Charlotte Eshrelt (2)
Change was something he had to pursue directly.
If he merely grew complacent in the same place and waited, nothing would ever change. Not the Principality, not the Academy, not even himself.
Even putting aside infiltrating the Octagon, other incidents served as more than enough proof. He knew all too well that to secure a better future, he had to change things with his own two hands.
Yet he had never imagined an unexpected change would arrive from the outside.
When similar events occurred and a bad precedent remained, what happened next?
Most people would do whatever it took to avoid repeating the same outcome. The methods they chose simply varied from person to person.
Junon was a mortal human like anyone else, and he was no different.
Having tasted bitterness from Aris and Erika, he had resolved to keep his distance; he had harbored no intention of growing close to Team Tembris.
Yet a counterexample had emerged.
There was someone who remembered the past, yet did not blame him.
The youngest member of Tembris. Baron Eshrelt, who led the Eshrelt Merchant Guild.
Charlotte Eshrelt. The junior two years his junior whom he had received help from in so many ways not long ago. She was the textbook definition of that counterexample.
"...'I won't rely on you,' huh."
Two terrible precedents, and a counterexample that appeared specifically to refute them. Swallowed by confusion, Junon let out a series of long, heavy sighs as he took up the training equipment with weary hands.
Somehow, that night turned out to be one filled with memories of the past.
This was the distant past. A memory that would never return to reality.
A time before the regression when a young girl accepted becoming a child again and let another's hand reach her.
It was a path Charlotte had walked back when she suffered from a mana rampage, a memory belonging solely to the regressor who remembered every detail intact.
It had not been voluntary. Only with someone else's help could the young girl suppress herself as she ran wild, drunk on mana—and she had trembled in terror as if her very body were being stolen away.
The reason she hadn't opened her heart easily, even after joining a team with people ready to help her, wasn't because she possessed the cold heart of a merchant.
"Charlotte? Um..."
"Please, speak."
"We'd like to hear your side of things now. We can't keep going on like this forever, can we?"
Michel struggled to start a conversation with Charlotte, whose expression remained completely impassive, but—
"It is quite all right. My belonging to this team is only temporary, so you need not pay me any mind."
"I-I see..."
It was no simple task to reach the heart of a young girl who pushed away goodwill using the conversation style of an adult and the polished manners of high nobility.
Even when Aris approached with a gentle smile in her eyes:
"Hello, Charlotte. Shall we have a little chat, you and I?"
"I am quite all right, Senior Aris."
Even when Goden tried to draw her in with his hearty, easygoing charm:
"When you're feeling down, you gotta stretch out that body first! How about breaking a sweat with me?"
"My physique is entirely unsuited for physical exercise, so you need not concern yourself, Senior Goden."
The stiff, distant replies were always the same.
Senia saw straight through Charlotte's psyche after exchanging just a few words and backed off early, while even Erika, skilled in aristocratic eloquence, failed to bend Charlotte's stubborn resolve despite trying every conversational angle.
The past of their youngest member, who would later be showered with affection for her gentle yet sharp-witted demeanor, her petite frame, and her adorable looks—in that past, words like trust and sociability practically did not exist.
For on the day she suffered her first mana rampage, the entire world had changed far too drastically for Charlotte.
"There she comes."
In an aristocratic society, juicy gossip was always a welcome treat.
Whenever an opportunity arose to nitpick and tear someone down, it mattered little who the target was. Furthermore, those armed with aristocratic pride borrowed the power of authority to relentlessly peck at raw wounds without the slightest hesitation.
And this time, it was merely Charlotte's turn—after rumors of her mana rampage had spread far and wide among the nobility.
"Hey, monster!"
"..."
"Look at that. The little monster won't even answer."
"Isn't it because she's actually a demonic beast, not a human, and can't understand us?"
"Calling her a monster is rather crude. Lady Eshrelt committed a sin, so she must simply know shame."
"I wonder. If she truly repented her sins, wouldn't it be more appropriate for her not to step outside at all while wearing those restraints?"
Nobles were always like that. She knew all too well that when they saw the weak, they itch to torment them and revel in a shallow sense of superiority.
Having ascended to the barony at the youngest age, she had already endured endless, nauseating slander—accused of being an eyesore or buying her title with gold. Words like these could not even scratch her. However...
"I saw it with my own eyes nearby! Pitch-black mana was pouring out of her, and then she started tearing into people—huh? What's with you all of a sudden?"
"Hey... behind you..."
"What could possibly be behind me—gasp."
"..."
The slander continued inside the lecture halls. Nor was that all.
"What is this?"
"These are... the resignation letters submitted by the guild members today."
In truth, it had nothing to do with social status. The moment she lost control and attempted to harm others, Charlotte had become fodder for every tongue.
In the eyes of the world, she was branded as someone who might run wild and slaughter people at any given moment.
The loose tongues of others, which she had believed she could endure, turned into razor-sharp thorns. And those thorns tore to shreds the heart of a child who, burdened by parents who left nothing but debt, had never once been allowed to act like a spoiled child.
With every passing day filled with those voices and sneering gazes, the lock guarding Charlotte's heart clicked shut, tighter and firmer.
To a girl pushed by the world to grow into an adult far too quickly, that same world cruelly gifted an ocean of solitude.
While forcing her to hear nothing but the word "monster."
Around the time she could no longer tell whether the days were passing or standing still, a different kind of wind blew into a day that should have been just like any other.
"Guh... cough!"
"Got you now, you son of a bitch!"
"That bastard Junon...!"
"This reckless lunatic...! What are you doing?! Run and get a professor, anyone!"
To Charlotte, who could see and hear the situation crystal-clear, it should have been an obvious scene of someone being scorned and ridiculed.
Yet in the man who ground his teeth and threw himself against superior numbers until the very instant a professor arrived, there was neither submission nor surrender—not even a trace of resignation or giving up.
"Let's see your teeth break against the most useless piece of shit in the world, you bastard!"
Erecting a magic barrier against magic casters, the man tenaciously targeted a single person. Knowing he couldn't take on the whole crowd, his intent was clearly to thoroughly beat down at least one of them.
Soon enough, the targeted student groveled in agony, and with the professor's arrival, the disturbance was brought to an end.
Charlotte watched the entire ordeal until everything was settled. Until the surroundings fell quiet and people dispersed one by one.
Violence. Undeniably crude and barbaric behavior.
Caught by the passing sound of voices as she walked, the scene had been nothing more than fists swung in blind rage.
Why would he go that far?
That was the question that formed in the girl who watched Junon to the end.
One could simply ignore it. What changed by beating someone to a pulp like that?
To Charlotte, whose emotions had already been worn down and dulled, it felt truly bizarre.
Still, such fierce resistance wouldn't last long.
Eventually, he would grow exhausted and give up. A tantrum like that would happen once or twice and fizzle out.
She believed that under the onslaught of voices he would hear time and time again, he would soon tread the very same path she had walked.
And yet...
"Ugh, that crazy bastard's at it again."
"Just give it a rest already, you stubborn leech!"
It happened again.
A day passed, then two, and even after more than a week—
He continued to display that very same unyielding will she had witnessed on day one, not a single notch diminished.
"Ow-ow-ow-ouch... Michel... Can't you rub that in a little gentler...?"
"Stay still! You need to think about the person applying the medicine too, you know."
"Ugh..."
It was the same sight every single time.
To Charlotte, every time she visited the club room, she began to wonder if this was actually an infirmary.
Whenever she sat in a chair handling merchant guild paperwork to fill her allotted hours, Junon—having rolled through another brawl somewhere—would be sitting there grimacing furiously as medicine was spread over his bruises.
What a foolish person.
Investigating why that man went rampaging wasn't difficult in the least.
From what she gathered, was it the everyday absurdities faced by commoners and the disdainful prejudice directed at the Vanguard role?
Just because someone picked on him over that, instead of backing down, he clamped down like a vise and charged headfirst, coming back battered and bleeding day after day.
He was an incorrigible man who had no idea how to adapt or compromise like everyone else.
As she watched him with pitiful eyes, their gazes met. Come to think of it, this was the first time she had seen him face-to-face since the Start-of-Semester Evaluation.
"That girl is Charlotte, right?"
"That's right. Goden brought her in personally not too long ago. She's two years younger than you."
At the mention of a two-year difference, he suddenly looked bewildered and flustered.
"Seventeen?! Looking at her, she seems way... No, wait. Even without that, isn't that a little dangerous...?"
"Junon... you do realize that's extremely rude to Charlotte, right?"
It was something she used to hear frequently before the mana rampage.
Because her build was so tiny, everyone guessed her age to be years younger, only to express shock upon discovering she was much older than she appeared.
It was something she hadn't heard in such a long time. For quite a while now, all she had heard was the word "monster."
Perhaps that was why... Charlotte reacted before she could stop herself.
Thud.
Slamming her paperwork onto the table, she abruptly rose to her feet, looking for all the world like she was about to chew out the person who had just insulted her.
By the time she realized it, she had already stood up and words were on the verge of spilling past her lips.
The habitual remarks of her past had nearly surfaced like a conditioned reflex.
Telling herself she shouldn't do this, a cold bead of sweat trickled down Charlotte's back as a smooth escape tactic rolled off her tongue.
"Charlotte? Where are you going?"
"Surely I do not require permission to take some fresh air in the middle of my duties?"
"I see... Be careful out there."
She fled from the awkwardness. Having grown all too accustomed to people looking at her through tinted glasses, trembling in fear that she might harm them, or gossiping and tearing her down as a monster, Junon's reaction felt remarkably foreign.
Then, she shook her head at herself.
"...What is wrong with me, really."
To think she had resigned herself and given up when hearing truly malicious insults, yet felt perfectly fine—even slightly refreshed—by a rude remark about looking too young.
Charlotte tried to clear her head and shake off this unfamiliar feeling by taking a short walk.
However, her stroll did not last long.
"Ouch...!"
Something struck her back.
Turning around to see what it was, she found a small stone.
Viciously enough, the stone had been chiseled sharp on one side like a throwing projectile. It hadn't been tossed carelessly; it had been hurled with the clear intent to cut and wound.
Along with the stinging sensation, what entered her vision were the culprits, panting with fury as they readied their next stones.
"You monster! Do you have any idea how badly my friend was hurt because of you?!"
"Sixteen weeks of recovery! They said unless a skilled healer steps in, he'll live as a cripple missing a leg for the rest of his life... yet you're sickeningly, brazenly fine!"
"W-What are you... kyaaah!"
Boom!
"What a waste. If that had hit, it would've left a nice burn on your leg too."
Stones were no longer thrown from the two.
Instead, magic flared from the victim's acquaintances—spells deployed not just until their anger subsided, but with the intent to torment Charlotte until they were personally satisfied.
Even though she faced two opponents, in terms of sheer magical skill, Charlotte was by no means inferior. But right now, the circumstances were utterly against her.
To a young girl who had just suffered a mana rampage, whose trauma had yet to fade in the slightest, drawing upon mana once again was more terrifying than anything else in the world.
To make matters worse, nobles who had gathered to watch were picking their noses and whistling as if enjoying a spectator sport.
This was undeniably an incident instigated and cheered on by them.
"Stop... please stop..."
With the bare minimum of mana—drawing only the minuscule amount that wouldn't trigger a rampage—she barely managed to deflect the wild, incoming spells.
Hesitation dragged on through every movement, and terror swelled without end.
Yet her attackers had no intention of stopping. Armed with a stubbornness bordering on foolish stupidity, hell-bent on inflicting harm upon Charlotte by any means necessary, they poured their full might into spell after spell.
In the end, driven to the brink, Charlotte clutched her head in paralyzing fear and sank to her knees, unable to manifest a counter-spell.
Hostility-laden magic was an instant away from grazing her tender skin and scorching it alive.
Whoosh—
The flames vanished cleanly. The malice-soaked fire, which could never have dissipated unless an entity stood before her to intercept it, was gone.
"Hey, pieces of shit. You finding this fun?"
Instead, those flames burned fiercely within a pair of pitch-black eyes.
Directed straight at the trash who refused to treat human beings as human.