Episode 29
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 29
I almost burst into tears of relief. Aaaah! I’m saved, I’m saved!
Senior, if you were a player, you would’ve been named MVP despite the handicap of being a healer… I’m serious… I barely managed to swallow those words as I stared at Evan, practically ready to wag my tail. He frowned and asked.
“I asked what you’re doing over there.”
“As you can see… I’m climbing the wall.”
A look of bewilderment spread across his weary face, pushing away the fatigue etched there.
Evan lightly pressed a hand to his forehead, which was beginning to throb. He had been cooped up in his room all day like a shut-in and had forced himself out for a walk, but he never expected to run into such a ridiculous scene.
With a soft sigh, he rephrased his question.
“I mean, why… are you doing that, Elysia?”
“There’s a testimony I need to hear, but I can’t get in through the main gate.”
“And you have no intention of staying out of a place you’re not supposed to enter?”
Elysia blinked twice, then smiled as she answered.
“Do I look like I do?”
“…”
“If you have a Band-Aid, could I have one? I think I need to put something on this. I took too much damage, and half my HP is gone. I might pass out again.”
Evan ran a hand over his face as he looked at the woman, who was smiling awkwardly while brazenly holding out her hands. He felt like an owner pleading with a cat that was completely ignoring him as he tried to reason with her.
“Get down from there. Now.”
“I have to get over. If you just give me a Band-Aid—”
“What’s that on your forehead?”
Evan’s brow furrowed as he finally noticed the tattered Band-Aid on Elysia’s forehead. It was something he’d noticed before, but she was far too careless with her own body. In many ways, she was the kind of person who drove him, a doctor, up the wall.
Looking sheepish, Elysia scratched her uninjured brow and replied.
“Ah, this… I ran into a mirror this morning. I leveled up and my stamina improved, so I wanted to test how much.”
He was so dumbfounded he was at a loss for words. Evan stared at her in horror, stammering.
“Are you saying… you self-harmed?”
In contrast to his appalled expression, the woman was nonchalant.
“I guess you could call it that.”
The shoddily applied Band-Aid was about to fall off. Before he knew it, Evan was climbing the wall after her.
Just why?
He didn’t break rules. If someone told him not to do something, he didn’t do it. Though he had left his family, the strict upbringing of his childhood wasn’t something that could just disappear. He had lived his entire life in submission to principles. It was only natural.
So why was he doing this now?
Even he didn’t know the reason. He was simply afraid that the woman existing beyond the hazy night air might just disappear. Reaching the top of the wall in an instant, Evan held out his hand and said.
“Let me see your hand.”
“Uh… you didn’t have to come all the way up here.”
Though she looked surprised, Elysia obediently placed her hand in his large palm. Her hand was surprisingly slender.
Evan silently wiped her fingers, which were pricked by thorns and swollen red, with his own sleeve before habitually taking out some ointment and spreading a thin layer over them. The hand in his grasp flinched, as if the ointment stung as it seeped in.
“Ah, that stings.”
System: Treatment complete! HP has been fully restored. Continuous damage effect has been canceled!
Evan watched as color returned to Elysia’s pale face, then released her hand with a look of relief.
Strange. All day, he had felt like the protagonist of a tragedy, and his head had felt like it was about to explode from the overwhelming thoughts tormenting him. But the moment he met Elysia, all those thoughts began to melt away like snow.
Of course, it was only natural, since she was revving up to cause some enormous trouble. Stopping her felt like the most urgent priority…
Evan clicked his tongue without realizing it and muttered.
“Why on earth would you do something like this…?”
“Lucian Violante’s artwork was found damaged today.”
He had only missed one day of school, yet something huge had happened. Evan naturally took Elysia’s left hand and listened silently as she spoke.
“I got a list of people who visited the art studio after the Little Count, and Siene Reve’s name was on it. One of the students even testified that they saw Reve entering the Little Count’s workspace.”
“And?”
“But I have a strong feeling it wasn’t Reve. Besides, there were drugs left in the studio. I figure if I catch the culprit, I can nail the drug dealers at the same time, so I’m going to investigate.”
It was absurd that she would attempt something so audacious for such a simple reason. Evan stared intently into her gray eyes, which shone under the pure white moonlight. A woman who seemed to be from another world, and in fact, was.
The funny thing was, he felt a sort of kinship with her.
Ah, thinking about the truth Elysia had revealed was making his head hurt again. He wanted to escape the suffocating memories. He needed something to focus on, something to distract him from the past that kept resurfacing.
So he turned his back on the clamoring memories and forced a smile.
“What’s your basis for thinking that?”
“Well… it’s a hunch. Anyway, I’m going into the Art Hall. If I jump down from the wall and suddenly pass out or something, I need you to heal me—huh?”
Before she could stop him, the man who had been standing beside her a moment ago leaped down. Stunned, Elysia stared at Evan, who had landed lightly on the flowerbed below, and her mouth fell open. What in the world?
“Step on my shoulder to get down.”
“…Excuse me?”
“I’ll catch you.”
The first thing Elysia felt from him was a sense of dissonance.
What’s with the sudden change in attitude?
With a hesitant look, Elysia warned him.
“I’m tall, so I might be a bit heavy.”
“I already know your weight. Who do you think carried you to bed when you were bleeding all over the place?”
“What if you get hurt? I mean you, not me, of course.”
The man let out a short laugh, as if she’d said something ridiculous.
“I’ll be fine, so just come down. Right now, you’re a perfect target for the guards.”
…Hmm, if he says so.
Elysia carefully took off her shoes and tossed them down before slowly placing a foot on the man’s shoulder. N-now what?
As she stood there awkwardly, one hand on the wall she’d just been on, unable to move, she heard a voice that seemed to be holding back laughter.
“Come on down.”
“Uh, uhh…”
As she slowly lowered herself, she saw a handsome face smiling as if he found the situation absurd. She was so close she could see every single one of his shaded eyelashes.
Aren’t we too close? Just as she stiffened, an arm of solid muscle wrapped around her back, gripping her below the shoulder. His other hand carefully supported her under the thigh as he murmured.
“Pardon me.”
As her feet touched the solid ground, Elysia belatedly snapped back to her senses.
What was I supposed to do? Ah, right, find my shoes. As she looked around for the shoes she had thrown, Evan pointed to them, neatly arranged on the ground as if he had been waiting.
“I put them over there for you.”
“…Ah, thanks.”
Elysia hastily shoved her feet into her shoes and straightened up. It was only then that she realized she had more than a few questions for him.
But before she could speak, Evan beat her to it.
“We should finish what we came here for first. Let’s go.”
“What?”
“To hear that testimony you said you needed to hear.”
Elysia gazed up at his gentle smile, opening her mouth to say something about the strange feeling she was getting, but then closed it again.
She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to cross the line he had drawn.
*
The wind gently pushed away the clouds obscuring the sky, revealing a full moon that poured its light down onto the man’s face. The corners of his eyes, which were always downturned due to his constant smile, looked a little sad, perhaps because of the soft glow.
“…There are no guards in here.”
“There are some, just not many since it’s so late.”
She had said it randomly to change the subject, but his answer sparked a question.
“By the way, what happens if we get caught? I assume we’ll just get some demerits and that’ll be it…”
Evan, who had been walking silently, came to a halt. He looked down at Elysia with an amused smile and asked unexpectedly.
“You do know that just getting into Minerva’s art department raises a painter’s reputation immensely, right?”
“…I did not know that?”
“Well, now you do. We are currently trespassing in a gallery of sorts, where countless works by those very painters with immense reputations are gathered. Are you getting the picture?”
…What? She knew she was causing trouble, but the scale she’d imagined was getting scolded by a janitor for staying late at school, not pulling a museum heist.
Seeing her dumbfounded expression, Evan burst out laughing. Regardless, Elysia was in a state of panic, clutching her head. As if to tease her, Evan leaned down slightly and asked.
“Should we leave now?”
His tone was less of a genuine suggestion and more of a test. Elysia, who had been groaning and messing up her short hair, snapped her head up to meet his eyes. In the faint, moon-dusted darkness, her flashing gray eyes had a way of piercing him at the most unexpected moments.
And this time was no different.
“What are you talking about? We’re already in, what more can we do? Since we’re already screwed, we might as well go all the way.”
Having instantly processed a shock that should have left her at a loss, she pressed her lips together firmly and strode forward. Evan paused for a moment, taken aback by Elysia’s harsh tone, before quickly catching up to her with his long legs.
That way of speaking, which he’d once thought sounded like a thug’s, was starting to sound normal to him.
Having reached the white building, Elysia bent her fingers, counting. Evan realized she was counting the windows.
The tenth window to the right of the central main entrance, the Fifth Painting Room where I was today, and where the incident happened last week…
After counting the windows once more, Elysia took two steps to the right and stood before a half-open, arched window. With a determined look, she said to him.
“Senior, if you want to bolt, now’s your chance.”
Evan’s response was to say nothing at all. A smirk played on one corner of his lips. Taking a deep breath, Elysia pushed the open window inward, stepped inside, and shouted.
“Excuse me~!”
Her attitude was far too bold for an intruder.