own waist, the girl swallowed dry.
A chill.
"…?"
For no reason he could name, the knight felt cold.