The Common Point is Yohan (2)
“I’ve been feeling this since last time—did I make some kind of mistake?” Bancite asked Karalin, his eyes wide and bright like a deer’s.
He had been glaring at Cryan, who kept ignoring him and hovering right in front of him, but that expression was quickly buried beneath a wave of self-pity. Setting aside her vague feelings of like or dislike toward him, objectively speaking, it was hard to scold a handsome man who spoke so earnestly.
“No matter how many times I ask you to call me by name, you keep saying ‘Your Highness the Crown Prince.’ I wanted to get closer, but you won’t even give me a chance…” He pleaded with Karalin. “It’s terrifying to think I might have done something unforgivable. Why do you keep pressuring me like this?”
In truth, Bancite had not wronged Karalin much at all. She had simply let her irritation run wild with all sorts of petty thoughts. Even if the imperial family had turned a blind eye to northern affairs, he was the crown prince—naturally, he would have no real authority over foreign matters. So the fault was not his. She could not simply blame him.
Even looking only at his actual behavior… he had come to a funeral for a classmate he was not particularly close to, simply to comfort his grieving peer. So aside from picking a personal fight with Cryan in front of an already irritable Karalin, the truth was that Karalin had been the one treating Bancite strangely.
She offered a suitable apology. “…If that is how you felt, then I apologize, Your Highness the Crown Prince. I was simply in an unusually poor mood today.”
“Ah, it’s fine. And we’re classmates, so you can speak casually. Please, just call me Bancite?”
But what was not right remained not right. Karalin had no desire to address him familiarly. “No. We have not known each other long. Let us take things slowly, Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
“…Ahaha. Well, if that’s how it is, I understand.”
Bancite’s face broke into a bright, insincere smile that only those in the know would recognize. It was the look of someone who had finally gotten what he wanted. Grind. Whether from wounded pride or not, she thought she heard the sound of teeth clenching.
“Anyway, from the context, it seems these two were trying to form a team. Am I understanding correctly?”
“Well, more or less.” Karalin nodded.
“…Then it’s an interesting combination, isn’t it, Cryan?”
“I suppose so, brother.”
Disgusting. Makes me want to vomit. But Cryan, who knew Bancite’s true nature, marveled at the man’s duplicity. He clenched his fists tightly to endure the pressure of Bancite’s serpentine attempt to coil around him. His palms were cut by his nails until blood flowed, yet his will was strong enough to bear the pain.
Bancite asked Cryan innocently, “Weren’t you supposed to team up with the Magic Tower? You’ve always been quite close with them.”
Cryan answered immediately. “I did it because I wanted to.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. This was something I chose to do. I am a grown man—surely no one can question my will?”
“…You’ve grown a lot, haven’t you?”
As he spoke, Cryan glanced at Karalin, who had earlier warned him not to do anything strange, and whispered to Bancite, “I understand the promise. However, this is my academy life. I will do as I please.”
Bancite snorted at that, but the reply that came was not a rebuke for breaking their earlier promise. It was something entirely unexpected.
“Then let me join too!” He beamed.
“…Brother?”
“It works out perfectly, doesn’t it? As far as I know, the Grand Duke’s daughter is A-rank and Cryan is B-rank. Those two alone would hit the rank restriction exactly…!”
He slung an arm around Cryan’s shoulders in a way that made the skin crawl, presented him before Karalin, and pointed at himself with his thumb. “I’m C-rank.”
He scratched his cheek as if embarrassed. “Surprising that I’m not that strong, right?”
Karalin answered coldly. “You were weak? How surprising.”
“Ahahaha… Well, it’s something I hear all the time.”
He swept his gaze over Cryan’s jawline, who had remained silent. “And this one is my little brother. You might not have known since he never mentioned it, but that’s the kind of relationship we have. So if we’re on the same team, wouldn’t we get that brotherly synergy?”
“U-ugh……….”
Karalin, however, was doubtful. “……But surely Your Highness the Crown Prince has plenty of other people you could team with. Why me?”
“Because I want to help you, of course.”
The answer came without hesitation, as if he had prepared it from the start. “It might be awkward to say, but after everything that happened recently, you must be unsettled—yet you still came all the way here…?”
“I would appreciate it if you did not bring that up.”
“…Right, sorry. But as student council president, I didn’t want to ruin what might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for you here in Karlandel.”
“…Is that so?”
When Karalin reacted that way, Bancite seemed to think he had won her over. Beaming, he pushed the matter forward like a snake slithering over a wall. “Great, then it’s decided—the three of us will form a team! I’ll do my best not to fall behind you two!”
“Hmm.”
Ah, this is bad…! For Cryan, this was a disaster. Yohan had anticipated this exact situation. ‘Bancite will approach the young lady, Cryan. Stop him no matter what.’ He had even said that. Cryan had come prepared to make the first move for Yohan’s sake. He had to stop this somehow…
But the cunning elder brother knew that one could not spit in a smiling face. He was clearly using the social image he had carefully built to wedge himself into this opening. Damn it. At this rate, he might have to blow everything up himself.
Fortunately, even in his predicament, salvation arrived. Just as Bancite’s appearance had been quiet, someone had been watching the entire scene unfold.
Suddenly, a low, deep voice cut in. “Oh? Your Highness the Crown Prince?”
It was a face smiling just as brightly as Bancite’s. “…And who are you?”
When the crown prince asked, the man introduced himself. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Jurchen, the eldest son of the Laghound Margrave family from the west.”
An odd fellow had appeared. He calmly and smoothly offered Bancite a proper noble greeting. No matter how much of a scoundrel he was, Jurchen had been educated his entire life in the Laghound household before coming here. So this behavior was not strange at all.
Bancite found his appearance curious but spoke politely to the now-properly-introduced Jurchen. “Ah. Nice to meet you, Jurchen. Is there something you need from us?”
“Oh? From ‘us’?”
He had been about to pick his nose out of habit but stopped, remembering he was before the crown prince. “Isn’t that something I should be saying?”
“…Huh?”
“Our team is already decided.”
Well, he had no hands free to pick his nose anyway. Both hands were full. One held four water bottles—probably fetched from a nearby stream. The other…
Just like Bancite was doing now, he had grabbed someone by the shoulder and dragged them over. Poof.
‘Hey, Jurchen! W-why all of a sudden…!!’
‘Shut it, kid. I tanked for you last time, didn’t I? Pay up.’
The exchange, inaudible to anyone else, remained between the two of them. The person Jurchen had dragged over was none other than Eclipse—the great hero who had personally escorted Karalin to the dormitory not long ago.
Bancite’s eyes widened. “Wait, wait, wait? You guys already decided your team?”
When something interested him or something unexpected happened, he still had the habit of repeating himself. He had not fixed that yet. Cryan suddenly thought this, but ironically, it gave him the strength to struggle free from the fear he had been feeling.
‘I’m trying to change myself, but big brother is exactly the same as before…?’
Then the only thing that had changed was him. …Maybe he did not need to be so afraid after all. ‘Because I’m different now.’
And he felt like giving Jurchen a big compliment. Apparently, after watching from afar and realizing Cryan was in trouble, Jurchen had grabbed Eclipse from somewhere nearby. Cryan had told him earlier that they needed to stay away from the crown prince, so Jurchen had made his own judgment… and it had worked perfectly.
So Cryan cheered inwardly. Furthermore, he revised his personal evaluation of Jurchen from “a loud, eccentric, stupid, filthy scoundrel” to “loud and eccentric, but quite capable.”
He could not let this opportunity Jurchen had created go to waste.
Thud—
Cryan knocked Bancite’s arm off his shoulder and said, “Brother.”
“What now?”
“There’s been a slight misunderstanding. I didn’t mention it, but we already formed our team back at Sigmund.”
The trembling in his body, which he had been desperately suppressing, finally stabilized. “…Haa?”
“From the very beginning, the four of us were supposed to be on the same team.”
Jurchen nodded in agreement. “It is as Cryan says, Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
“Y-yeah…? Since when… Mmph.”
The moment he sensed Eclipse about to say something strange, Jurchen quickly covered her mouth in a super save. Eclipse looked like she was about to bite his hand because it smelled. Were the two of them filming a comedy skit?
But the most confused person in all of this was the central figure—Karalin. What on earth was going on? She had a team she did not even know about? ‘…From the beginning?’ No one had said a word to her.
Why were these people clinging so desperately to someone like her—a wretched, fallen girl? What could they possibly gain? She could understand Cryan and Eclipse, but… who was this Jurchen fellow?
Still, even though she had apologized to the crown prince, she could not shake her discomfort. She had pretended to understand his feelings, but looking back, she had never once agreed to accept him into the team. So Karalin found the situation secretly satisfying. These people gathering around her must know something, even if she did not.
So she spoke. “Your Highness the Crown Prince. It is true.”
“Aah…”
“I am sorry, but our team was already decided.”
Without realizing it, she had joined in on the lie—while snorting.
“…Right. Then that’s that. I can just team up with someone else!”
“I am glad to hear it. I wish you the best of luck in this field training exercise.”
“You too.”
Thud—
As Bancite turned away… he patted Cryan’s shoulder in passing. “Ah.”
For a brief moment, his expression was that of a demon—so filled with rage it looked ready to erase the entire world. But… this would be the last time she saw that face. Yohan had a plan. As always, he would be watching from somewhere.
Cryan prayed in his heart that everything would go well, believing that the path he walked was not wrong.
***
“Looks like the teams are all decided.”
“Yes, Senior.”
And as expected, Yohan had been watching the entire scene. More precisely, it was the northern senior and junior pair. Their figures, perched amicably on a distant tree, were no different from their days on the battlefield years ago. They had coordinated well enough in the north that neither was lacking. They had even brought binoculars to avoid being spotted and their camouflage was perfect.
“Did everything go as you hoped?”
“Jurchen played a big role. I figured that if he heard I was dead, he would stir up some kind of trouble… but he did better than I expected.”
“Senior, it seems you’ve made quite a few friends since coming to the academy.”
“You’re the same, aren’t you?”
Hilken stuck close to Yohan’s side. “Though they’re all dead now.”
He had expected sorrow, but she did not seem particularly regretful. “You’re taking it calmly.”
“What else can I do? My comrades were simply caught in a natural disaster. If I live well as usual, those in heaven won’t be saddened either.”
“That’s an attitude worth emulating. Admirable.”
She habitually fiddled with an arrowhead. “And as you well know, anger before revenge only shakes one’s purpose. It is unnecessary. Staying as usual is best. As usual.”
“Right. The living must go on living, and we have to make sure the student brats don’t die. Still, the young lady comes first for me…”
At that, Hilken flashed her usual sly grin. “Senior, your devotion to the young lady remains unchanged?”
“Well, I’ve been living all this time because of her.”
“Uh, um. Senior, but…”
Hilken trailed off uncharacteristically. Did she have something she wanted to ask? “How far have you and the young lady progressed? I’m sure something more happened while I wasn’t around…”
Pfft—
At those words, Yohan spat out the water he had been about to swallow. First Casacos, and now this question again? He really might kill someone this time.