Until Claire Opens Her Heart (1)
The sole survivor of a disgraced family. A girl who had lost everything yet still clung to the barest thread of nobility. That was Claire Artifare.
In this empire where the class system ran deeper than blood, it was unthinkable for a noble lady to sit in the same classroom as commoners. After all, this was an era that strictly divided people between noble and commoner, and even among nobles, ranks like baron, viscount, count, and duke determined one’s worth. Judging a person’s value by their birth was simply common sense.
Yet Claire still appeared in the commoners’ classes.
Even when those lessons twisted into open condemnation of the Artifare family’s crimes.
“The Artifare family is a family of war criminals. They earned merit during the founding of the Rohan Kingdom that became our empire, which is why they were allowed to remain nobles despite staging a coup and insulting the emperor.”
Even when she was deliberately stood in front of the commoners and provoked with demands to speak up.
“…Artifare, do you have anything to say?”
She kept showing up anyway.
There were many reasons, but the biggest one was obvious: there were no other noble students. The noble-born professors might mock, criticize, and harass her, but they couldn’t physically strike her because of the position she still technically held. And although she was a fallen noble, it was only natural that commoners could not lay a hand on her either.
If she had to endure torment, choosing the kind that only wounded the mind over the kind that broke both mind and body was the obvious choice.
Even so, it looks like it’s too much for her to bear.
When the professor called on her, Claire rose from her seat but couldn’t utter a single word. All she could do was hang her head and clutch the hem of her skirt with both hands.
“Of course she has nothing to say. It’s not just empty anger because the Artifare lady is sitting right in front of us. The Artifare family genuinely tried to destroy the empire.”
“…I-I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what your grandfather or father said? Our family’s men all died in the civil war the Artifares started, so we never got to hear the words your grandfather supposedly said before he locked the nobles in the research lab and slaughtered them.”
Claire was utterly alone. She had no friends, and even the academy professors who were supposed to educate her hated her family and discriminated against her.
Perhaps the emperor’s so-called mercy in allowing her to remain a noble wasn’t mercy at all. She enjoyed none of the rights that came with nobility. Her family’s lands had been seized, leaving her with only the mansion. Yet imperial law forced her to hire servants and, unlike commoners, pay an enormous tuition fee to attend the academy.
Surely, attending the academy and maintaining her noble title must have felt like hell to her.
The emperor, always described as competent in the novel, couldn’t have been unaware of that.
“…I’m sorry. Really… I’m so sorry.”
As Claire kept apologizing, the bell signaling lunch rang three times. The professor ended the class, and the commoners left the room while giving Claire a wide berth, as if she were something filthy. In the end, only two people remained in the classroom: her, and me—the boy who had been ostracized alongside her ever since he tried to protect her on the first day.
“…Claire, are you okay?”
When I asked carefully, she hastily wiped her tears and snapped at me instead.
“Don’t pretend to be worried. You’re just planning to toy with me too, aren’t you?”
I was the one who had sacrificed my only school uniform—the entirety of my possessions—to clean the egg out of her hair. If “toying with her” meant deliberately approaching her for the sake of the future, then she was right. But if she was asking whether even my concern in this moment was fake, then she was wrong.
“…If that’s what you want to think, then go ahead and think it.”
There was no need to get angry at someone who was already hurting. Since I didn’t have money to buy food at the cafeteria, I took out a sausage bread that had been handed out for free at the bakery in front of the academy to celebrate its opening and split it in half.
“If you don’t want to eat it, just leave it there. I’ll clean it up before the next class.”
Claire neither accepted the bread nor left it alone.
“…You vulgar, ignorant bastard!”
She threw the bread straight at my face. Sausage, ketchup, and crumbs splattered all over my clothes. Honestly, it didn’t feel great, but I endured it because I knew she would leave the empire in a few months. In a situation where even building a relationship might get me killed, starting a fight would have been foolish.
“How dare a commoner offer his own food to a noble?! You don’t see me as a noble either, do you? I just look like a pathetic idiot to you, right?!”
I had held back, yet for some reason she grew even angrier. Claire let out a scream that sounded closer to a wail, unable to contain her rage, fury, and sorrow.
People began to gather, watching us through the windows.
“Please, just leave me alone. We won’t see each other again anyway, so please, please just stop!”
With those words, Claire grabbed her bag and fled the classroom.
…Shit. I need to get close to her somehow if I want to survive later.
I thought I would apologize when she returned for the next class, but Claire never came back. Rumors spread that she had locked herself in the dormitory she had barely managed to secure with what little she had left, claiming she would rather be expelled.
…
“The bastard child of a family that tried to sell out the empire. That ominous bitch who wields black mana. Whore. Haha. The graffiti sure is vicious.”
Every day after class, I headed to the dormitory where Claire was staying. Strangely, no one ever approached the building. Around it were scattered rumors, graffiti cursing the Artifare family and condemning Claire, and photos of her with her eyes scratched out.
Did these people know? That their actions would pile up and up, and in less than five years she would defect to the federation—the empire’s thorn in its side—and that because of her awakened talent, every race that had remained in the empire would be literally wiped out? That they would face extinction?
“They probably don’t.”
I shook my head at my own stupid question and knocked on the firmly shut front door.
Knock, knock, knock—.
“Claire, it’s Reyan. If I overstepped last time, I’m sorry. I hope you’re resting well, but you don’t look like you’ve been eating properly, so I brought some food. I’ll leave the packaged stuff in front of the door, so eat it later.”
Of course, Claire gave no reply. To her, it was probably just because she hated me. To me, it was a desperate struggle to survive the novel’s ending that would come someday.
As always, I erased the graffiti, picked up the scattered photos, cleaned up the area, and only then walked away.
I didn’t head back to the academy. Just in case, for the distant future when the empire might truly fall, I thought I might need to live in the demon territory—where even Claire’s reach couldn’t extend—so I went to the adventurers’ guild. If I had skill, it would help me survive. The demons, unlike their image, valued ability above all, so even someone like me would be accepted if I proved useful.
…
It was the day I had attended classes at the academy and then stopped by the adventurers’ guild to hunt monsters. Gold, silver, bronze, stone, wood. I was currently at Stone rank out of the five. Of course, until yesterday I had been at Wood rank. Today, unlike what one might expect from a commoner freshman at the academy, I had subjugated an orc using the Practical Compressed Swordsmanship I had learned while surviving on the streets.
I had gotten hurt and nearly died, but the fact that I had ranked up was genuinely pleasing. Now I could buy food not just for Claire, but for myself too.
That was why my steps toward Claire’s dormitory felt lighter. I had plenty of wounds, and honestly my body wasn’t in a state to feel light and energetic, but since it had become part of my daily routine, it didn’t feel bothersome. Above all, it was for survival.
How much had I struggled to survive in this world where I had no connections? Just thinking about dying without enjoying anything gave me strength even when I had none.
Knock, knock, knock—.
I knocked and, as usual, said I had brought food. Since there would be no answer anyway, I just kept talking.
“Today was a bit tough. I almost died. I had sparring in academy class, then did my usual work. Potions are really amazing. When you drink one, the flesh just knits back together. I thought the dangling bits of meat would make me suffer for days, but it healed quickly, thank goodness.”
Scrape—.
I heard movement behind the door. Compared to the complete silence of the past month, it was a huge improvement, so the occasional sounds of presence were welcome. It even made me feel a little excited.
“I’ll head out now. Tomorrow I have to spar with the noble young masters. They said they want to experience real combat swordsmanship from the guild? What pathetic bastards. If they just hate that a commoner is getting attention, they should say so. Instead they pull this dogshit. Do they think sparring is a game? They even told me to dress properly. Do they think they’re stronger than me? They told me to give it my all, haha.”
After leaving those words, I cleaned up the surroundings as always and turned to leave.
I thought I heard the sound of a door creaking open, but I figured it was my imagination. Even if it was real, I had sometimes noticed the food disappearing, so I assumed she was just taking it. Until she opened her heart to me first, I planned to simply wait like this. After all, I had heard there was still quite some time left before she would be expelled.
…
The sparring ended anticlimactically. Since childhood, I had protected myself with nothing but a dagger against adults, gangsters, and even mafia-like bastards in certain districts. Now that I was even subjugating monsters, no matter how talented the noble brats were, they couldn’t beat me as I was now.
The problem was that I had won too easily. I hadn’t even used a longsword or a dagger. I was worried that if I injured them, I would be the one to suffer. As a mere commoner, I had held the sword with the intention of deliberately losing, yet when they tried to kill me, I had only used the minimum counterattack.
I never expected the guy who tried to slash me with his sword to faint from an elbow to the jaw.
“You sparred with the intent to harm your opponent and showed the rudeness of not using your full strength against a noble as a commoner.”
The sparring’s original purpose was to injure the opponent, and the reason I hadn’t used full strength was because I had planned to lose from the start. None of it made any sense.
Yet I was the one punished.
“Reyan. You are to undergo disciplinary confinement in the Forbidden Library for three days.”
It was a punishment similar to suspension. It was utterly bullshit, but something a commoner had to endure. I was worried about Claire on my way to the Forbidden Library, but there was nothing I could do right now.
“Nice to see you, you fucking bastard.”
“It’s that guy, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll leave it to you.”
I had gone to the Forbidden Library without much thought, only to find the noble I had beaten and his lackeys waiting for me.
Ah, he was from the same family as the professor. That bastard.
Now I understood why they had given me—despite winning—the punishment of disciplinary confinement in the Forbidden Library.
…
Three days later, I glanced at my bruised face and body and debated whether to visit Claire. I quickly came to a conclusion.
She won’t come out the door anyway.
I stopped by the adventurers’ guild to collect the remaining payment from the last subjugation, then went to buy food. For some reason the shop owner glared at me with an angry expression and quoted an excessively high price, but I had enough money so I didn’t show my irritation. I simply thought there must have been some disruption in trade due to monsters lately.
As I took the sandwich and was about to leave the store, the owner asked me,
“Are you going to Claire Artifare’s house?”
How did he know? When I didn’t answer, the shop owner shoved me outside as if kicking me out.
“If that food was for that cursed bitch, I wouldn’t have sold it in the first place. Don’t come to our store anymore.”
From the warm shop, I was pushed out into the muddy, rain-soaked street. What returned to me were the coins I had held out. Standing in the rain picking up coins felt utterly miserable, but they were quite a sum for me, so I couldn’t just leave them.
While picking up the coins, I had to plunge my hands into the mud. It felt like I had been thrown into a mud pit. My body was dirty, so my mood grew dirty too. The moment my positive thoughts vanished, the bruised areas began to throb with pain, and I even considered going back. But—
…If they treat me like this too, I won’t even be able to buy food.
Thinking of Claire made my heart ache with pity. Still, since I had already come out, I decided to at least leave the food in front of her house and started walking again. That was when—
“…?”
I saw Claire Artifare, completely soaked by the rain and wearing only her nightclothes, crouching in front of the entrance. Her eyes were horribly swollen.