Episode 27
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 27
The reason she had to stay at school until midnight was simple. Elysia looked down at the textbook on her desk and thought.
…The black parts are words, and the white part is the page.
Why did I choose this again? Ah, right. I picked this major because it had the fewest students. I should have just created a ‘Department of Chilling and Doing Nothing’ and enrolled myself…
Elysia took a moment to regret her choices.
She was a liberal arts person through and through. Which was to say, she had spent her life worlds away from any academic field called science, including chemistry.
But after running around the world of <Panic in the City>, synthesizing reagents based on clues, and getting used to dropping them on bloodstains or corpses to find evidence, she’d fallen under a sweet delusion.
Maybe I was a science-type genius all along?
And the world of <You'll Fall in Love> had answered her. Yeah, no.
That was right. She wasn’t…
“What the hell are these symbols…? Why can’t they just use names? Why the fuck do they have to change everything to letters?”
Her head was spinning. Her face had grown haggard over the past few hours as she continuously chugged coffee. The clock on the wall was already pointing to 11 PM.
In any case, she had to adapt to this place, and studying was the only way. To be honest, this was far better than wandering around looking for a culprit after seeing people die in horribly mutilated states. Here, the worst that happened was property damage and some under-the-table drug deals. It was a peaceful place to study. But…
That’s that, and this is this…
Just because she preferred this environment didn’t mean she had to like studying. Elysia sighed and was about to go back to memorizing the textbook when she glanced around the empty Prefect Office and sighed again.
In the end, Evan hadn’t come to school at all today.
When she’d gone to ask his professor, she was told he had come to school at the crack of dawn to request a single day off. He’d looked so unwell that even the professor had been worried…
Elysia squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her hands.
“Ah…”
A wave of belated regret washed over her.
I shouldn’t have said anything. I was just… so happy to see him, so desperate for someone to know this truth with me…
When he’d asked for the truth, she had momentarily overlooked a crucial fact. Sometimes, ignorance is a form of protection. Not knowing about the absurdity of the world means not having to suffer from it. Then should she have kept her mouth shut…?
“I saw with my own eyes how those people died. They were deaths that were neither normal nor logical, which is why I’ve thought I was crazy until now.”
But he had said he’d been seeing a strange ‘something’ even before he met her. So what was she supposed to have done? She had been glad that he was yearning for the truth, and so she told him the reality without a shred of sugarcoating.
She had been so desperate to tell someone, This is the world I see, and I wanted to share it with another person so badly.
But if the result was the collapse of a person’s mind, then her actions had been far too cruel.
Agh, this is driving me crazy. Elysia finally closed the book she was reading, tucked it under her arm, turned off the lights in the Prefect Office, and yanked the door open, muttering to herself.
“Ugh, whatever. Screw it! Happiness isn’t determined by grades, anyway…”
Just as she was about to charge outside without a second thought, her forehead slammed into the doorframe with a loud thump. Swallowing a curse, she crumpled to the ground. As if on cue, a red window flashed to life.
SYSTEM: HP -800 (2,000 / 2,800)
This goddamn maggot of a Dog Hole, I swear I’ll find a way to expand it! With blazing eyes, she fumbled around on the floor for the book she had dropped. Just then, her fingertips brushed against someone’s dress shoe.
“Gah!”
Elysia clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream and stared blankly up at the man’s face, half-illuminated by the light from the hallway.
“You said you’d be here until midnight. I see you really were.”
Rayner Williams. What was this guy doing here?
The visitor she had been expecting was Marianne, not Rayner. Skillfully hiding her confusion, Elysia took the book he offered her, got to her feet, and asked.
“What is it?”
“You told me to come find you if I had something to report.”
Elysia remained silent in affirmation, and Rayner opened his mouth, looking quite reluctant.
“I saw Siene Reve enter Lucian Violante’s workspace at 9 PM last Saturday.”
A shadow flickered across the man’s face, leaving only a deep bitterness in its wake.
…I think he might have been smiling when his face was in shadow. Elysia repeated his words with a deadpan expression.
“You saw Siene Reve go inside at 9 PM on Saturday?”
“I saw it by chance. It was from a distance, so I doubt Reve has any idea someone saw her.”
Is Siene Reve really the culprit? But my intuition can’t be wrong, can it? Elysia pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling a little confused, and asked sharply.
“Why are you only telling me this now?”
“I told you earlier today.”
Elysia, who had taken out a notebook from her jacket pocket to jot down his words, noticed Rayner’s bitter smile in her peripheral vision and furrowed her brow. Rayner continued, answering her unspoken question.
“Marianne likes that woman’s paintings. I don’t want her to learn about the shameful side of someone she admires.”
“Is that all? Don’t you think that reason sounds a little absurd, even as you’re saying it?”
“It’s not just a matter of liking them.”
Rayner sighed and began to explain about Marianne.
*
Marianne Dupre was the late-born daughter of Baron Dupre, who collected and sold art as a hobby. She was said to have grown up showered with affection not only from her parents but also from her two older brothers.
However, despite her family’s devoted care, her poor health from a young age never improved. Instead, it constantly held her back.
She lived a life of convalescence, with her family’s only wish being for her to ‘just grow up healthy.’ Then, at the age of ten, a turning point arrived that would completely change her life.
“Father, I must have that painting.”
The Baron, who was visiting an exhibition for business, tilted his head in confusion at the painting his young daughter was pointing to. In an exhibition where artists submitted their works to catch the eye of patrons, the piece the girl indicated was a shabby sketch hanging right next to the entrance, ignored by everyone.
He approached the sketch, which was so heavily layered with graphite that it was difficult to make out its actual form, to examine it more closely.
He then spoke to the artist, who was staring wide-eyed as if they never expected anyone to approach.
“This is unfinished?”
“I-I couldn’t meet the deadline…”
Meeting deadlines was the most basic of basics for an artist. Baron Dupre was already starting to dislike this one. Frowning, he asked his daughter.
“Marianne, this piece isn’t even finished. Do you still want it?”
“I must have it. I’m willing to give up my birthday presents for the next three years for it.”
It was the first time Marianne, who had been raised without wanting for anything, had ever desired something so persistently. Baron Dupre looked down at his daughter, who was clinging to his hand to keep him from walking away, and chuckled in disbelief.
“My daughter says she must have this painting. I’d like to give it to her as a finished piece. How many days will it take you to complete it?”
“What? Th-this painting? I… I don’t know.”
What was this nonsense? The artist’s inability to even give a proper answer was pathetic, but his daughter’s expression remained unchanged. With a reluctant look, Baron Dupre made the request—‘at least finish it within a year’—and opened his mouth to pay.
“How much do you want for the piece?”
“About 300 Gold…”
“300 Gold is too cheap. It’s my birthday present for three years, after all. Let’s make it 6,000 Gold.”
The Baron was speechless at Marianne’s firm reply. He never would have guessed that her promise not to receive birthday presents for three years meant he was supposed to pour three years’ worth of her birthday budget on an artist who couldn’t even finish a single piece.
Though he didn’t show it, he felt as if he’d just flushed his money down the toilet, and it bothered him for some time.
A year and eight months later, after endless prodding, Marianne finally received the finished painting from the artist.
Two months after that, the piece she had purchased for 6,000 Gold was sold at auction for 210,000 Gold.
It was from that moment that Marianne Dupre revealed her genius as a critic. Confined to her room her entire life due to her frail body, she had spent her days endlessly observing her father’s art collection, and in doing so, had developed a talent for spotting the beauty that artists carved out with their blood and sweat.
Every time the girl, barely over ten years old, singled out a piece of art, the entire market was turned on its head. And this Marianne Dupre had one peculiar habit…
“Marianne never picks a painting by the same artist twice.”
For that reason, her selection was said to be a poisoned chalice. Artists who caught the eye of ‘the’ Marianne Dupre would see their names become famous across the continent overnight, but they would either be unable to produce new work under the immense pressure, or if they did, it would never receive the same acclaim as before…
Hearing the story up to this point, Elysia thought.
What is she, some kind of demon lord who kills you on sight?
Though her mind was wandering, Elysia’s attentive posture was, at least on the surface, excellent, so Rayner’s story continued.
There was only one time that Marianne had, without realizing it, chosen a work by the same person twice.
“And that was Siene Reve.”
Marianne always judged a work without looking at the artist’s name. It was because she didn’t want to be swayed by prejudice.
That was why she, too, only realized later that she had taken a liking to the same person’s work twice.
Marianne was overjoyed and pestered her fiancé, Rayner, for information about Siene. Upon hearing that she was preparing to enroll at Minerva, Marianne immediately began studying for the entrance exam herself.
Everyone tried to stop her. For someone with a body prone to frequent illness to attempt the school’s murderous curriculum was tantamount to a suicide declaration.
But Marianne’s will was firm. Dragging her heavy body, weighed down by the cold she caught with every changing season, she pored over her books, determined to get in. In the end, everyone threw up their hands in surrender at her stubbornness.