The Princess from England (2)
In every comic and novel you've ever picked up, the transfer student always lands in the protagonist's class.
"Lydia Isla Marietta. It's a pleasure to meet you all."
"Whoooo! Welcome to Korea!"
At the welcome — Kim Chang-hyun overjoyed past all reason, the others pleased to a more reasonable degree — the girl answered with a smile that dimpled, just slightly.
Huh. She actually speaks Korean. The girl who'd come in with the homeroom teacher finished her introduction with a set of triplets at her back, and then, still smiling, she looked straight at me and held it.
Go to some other class. Why did it have to be ours? I took the stare she was boring into me with a cold one of my own and started turning it over.
The direct line of the British royal family is Windsor, isn't it? So what's Marietta?
While she answered the kids' questions and kept glancing my way, I looked her over from the outside.
Out where the sunlight hit, she'd looked platinum blonde, like Franc. Step into the building, into the shade, and the gold came forward. Not platinum. A pale gold.
Her hair was long enough to rival Franc's, gathered from the nape into a single fall drawn forward over her chest — the so-called princess hairstyle — and it suited her so well that anyone could tell at a glance she was from a distinguished house.
The face was the small, egg-shaped kind common to Westerners, set in pale skin, cute enough that a passing glance might have taken her for a doll. And yet...
A girl with manners that bad was outside my interest.
The introductions and the questions seemed to be over, because the teacher presented her all over again.
"Miss Lydia Isla Marietta is a princess of the British royal family, come from Eton High School in England on a one-month short-term study abroad to learn about Korean culture. Please help her, over the month you'll spend together, so she can learn many of Korea's good points and take them home with her. And..."
So I was supposed to call her Princess, not just some girl?
"Is this Eton place famous?"
"Eton High School is an old and prestigious school that became coeducational a hundred years ago. It has produced prime ministers several times over, and it's famous as a place the royal bloodline attends."
Hearing Franc's explanation, I lifted one corner of my mouth in a crooked smirk. If that place was so grand, what exactly was there to learn by coming to our country?
"Olivia."
"Lily."
"Chloe."
The triplets who'd been standing behind the princess without expression or feeling introduced themselves with nothing but their mouths barely moving. The princess asked whether they might introduce themselves a little more, and the triplets hemmed and hawed their way through hobbies and occupations — meaning, their ability types — in fits and starts.
I watched, and examined all four of them down to the last detail with Spatial Perception.
Girls who could be summed up, start to finish, by the words blonde, bobbed, and flat.
Identical triplets, like the Park Chorong and Park Hyunji sisters — except it wasn't that their Phase Power and types differed. All three were Physical Reinforcement users, D-Class at two hundred thousand. The princess was a D-Class Elemental user, also at two hundred thousand.
Right about when the introductions wound down, a knock came at the back door of the classroom, and four staff members carried in four desks and four chairs, set them in the empty spots, and left.
And of course it had to be behind me. Well — Cho Min-ho sits right behind me, so not directly behind. Right?
"Then, Princess, that empty seat over there..."
"Teacher? I'm a student, so I'd be glad if you spoke to me comfortably."
"Ah. Right. Shall I? Then Marietta, Olivia, Lily, and Chloe, sit at the desks we just brought in."
Even if the princess had asked, dropping straight into casual speech that cleanly — our teacher had some nerve, looked at a certain way.
I propped my chin on one palm and was watching the princess with cool eyes when she passed me with a bright smile, faltered at the sight of Franc floating at the back of the classroom, and then moved on and took her seat.
Homeroom ended with nothing in particular to announce, the teacher left the room, and the kids began sidling toward the princess.
The princess, for her part, listened to whoever approached with an elegant manner that carried no sense of privilege, answered their questions, and never once lost her smile.
Kim Chang-hyun, who'd been showing an extreme interest in the princess, didn't actually go near her even after she'd arrived. He turned around in his seat and whispered in my ear.
"Hey. Hey. The princess keeps sneaking looks at you. You're not even gonna say something?"
"Want me to record what you're saying right now and hand it to Hwayeon?"
"...Sorry. Spare me."
Whether out of consideration for me or not, they didn't swarm my side, so Kang So-ra and Cho Min-ho were spared the shoving. Min-ho, though, wore a face like he was about to have a panic attack, maybe because a princess of an entire country was sitting behind him. If timidity gets to that point, isn't it a medical condition?
"Krghh~! I'm seriously jealous. I wanna know what it's like to be popular like you. Think I'd get popular if I became an ability user?"
"In your dreeeams~?"
Kang So-ra's face said someone like him wouldn't make it even if he went a hundred times, and the look of it made Kim Chang-hyun go dead serious.
"Do it a hundred times and maybe one of those times you come out with an ability like Seoha's. You don't know."
"Seveeeenty of those you'd die, and twenty-eight you'd just come back an ordinary ability user, thooough~."
"Kuh! Then what's the last one?!"
"A supporter. What else would it beee~."
"..."
"Now that I think about iiit~ a hundred feels way too generous a number~. Shall we make it a milliooon~?"
"Isn't that way too harsh?!"
While Kang So-ra teased Kim Chang-hyun, cheeks puffed out like a child's, Cho Min-ho quietly shifted his seat over beside him, finally climbed out of his panic, and opened his mouth.
"I— if I met that Solid Snake Seoha caught... I'd die of fear."
"What's the big deal about a Solid Snake. Want me to show you something cooler?"
I glanced up at Franc, who'd flown over my head and was drifting there, and said it to Min-ho — and every kid crowded around the princess turned to look at me at once.
The princess and the others included.
"What is it?! Show us, show us!"
Han Go-eun, Su Yu-ri, and Kang Ju-chan came running from across the room, stuck themselves to my desk, and lit up, eyes sparkling.
"It's a bit gruesome, for girls."
"It's fine. I love third-rate splatter movies! Yu-ri watches them with me all the time, so she's used to it!"
As if what I filmed was the same as a third-rate splatter movie!
The other girls around us wavered over whether to look, but they didn't leave their spots, telling themselves there'd never be another chance like this. Min-ho, who clearly wanted to leave, tried to back out, found himself blocked by the kids behind him, and couldn't get free — and then he went white as a sheet and started shaking.
What I meant to show them was a photo of the Elephantros leader. The so-called uncensored original. The photos Deputy Minister Kim Hakjun had used in his presentation were mosaicked, most of them, to the point you could barely tell it was an Elephantros at all.
Show them the raw one, and they'd be even more shocked.
Honestly, I'd only brought it up to tease Min-ho a little. Seeing him squeeze both eyes shut, gone that pale, I felt a bit sorry.
I turned on the Certifier and blew the hologram window up large, and gasps burst out of the circle around me at once. From somewhere in the middle came a small, thin urk.
"Oh?! This... isn't a centaur?"
Kim Chang-hyun squinted, then opened his eyes wide again, and studied the photo with a face that said huh? That was when a slender voice came from behind me.
"A photograph of an Elephantros matriarch. So this is the original. Astonishing."
I glanced back. The princess was near Cho Min-ho's seat, looking at the photo floating in the hologram. Han Go-eun wrinkled her brow just a little at the sight, looked at the photo in the window again, and asked me.
"It looks really far away, but it still looks huge. How big is it actually?"
"If this one stood up, it could glare in at us from outside that window."
A round of eeks went up around me, and a few of the kids looked out the window.
I slid to the next image, and several of the girls dry-heaved and slipped out of the circle. In the gap, Cho Min-ho — white as paper — clapped both hands over his mouth and bolted from the classroom.
"You mean it's really fifteen meters? To think the two of you captured that. Magnificent."
I kept flipping, and up came photos of this place and that across the swamplands of the Phase World.
Most of them were from the verification. Serpent Aberrants hacked to pieces. Swamp half-burned and still pouring smoke. Insects and leeches scorched by lightning. Shattered trees and enormous gouged craters strewn in a mess all across the mire.
Every time the photo changed, the air around me filled with a jumble of gasps and marvels.
"Eek~! Look at the size of that snake!"
"Waaah! The leeches are enormous!"
"I couldn't last one second in a swamp like thaaat~!"
Heh. Look at me, getting a little used to interest and attention.
...Thanks to those damned reporters!
"These are from the recent verification, aren't they. A swamp — how fascinating."
"I'd have thought a princess could see photos like these whenever she wanted."
Han Go-eun, who didn't seem to like the princess keeping butting in, put on a sulky face and spoke in a slightly edged tone. Maybe because the world hadn't rubbed off on her yet — she was treating the princess not as a princess, but like the girl next door.
"Please, call me Lyd—"
"The princess is an ability user too. Not photos. She'd have seen them herself."
"..."
"Huh? For real?"
The princess shut her mouth at my words and looked at me with startled eyes. Han Go-eun and the others were just as surprised as she was, and the moment every gaze gathered on her, the princess — flustered for a beat — smiled brightly and spoke to Han Go-eun.
"Would you call me Lydia, rather than Princess? I'm called a princess, but I'm from a very distant collateral line. I only received the title of princess after I became an ability user and was summoned by the royal family."
Hm. I'd cut her off because I wanted to sour the mood a little and peek at what she really thought, and I'd gone and told them she was an ability user — but the princess put the gentle face back on and spoke softly to Han Go-eun again.
But collateral? No matter how far you drift from the direct line, if the royal blood continues, aren't you still called a princess?
"Until I became an ability user, I was just an ordinary girl. The title of princess that all of you use feels like a burden."
I'd been watching the princess's expression with Spatial Perception since earlier, and unexpectedly, I could tell that last remark was sincere.
When a person lies, there's a reaction peculiar to it. Focus Spatial Perception carefully on a face and you get the feeling: that bastard's lying right now. But in what the princess had just said, I couldn't feel a single lie.
Well. A princess's circumstances were none of my business. I'd just tune it out.
"Uh... yeah. Sure! Nice to meet you, Lydia."
"Oh, I'm the class president, Su Yu-ri. Nice to meet you, Lydia!"
Ooh. The girls had caught the princess's sincerity too, it seemed. Even Han Go-eun, who'd been like a cat with its fur on end, let her guard down a notch and inched closer. Su Yu-ri, who never had a wrinkle of reserve in her, stuck to the princess like a puppy.
The princess kept sneaking glances at me even while she talked with the girls, but between the morning's business and not particularly wanting to act like I knew her, I tuned her out soon enough.
Spatial Perception showed me the first-period teacher coming, so I shut off the Certifier and sat properly. Franc stroked my hair once, lightly, then flew to the back of the classroom and started fiddling with a phone.
Even while she talked with the others, the princess kept stealing glances at that.
"Ah! Sunbaeee!!"
Fourth period over, on the way to the cafeteria for lunch, student council president Lee Yu-mi spotted me and came flying in like she meant to tackle me, diving for my waist. But I could no longer authorize access to my waist!
I switched on Mana Mode — Acceleration, snatched Lee Yu-mi out of the air by the waist, and set her down on the ground. Then I looked down at her, eyes gone perfectly round, and spoke with a serious face.
"Student council president. Today I have a proposal for you."
"W... what is it, Sunbae?"
"You'll already know that a princess of the British royal family has come to our school on a one-month short-term study abroad, for the sake of cultural exchange."
"Yeees."
Lee Yu-mi nodded as if she'd already heard, answered in a small voice, and turned her eyes to the princess standing with Han Go-eun and the others behind me, murmuring, "A real princess?"
"So rather than me, as I am now — how about accepting her as an honorary officer of the student council? It's only a month, but a princess of the British royal family being a student council member would be quite the selling point, wouldn't it?"
I said it like a salesman pushing a limited-time product, and Lee Yu-mi's eyes sparkled as she nodded for all she was worth. Good. That's the spirit.
"In a month, the princess goes home. So now is the time to persuade the princess. Not me."
"You're right!"
"Good. Go."
"Yes!"
And Lee Yu-mi took off at a run — dodo-do — pulled up in front of the princess, who was about my height, and looked up at her with sparkling eyes, pitching the student council with everything she had.
"She won't be bothering me for a while."
"You offered the princess up as a sacrifice..."
I waved a hand at Kim Chang-hyun, who was staring at me like he couldn't believe it, and answered.
"Listen to you, people would think I was some wicked black mage offering up a beautiful princess as a living sacrifice. I am, strictly speaking— why are you back already?"
"The princess accepted! So now if only Sunbae would come!"
What?! I turned toward the princess in shock, and there she was, beaming, waving her hand in a light little flutter! Had I ever seen a princess with so little backbone!
In the end I headed for the school cafeteria again today with Lee Yu-mi hanging off my waist, and Kang Ju-chan laughed as he said it.
"You brought it on yourself."
"Tch."
The princess was, unexpectedly, an unpretentious sort. Nothing in particular she wouldn't eat. She'd come to Korea, so she wanted to try Korean food — she ordered a home-style Korean set meal and brought it over.
She tried the stuffed cucumber kimchi, her eyes went round, and she spilled one exclamation after another about how delicious it was. She lifted a spoonful of snow-white rice and seafood doenjang soup, and her face became happiness itself.
"Haaa. A princess, happy over something so small...! Kuhk, my heart!"
Ignoring Kim Chang-hyun as he fussed and swooned, I glanced over at the princess eating lunch at the next table, talking with Han Go-eun's group.
Honestly, she didn't seem like a bad kid. The first impression had just been bad enough that I couldn't warm to her. But this bastard Chang-hyun seemed to have already forgotten the morning — going all hellelle... Oh. Right. This one hadn't even been angry this morning.
"Maybe she just grew up never getting to eat stuff like that?"
"What?! She's a princess! How could she have grown up not getting to eat!"
"She said she's from a distant collateral line. It could happen."
"No! A princess would never!"
Kim Chang-hyun, incensed at the princess slander, threw an arm around my neck and started squeezing. Ever since this guy learned I was somewhere around the third stage of Physical Reinforcement, he'd been coming at me with physical attacks like this more and more often.
Thud.
"Gack!"
Of course, one knife-hand and he was dealt with.
I ate something cold for lunch, the kind of thing that settles you on a hot day, and then Han Go-eun's group peeled off, saying they'd show the princess around the school. I needed to get back to the classroom with the AC blasting...
"Would Sir Blue Genius... perhaps be willing to show us around as well?"
...Sir what?
I scowled hard at the princess, who was addressing me by the final evolution of my nickname, but she let the end of the sentence trail and still saw it through.
Beside me, Kim Chang-hyun was pounding Kang Ju-chan's shoulder for dear life and cackling.
"...I don't like that nickname. Call me that one more time and I'll take it as you wanting to fight."
"Ah. I didn't know you disliked it. I'm sorry."
Han Go-eun, who'd been glaring at me, went over to the princess — a little flustered, forcing a smile — and pointed a finger at me as she spoke.
"Seoha weirdly hates Bluuue— mm-mm-mm. It's not even bad. I don't know why he hates it so much."
"At the Ability Users' Association, I've only ever seen people delighted when a title comes down. There are even those who wish to be called by their title alone, so I thought Sir Blu—... S-Sir Seoha would like it too."
She was about to use the nickname again, so I glared, sharp, and the princess flinched and corrected herself.
And anyway. Sir. Really.
"My DNA rejects that nickname. Anyway, don't call me that."
"Yes."
I couldn't bring myself to coldly refuse a princess who was smiling like that, so I had no choice but to trail after the others and start wandering the school facilities. And it was hot.
Hot.
I was dying of heat!
If I'd known it would be like this, I should have just said no! When Kang Ju-chan and Kim Chang-hyun ran off to play soccer and Cho Min-ho tagged along, I should have gone with them! Then I could have just walked back into the classroom!
My breath was catching, and irritation was starting to creep up, when Kang So-ra — wearing a sun visor from who knows where — turned to me and asked.
"Hoooot~?"
"Yeah, it's hot... Hot. Maybe I should just go back to the classroom..."
"This is still fiiine~. How were you planning to survive summer laaater~?"
"When that comes, I'm not leaving from under the AC."
I'd gone to the trouble of eating ice-cold Pyongyang naengmyeon for lunch, and that coolness was completely gone in less than ten minutes!
"So even Physical Reinforcement can't do a thing about the heeeat~?"
"Nnghh."
That wasn't quite it. I just hated how, every time I breathed, hot air rushed into my lungs and rushed straight back out. It felt like being shut inside a steamer.
Han Go-eun and Su Yu-ri chattered away with the princess between them, taking up the conversation, and the triplets followed behind the three of them. Kang So-ra, Franc, and I walked along after that. For a while now they'd been showing off the athletic club rooms and the gym, the team fields and the field where the school kids ran around, the parks and benches scattered through the school, the sculptures carved by famous artists.
In other words, we were walking around under the blazing sun!
"Hey, Go-eun. How about we go inside. Take too much direct sun and your skin burns and you get freckles. They say British people have weak skin, too."
Unable to take it anymore, I called Han Go-eun. She looked from me to the sky to the princess and back, then suggested to the princess that the sunlight was harsh and they ought to go in.
"Ah, I like the sun. So I'm all right?"
Ghk!
"Haaa..."
I pulled a can of cold drink, closed my hand around it, and came back to the cool classroom, and only then did it occur to me that I might actually live.
Han Go-eun saw me draped over the back of my chair, heaving a deep sigh, and spoke while she looked out the window — was the weather really that hot?
"When you start going on raids, there'll be times you end up in deserts and places like that. How are you planning to endure then?"
"That's work. You can't complain while you're working, so you endure."
"...What kind of answer is that."
I looked up at Han Go-eun's dumbfounded face and answered.
"In a place where one mistake puts your life on the line, are you going to throw that precious life away grumbling about a little heat?"
The girls nodded, as if they accepted it, and Han Go-eun closed her mouth with a face that said she had nothing to say.
"Hehe. Sir Seoha is very clear about duty and private affairs."
"Of course I am."
"That's true. But there are many people who don't understand even something that obvious."
With that, the princess gave a slightly bitter smile, looked at me, and spoke again.
"I'm sorry about this morning. I was shortsighted, and I caused a great deal of trouble for a great many people."
"It's not me you should apologize to. If you're going to apologize, say it to the ones who waited a long time because the road was blocked."
I turned toward the kids in the class as I said it. The princess followed my gaze, her eyes went round, and she went to them one by one, bowing her head and apologizing.
Han Go-eun shot me an angry look that said not to say unnecessary things, but I pretended not to notice, turned the Certifier on in silent mode, and sent Yeongeun a text.
Ding.
What. Even Yeongeun hadn't known the details?
...Take care of her. Take care of her how? The choice of words somehow bled killing intent, so I snuck a look at the princess where she was talking with the kids — and the triplets were looking at me too.
I looked away and sent the reply.
Huh? There was an attached file, so I opened it — and nearly jumped out of my skin!
The attachment was a photo. Yeongeun, seated in her executive chair, legs spread wide, herself on display in black slinky lace panties!
This woman, I swear!
Startled, I shut the Certifier off and looked around. Fortunately the only one who'd seen it was Franc, but Franc let out a deep sigh and shook her head.
I sent it and turned the Certifier off, and for a while the messages kept buzzing in, one after another. I ignored every one of them.
Then, at some point, they stopped. I turned it back on to check, and several messages had come in under titles like these. I skimmed them roughly and closed it.
Lunch was gradually coming to an end, and I could see the kids coming back. The girls drifted into the classroom in twos and threes too, eyes sparkling when they saw the princess, but none of them made any move to approach her on purpose.
Well, once the excitement cooled, actually holding a conversation with a real, live princess must have started to feel like a burden. The fact that she was hovering around me probably did its part, too.
That day, class ended without my exchanging another word with the princess, and she climbed into the jet-black Rolls-Royce Phantom that had come for her and left with her bodyguards.
The ability users who'd been posted in the alleys and on the roofs of houses and everywhere else — a good twenty of them, by the look of it — all pulled out at once. More bodyguards, no doubt?
...Nothing about it looked like a problem, so I watched them go through Spatial Perception, called a taxi, and headed for the Time River Building.