Desperate Measures
"Drugs?"
"Y-you must be using them too. Otherwise, there's no way you could've gotten strong enough to beat Catharine—"
Only after hearing his words did I finally realize.
...I was naive.
A liar might deceive the entire world, but they must never deceive themselves.
Forgetting that you are actively deceiving others is a highly dangerous mistake.
Yet, I had forgotten that golden rule.
There's no way a dark mage would fall for my excuses...
Unless they were a hopeless romantic or someone who entertained every absurd possibility, no one would believe my excuses.
In that case, the dark mages' thoughts would generally fall into three categories.
Those who didn't care how I obtained my power; those who assumed I had gained it through some filthy, disgusting method and lied to cover it up;
and finally, those who believed I had boosted my strength through a special drug or secret elixir.
"Do you realize what you're saying?"
First, I needed to buy time. I threw out a double-edged question and watched his reaction.
"N-no... I'm sorry! I was just talking. It's just... I thought it would be a hassle! I didn't want to waste your time because of someone like me."
If he feared me this much, I might be able to wring the truth out of him with simple intimidation.
But that wasn't enough. While carrying out the Imperial Princess's orders was urgent, drawing the ire of the dark mages was a bad idea.
Even if this boy didn't seem to have many friends, nothing good would come from rumors spreading that I was actively harming other dark mages.
The only reason they were acting friendly toward me now was because my blade was pointed solely at Catharine.
Drug trafficking was a crime, of course, but their moral compasses weren't delicate enough to care about such trivialities.
If they decided I posed a threat to their community, they would choose Catharine over me in a heartbeat.
"Besides... drugs like that are expensive. And dangerous."
Recreational drugs were relatively cheap. But substances that artificially boosted a dark mage's power were almost always highly hazardous.
After all, the people who used them weren't the type to worry about reliability or safety in the first place.
"Wouldn't it be better to get stronger through other means?"
The boy's face darkened.
"Other means? Here... you want me to accumulate malice?"
His tone grew serious. Calm.
His expression was no longer that of a timid, weak Academy cadet, but that of a true dark mage.
"...Look at me. I obviously look weak, don't I? It was the same in my family. Everyone bullied me."
I nodded silently.
"When I was ten, I was dumped at a slaughterhouse. I was framed for something I didn't even do... and as punishment, they told me to kill a pig."
In this world, patriarchs rarely paid much attention to illegitimate children.
It wasn't impossible for a child of that age to receive such treatment.
"By then, I already knew about dark magic. No one cared about me. No one knew what I was doing, or what books I was reading in the archives..."
A venomous glint flickered in his eyes.
"So, I killed it. I needed power. I thought if I had it... I wouldn't get bullied anymore."
It was a common story. Line up ten dark mages, and at least two or three would share a similar past.
"I'm not saying the act of killing an animal itself is disgusting... I know there are people who do it for a living, and I know I'm just a human being no different from them..."
I knew. I could understand.
"It was a pig destined for slaughter anyway, but I killed it for dark magic!"
The boy spat out his resentment.
"Drenching myself in its blood! Feeling the life slip away under my hands! Slower, more painfully! Just to kill that struggling pig in the most 'wicked' way possible!"
Having spent all his anger, the exhausted boy collapsed to the ground.
"I never want to do that again..."
Dark mage was a class optimized for psychopaths.
The more numb you were to others' pain—or better yet, the more pleasure you derived from it—the easier and more convenient it was to gain immense power.
"Even now, I can still hear the pig squealing... as if it's cursing me, as if it's going to swallow me whole..."
But not everyone could be a psychopath.
There was no shortage of people desperate for power. And to get it, they had to force themselves to commit atrocities they didn't want to do.
"But drugs... you can buy them with money. Even if they ruin your body, you can get strong right away..."
Catharine was an anomaly. She possessed 'sufficient' power, a rarity for a dark mage, and she had a powerful family backing her no matter what she did.
Her personality was naturally indifferent to the suffering of others, and she lacked nothing in terms of talent for manipulating demonic energy or the rank of the demon she contracted with.
But most dark mages were different.
They were this desperate. This precarious.
"Well, I get the gist of your situation."
And I had to exploit people like him. I had no other choice.
"You understand?"
With the anger drained from his voice, he sounded exactly as he did when we first met.
Weak, hesitant, and filled with fear.
"But you have to do something for me first."
"Huh?"
"Weren't you looking for another dose?"
He nodded immediately, showing no intention of hiding it.
Rather than trusting me, he simply lacked the awareness that he needed to hide the drugs. At least, among fellow dark mages.
"Yeah. They said it would make me stronger... It wasn't completely useless, but it wasn't enough. I guess I'm just too weak."
"Is that all?"
He bit his lip. After a brief silence, the boy spoke again.
"It wasn't... usually this bad, but... I've been having a lot of nightmares. I guess I've been under a lot of stress lately."
He shook his head sheepishly.
"I heard the Academy's infirmary is pretty well-equipped."
"I already went. But... they said they couldn't give me medicine because the cause wasn't clear. They said they couldn't take responsibility..."
Deception.
Taken individually, the healer's words were probably true.
Mind-altering drugs were expensive, hard to obtain, difficult to prepare, and even harder to get approval to administer.
But they could have given them to him. A healer at The Academy had that kind of authority.
If someone wielding the power of light, or a high-ranking noble, had visited that healer, the answer would have been quite different.
"I'm actually a bit interested myself. Can you take me with you the next time you make a deal?"
"But I don't have any money..."
"It doesn't matter. I'll pay for the drugs. You just need to come with me."
My own pockets weren't exactly deep, but I could afford this level of investment.
The boy slowly nodded.
"Welcome."
As soon as I entered the student council room, the Imperial Princess smiled, stood up, and poured me a cup of tea.
"It's fine. I won't be staying long."
"Surely you have time for a single cup of tea."
The aroma of Silver Moon tea drifted up. It felt as though it was washing away the clutter in my mind.
But it was only temporary. While I could escape the suffocating feeling for a moment, as long as the root cause remained, the anxiety continued to linger in my head.
"So, what brings you here?"
"I came to determine our level of response."
"Have you already progressed that far? I figured they would let their guard down if a fellow dark mage approached them... but this is faster than I expected."
The Imperial Princess offered a benevolent smile, but I couldn't bring myself to smile back.
"How deep does this directive go?"
If imperial investigators or Academy instructors were involved higher up, we might not be able to control the situation as we wished.
If I couldn't decide who to punish and who to spare, I had to be much more cautious about digging into this matter.
However, the Imperial Princess's answer was slightly different from what I expected.
"It doesn't connect to anyone. It is entirely me."
"What? You mean we've been doing this without any official authority whatsoever?"
"I must apologize to you. It is entirely due to my own greed."
Even if there was no official connection, I had assumed that investigators or high-ranking nobles were somehow involved in this probe.
I never imagined that the Imperial Princess was acting completely on her own.
"I simply wanted to do something as the student council president. Shamefully, I lacked the ability to handle it myself, so I entrusted it to a promising talent like you."
"..."
"This is the Empire's Academy. How could I not grieve if there are those within it whose bodies and souls are being ruined by drugs?"
Was it all out of pure goodwill?
If it were anyone else, I might not have believed it, but since it came from the Imperial Princess, I had no choice but to believe.
"It might be my own selfishness, but I hope you can find this rewarding as well."
The Imperial Princess smiled softly.
"Even if they aren't someone who benefits you... hearing the happy laughter of another person right beside you is, in itself, a valuable thing."
I stared silently at my teacup. The sweet aroma of Silver Moon tea tickled the tip of my nose.