That Insolent Commoner
Having been freed from class at last, I headed straight for the library with Tina.
After all, gathering materials for Mocher's Prank—due next week—was something we needed to get an early start on.
We'd originally planned to come with Rone and Arden, but as luck would have it, Class C's previous lesson was held off-campus, leaving Rone unavailable. And with that, Arden apparently decided it would be awkward to tag along with just us while her groupmate Rone was away, so she quietly dropped out as well—leaving the two of us alone.
"You really need this many books?"
In the middle of it all, I had effectively become Tina's book mule, and watching her slot volume after volume into the crook of each of my arms, I made a face of pure disbelief.
Seriously, since when does brewing a single elixir require all of this? Shouldn't it just work like it does in games—plop the right amount of herbs on a hexagram and the potion pops out on its own?
Reading the bewilderment all over my face, Tina clicked her tongue softly and wagged her index finger at me. The smugness brimming in her eyes and her freshly raised nose practically announced that she couldn't wait to put me in my place.
"Well, obviously. A low-grade potion might be one thing, but anything called an elixir is a nightmare to make properly."
She then held forth—keeping her voice a touch lower out of respect for the library, though still plenty loud—on all the reasons why: that recipes often existed in scattered, uncertain versions requiring multiple sources to cross-check; that herbs alone weren't enough, since sometimes you needed some completely unexpected ingredient; and that even the herbs themselves had to be prepared in various ways—dried, ground, and so on—before you could so much as begin.
Still, I'll grant that the other two points were reasonable. But that first one seemed a bit much, no?
What kind of lunatic publishes a book full of recipes they've never even tested?
"Anyway, that's exactly why the process demands this much care. So quit yapping and start hauling! Smack!"
Apparently playing at being a noble lady lording it over her slave, Tina supplied her own sound effect and gave my back a light whack. She really is a singular character, every time I see her. At this point I'd say she could give that pink menace a run for her money.
"Oh, that spot's open."
With the books more or less gathered, we were on our way to the window-side seat Tina was pointing to when a question that had been nagging at me finally slipped out.
"By the way, have you actually made an elixir before?"
The way she'd been talking hadn't sounded like pure book knowledge—it had sounded like she'd done it somewhere, firsthand.
At that, her eyes went as wide as a rabbit's caught in an archer's sights.
"Huh? Ah, u-um... y-yeah, once, a little...?"
No idea why she was suddenly flustered, but it was fascinating all the same. And with good reason—most people wouldn't so much as dream of attempting an elixir in the first place. Tina was said to be a commoner like me, which made it doubly hard to imagine how she'd ever come by such knowledge.
Well, whatever the circumstances, just knowing she had experience made me feel considerably more secure. Until a moment ago, I'd assumed she was doing her usual act—blasting out confidence with no foundation to back it, like Tina so often did.
"Then I'm counting on you this time. That stuff's completely beyond me."
As I set the books down on the desk with a note of *please, do take care of this* in my voice, life returned to the eyes that had been rolling about in her head moments before.
"Nyahaha, of course!"
Even her smile was like a puppy's. Not that I'd ever say that out loud—for some reason, comparing her to a puppy makes her furious.
"In exchange, I'll handle any heavy lifting. That much of a division of labor is only fair."
"Deal, deal! You've really got the assistant mindset down, huh?"
Give her an inch and she was already preening, climbing right up onto her high horse. But today, of all days, I decided to let it slide, and without calling her out I began opening the books one by one—
"Oh? So you had something *so* important that you had to skip our lesson? Hmmmm..."
In an instant, the temperature of the library seemed to drop by a solid five degrees, and from behind me came a voice that sent a chill crawling straight up my spine.
Marie Resti was in a foul mood today, worse than usual.
There were plenty of candidate causes. The lunch she'd eaten had been seasoned in a way that thoroughly offended her palate; during class, she'd somehow managed to get caught out by the professor again and again and lectured within an inch of her life. But those were, at most, excuses she'd manufactured to mind-control herself—in other words, lies told to no one but herself.
Because the moment her mood had soured came long, long after all of those little misfortunes.
'Annoying. Annoying, annoying, ANNOYING.'
Her steps were anything but demure as she stamped across the floor—thud! thud!—her face already piled high with storm clouds like the sky before a typhoon, an entire demon of fury seemingly visible at her back.
'I, Marie Resti, graciously offer to teach him, and he says he's BUSY? He needs to learn his place!'
She ground her teeth, recalling the message Bell had delivered when he'd stopped by her classroom before the final period of the day: he had urgent business after school and couldn't spare the time, so the lesson would have to wait.
Truthfully, this lesson carried no obligation on Marie's part and gave Bell no particular reason to attend. The only reason he'd been devoting his after-school hours to study was the need to place high in the mock exams, and Marie had only been reluctantly helping him because of the debt she owed. By all rights, she should have been relieved to be spared the hassle.
And yet somehow her mood had sunk past stormy depths and was only plummeting further into the abyss.
'Getting all high and mighty over one decent mock exam score. This is exactly what commoners are like.'
Marie's eyes flared as she mentally strung together every insult she knew about Bell. When a person achieved good results, the only way to keep them was to stay humble and work even harder—that was the very law of the world. Teaching a commoner who didn't even know that much was becoming a source of genuine regret.
And this "busy business" of his was surely just an excuse too. Busy, honestly—how busy could a mere commoner possibly be? If he'd at least said he was still recovering from that incident a while back, she might have found it in herself to understand.
'I-I might even have paid him a courtesy visit. In a spirit of generosity, of course.'
Naturally, she had zero desire to set foot in that mold-infested hovel called Aslet Hall—but if someone was ill, she was willing to extend that much courtesy. Such was the magnanimity befitting a noblewoman.
'Maybe I'll read a book on the way.'
In the end, Marie headed for the library rather than her dormitory, partly to cool her scrambled head. The academy library stocked plenty of surprisingly entertaining novels, which made it rather good for killing time. She'd heard it even kept books of a certain "restricted" nature, though she'd never laid eyes on any herself—not grimoires of black magic's deepest secrets, but restricted in an entirely different sense.
As she browsed the shelves after arriving, a book of moderate thickness caught Marie's eye. The cover was nothing special, its overall impression forgettable—but what drew her attention was the short title printed on it.
The Reason the Grand Duchess Loved That Commoner...
Marie read the title aloud in a low, distant voice. Even without cracking it open, it was obviously a thoroughly ordinary romance novel. And Marie, being well-versed in such books, could sketch out the plot from the title alone: a man and woman fallen in love across the gulf of class, leaning on each other as they overcame hardship and adversity. She could guess that much without turning a page.
'Hmph. Predictable.'
Wondering why there wasn't some fresher love story out there more worthy of her interest, Marie tilted her head with a look of contempt, one corner of her mouth curling upward.
And yet somehow, her hand was already reaching for that very book she'd dismissed as old-fashioned.
'W-well, predictable stories are fun once in a while. Yes. I only came to clear my head anyway, and I don't want to waste time hunting for something else.'
Stacking up excuses for no one in particular, Marie clutched the book and started walking. The reddening of her cheeks was undoubtedly due to the sunset light filtering in through the windows.
'Where should I sit?'
As Marie scanned the room for an empty seat, the book treasured against her chest, a certain spot surfaced in her memory. The seat that, at this hour, was always flooded with sunset light through the glass. The exact place where she'd found herself unable to look away, watching someone's profile soak into the glow of dusk beside her.
'Th-that's right! That seat just happened to be good for concentrating! That's all it is! Yes!'
The moment the window-side seat conjured the scene from that day, Marie shook her head frantically and began stacking up fresh excuses for no one in particular, once again. Then, fingers fussing at her sunset-flushed cheeks, she hurried toward the place in her memory. The seat at the desk two shelves down from shelf thirty-two.
She still remembered it, to the letter.
"Ah..."
But when she arrived there, heart full of hope, she found two people already occupying it, and let out a low groan. There was no such thing as reserved seating in the library, but if any spot deserved to be claimed and held, it was that one.
She couldn't exactly march over and demand they vacate her seat, so she turned to look for somewhere else—
"...Huh?"
Something about those backs struck her as familiar. Could it be—she leaned sideways to check, and there they were: the tall, proud nose of a young man and his sharp, wild-edged eyes.
The very man who had thrown her heart into disarray not long ago. Worse, he had some girl she'd never seen before seated beside him, the two of them chattering away in easy intimacy.
"......"
With a sensation of something clamping down tight around her chest, Marie squeezed the book in her arms until her knuckles went white.
It wasn't that she cared what some lowborn commoner did with his time. It was simply that she took issue with the sheer nerve of the wretch—the gall of him, tossing aside a lesson that money couldn't buy so he could giggle and flirt with a girl.
That was all. Nothing more.
Presently, Marie crept up behind them with her presence suppressed to nothing, crossed her arms, and cast her gaze downward at the pair. And then—
"So you had something *so* important that you had to skip our lesson? Hmmmm..."
She breathed out a voice dripping with murderous intent, and waited for his eyes to turn toward her. A moment later, the young man at the window-side seat—Bell—whipped his head around.