Self-Awareness (3)
"What did you want to talk about? I'd rather we wrap this up quickly. I still have to go pack my things at the dorm."
I answered Iris, who was watching me, forcing my face into as blank an expression as I could manage.
Speaking with her like this felt unbearably awkward. Standing face-to-face with a character I had only ever known through the protagonist's eyes in the novel left me with a sense of alienation I couldn't put into words. I would need more time yet before I could face these people with any real composure.
After a brief silence, Iris spoke, her voice careful.
"Edwin… I heard from my father yesterday. He intends to dissolve the engagement with your house."
The moment the words reached me, it felt as though my heart had dropped straight through my chest.
"I've told you time and time again… I begged you to be just a little more careful with your conduct… He's using everything you did after coming to the academy as grounds for it. A breach of the duty to maintain one's dignity…"
Iris let out a light sigh.
"It may not be too late. Come with me to my house and we'll persuade my father together, all right…? Even so, Edwin — you've felt something by now, haven't you…? Seeing how quietly you sat through the disciplinary committee earlier…"
A faint hope mixed in her eyes as she kept looking at me.
The answer I had for her, however, was already decided.
"Unlucky…?"
At the mockery in my tone, Iris's expression hardened in an instant. She had always given off a cold impression, but now she was all but glaring at me, and I could have sworn the air around us plunged several degrees. The faint hope that had seemed to linger in her eyes was gone without a trace.
"That's right. Luck. Of all times, why did the campus watch have to pass through there then? It was a blind spot Scott had scouted out perfectly, too. And whichever insolent lowborn it was that went and reported us…"
The memory of that day rose unbidden, and I could feel, vividly, emotions flaring and rage welling up whether I wanted them to or not.
Why am I feeling this?
"Edwin."
Iris cut across me without warning.
In noble society, interrupting someone was generally regarded as an act of rudeness. A young lady of a great house like Iris could not possibly have been unaware of that. She was, it seemed, well and truly furious at what I had said.
"Edwin. The headmaster said it at the welcome ceremony. We hear it in every etiquette class… that era is over…! Just because their station is lower than ours doesn't mean we can oppress and persecute them!"
She poured it all out in a rush, caught her breath, and pressed on.
"And the students at this academy aren't ordinary commoners, either. They're people who have awakened a Mana Heart, just like us — each one of them gifted. They'll form the very foundation of this country one day. Those who earn distinction will naturally receive titles; they're no different from us at all… And yet you still want to torment them? Just to feed that paltry thing you call a noble's pride?"
"And what if I do?"
The sheer brazenness with which I took her up on it sent a flicker of disbelief across Iris's face.
"A commoner is a commoner, no matter what. They were a different breed from us from the moment they were born. Attending the same academy and receiving the same education doesn't mean they get to forget their place. I merely offered a small lesson to those who had lost sight of that fact."
I kept driving the words in. The more Iris took the commoners' side, the more something in my chest twisted, and the more I found myself spitting it out.
Why do I keep thinking like this?
"How can you…"
Iris seemed to have lost her words entirely; she couldn't even finish the sentence.
"Iris, you seem unusually talkative today. Or is it that?"
"That…?"
"Patricia, that second-year senior, seemed awfully interested in that fellow. What's his name — Eugene, was it? Don't tell me you're harboring some secret feelings for that commoner yourself? Ah, or… have you already been having your fun with him? Is that why you're standing up for him like this?"
It was not a thing one said to a young lady with a future as bright as hers. To sneer at a noble daughter who already had a fiancé, asking whether she had some commoner tucked away in her heart — and for the other party to that engagement to be the one saying it. Had I thrown those words out in a crowded place, I might well have found myself on the receiving end of a string of duel challenges.
"Edwin. No matter that it's you — no matter that these are the words of a wastrel and a complete degenerate — that crossed a line. Take it back. Right now."
Iris murmured it at me, quiet and taut. Her eyes were locked on mine with a fierce intensity, and her face had long since flushed a deep red. Her patience was climbing toward its breaking point, and I, paying that no mind at all, added one more remark for good measure.
"He may have a decent face for a commoner, but to have already seduced two proper young ladies this soon after enrollment? Isn't this going down as one of the greatest scandals in academy history? Good grief, just how much stamina does the man have…"
"Edwin!!!"
At last Iris reached her limit. She shouted my name, then dropped her head.
"How… how could you say that… to me…"
Beneath the hair that spilled forward, bright tears fell one glittering drop at a time.
Looking at her like that, I felt reason begin, at least in some measure, to return.
Why the hell did I say something like that…
And yet, thinking of the future, perhaps the present situation was for the best for both of us.
Iris still seemed to believe there was hope, but her house had already made a firm decision. Walking it back would be difficult. It had been a political engagement from the start, and given my conduct over the years, it would not have been strange if they had broken it off long ago.
And people have their own fates, after all.
Perhaps the kindest thing for both of us now was to stop mixing unnecessary words and reach a conclusion as quickly as possible.
"Forget it. Whoever you fool around with is none of my concern. More importantly, Iris — while we're on the subject, there's something I want to say."
I addressed her again. She still had her head bowed, making small sounds as though she were fighting back sobs.
"I know perfectly well you never wanted this engagement in the first place. You were all but sold off for the sake of your house, weren't you? That's why you let your eyes wander to that commoner even with a fiancé already in the picture. I've put up with it until now, but I'm tired of it too."
Even I had to admit it was staggering hypocrisy — the height of gall. Iris's weeping grew worse, swelling into open sobs.
"So House Robinet wants to call off the engagement. If anything, that's a weight off my mind. If I remember right, the penalty for dissolving the betrothal was ten thousand gold. I suppose that means your house has recovered enough to pay that without any trouble? Good for you. Congratulations, Iris. There's nothing in this but benefit for both sides. Our house gets the principal back with a handsome amount of interest, and you're free to fool around with that commoner without any lingering complications."
When I finished, Iris flinched, then lifted her head and met my eyes. Her makeup was a ruin of tears, and burst capillaries had stained the whites of her eyes an angry red.
"Edwin. Are you saying this in earnest…? Do you truly, truly want it to end like this…?"
"I mean it."
"…Let me ask you just one thing."
There was no strength left in her voice at all.
"…I wonder."
I could find no answer worth giving her. A dull ache pulsed somewhere in my chest.
"Have the dissolution papers and the penalty sent to my house as soon as they're ready. Now, if you'll excuse me — I'm out of time."
Leaving the still-sobbing Iris where she stood, I turned without a moment's hesitation and walked away.
Iris was the daughter of House Robinet, a family of the first rank. Her talents were outstanding besides; upon entering the academy she had been placed in Class A, and she had even been elected as an officer of the first-year student council. Looks and ability both standing behind her, it had not taken long after enrollment before there was not a soul on campus who did not know her name.
If there was a single crack in that otherwise flawless image — one Achilles' heel — it was the existence of her wretched fiancé: Edwin Reed.
Both houses held the rank of Count, but within noble society the standing of Robinet and Reed was as different as heaven and earth.
House Robinet traced its line to a tribal family granted autonomy by the Empire during the old conquest wars, a house of such deep pedigree that it had once even qualified for marriage into the imperial family. House Reed, by contrast, had begun as a family of provincial administrators dispatched to the countryside, and had only received the count's title in Edwin's grandfather's generation — a house of short history and modest influence.
To place the two of them on the same plane was, in the eyes of noble society, unthinkable.
And yet, some years prior, a string of failed ventures had driven House Robinet to the brink, their fortunes hanging by a thread — and the ones who had come to their aid, against all expectation, were the Reeds. On the back of maritime trade and the yield of vast farmlands, House Reed had already risen to become one of the principal families of the south.
The price they named for that salvation was this: a betrothal between the Reed heir and Robinet's second daughter.
A house desperate to put out a fire, and a house hungry for a connection to true prestige. Their interests aligned, and that was how the engagement between Edwin and Iris had come down to the present.
In the original story, Edwin would have been unable to accept the disciplinary committee's decision to suspend him. He would have flown into a rage on the spot.
He would have unleashed magic, thrown fists, and left a string of injured students in his wake. Having caused a fresh incident on top of a punishment already severe, he would have been judged irredeemable even by the academy authorities who stood above the student council, and in the end he would have been expelled.
After that he would have slunk home to the countryside, and from that moment on the original novel would not spare him so much as a single word.
And that was the fate I — Edwin Reed, extra villain of I Became an Overpowered Knight at the Academy — had originally been meant to walk.