An Evening Appointment
Today, too, was perfectly ordinary. No—today might turn out just a little different from the everyday.
"Ella, I'll be back a bit late tonight. Don't wait on dinner—eat without me."
"Young master, where are you going?"
"...I have plans with a friend."
Ella, apparently deeply moved by the simple fact that I possessed a friend at all, clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes brimming with emotion. She seemed to be trying her best not to let such feelings show, but the expression that flashed across her face in that instant was far too definite.
"Yes! Don't you worry about me—go have fun with your friends, young master!"
"...Right."
Just what sort of image do I project in Ella's eyes...?
No matter how friendless I may have looked, I hadn't expected even Ella to start worrying over it. Well—it was true that I had none.
With that thought, I left behind Ella—who was already, no doubt, planning how best to entertain my friends when they came calling—and stepped out of the dormitory.
Class was the same as ever—tedious, dull, and utterly devoid of interest. The only real difference was that the number of duels held during lessons had increased.
There were doubtless many reasons for it, but most of them boiled down to seizing the initiative and gaining genuine combat experience. One crowd wanted to advertise to their fellow cadets exactly how strong they were, so that no one would dare rush them recklessly during the Midterm Evaluation. The other crowd simply wanted to test themselves against living opponents, shore up their weaknesses, and chase better scores.
For those reasons, the physical classes like swordsmanship saw duels raining down in a relentless hail, while the professors—sighing here we go again—took up refereeing with practiced familiarity, breaking up matches that turned too brutal as though it had long since become part of the daily routine.
A few sparring challenges did come my way—from fools who simply couldn't stand the sight of me—but I refused every last one. There was no reason to accept, and my ability in actual combat was already more than sufficient.
I ignored the idiots behind me yapping coward and it was all luck after all, and spent every hour of Academy instruction racking my brain over what strategy would suit Lianna and me best.
"Ah, there you are."
"Y-yes..."
"Let's talk over a meal first."
She looked to be just as hungry, apparently, and agreed with a shy little nod. I had never once set foot in the restaurants along this street, and Lianna seemed to notice, offering to guide me to a place she frequented. With nothing in particular I was craving, I followed her to her regular haunt.
Trading small talk with a girl I had never held a private conversation with was unbearably awkward, so we walked in silence—and before I knew it, we had arrived.
The shop beneath the sign reading Night on the Street was by no means a place nobles would frequent, but the rowdy clamor of the patrons and the smell of food rolling out the door stirred up the image of a bustling marketplace I had long forgotten, and I found it more pleasant than I'd expected.
"Um... d-does it bother you, by any chance...?"
"Not at all. Not a bad place."
"Oh... yes!"
Relieved, she led the way inside. We claimed one of the remaining tables and placed our order—though the waiter taking it down kept letting his eyes wander elsewhere. I followed his gaze and, sure enough, it landed squarely on Lianna. At the surrounding tables, too, a handful of young men could be seen sneaking glances our way.
Well, her beauty had been famous at the Academy from the start. It was the sort that made even nobles covetous; a reaction like this was only natural.
She, however, seemed entirely oblivious, and with our hunger bound to sharpen the longer we dawdled, I rapped the table once with a finger. Only then did the waiter come back to himself, apologize, and take our order properly. While we waited, we turned to the matter we had actually come here to discuss.
"Now then—let's get to business."
"Yes!"
"First of all, Lianna. What is your ability?"
"Um... mine is Transmutation."
Transmutation. The power to turn one thing into another—to remake whatever she set her mind to. By reputation alone it sounded like a formidable ability, but it had its flaws. The more complex an object's composition or structure, the greater the mana the transmutation demanded; and unlike me, she could only trigger it through a physical medium of some kind.
"Hm. For reference, how many times could you use it?"
"Um... n-not very many... My mana reserves aren't all that large..."
"For instance?"
"For something complex, about three times is my limit..."
Three, was it. What defined "complex," exactly? Roughly how much of her mana did a single use consume? Was there no way to raise the count? What determined which objects she could transmute at all? I kept pressing questions like these on Lianna one after another, and she answered each of them earnestly and without fail.
By that point, steaming dishes already sat before us, and Lianna—and, truthfully, I as well—had grown fairly hungry, so we decided to eat first and talk after. Neither of us had anything against meat, so we ordered the Grilled Bear steak, and true to its standing as the tavern's most popular dish, it was rich with juice and flavor.
Somewhere in the middle of that heedless meal, Lianna spoke up.
"Um... L-Lord Jenison...?"
"Just Jenison. I'm a commoner now."
"Wh—no! I couldn't possibly..."
"I told you to speak comfortably."
"...Even so..."
"Comfortably."
"O-okay... Jenison..."
"There. So—what did you want to ask?"
At my words, Lianna seemed to remember herself and threw her question at me.
"U-um... why did you make me that offer, Jenison?"
"Offer?"
"The one where you'd give me money... on condition that I let you torment me..."
"Ah. Did I never explain?"
She bobbed her head in quick little nods, her face demanding the explanation. Even so, I had no intention of giving it. There was no particular reason to—and should it ever spread, everything I had worked for until now would dissolve into foam.
"I can't tell you. I have no intention of telling you, either."
"Oh... okay..."
"And the fact that I made you that offer in the first place is a secret as well. The money I gave you covers that, too."
"Huh...? But... is that really all right...?"
"It's fine. I have no intention of rehabilitating my reputation."
Lianna wore an expression of pure incomprehension at that, but she said she understood all the same and returned to her food.
When the meal was done, I told her what she would need to prepare.
"Lianna. For the Midterm Evaluation, gather as many simple, lightweight objects as you can."
"Huh? Why?"
"If there's no restriction on what you can transmute, then conserving your mana works in favor of survival."
"Oh..."
"And the most efficient way to conserve that mana would be to carry a stock of objects with the simplest possible structure, packed separately."
"So that's why you want me to gather those things on their own?"
"Exactly."
Having grasped my point in short order, Lianna began asking everything at once—which items would be best to collect, what shapes she should make if she transmuted something, whether she ought to research what gear aided survival—and her face, with not a shred of unease toward me left anywhere on it, had softened into easy openness.
I answered her questions as we walked, and at some point we arrived at the dormitory; it was there that we agreed to part ways.
"Hm... we're already here."
"So we are."
"Well then—see you tomorrow, Jenison?"
"Wait."
"Huh?"
I had her hold on for a moment, then drew the proceeds from my scroll sales out of my pocket. Scrolls fetched a steep price, yet demand existed all the same—and since I was selling them mass-produced, a not-insignificant sum had come into my hands quickly, quietly growing until it amounted to roughly half a year's tuition at the Academy.
"Take it."
"What is this?"
She accepted it, checked the contents, and then shoved it back at me, stunned.
"A-are you insane?! Why is there so much money in here?!"
"Spend it on your tuition."
"Can you even say that?! This is far too much money!!"
So she said, out loud—but I could observe the trembling in her eyes as she said it. It had been my arrangement, after all, that kept tuition from ever weighing heavily on her. Now that the arrangement was finished, she would have to earn money in earnest, and an ordinary job could never cover the Academy's fees. Money was the thing she lacked more than anything else at this very moment; this much breathing room would do her genuine good.
That was how I reasoned it—yet she had apparently reasoned differently. Bowing her head slightly, she asked me in a voice that shook.
"Why...?"
"Why, you ask."
"Why are you... so good to me?"
"..."
"I'm a coward who never once stood up and said the rumors about you were wrong... someone who gave up without even really trying..."
Her voice had filled with tears before I noticed, and I could tell that it carried a heavy weight of guilt and gratitude within it.
"You did nothing wrong."
"..."
"It was a favor I asked of you. I'm simply taking responsibility for it."
"..."
"There's no reason you should have to bear any harm on my account."
"B-but still!!"
"I don't want you hurting if I can help it."
The money I had offered her in the first place had meant exactly two things: payment for accepting the arrangement, and payment for keeping it secret. In other words—she had no obligation to torment herself alone over my reputation.
At my words she bowed her head deep, and the next time she raised it, the glow of the setting sun was falling across her. Her straight, sky-blue hair drank in the twilight and ran crimson, and her face flushed red along with it. Her emerald eyes shone with a startling beauty, and as her vividly red lips parted with effort, that lovely voice of hers reached me.
"...You're kind, you know. Jenison."
"Nonsense."
"Hehe... I'm heading in first, then. Take care!!"
Perhaps because the evening sky happened to be unusually lovely today, it was hardly strange that I had found her face beautiful as well.
With that thought I made my way back to the dormitory, where Ella welcomed me home—and so the day came to its close.