Lizzie Lyn Auguste (2)
After wrestling with the proprietress of the underground shop over whether or not to buy the book she held out to me, I had eventually left the general store empty-handed and with nothing to show for it.
Having failed to get my hands on Understanding the Flow of Mana, I sank onto a bench in the Academy's central park near the underground shop and did my best to project a mood of utter despondency.
"Haah, goddammit…."
Yeah. That was my whole life in a nutshell, wasn't it? The moment I tried to apply myself to anything, this miserable single-digit luck stat of mine kept tripping me at every turn, and honestly, in more ways than one, I couldn't help the surge of bitterness boiling up inside me.
Lilith Rosewood — a character whose base stats were so fundamentally hopeless that you'd have to stake your life on a luck stat of 1 or 2, numbers no amount of effort could ever overcome. She'd originally been designed as a pure support unit who assisted the protagonist (or Ethan) with nothing but support magic, so there'd never been any reason for the stat governing accuracy to be high. But now that I was desperate to learn offensive magic, I had to hunt down every single opportunity to raise my luck that existed.
And among those opportunities, the one with zero prerequisites attached — the hidden book in the secret general store — I had just fumbled away into nothing. At this point I genuinely had no idea what I was supposed to do anymore.
What the hell am I even supposed to accomplish with a luck stat of 2?
If things went on like this, I'd botch every midterm in my accuracy-critical subjects, offensive magic courses included. And if I couldn't improve my luck by the end of the semester, I'd be facing nothing but failing grades or bottom-of-the-class rankings in the finals and everything after. Handled badly, my entire Academy life could go screaming off the rails.
I had mapped out Lilith's entire curriculum from the first semester of first year all the way to the second semester of fourth year around building her into an offensive-magic specialist — accuracy enhancement, luck growth, the works. So for me, this was nothing short of a catastrophic situation. No wonder my head was spinning, thinking about a future that was about to start unraveling one thread at a time.
"Should I ask Ethan to lend me the money? No… no matter how I look at it, ten gold coins isn't something he'd hand over easily. Or should I secretly meet up with the protagonist and ask her to buy it for me? But if I just walked up out of nowhere, she'd be suspicious for sure. And Ethan told me never to make contact with her in the first place…."
The name-only quasi-barony I technically held, and my status as an exclusive maid — neither my money nor my movements were truly my own to manage. Of course, wallowing in my circumstances wasn't going to improve my sorry life any, so once I'd gathered my composure and pushed myself up off the bench to head back—
—a noblewoman with long sky-blue hair appeared out of nowhere at my side, greeting me with performative warmth.
"It's been a while."
"…Lizzie… Lyn Auguste, my lady?"
I had very nearly blurted out the unguarded name I'd only ever called in my head, and hastily slapped the full name and title on top of it. Lizzie settled onto the bench beside me, raised a hand to her lips in the manner of a haughty highborn lady, and spoke down at me with an imperious expression.
"We met briefly at the underground shop earlier, did we not, Miss Lilith?"
"How do you know my name…?"
"Hmm? Surely you aren't thinking of playing innocent. It was over half a year ago, granted, but we did meet once at Her Highness the Princess's birthday masquerade, did we not?"
"………."
"Ah, there's that 'how did she know' look. I imagine Miss Lilith would rather have hidden her identity, given how awkward an acquaintance I make — but regrettably, I never forget the features of anyone I've laid eyes on once. Even behind a mask, the rest was more than enough to identify you. I did greet you at the entrance ceremony as well. Did you happen to miss it?"
…No, I didn't miss it. I just didn't answer because I had no idea it was addressed to me.
For any number of reasons, this Lizzie person was a character I found remarkably difficult to read. And it was little wonder — by all rights, Lizzie should have died at this point in the timeline, during the monster attack. Even having cleared Luminor Academy twenty-four times, there was no way for me to know what traits or personality a character who never appeared in the main story actually possessed.
"My apologies, Lady Lizzie Lyn Auguste."
"Oh, I quite understand. I suppose meeting the current me might feel rather burdensome for Miss Lilith. After all, you received an apology from me while holding the status of a quasi-baroness — you must have worried I'd seek revenge the next time we crossed paths, yes?"
"………."
"Rest assured, I bear no particular ill will toward you. I'm simply the sort of person who settles her debts and grudges with absolute clarity."
…If you're the sort who settles debts and grudges with absolute clarity, you should be chomping at the bit to tear me apart, though.
Public humiliation at a rare high-society event like Princess Seraphin's birthday masquerade hadn't been enough — afterward, she'd had the silver dagger she carried forcibly pried out of her hands by me, half against her will.
While I was still reeling at the incomprehensible logic of Lizzie's, she spoke again, her words aimed at me once more.
"From what I saw earlier, you had a bit of a spat with the shop's proprietress, am I right?"
"…I'm afraid you witnessed something embarrassing."
"You found something you wished to purchase, but lacked the funds, I take it? Twenty gold coins did strike even me as rather steep, I'll admit. …Well, with the resources of House Auguste's daughter, it would be nothing I couldn't manage."
"………."
"Of course, for Miss Lilith — a quasi-baroness who doubles as Lord Blackwood's exclusive maid — it was naturally an impossible sum."
She'd appeared out of thin air, and I'd wondered what on earth she wanted — only for it to be this, apparently. She'd come all this way to sneer at me.
Well, of course. It wasn't as if Lizzie held any good feelings toward me. Remembering what had happened that day, it was only natural.
I figured listening to more of this would just chafe at my pride further, so I brought up Ethan's name and moved to rise from my seat — and in that instant, a book with a green cover slid quietly into view before my eyes.
"I must take my leave now, to attend to my duties as Lord Ethan's exclusive maid—"
"…Take this, Miss Lilith."
"…This is…."
"I noticed earlier that you needed this book. Am I wrong?"
"………."
"Oh? Was it something you didn't need after all?"
"N-no… I do need it. It's just…."
A copy of Understanding the Flow of Mana had landed in my hands under circumstances I never could have predicted. Having somehow secured a book I'd all but resigned myself to losing, my thoughts should have been busy reorganizing themselves around that fact. Instead, my head had been thrown into chaos by the sudden kindness this woman was showing me — and Lizzie, as though she'd anticipated exactly that reaction, met my eyes and said:
"Consider it… compensation for the discourtesy I showed you before."
"I'm sorry?"
"The time I accidentally spilled my drink on you at the masquerade. And then, worried about how things looked in the moment, I got angry instead and turned it all on you. Even now, when I think back on it… I can only cringe."
"………."
"So please accept this in place of that apology. Though I do realize it comes far too late for you."
…What is wrong with this woman?
Had she eaten something bad? Was this actually the same Lizzie who'd pitched an unhinged, screaming fit at me at that masquerade?
The conversation was flowing so naturally that I'd nearly nodded along and swallowed her bewildering goodwill whole — but sensing something faintly alarming in this attitude of hers, my body refused to simply take the gift at face value, and I turned it down once.
"N-no, I couldn't possibly accept a favor with no strings attached."
"Your hands are trembling, Miss Lilith."
"The debt from that day was already settled when I received the silver dagger — the one that saved my life, if you'll recall? Look, I'm using it right this moment."
"Yes, I can see you still handle it well. You used that very blade in your duel with that blockhead fourth son of Reichenhardt, didn't you?"
"………."
"I understand your suspicion. But I would simply like you to accept this as a gesture of goodwill. It's a book worth barely five gold coins, after all."
"No, really, I can't accept something so expensive… I'm sorry, what did you just say…?"
…Just now, I had the distinct feeling that something I absolutely could not let slide had slipped past my ears.
"As I said, I know you're suspicious, but this is merely an expression of the goodwill I hold toward you—"
"N-not that. The part where you said this book costs five gold coins…."
"Ah, that? That's simply because the proprietress of the underground shop is an old spinster who gives discounts to any handsome man who walks through her door."
"…I'm sorry, what?"
"It's a little awkward saying this about my own family, but my younger brother Caraham is actually quite decent when he keeps his mouth shut. He's tall, his house is prestigious — he's got plenty going for him when it comes to drawing a woman's eye, all things considered. That's why I went to the trouble of dragging him along to this secret shop in the first place. I don't have a fiancé of my own yet, after all — unlike you."
"………."
"If you'd come with your fiancé, you probably wouldn't have been charged through the nose, you know. Was there some reason it had to be kept secret from Lord Blackwood?"
…How the hell am I supposed to know the useless flavor-text trivia attached to some background extra-tier throwaway character?
The detail that the underground shop's proprietress was an airheaded old maid was something I was hearing for the first time in my entire life, here and now. I'd only ever visited with the protagonist during my playthroughs, so I'd never had anyone to compare prices against. No wonder the price kept climbing to absurd heights.
"Five gold coins. Even for a quasi-baroness like yourself, that's hardly a crippling sum, is it?"
"………."
"Or — surely you don't mean to suggest that House Auguste's daughter is so down on her luck she couldn't manage a five-gold-coin gift?"
"…No, my lady. If you insist, then I'll gratefully accept."
Refusing any further would have crossed, without question, into outright rudeness, so I took the book Lizzie offered in silence. She gave me a faint smile and extended her right hand, as if to seal a bargain.
"Let's be friendly from here on, Miss Lilith. Our departments may differ, but I'd wager we'll find ourselves 'coincidentally' crossing paths quite often inside the Academy. The Mage's Building and the Pharmacy Building aren't so very far apart, after all."
"…Understood, Lady Lizzie Lyn Auguste."
"You may simply call me Lizzie. In exchange, I'll call you Lilith."
"…I shall address you as Miss Auguste, then."
"…Well, suit yourself. However you're comfortable."
And so began what, three weeks later, had become the strange bond between Lizzie and me.
And then — three weeks after that.
For reasons I still couldn't fathom, I was currently sharing a table at a dessert café with the very same woman, passing the time in her company. What was even more absurd was the fact that this arrangement had been going on for nearly three weeks.
It had started with chance encounters on campus — ten or twenty minutes of idle conversation. But somewhere along the way it had settled into something proper, stretching into an hour or two of talk at a stretch, until by now our periodic meetings had become so routine that we met at the central plaza whenever a free period opened up.
Every time I looked objectively at the situation I was in, a fresh wave of incredulity washed over me. It couldn't be helped.
How in the world did we end up like this…?
In any case, right now I had no real pretext for putting distance between us, and I did feel a certain debt of conscience over the book I was reading thanks to her. So I kept up the association. Besides, the coffee at the dessert café where I occasionally met Lizzie was decent enough, and the caffeine picked up on those occasions genuinely helped in more ways than one.
Coffee in this world wasn't so rare and expensive that commoners could never afford it, but it was certainly far too costly to drink like water every day, the way I had in my past life. And honestly, brewing coffee for myself in the dormitory room I shared with Ethan would have felt strangely off, somehow — so these café sessions did their part to keep my soul supplied.
My body might have been Lilith's, but my soul still carried the spirit of a modern citizen of South Korea, after all.
"You really do love your coffee, Lilith."
"…Yes. Ever since I had the courtesy of trying it a while back, thanks to Miss… Auguste, I've grown rather fond of it."
"Our company imports and processes beans from the southern provinces on a steady basis, you see. That's how we're able to run establishments that serve drinks made from them as well."
"…Is that so."
"If Lilith has an interest, perhaps—"
And so I kept the conversation trickling along, trading glances with Lizzie at measured intervals while my mind stayed buried in the grimoire, working away at the problem of raising my luck stat.
Then, thanks to the murmur rippling through the other patrons, I caught the unmistakable air of a guest of some consequence having just arrived at the café. Amid that subtle stir, an entirely unexpected second visitor was making her way toward our seats — without a moment's hesitation.
"Oh my, to run into you in a place like this — what a coincidence, Miss Lilith. And the lady beside you would be… Miss Lizzie, salutatorian of the Pharmacy Department, I believe?"
"…Princess Seraphin?"
Seraphin. The freshman representative of Luminor Academy. The Moon Shadow Princess had appeared before Lizzie and me.
…Seriously, where the hell did she crawl out from this time?