How to Dance with the Lonely Princess (1)
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there existed a beautiful and gentle kingdom. Its people were virtuous, its nobles carried themselves with pride, and its king was wise. Every soul within its borders knew happiness, and every neighboring realm looked upon it with envy.
But perhaps that was the very reason. A man consumed by jealousy for a happiness he could not possess harbored dark intentions and invaded the blessed kingdom. The people united and fought with all their strength, yet the violent, shameless man resorted to every cowardly trick to wound them. The beautiful fields withered. Tears flowed without end from every eye. Happiness died in that land.
Yet the shameless man felt no remorse. Instead of atoning for his crimes, he boasted of them proudly. He cruelly declared himself king and defiled the once-lovely realm, trampling it beneath his feet.
Ah, what insolence. Ah, what utter tragedy. Retribution is required. He must pay the price for his sins. Do you understand? This is something that must—absolutely must—be done. No matter what happens, without exception. Do you understand?
As if trying to shake off a hallucination that still echoed in her ears, Lyla Everblaze Barhart slowly shook her head. She drank from the cup of water, and the faint traces of sleepiness gradually faded away.
The room was small, impossible to compare with the quarters she had once occupied. The fact that a direct descendant of the imperial family—someone who should be revered as a member of the great empire—had to live in such a place had left the academy staff member who first showed her the room wearing an expression of deep embarrassment. Lyla remembered that look and allowed herself a bitter smile.
There’s really no need to feel that awkward about it.
If someone asked whether she found it uncomfortable, she would not deny it entirely. Still, the freedom of not having to worry about other people’s gazes was genuinely pleasant. For someone who had spent her entire life conscious of how others perceived her, it was an especially welcome change.
She performed several spells in parallel and efficiently finished her morning preparations. She refused to allow any flaw in her appearance, yet she also hated wasting too much time on daily grooming. This was her own pragmatic compromise. The imperial maids would probably faint in horror and beg her to preserve her dignity, but if she handled everything manually without borrowing the power of magic, it would take at least three hours just to leave her quarters.
Finally, she checked her reflection in the mirror. The fiery red hair that symbolized the Barhart imperial family… and eyes of a blue so pure they seemed like jewels. She covered her eyes with one hand and activated a ritual she had performed thousands of times before. When she lowered her hand and looked again, her reflection showed the sunset-colored irises she usually wore.
How long do you intend to keep deceiving everyone around you?
Even though she knew it was nothing more than a hallucination, Lyla Everblaze Barhart answered.
When she stepped outside her quarters, she saw other students heading toward their respective classrooms. The reactions of the academy students who looked at Lyla could be divided into three main categories.
Those who showed her respect and goodwill. Those who offered polite greetings but kept the exchange strictly businesslike. And those who avoided even coming near her, averting their eyes in case they accidentally met her gaze.
The common thread was that every group merely watched her from a distance as if observing something rare; none of them tried to actively engage with her.
To the people of the empire, the name of the imperial family was an object of faith. However, Lyla had several older half-siblings with a significant age gap, and each of them had built their own factions while aiming for the throne. If her abilities had been merely average, they probably would not have paid her much attention.
But Lyla was outstanding. To be more precise, she was outstanding to an excessive degree. Despite her young age, her gender, and her complete lack of a clear patron, she was competent enough to be viewed as a threat by the other influential imperial family members.
That was why they refused to approach her, and why they also refused to allow others to gather around her and form a faction. There were certainly students who personally felt goodwill or respect toward Lyla, but even they found it difficult to approach her while ignoring the pressure from students of high-ranking noble families. Everyone knew exactly who stood behind those nobles.
The only time those who usually kept their distance could gather around her was during situations like the previous assignment, when teams were forcibly assigned. Only then could they use class as an excuse to stay near her…
“Hey, what did you get from the Midas Cube?”
“It was a total disaster, damn it. I dumped ten gold coins into that thing and only got five iron swords? Isn’t this a scam? We need to throw that rotten merchant in jail right now.”
“Pfft, haha! That’s hilarious. Why are you blaming the shop for your own terrible luck?”
“…Wait a second. What did you pull?”
“The second volume of the original edition from Heodos’s five-part series, Stars That Fall on the Battlefield.”
“Are you insane?! That belongs in a museum! How did it come out of a cube?!”
“I don’t know either. I threw fifty gold coins at it and nearly got beaten to death by my father, but when I sent it to him, he immediately sent me another three hundred gold coins and told me to buy more.”
Lyla listened to the other students’ conversations as well.
“Oh my, Lady Claire. Your skin looks even more radiant lately. Is there some secret you’re hiding from us?”
“Do you think so? I didn’t do anything special, but now that you mention it, I did try the beauty water that came out of a Midas Cube.”
“Could I get some too?”
“Well… it was a limited edition, so…”
“…Speaking of which, I have a ticket to that play you were interested in last time. Something came up and I won’t be able to go. Would you like it?”
“If that’s the case, I suppose I can accept it. Thank you.”
Even as they laughed and chatted brightly, the girls were secretly exchanging items beneath their desks.
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Come on, a rich noble like you shouldn’t be so stingy. Let’s be generous with each other.”
“You swindler. You’re trying to sell a cube you bought for two gold coins at double the price? Don’t you have a conscience?”
“Poor commoners don’t have those. If you don’t like it, go find someone else. Now that I think about it, there were almost no SRs in this week’s batch. Maybe this one is it?”
“…Damn it, hand it over!”
A commoner-born student and two noble-born students haggled with each other in a tone that almost sounded like friendly banter.
The sight was typical of the academy—or, more precisely, the result of students taking Istal von Lebenstein’s constant lectures too much to heart. Phrases like Throw your social status to the dogs, I know your family is impressive, but that doesn’t make you impressive, and Rolling stones originally need no titles had clearly taken root. Lyla found the whole situation absurd.
The entire academy has gone mad.
The translucent cubes that Chrome Midas sold in limited quantities of three hundred every Sunday had spread like wildfire among the students. Before anyone realized it, specialized terms such as N, R, and SR had been born.
Seventy percent N meant a dud. Twenty-five percent R meant breaking even—at least if you had bought it for two gold coins. Five percent SR meant profit. Strictly speaking, even among items classified as SR there were differences in value. Lower-tier ones only yielded a few dozen gold coins in profit, but the single most valuable item among them was usually something that could not be obtained with money no matter how much one offered.
Objectively, the probability of loss was far higher than the chance of gain, yet buyers never ran out. It had become routine for students to gather on weekends or before morning classes to brag about what they had pulled or lament what they had failed to get.
At first there had been voices demanding that Chrome Midas be punished for turning a sacred place of learning into a gambling den, but after he somehow negotiated with the professors in advance and announced that Midas Cubes would be distributed as rewards for top performers, academic achievement rose noticeably. The criticism was quietly buried.
Limiting the quantity and encouraging students to buy in small groups was a clever move.
If he had sold them without restriction instead of capping weekly sales at three hundred, he might have earned a massive short-term profit, but he would have faced punishment from above. Thanks to the quantity limit, the total amount of money in circulation stayed within a safe ceiling. Most students—except for a few—bought only small amounts, so the financial burden was not particularly heavy, at least from a high-level perspective.
It had been judged to “help improve student motivation and academic performance” and safely settled into an acceptable category. One could call it skillful maneuvering. The boy possessed the talent to secure his own interests firmly while never crossing the golden line.
“Good morning, Lady Lyla. Everyone seems quite noisy today. Did something happen?”
For example, the way the person now sat down beside her as naturally as if other people’s gazes meant nothing to him was exactly that sort of thing. Even though several students were openly clicking their tongues or frowning, he showed no sign of caring.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps Chrome knows more about it than I do?”
“Me? No, I have no idea whatsoever.”
“I… I see.”
Lyla was impressed. When someone’s face was that thick, it became a weapon in its own right.