Shared Lectures (1)
Exactly one week had passed since Ethan and I attended the academy's entrance ceremony together.
From the very first day of the ceremony, Ethan and I had caused a bit more of a scene than strictly necessary.
The duel between Raidenhardt and me, where he'd been stabbed in the back of the hand and defeated. And then the incident where Ethan burst in and slashed the wrist of Raidenhardt for insulting me — a full week was more than enough time for those stories to spread among the new students.
Luminor Academy sat on an island, geographically isolated from the outside world, so while nothing leaked out, the speed at which rumors traveled *within* the academy was considerable.
It would have been stranger for a thrilling spectacle of clashing blades and flying blood *not* to spread.
So I had braced myself for the gossip about Ethan and me to circulate after the incident, and honestly, if the rumors had spread exactly as they happened, without distortion, I'd have counted myself lucky.
But oral tradition passed from mouth to mouth inevitably goes through a process of exaggeration and reproduction.
...For example, like this.
"...Her? The girl who stabbed the son of Count Raidenhardt with a knife for hitting on her?"
"I heard she didn't just stab him — she cut his whole wrist off."
"No, what I heard was she tried to *kill* him, and her fiancé barely stopped her."
Other new students from the Magic Department were talking while shooting me strange looks.
Listening quietly, a familiar sense of injustice welled up from deep in my chest.
...Fine. I'll admit to stabbing Raidenhardt in the back of the hand. Even if it was a wound from a sanctioned duel, it probably looked pretty brutal to the new students.
But Ethan's actions being automatically credited as *my* accomplishments? That was flat-out unfair. The one who actually stopped him from killing the guy was *me*.
Of course, no matter how wrong the rumors were, I couldn't butt into every conversation between students I didn't even know to correct them, so all I could do for now was quietly attend the academy.
I just sincerely prayed that some other incident would erupt soon and bury my rumor.
After all, this was the world of the Luminor Academy game — scandals big enough to drown out any rumor about Ethan and me were bound to happen sooner or later.
"I sat next to her during the entrance exam, so I remember. When the test wasn't going well, she just flat-out razed the exam hall with a Mana Blast—"
"......"
"Hey, hey! She made eye contact!"
"Run!"
...People will dig into your business with baseless nonsense right in front of you, but the moment your eyes meet for a second, they bolt without looking back.
I'd enrolled under the status of Ethan's personal maid, specifically to keep the annoying nobles from swarming him — I never anticipated my own classmates would be the ones avoiding *me*.
What exactly had I agreed to keep the personal maid position for, again?
Strictly speaking, the entrance ceremony incident only happened because I'd been accompanying Ethan as his personal maid in the first place.
And honestly, if I hadn't been his personal maid, Ethan probably wouldn't have flown into such a rage and strong-armed the guy like that.
It was precisely because I was in a position connected to House Blackwood that he'd intervened so aggressively in the duel.
Lost in these thoughts, I packed my notes from the morning lecture into my bag and stepped outside — and right beside the lecture hall door, I heard Ethan's voice, as if he'd been waiting for me.
"Lilith, class over?"
"...Young Master Ethan, I told you it's not good for you to wait for me like this."
"My lectures end an hour earlier, so I just came to pick you up."
"If you wait at the Sword Department building or the academy dining hall, I'll come attend to you there. If you keep coming to fetch me like this, what will people think of me?"
"...Lilith, you're the type who cares what other people think?"
"......"
What exactly is his mental image of me supposed to be?
To Ethan's incredulous question, I gave the textbook-correct answer.
"Of course I care, Young Master Ethan. I've only just enrolled at the academy — what happens if people judge me as a maid who makes her master come fetch her?"
"Actually, I've been thinking — does Lilith really need to advertise that she's a maid? You could just stay by my side and faithfully fulfill the personal maid role."
"But if I'm not wearing the symbols of a maid, people might fail to recognize the hierarchy between you and me, mightn't they?"
"...I don't really care if they don't."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"N-nothing! Anyway, let's hurry and get lunch. We have afternoon classes today."
"...Yes, understood."
...Well, at least this was better than Ethan not caring about me at all and wandering the academy freely on his own.
Walking around together like this, anyone could see we were clearly the young master and his personal maid.
Thinking of it that way, there was nothing particularly bad about it.
The other students watching us from over there would surely recognize Ethan and me as an unmistakable master-and-servant pair, too.
"The Blackwood heir is with his fiancée again today."
"For a couple that's supposedly a sham engagement, they seem pretty close, don't they? Maybe the *sham* part is what's fake."
"Right? That's why Cassius nearly died. I saw it happen — even I couldn't have stood it if someone talked to my fiancé like that."
"......"
*—Swoosh.*
"...Lilith? Why did you suddenly step back when we were walking side by side...?"
"Please go on ahead, Young Master Ethan. I shall follow behind you."
"Why on earth—"
...It was only because the academy was isolated from the outside that interesting rumors spread so fast.
They'd die down eventually. Definitely.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
Even during my meal with Ethan, the voices of other students talking about him and me kept drifting past my ears.
It was the academy dining hall, so hearing other students was unavoidable — and it was also true that there wasn't really any other decent place to eat.
But when roughly eighty percent of those voices were baseless speculation about Ethan's and my relationship, there was no way I *couldn't* be bothered by it.
"She refused when the Hero asked her to eat with him earlier, and now she's with her fiancé again today."
"Just how close are they with each other?"
"They're basically attached at the hip outside of class, aren't they? I mean, they even use the couple's dormitory — at that point they've pretty much seen it all."
We are *not* engaged. It's a master and his personal maid.
The only reason we're together outside of class is because I'm his personal maid.
And it's not the couple's dormitory, and we have *not* seen it all.
What exactly do you people take me for?
"Lilith, no appetite?"
"...No, I was just thinking about something else."
"You have Sword Department classes this afternoon too, right? At least we get to take one subject together."
"...Yes, I'm glad about that too."
Come to think of it, I wasn't the only one suffering from the rumors, was I?
For every strange rumor swirling around me, Ethan probably had just as many annoying ones tangled around him.
It wasn't what I'd intended, but as the one who'd caused it all, I felt sorry toward him.
I mean, I didn't know Raidenhardt would be that shameless and keep pushing after being beaten.
And the experience points I got from that whole fiasco were a measly 200 — didn't even carry over to my next level. A duel that was a loss in every possible way.
As I mulled this over and continued eating, a group of noble ladies spotted Ethan and began whispering his name among themselves.
"L-look over there. It's Lord Ethan."
"Lord Ethan... isn't he the one who so ruthlessly drew his sword against that young man from House Raidenhardt the other day...?"
"And the person beside him is his personal maid... no, his fiancée?"
...I figured this would happen.
Even as the heir of House Blackwood, there was no helping becoming gossip fodder for the other students.
So in the end, just like me, Ethan hadn't managed to make a great first impression either.
Seeing him suffer on my account made me feel oddly guilty...
"The moment he heard his fiancée had been insulted, he drew his sword without a moment's hesitation, they say. He didn't even care whose house the other person was from."
"And on top of that, he made the man deliver a proper apology to preserve his fiancée's honor. Truly, a model of knighthood."
"I wish my fiancé would follow even half Lord Ethan's example. That man wouldn't care in the slightest if I got insulted somewhere..."
"Well, he *is* the heir of a highly distinguished ducal house — of course his chivalry would be noble too."
"......"
Unlike me, who was suffering warped rumors and unfair misunderstandings among my Magic Department classmates, Ethan was somehow drifting through *strange* rumors among the noble ladies — and for some reason, heat began to spread through my head.
I'd already been branded a madwoman who draws her sword and tries to kill people over a single glance among my own department's students, so why was *Ethan* the one getting—
"...Lilith, are you really okay?"
"...Yes, I'm perfectly fine, so please don't worry about me."
"You don't seem fine to me..."
It wasn't that I felt wronged. Ethan's reputation improving among the noble ladies was a good thing for me too.
So normally, I should have been happy about those ladies' glowing assessment of him.
...Then why did my head keep burning like this? I really couldn't tell.