Bokja Sulks 2
Aegis Academy, field training—day two.
We were to gather in the lobby by nine, but arriving exactly on time is hardly ideal conduct. A true noble is expected to set an example for others by arriving ahead of schedule. Having finished preparing for the day's practical work, I left my room at eight.
The morning air of the royal capital, something I had not breathed in quite some time, filled my lungs with a pleasant coolness. After taking the elevator down to the lobby, I found the hotel staff already bustling about from the early hour. For a hotel of such long-standing prestige, they were rushing about like amateurs—though I could hardly blame them for their nerves.
Aegis Academy is no ordinary school. It is the very symbol of Lyceum, and its students are destined to become the talents who will one day lead the continent. Merely hosting Academy students was enough to put the staff on edge; among those students were the children of a ducal house and a count's house besides. On top of that, the professor overseeing us was none other than one of Lyceum's Sages. From the hotel employees' perspective, it was enough to make anyone's blood run cold. One wrong step in their hospitality, and not only an individual staff member's safety but the hotel's entire standing could hang in the balance.
As the son of a kingdom count, it was only proper that I understand and commend the hard work of such common folk. That was why, since yesterday, I had been leaving rather generous tips with several of the staff. Money is not meant to sit idle—it is meant to flow. Those who live above have a duty to let it trickle downward. To the penniless commoner or the lesser noble, such gestures might look like needless extravagance, but when those who have means spend, and when they reward the labor of working people, the economy thrives.
"Ha. Throwing money around just for pressing an elevator button. You really do spend like a precious little count's son, don't you?"
Which made the words of that damn commoner—the first person I ran into upon stepping out of the elevator—all the more absurd. Why did this fellow have to pick a fight even when someone was doing a good deed? If he was clever enough to enter Aegis despite his station, he must have received a better upbringing than his surroundings would suggest. And yet his character lagged so far behind his education and grades that I could only sigh.
"What, exactly, is so objectionable about consoling laborers for their efforts?"
"Consoling? Commending? You look at these hotel people like they're your subordinates, don't you?"
And what was wrong with that? I was a high noble. They were commoners. Moreover, I was a guest at this hotel. I genuinely could not grasp what he was trying to say.
"So what is the problem, precisely?"
"Stop looking down on commoners and treating them like they're beneath you. Just say thank you and hand over the money. Do you really have to throw around words like 'effort' and 'commendation' just so you can put people under you?"
I could not understand a single thing this bastard had been spouting from the start. That nobles stand above commoners, that a guest holds the superior position—these were not my personal opinions but objective facts. I had not expected him to deny them so thoroughly. Worse still, his rhetoric lined up uncomfortably well with the slogans those reactionaries had spouted during the civil war—opportunistic scum who waved the banner of equality while running about like beasts without reason. However much I disliked this fellow, those bastards had been dozens of times worse.
"I'll give you some earnest advice. Whether in the capital or anywhere else that still has ears for the kingdom, you would do well not to spew that kind of nonsense. I already knew you were an empty-headed barrel with nothing but good grades, but don't go picking fights over phrasing just because you dislike something—and don't go picking conversations with nobles for no reason either."
"What did you just say?"
"Commoner or not, if you're an Academy student, you should know perfectly well how many problems there are with what you're saying right now. If you truly mean those words, I have no choice but to think of you the same way I think of those reactionary scum."
The kingdom still carried unforgettable scars from those filthy wastes of flesh, and even the capital had never fully escaped their shadow. The riot those inhuman trash had raised in the slums had devastated the surrounding streets and left countless innocent victims in its wake. It had left wounds people could not forget. And now, in the kingdom—in the royal capital itself—a mere commoner was parroting their arguments? It was no different from begging for his own death, and his family's along with it. However arrogant and irritating his conduct might be, equating him with that garbage would still be a grave discourtesy. For a fellow Academy student—a classmate, no less—to be treated as their equal and die for it would be a disgrace to any noble.
"If you don't want to be lumped in with that trash whose upbringing itself is in question, then know when to stop."
Besides, I had been in the wrong yesterday myself. In my own way, the advice was sincere.
I'll admit it. This time, I was the one in the wrong.
I'd felt inferior looking at that noble bastard. While some of us were carefully nursing a single pair of new shoes, a classmate was scattering around enough money to buy more than ten pairs—and I'd taken out a petty grudge over it. My logic had been nothing better than a child's tantrum, and he hadn't actually done anything wrong. But I still didn't want to admit my mistake. Bowing my head to him was the one thing I refused to do. So I dug in deeper.
"If you don't want to be lumped in with that trash whose upbringing itself is in question, then know when to stop."
But that line, I could not let stand. I had no intention of defending the people who had been swept up by the First Prince's agitation and started a civil war. What I could not endure was the way he talked as if the entire fault of that war belonged to uneducated commoners. Who, exactly, had driven them into the war in the first place? Who was responsible for commoners never receiving an education to begin with? Did he have any idea what it felt like for people clinging to the last root of a plant—people who threw themselves into a furnace of their own free will? The one who had been so kind and warm had been driven to death not by us, but by you nobles.
"So you're saying the entire civil war was the commoners' fault?!"
"I'm not here to debate rights and wrongs. I'm simply saying that the ones who joined that war were trash who put on the mask of equality so they could fill their own stomachs."
They never got to fill their stomachs. Was wanting a full stomach such a terrible crime? Yes—back then they stole and seized other people's things to feed themselves. That was clearly wrong, and it was why they were branded criminals. But it was something that could have been prevented. If you—if you nobles—had simply done your jobs properly, that person never would have ended up that way. I knew it. This was a stretch. I knew he didn't mean it that way. I was pinning the sins of the nobles of that era on this one guy alone. It was hypocrisy—acting like some self-appointed representative of commoners just to vent my irritation.
"You...!"
But I still could not accept what he was saying. Whatever his intent, I could no longer swallow a tone that scraped so hard against that person's memory.
"You...!"
I closed in until I was right in front of his nose, ready to pour out every ounce of that fury—when the grandfather clock decorating the lobby began to chime loudly, announcing that it was nine o'clock.
"Hold on. Something's off."
"What?"
"I could understand if it were that dancer, but even Lady Leonhart and her maid haven't shown up. Doesn't that strike you as strange?"
"Ah..."
Only then did I realize something about the present situation truly was wrong. As he said, Rouge running late wouldn't be unusual—but Leonhart and Blanc being late was another matter entirely. Those two were the model students of our class. If anything, they should have been here early. There was no way they simply wouldn't appear after the appointed time.
"Perhaps some bothersome business came up?"
"Bothersome business?"
"Word that Aegis students are visiting has already spread thoroughly among the capital's nobles. There may well be some among them looking to pick a fight with an imperial ducal house—or to cling to it for connections."
"Wait—so you're saying those two got caught up in something?"
"Pure speculation. Don't take it too seriously. Besides, with those two, we hardly need to worry."
No—how was anyone supposed to not worry after hearing something like that? He drops a bunch of unsettling talk and then tells me not to worry?
"Hey, where do you think you're going?"
While every anxious possibility raced through my head, the very person who had brought it up was already stepping back into the elevator, preparing to leave. He wasn't seriously planning to go back to his room just because the others hadn't arrived, was he?
"It's not that I'm particularly worried about them. Still, we ought to check what the situation is. If something ends up interfering with the training, I'll take a loss as well."
"Ah."
Right. Better to move first and assess things than waste time fretting. I hated to admit it, but this time his judgment seemed sound.
"What. Why are you getting on?"
"It's not that I agree with you—but those two might really have gotten tangled up in something weird. I'm going to check for myself. Got a problem with that?"
"I don't particularly care. Though your way of speaking just now—"
"What? Does it bother you?"
"Ha! Forget it. What is there to discuss with an uncultured oaf."
While we sniped at each other, the elevator doors closed and we began to rise toward the floor where the two of them were staying. Once the doors shut, the brief silence that settled between us was oddly irritating.
Ding!
The elevator arrived, and I made to hurry toward their rooms. Given the Leonhart family's standing and the two of them's actual skill, his words might well have been needless fretting. But the fact that those diligent two still hadn't come down for the appointed time left me on edge. So the moment the doors opened, both he and I rushed out of the elevator, intending to head straight for their rooms—only to find—
"Bokja, please stop sulking and come out now."
"Yeah, yeah. Bokja! Come play with me, okay?"
"Bokja. I'm really, truly sorry."
The instant we stepped off the elevator, we found not only the two of them but Rouge as well, all pressing their faces toward Blanc's shadow and coaxing it—and both he and I completely lost the ability to speak. What in the world was going on? Should I be relieved that none of the disasters I'd feared had happened—or more worried because of this bizarre spectacle? I was almost afraid to ask what had happened.
"You lot. What on earth are you doing?"
"Ah, Mr. Dessant. Good morning."
"Never mind the morning greeting. I asked what is going on right now."
"Bokja is sulking. Would you perhaps help us soothe it as well?"
"So you're telling me you all came down to the lobby eventually and were collectively soothing that shadow thing—Bokja, was it?"
"Yes. That's correct."
Ah, I'm going to lose it. I think I'm getting dizzy. This isn't even looking after a five-year-old—these people are tending to a shadow. And behind us, the hotel staff who had been watching that whole bizarre scene were whispering among themselves for no good reason. Were these really students of a prestigious academy...? I was starting to feel embarrassed on their behalf.
"That aside, Oblia. You always seemed the furthest thing from this sort of nonsense—so why were you out there coaxing that Bokbunja creature along with them?"
"It is Bokja, not Bokbunja, Professor. Even if you are our professor, speaking ill of Bokja is—"
"Ahh! Fine! Bokja! Happy now?!"
Look at Blanc. All honey and sweetness in front of her lady, and the second someone gets her shadow's name wrong she turns ice-cold. Ever since she cast that magic in front of Leonhart yesterday, she's only been like this with me. Honestly, it hurts a person's feelings.
"Haa. Anyway, answer the question, Oblia."
"If that one's shadow refuses to cooperate, our team's overall capability and work efficiency drop accordingly. And the longer it takes to soothe the shadow, the more our mission time is delayed. As a noble, I could not permit that—so I assisted."
"Is that... even related to being a noble...?"
If anything, a noble crouching down to talk to a shadow seemed like the strange part. His claim that he had cooperated for the sake of efficiency was sound enough, but whether the word "noble" needed to be attached to it was another question entirely. Ah, this is driving me crazy. It might not be my place to say so, but feeling like the normal one around here is a sensation I haven't had in a long while. At this point I almost have to wonder whether the hotel has been slipping these people something.