Jesus Maid Superstar!
Having decided to join a club together, my lady and I set about touring Aegis and investigating our options.
"So which club should we look into first?"
"Would it not be best to begin by asking which clubs the other members of our class have joined?"
"Oh, good idea."
When joining any organization, the surest method is always to hear about it from someone already inside. My lady and I resolved to find out which clubs our classmates had entered.
"Chelln?"
"Uh… huh? Noir…?"
My lady approached Chelln, who had been dozing at a desk nearby. At the start of the term she had been so full of life, but lately those once-fiery eyes of hers had been sinking into dark-ringed, dead-fish stares that made her look more and more like a burned-out teacher.
"Are you unwell…?"
"Ahaha, it's nothing like that… I'm just… just… yeah… just a little sleepy…"
Chelln's vacant smile looked as if her soul had already left her body. My lady's face clouded with concern.
The reason Chelln's spirit had fled her so thoroughly was last time's course registration.
"Hmm. I can't find a single flaw no matter how I look at it. It's perfect."
During registration a short while ago, Chelln had signed up for no fewer than ten courses and assembled a timetable straight out of hell. One glance at that schedule—fit for a slave more than a student—and the thought that she might be aiming for graduate school had crossed my mind.
"Um, Chelln…? What on earth were you thinking when you made this timetable…?"
Curious despite herself, Pell had carefully asked Chelln what had possessed her to build such a monstrosity, and received this empty reply:
"I just figured the more classes I take, the longer my youth might last…"
In other words, she had thrown the timetable together with zero thought, and this was the result. The add/drop period was already over. Chelln had crossed a river from which there was no return.
From that day on, my lady and I could only offer her our deepest condolences…
"So, Noir? What did you wake me up for?"
"Ah—um… I'm sorry for waking you, but I was wondering whether you'd joined a club…"
"Aaah, a club? I joined the Theology Club."
"The Theology Club?"
"Yeah. We read and study scripture together, invite vocalists—that kind of thing."
My lady stared at Chelln as if she could not quite believe it. She was clearly shocked that Chelln, of all people, had joined something so quiet and sedentary rather than a club that involved running around.
"I can see exactly what you're thinking from that face. I may not look it, but I am from Bargan."
"Ah."
Bargan—the greatest religious city-state in the world, and the birthplace of the faith itself. Both my lady and I had a habit of forgetting that Chelln was an exchange student from Bargan. Mention the name, and most people pictured serene priests and holy knights. Looking at Chelln, though, she felt nothing like the Bargan one usually imagined. There were moments I half-wondered whether she was concealing her true identity.
"Hmm. The Theology Club… Forgive me, but I don't believe it's quite what we're looking for."
"Well, religion only works if you have faith, so it's fine. Faith is what lets a person find rest in it. A religion without belief is nothing but a torture that forces boredom on you— Wait, what? Why are you two making that face again?"
"N-no, it's just… you really do sound like someone from Bargan…"
The moment the conversation turned to faith, Chelln radiated a devout atmosphere utterly unlike her usual self. Accustomed only to her lighthearted side, my lady and I could not help but be startled by this unexpected facet of her.
Hmm… At any rate, Chelln's club was a pass for now?
"Noir! Blanc! I heard from Chelln! You're looking for a club!"
As Blanc and I were walking down the corridor, Rouge came running toward us from far off, waving. She really was lively. Chelln was energetic too, but hers came from pure passion; Rouge's was the bright, unfiltered liveliness of a child simply enjoying herself.
"Want to join the Opera Club with me?"
"The opera club?"
Opera—a form of theater that tells a story through song. In the past, "opera" on the continent had meant grand opera and nothing else, but lately I'd heard winds of every genre were blowing through it.
"Yep! I've gotten totally into operetta recently!"
"Operetta?"
As the times began to change, starting with the Empire, opera as a culture had started to change with them. Among the evolving forms of opera, the one drawing the greatest attention was operetta. Where opera had once been a culture reserved for the upper class, operetta adapted the old form so that ordinary people could enjoy it more easily. I was fairly sure I'd seen in a magazine that it was all the rage in the Kingdom of Alphaz.
"Hmm… Operetta, huh…"
Frankly, I had neither knowledge of nor feeling for music. Naturally I'd never been interested in opera either—but once operetta began to flourish in earnest, even I found myself getting curious.
I Became an Armless Academy Student — Official Live-Action Adaptation!
Enjoy it as an operetta now at the Marceau Theater in the capital!
Operetta was opera made for the masses to enjoy. Light novels, too, were books made for the masses to enjoy. That was why a new cultural trend had sprung up lately of turning light novels into "live-action" operettas. Of course you couldn't capture every scrap of heat and thrills from the original, but as a literary girl who loved her novels, I couldn't help being interested in operetta.
"Operetta…"
I wasn't uninterested myself—but would Blanc be able to enjoy it?
I glanced back at Blanc, who had been standing quietly behind me. As always, a faint smile rested on her face, but I, who stuck to her side every day, knew perfectly well what that expression was hiding. That smile was her "thinking absolutely nothing" face. I was probably the only person who recognized it for the blank look it was.
"Haa…"
Blanc always maintained that air of composure, but for anything that didn't concern me or her work, she showed about this much interest—which is to say, none. She seemed to take a certain personal pleasure in maid work at least, but even after escaping that trash heap of an organization called Yeoro, she still had no hobbies or private interests of her own. It was honestly a little pitiful.
Even people who love their work need a hobby or passion that can give their hearts rest, don't they? Everyone needs a place for the heart to rest. Just as I, once crushed under the weight of nobility, had found peace in novels, I wanted to find Blanc a personal hobby or interest that wasn't maid work.
"If it's Noir and Blanc, you'd get into the club right away!"
Hmm… Blanc and operetta…
Blanc performing a character from one of my novels…
A Former Secret Organization Assassin Becomes a Maid and Obsesses Over Me, an Academy Student
Kyaaaah!
For a split second, the image of Blanc delivering a famous line from one of my favorite novels—set to a dazzling musical number—flashed through my mind!
Blanc, twisting love into obsession and forcing it on her target…!
This was huge. I could not miss this. I absolutely had to see it become reality!
"All right. Let's go take a look, at least. That okay with you, Blanc?"
"Yes, as you wish, my lady."
The Opera Club's room, located on the second floor of Aegis Academy.
With opera culture on the rise, and a former club member recently making a name for herself as a celebrated opera singer in the capital, the Opera Club had not long ago been promoted to official club status. Strike while the iron is hot, as they say—and Andrea L. Weber, club president, rising star of the opera world, and holder of the nickname "the Little Prince of Aegis," was not content to stop there. He wanted the Opera Club to climb higher still.
To reach those greater heights, the first priority was filling the vacancies left by graduated seniors and finding promising newcomers who could carry the club into the future.
"Hm? You want to join our club? Pretty freshmen like you are always welcome!"
When three first-years interested in the Opera Club appeared at the door, Andrea cheered inwardly. Every last one of them was strikingly beautiful. Looks weren't everything in opera, but their weight was far from negligible. Some people didn't even care about skill—they simply fell for actors with outstanding faces.
A lively brown-haired girl brimming with healthy energy; a proud black-haired girl radiating poise; and a silver-haired girl whose delicate air somehow also suggested tenderness. Each one of them was a top-tier prospect!
"Still—could I hear you sing first?"
All that remained, then, was the singing. Dance could be covered with enough effort, but singing was heavily dependent on innate talent. No matter how stunning the looks or polished the dancing, if the voice was hopeless, that person simply had to give up on being an opera performer.
But with faces like these, even if their singing was a little weak—even if it was worse than an ordinary person's—they would still be more than worth taking on as newcomers!
If—and only if—their singing was so catastrophic you wanted to clap your hands over your ears, then even looks this fine wouldn't be enough. But really, what were the odds of that?
"Haha. Hahahaha."
Ah, seniors—please watch over me.
I will lead the Opera Club into a new golden age…!