116. Sofia (3)
116. Sofia (3)
After the meal, Sofia bathed and lay down on the hammock with a blanket draped over her.
'Is this heaven? Yeah, it's definitely heaven. I lived a good life, so I made it to heaven.'
Worn out, she was spouting cringey nonsense in her head.
Cool water to quench her thirst.
A refreshing bath.
A warm bed.
And a hearty... m-meal......?
Hmm, should she even call that cooking?
No, wouldn't the proper term just be alchemy?
A mildly blasphemous thought flickered through Sofia's mind as she recalled the meal from a moment ago, but she quickly shook her head hard.
Sure, at first, the cooking had made her wonder if it was a roundabout way of complaining about her suddenly butting in!
Still, even so!
After she'd set down her spoon, Jin Yu-ha had devoured every last scrap of the leftover food.
So there couldn't have been any ill intent.
And afterward, concerned she might get an upset stomach from eating raw freshwater fish, Jin Yu-ha had handed her deworming medicine with a gentle smile.
That was, how should she put it.......
'W-well, nobody's p-perfect in every way, right!'
Yeah, dwelling on that part meant she'd already lost.
Anyway.
They say you only understand the preciousness of small, everyday things after you've been through hardship, and that summed up Sofia's current state of mind exactly.
The feeling of warmth melting into and permeating her entire body.
Honestly, just meeting Jin Yu-ha in the flesh was already a monumental event—the kind that would make her leap into the air and bust out a 360-degree spin. But for him to be this devotedly considerate toward her like this.......
"Ugh......."
Sofia squirmed on the hammock, kicking her legs wildly until she nearly tumbled off. Startled, she hurriedly corrected her posture and lay back down.
'It wasn't just the face that was electrifying.'
Was it even allowed for someone's heart to be this beautiful too?
A man of diabolical charm, with an appeal like an onion—layer after layer, more and more revealing itself the more you peeled it back.
Sofia's fangirl heart, briefly stuttered by his cooking, had only grown deeper.
Sofia subtly shifted her gaze, sneaking glances at the tent next to hers where Jin Yu-ha had gone in.
'And on top of that, he said I should sleep inside the tent and he'd take the hammock.'
Of course, she'd vehemently refused.
Let's be real here.
Wasn't she the uninvited guest?
Sure, maybe her situation—kidnapped into the academy without understanding a thing—deserved some sympathy. But that didn't mean she was entitled to special treatment. In the end, she and Jin Yu-ha were total strangers meeting for the first time.
The fact that it had all still led to this level of consideration was proof of just how outstanding Jin Yu-ha's character was!
Sofia had been inwardly gushing and singing Jin Yu-ha's praises.
Suddenly, the arm she'd been raising enthusiastically fell limply back down.
'I heard that exams at Velvet Academy are a really big deal.......'
Even for someone like her, who knew little about the academy, it was common knowledge that exams at Velvet Academy were critical.
And Jin Yu-ha was hardly your average cadet.
At present, countless people had their eyes on him.
Sure, there were plenty of people like her who cheered him on from behind,
but just as many—as many as his fans—were people who questioned his skill, people who envied him, people who kept harping on about the Male Quota System and were just waiting for him to fall.
'And yet, far from being any help to Yu-ha.......'
A burdensome weight had been piled onto his shoulders. And that weight was none other than herself!
'Yu-ha, I'm sorry.'
Sofia's expression grew choked up as she silently repeated her apologies and gratitude to her bias.
That being said, if you asked her to leave first thing tomorrow, she didn't have the confidence to do it.
'I have to do something....... Even if I can't help, at least I can avoid being a burden!'
In the cave where deep darkness had fallen, Sofia's eyes, too, sank low.
* * *
The next morning.
Tok, tok, tok—
'Huh?'
I opened my eyes at the unfamiliar noise coming from outside the tent since the crack of dawn.
'What's that?'
I unzipped the tent and stepped out.
Sofia was holding a pot in one hand and bread in the other.
'Sofia was cooking?'
"What the f......."
The moment our eyes met, her own eyes went wide and she swallowed a gasp.
'What the f? Was that a curse word?'
I frowned slightly.
"Ah, no, no, I'm so sorry! More importantly, y-you're awake?"
"Uh, yeah. You were cooking? Just leave it. If you'd left it, I would've—"
"No!"
Sofia's voice cut straight through my words.
"I already imposed on you one-sidedly yesterday. There's no way I could let that happen!"
She spoke with a firmness I'd never heard from her before. So resolute it almost made me physically flinch under her gaze.
"......I-is that right?"
"Yes! Please, let me handle the meal prep! Go wash up first. It's almost ready. And I also have something I want to talk to you about."
Geez, that stare could cut glass. Definitely could cut glass.
"Oh, okay."
I nodded, a little nonplussed, then headed over to where water was stored. I roughly washed my face and rinsed my hair. When I came out, shaking my head dry with a towel, Sofia was covering her mouth again.
"Hup! Holy...!"
'......Why does she keep cussing every time she looks at me? Did I do something wrong yesterday?'
When I shot her a dubious look, Sofia quickly composed her face and opened her mouth.
"S-so, um, here. Compared to the unique cuisine Jin Yu-ha served me yesterday, this is quite ordinary, but I put my best effort into preparing it."
"Yeah, thanks."
I plopped down in front of the meal Sofia had laid out.
'Hmm, yeah, it really is just ordinary.'
A simple meal: cornmeal-thickened bear-meat soup, fish grilled with salt and pepper, and toasted bread spread with mustard sauce.
I skewered a piece of meat with the wooden fork and brought it to my mouth. Sofia watched me intently.
"......H-how is it?"
"Hm, it's good."
Honestly, by my standards, it was a little lacking—in flavor and personality both—but since Sofia seemed to have some kind of insecurity about it, I nodded readily.
At that, Sofia's face visibly filled with relief.
"Hehe, that's a relief."
"Aren't you eating?"
"......Would I dare p-presume to share a table with you?"
"What do you mean, 'presume'? Let's just eat together while we're at it. That way there's fewer dishes. And you said you had something to talk about."
"......Ah, okay."
Sofia sat down demurely in front of me, head hung low, and began picking at her meal. Silence stretched on, filled only by the clinking of forks and spoons.
Clink, clink.
After eating for a moment, I spoke first.
"So, you said you had something to say. What is it?"
"......Ah, that."
Sofia bit her spoon, a hesitant look on her face as if asking, Is it really okay to say this?
"Feel free to speak. Listening is free, after all."
To help her relax, I used a playful tone.
"R-right......? Listening and talking are both free."
"Yep."
At that, Sofia adjusted her posture and knelt before me. It was a perfectly squared-away stance—fists clenched on her knees, looking me straight in the eye.
"Jin Yu-ha, the truth is, I'm an outsider who got swept up in the Midterm Evaluation."
"Yeah. I see."
Well, there wasn't much outsider about it, but I nodded for now.
"But I don't know what to do here. I have no clue how to request a rescue, and I have absolutely zero knowledge to help me get through this on my own. So, to be direct, I want to rely on you."
"Rely? On me?"
"Yes! I may be lacking, but stamina is the one thing I'm confident in! Please, put me to work doing anything! Cooking, laundry, cleaning—any menial task at all. Just give me the chance and I'll do it with all my heart!"
Sofia sounded like a sharp, keen new hire at a major corporation.
'Straightforward as always.'
I smiled as I looked at her.
Sofia's character traits were "straightforward," "energetic," and "confident."
Even with nothing to her name, she didn't feel ashamed or try to hide it. This was true to form for her—a girl of strong action and zero hesitation.
'Hmm, this sure makes things easier.'
I stroked my chin.
I'd actually been worrying about how to broach the subject.
Originally, Sofia was supposed to have a life-or-death struggle against a wild bear here yesterday. In the process, she would have awakened her ability, and after the brutal fight, this episode would kick off with her recovering her body and driving a high heel into the wild bear's forehead.
'But since I showed up first and dealt with the bear, that early awakening scene ended up not happening.'
This part, to be honest, was something I'd agonized over for a long time, but it couldn't be helped.
'Because the scars she gets on her body during this part don't fade away—all the way into the later half of her personal story.'
Since the wounds were caused by pushing her Mana to its absolute limits, they were the kind ordinary recovery couldn't erase. Sure, if she'd received swift treatment right after the wounds were inflicted, maybe the scars wouldn't have remained. But she'd already used up every ounce of her energy in the desperate fight against the bear, so there was nothing left to heal the scars away.
The setup was that, because of that, Sofia lost her value as a model and ended up attending the academy because she had no other choice. Because of the scars on her body, she always bundled herself up from head to toe even after entering the academy, and each time, the gloomy expression hidden behind her cheerful front slipped through.
— Everyone else gets to wear such pretty clothes....... If only I didn't have these scars too.......
Of course, that gap gave the character her color, but knowing every last detail of the situation, I couldn't help but agonize: was it truly right to stand by and let it happen?
In the end, that agony led me to make the choice to deal with the bear first. The problem with that was that I'd basically erased her motivation to enroll in the academy myself.
'So I'd been racking my brain over how to get her to attend the academy.......'
But with her stepping forward first, offering to repay the favor, it made things much easier.
"You really want to be helpful to me?"
"Yes! If there's any way I can be of help to Jin Yu-ha, I will do anything!"
Sofia spoke with the crisp posture of a disciplined soldier.
"Did you just clearly say, with your own mouth, 'anything'?"
"......Excuse me?"
A bewildered look crossed Sofia's face, as if that was not what she'd expected to hear.
But hey.
You said it yourself, with your own mouth.
Yep, once spoken, it's locked in—no take-backs.
A woman can't go back on her word, right? Right.
Ah, I really didn't want it to come to this.
I looked at Sofia's uneasy expression and slowly pulled the corners of my mouth up into a smirk.