Lizzie Lyn Auguste (1)
Another month or so had passed since the day Ethan had abruptly asked to touch my chest.
Nothing particularly eventful had happened during that month. Ever since that single touch, Ethan hadn't made any further demands of me, either.
If anything, he seemed to have found his emotional footing through that demand — over the following month of classes, he'd already managed to take two wins off Harold.
Since the top four students each got a sparring match with Harold once a week during class, that meant two victories out of four chances.
Of course, Harold wasn't sparring only with Ethan — he rotated through the other students too, so calling it his full condition would be a stretch. But the same went for Ethan, who was crossing blades with the other top-ranked students as well.
So rather than nitpicking the circumstances, we simply agreed to credit Ethan with two wins. Manufacturing half-baked exceptions would only wear everyone out.
…The problem was what came next: the moment Ethan claimed one more win, the hand gripping his sword would once again be gripping my chest.
Well, at this point, Ethan touching my body didn't exactly fill me with shame anymore. I'd made up my mind not to hide how I felt about being touched by a man's hands, so there was really no need to be embarrassed about it!
Aside from that, there was the commotion over Harold's temporary professorship, and then the whole rescue storyline — where the protagonist exposed the fraud of one of the Technology Department professors and 'saved' one of the heroines — which meant the academy's gossip had changed topics at least twice.
Thanks to all those headline-worthy rumors, the incident of me and Ethan dueling with blades in front of the grand auditorium on our first day of enrollment had more or less died down.
I'd also gotten somewhat acquainted with the freshman girls of the Magic Department, though I couldn't exactly call us close. At most, we ended up in the same groups during joint classes.
"Goodbye, Lilith!"
"See you tomorrow, Lilith!"
"Yes, everyone, get home safe."
…Well, they were the Magic Department, after all, so befriending people there meant befriending noble daughters from one house or another. Everyone I actually got along with in the department spoke with this oddly ladylike lilt to their words.
That said, the academy didn't have that many high-ranking noble daughters of duke or margrave caliber, so most of the students I kept company with were daughters of viscount or baron families.
Dealing with a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool noble lady was an exhausting affair in every possible way, so for my part, it was far preferable to keep company with people at this level. The higher a noble climbed the hierarchy, the more their pride and vanity swelled — that was simply how it worked.
And lately, one such genuine aristocratic lady had been steadily circling ever closer to me.
Someone who, in the original story, should never even have appeared in the main narrative — let alone enrolled in the academy.
"Ah, Lilith~! Over here, over here~!"
"……."
The young lady of House Auguste, loudly calling my name in the central plaza without the slightest shred of restraint.
She was shouting my name in a place already crowded with people, so naturally my face had no choice but to heat up.
'…Drawing aggro with your voice in a crowded place — she's exactly like her little brother.'
Why the eldest daughter of a margrave's family had taken an interest in me and started latching on was something my pathetic brain simply could not comprehend.
Of course, just because she addressed me so familiarly didn't mean the actual hierarchy of our stations had changed, so I continued to respond to Lizzie with full courtesy.
"You needn't call out so loudly, Lady Auguste. I heard you fine."
"I told you, you can just call me Lizzie."
"…No, I really can't. A mere baron's daughter like me has no right to address the daughter of Margrave Auguste by her given name."
"I don't mind, though?"
I do mind. I do.
There was virtually no chance that this sharp-eyed woman hadn't noticed I was deliberately keeping my distance through honorifics — she was almost certainly dangling the informal title in front of me, fishing for a single slip-up to hold over my head.
Remembering how she'd once picked a fight with me, assuming I was some low-ranking noble's daughter, only to end up prostrate on the floor the moment Ethan appeared, I was certain at least one thing about her was frighteningly perceptive.
Even now, she was probably sidling up to me under the pretense of friendship while scheming behind the scenes to manufacture some point of contact with Ethan.
'Honestly, if I actually brought her in front of Ethan, the atmosphere would be anything but pleasant.'
They were, after all, the pair who had publicly caused a massive nuisance to each other — no way either of them would look good in the other's eyes.
Caraham, at least, shared the Swordsmanship Department with him, and seemed to be building a nice little male friendship, crossing blades with Ethan at a similar skill level. But his sister Lizzie was in the Pharmacy Department, so they had no points of contact at all.
Ours was a relationship that consisted entirely of her seeking me out when she had spare time, once or twice a week, to chat for an hour or two.
"Meeting" was the polite word for it — in practice, it was closer to Lizzie summoning me.
"What business did you have with me today, Lady Auguste?"
"Hmm, let me think. Did you have some other engagement starting now, by any chance, Lilith?"
"…My original plan was to read in the lounge of the Swordsmanship Department building. With that book you so kindly gifted me, Lady Auguste."
"Hm~ So, in conclusion, you have no other engagements?"
I literally just said I was going to read.
To a noble lady like Lizzie, reading was probably nothing more than a pastime to fill idle hours — but for me, it was a mandatory stat-boosting event in every sense of the word.
At the very least, I needed to finish this book before the midterm exams if I had any hope of surviving my first semester's grades unscathed.
Of course, blowing off an appointment requested by the daughter of House Auguste over something as flimsy as "I wanted to read" would have been a considerable ordeal. And besides, I owed Lizzie something of a debt when it came to this book anyway.
These days, meeting her once or twice a week and humoring her a little had become part of my routine.
"Today, we're going to the dessert cafeteria run by Auguste Trading Company! Do you happen to like sweets, Lilith?"
"…I don't dislike them."
"Perfect timing, then! There are still about two hours until Caraham and young master Ethan finish their swordsmanship lesson, so shall we enjoy a little tea and refreshments at our company's cafeteria in the meantime?"
"If you would permit me to continue my reading while we take refreshments… then I have no objection."
"Of course! I promise I won't disturb you!"
…Ah, this is unbearable. Seriously.
My formal acquaintance with Lizzie had begun about three weeks before now.
Needless to say, I hadn't approached her of my own accord — at first, it was nothing more than a chance encounter.
The margrave's daughter, Lizzie Lyn Auguste, had helped me out of a predicament I'd found myself in for entirely unrelated reasons.
It had all started when, borrowing the free period during Ethan's empty schedule, I was browsing the underground general store beneath the central plaza and ran into her.
"Understanding the Flow of Mana, Understanding the Flow of Mana…"
As I'd mentioned once before, simply enrolling in Luminor Academy made it possible, one way or another, to improve Lilith's cursed luck stat.
Whether by taking the academy's "accuracy-specialized" lectures, or by using books and special equipment obtainable from various spots around the academy.
And Understanding the Flow of Mana — available only at the academy's underground general store — was one of the key items for raising that luck stat. So once academy life had settled onto its rails, I'd stopped by the bookshop to get my hands on it.
"…Ah, found it."
Fortunately, I already knew the book's design well, so locating it wasn't difficult.
On shelves of a medieval-fantasy bookshop, lined almost entirely with dark, drab volumes, a cover glowing green all by itself was impossible to miss, no matter how hard one tried to walk past it.
From a dust-caked shelf stuffed with every manner of old tomes, I somehow managed to pull out the single book I wanted.
'Just reading this one book raises my luck stat by a full 2 points.'
Sure, you could scoff — it's only 2, what's the point? When I'd played as the protagonist, by around my third playthrough I'd usually skipped items this trivial altogether.
There was no reason to bother trawling the academy's underground bookshelves and spending two gold coins on top of it, all just to squeeze out 2 points of luck.
But for the Lilith of the present, even a measly 2 was desperately needed. Once I finished this book, my current luck of 2 would double.
My accuracy rate, which sat at a pitiful 4–5%, would leap more than twofold as well, up to 9–10%.
…Of course, even after that jump it would barely scrape into double digits, which remained utterly dismal.
'If I can just survive this one semester, next semester will be more manageable.'
Once I'd finished every luck-related course I was taking this term, I could push the stat up to nearly 10 — and by then, I'd been able to raise my attack magic's accuracy to about 25%.
Combined with Triple Casting, at least on the surface, I could even dress that up as a 50% hit rate.
Spending two gold coins — more than half my monthly salary — on a single book stung, certainly. But in my current state, if I could buy 1 point of luck per coin, I'd honestly count myself lucky.
'Raising it now is the cheaper option, after all. If I wait until I've leveled up further, the efficiency really will be far worse.'
With that thought, I'd strutted confidently toward the counter of the underground general store —
— only for the shopkeeper's gaze to sweep over my face and body, and the words that came out of her mouth made my mind go blank for an instant.
"Ten gold coins."
"…I'm sorry?"
"Did I stutter? Ten gold coins."
"……."
Oh, screw you. There are limits to robbing people blind.
You know perfectly well it's a two-coin book, and you're inflating it fivefold?
That exact phrase was a hair's breadth from leaving my mouth — but thankfully, my reason managed, barely, to strangle the curse before it escaped.
At the end of the day, I was the one who needed this book, so somehow or other, I had to attempt a negotiation with the shopkeeper demanding ten coins.
"I-is this book really that expensive…? From the outside, it hardly looks like anything special…"
"If that's what you think, don't buy it. Plenty of people shop here without you."
"C-couldn't you come down a little on the price…? I don't have much money on hand…"
"Twenty coins."
"…I'm sorry?"
"You're not even a man, and you're going to flutter your lashes at me like that? For you, it's twenty coins or nothing. If you don't like it, keep your coins and get out."
"……."
Oh, screw this insane woman, for real.
I was still wrestling with what to do about the shopkeeper — who, after barely a few exchanges of words, was now frothing at the mouth and spewing insults — when a familiar-looking man and woman suddenly began descending into the underground shop.
One listen to their voices and the topic of their conversation was all it took to identify the pair at once.
"Why on earth would you stop at some underground general store like this, Sister? Isn't there a general store for enrolled students on the first floor of the student council building?"
"Well, obviously, because the things I need can't be found there. Do try using that head of yours, Caraham."
"Then why did you insist on dragging me along as well…?"
"Because negotiations go far more smoothly with you around. That's all. Enough chatter and keep up… hm?"
The brother and sister of House Auguste, descending the stairs from the surface into the underground.
That chance reunion with the two people I'd already grown familiar with, in more ways than one, was the spark that set off the whole story of how the present me came to keep company with Lizzie.