The Tsar Bomba Dropped into the Republic's High Society
"I can't die like this...."
Watching Lupin spill tears as if she'd just walked out of a funeral, Yegor muttered.
"...You sick or something?"
She was. In the heart.
Even Lupin hadn't expected the road to the Holy Ark to be this brutal. Noble etiquette—where was that easy, breezy development where you half-assed a passable imitation, the people around you obligingly misunderstood, and everyone simply moved on? Why did she have to learn it the hard way? Why were Growth Values useless against the one thing that mattered, the way you spoke? And why, when she tried to borrow the knowledge of the man standing right beside her, was he no help at all...?
"Sick? I'm sick too...."
Murmuring a line from some long-canceled drama, Lupin brushed away the tears that had run down of their own accord. She handed Yegor the sketchbook as if nothing were wrong and walked off, but the two who watched her go couldn't quite shake their unease.
"She looks... a little gloomier than usual, doesn't she?"
"I'll grant you that. Doesn't exactly stir any sympathy, though."
"I'd help if I could, but aside from drinking, I'm really not much use...."
"She'll manage. She hates it when people meddle."
For all that, Yegor wasn't entirely pushing Lupin away. He was a man hiding his identity for reasons of his own. He'd left home because he despised etiquette, protocol, and rules, but he'd been force-fed them for nearly ten years before that, and if he put his mind to it, he could teach her as much as she needed.
"Honestly, if I could, I'd rather have someone else make the etiquette calls for me. I'm pretty confident I could play the avatar just fine...."
Even the words she'd dropped in passing, plainly meant for him to hear—if she had begged him outright, he would have granted them and then some. The method was simple. Spin aura into a thread, loop it around Lupin, and yank hard the moment she looked about to slip. If she wanted detailed instructions, he could even use the thread like a string telephone. It was one of those finicky, almost artistic applications of aura that Masters heading into battle used often enough when commanding their units. The telepathy Lupin had believed impossible was, it turned out, perfectly achievable—so long as you didn't try to push past the limits of distance and space.
If I'm going to help, now would be the optimal time.
The one who helps you when things are hard is the one who stays in memory. Building friendship and trust this way was nothing if not an excellent long-term investment. More than anything, he was genuinely curious whether the worn-down Lupin had actually managed to learn anything over the past two weeks.
I'd better secure a mask and a cover identity, at least.
The only real worry was his relatives showing up unannounced at the party. His older sister, Emelin, especially. She had a way of sniffing Yegor out by instinct alone, so even a mask wouldn't save him.
Surely she wouldn't come all the way out here.
Picturing a future in which Emelin caught him and had him shipped home by force, Yegor squinted.
And then, before she knew it, it was the day before the party. The guest list was finally locked, and a slim booklet produced at the prime minister's residence was distributed to every distinguished guest in attendance. So today, before lessons began, Lupin was to go through the list with Kakavita and learn exactly who would be there.
...It was one of Lupin's least favorite hours.
Fortunately she'd built up a resistance to sonic attacks, so now even nails dragging across a chalkboard earned nothing but a token wince. She no longer had to scoop out old memories just to make room for new information. Those precious memories of treasure chests... she had thrown away far too many of them, all for the sake of learning etiquette.
Goodbye.
The safe that had swayed from side to side atop a mountain peak, then dropped the instant she opened it. The safe set afloat on lava, the one she'd nearly sunk along with. The one hidden inside a stone golem's mouth... and so on, and so on. Pretending to concentrate, Lupin endlessly pictured the treasure chests that had left her, all the while wearing a poker face so solid that even the seasoned Kakavita couldn't read what lay beneath it.
She had grown, after being taught. Somehow, the only thing that had increased was a snakelike cunning.
"Teacher. I have a question."
"Yes?"
"Can't I make a cheat sheet? If I just jot it down around here on my forearm...."
"I told you that baring your wrist without cause is a breach of etiquette."
"Then my ankle...?"
"And how exactly would you look at it...? An ankle is no different from a wrist."
"My palm...?"
"Miss Lupin."
"Boo."
But telling Lupin not to do something was hardly a reason for her not to do it. Lupin was capable of cheating faster than anyone could see! Unless an aura Master was watching with both eyes wide open, her cheating was the perfect crime. And if some powerhouse sharp enough to catch even that appeared, all she had to do was snap her fingers and yank their attention once. After all, who wouldn't look when a pigeon suddenly burst out of thin air?
"Just asking, on the off chance. Do you think the guests would like something like this?"
Lupin snapped her fingers.
Even to Kakavita, a complete outsider to aura, the air split clean and clear—and pop. Coo. A single pigeon appeared, circled two and a half times, and vanished out the open window. Apparently there was an unfound Secret Safe somewhere nearby. Lupin roughly memorized the spot and turned her head, only to find Kakavita still staring at her fingertips.
After gaping for a long moment, she asked.
"Could you... show me that just one more time?"
"Like this?"
This time Lupin snapped both hands at once. Two pigeons took flight and headed out the window just the same. Seeing it twice, something finally clicked for Kakavita.
"An Irregular Aura User.... And here I was certain you were a swordsman."
"The sword's a hobby."
"What?! You're an absurdly gifted ability user! To think I've been teaching someone like you...!"
The moment an Irregular Aura User appeared, they could shift a nation's standing, and so even in noble society they received special treatment. And this one handled a sword on top of it. Kakavita, loyal to the bone to the aristocratic faction of the Rostov Republic, thought it through. The instant Lupin displayed this ability at the party, the Rurikovich family would be in trouble.
Wasn't it obvious? If Lupin had signed a vassal contract with the Rurikovichs, revealing that she was an Irregular Aura User could be flaunted to provoke the envy of other nations. But revealing it now, when she was bound to nothing, was no different from setting a jewel on the table and telling anyone who liked the look of it to take it home.
"Um. All things considered, I really think it would be best if you refrained from any aura demonstrations at the party."
"Why."
Kakavita wanted to persuade her, but two weeks had left her mentally ragged as well. It had been a grueling march for both of them. No decent argument would come; her thoughts kept spinning in useless circles, and the words refused to line up. Meanwhile Lupin was launching pigeons by arithmetic-sequence summoning. And it wasn't even one kind of pigeon.
"Honestly, it grabs the eye. It focuses people. Right?"
Lupin, who only weeks ago had hated pigeons, caught them type by type and set them on Kakavita's desk. At this rate the whole neighborhood was about to hear of it—that Lupin was an Irregular Aura User, and that she knew how to summon pigeons by the flock. Even now, in the next room, several young ladies meant to help Lupin change were idling about. And how loose were young ladies' tongues? If they caught on, the rumor would spread like wildfire.
"Y-you don't need to show things like this! You already stand out more than enough! Tomorrow you'll be wearing makeup on top of it, so even more so. Now. Shall we go back to what we were doing? We need to study the guests."
For the record, Lupin was presently of diminished capacity. She opened a Secret Safe every day, yes—but in the name of learning something new, she'd been forced to forget her memories with treasure chests.
"Please explain, in a hundred words or fewer, why I shouldn't show the pigeons. It has to be persuasive."
"S-suddenly?"
"That's the only way I'll be able to memorize the guests...."
In other words, she meant to draw every eye with the pigeons and cheat. Lupin had spent two weeks groaning her way through this; there was nowhere left to retreat. Meanwhile the pigeons kept multiplying, until they filled half the room she and Kakavita occupied. Once the birds started squawking, the young ladies beyond the back door heard them too.
"Teacher Kakavita. Is something going on in there?"
"D-don't come out!"
Kakavita lurched to her feet—thunk. Her foot caught on a desk leg, she toppled sideways, and something cracked.
"Aaagh!!"
Kakavita's ankle had twisted at an angle it was never meant to reach. Startled by her scream, the pigeons burst upward and poured out the window in a flood.
"Are you all right?"
"My—ankle. My ankle......"
Lupin hoisted the desk aside in one motion and prodded at Kakavita's ankle.
"Ah—aah!"
By any measure, dance lessons were out of the question. The ankle was already starting to swell. Kakavita registered the fact, and her thoughts tangled. Hand the dance instruction off to someone else, at this point? Kakavita had been assigned to Lupin in the first place because the Rurikovich family stood behind it. Which was to say Lupin was not a person just anyone could handle. More than anything, judging by Lupin's present state, a new teacher would very likely be shown the aura as well. That, absolutely not!
"If anyone asks you to dance, please refuse. I'll speak to His Grace the Grand Duke in advance."
"Then... is the education over, just like this?"
Kakavita, who had debuted every problem child in the world with flying colors. For the first time, a scratch appeared on her record as a teacher.
"Yes. It can't be helped...."
Kakavita had given up. Lupin had not.
"Hey. Teach me how to dance."
"......Why me?"
And an ignoramus's faith in an intellectual was a tremendous thing. Lupin treated him like a vending machine that spat out knowledge the moment you put money in.
"Things happened, and I never learned. You know all sorts of stuff. Just teach me a little."
"If it's the dancing at a social party, you don't have to, so long as you don't want to. Lady warriors tend to be shy about it, and people are used to that."
Lupin was rather desperate.
"No—I suffered for two weeks, and ending it all itchy because I couldn't learn the last thing feels wrong. It's like taking a shit and leaving one finger-sized lump behind."
"Could you not with that phrasing."
For someone who had lived wedged between seniors and juniors who quit halfway, half-assed the rest, and only ever botched the job, finishing what you started was a matter of grave importance. And if she learned it properly now, she wouldn't have to suffer some pointless reeducation later. Hunting down a thing like the Holy Ark was bound to throw her, unwilling, into the company of important people—and then it would be some emperor, some noble, some etiquette, all over again.... The mere thought turned her stomach.
"Anyway. Are you helping, or aren't you. Say it straight. If you say no, I'll go ask somewhere else."
Yegor's deliberation wasn't particularly long. He was serious enough about putting her in his debt that he'd even considered sneaking into the party to help. What reason did he have to refuse a direct request?
"I'll help. I can't guarantee it'll be perfect, though."
"What. That's a little disappointing.... To think the only intellectual I know would show such a weak side."
Getting a stingy review even while offering to help was mildly irritating, but this was a chronic condition of Lupin's, so there was nothing to be done.
"A thoughtless beast, presuming to judge people."
"Hey. Beasts tear people apart."
