A Staged Falling-Out (2)
“……”
It had been Lilith who suggested they stage a fake quarrel with each other as a preliminary move to throw MacHeart off the scent.
At the provocation that spilled out of Lilith's mouth, Agnes momentarily found herself at a complete loss for what to say.
The plan the two of them had discussed was simple enough: Lilith would pretend to pick a fight with her first, and Agnes would play along, feigning anger so that the two of them would appear to be at each other's throats.
They had even settled on the topic of the argument in advance — spirit affinity, of all things, since Lilith had already given her a harsh lecture about it once before.
So when Lilith abruptly changed the subject to how terrible her magic circles supposedly were, Agnes was caught considerably off guard.
Weren't we supposed to fight about my spirit affinity being good or bad…?
Confused by the sudden shift in topic, Agnes nevertheless kept her head and tried to work out why Lilith had chosen this particular subject to pick a fight over.
It couldn't be that she genuinely disliked her magic circles. The professors themselves had praised that magic for its minimal mana loss — criticizing it was strange on its face.
Which meant there had to be a reason for the change of subject, and Agnes had a pretty good guess as to what it was.
An incident from their one rehearsal run during the preliminary test flashed through her mind.
'Miss Agnes, your spirit affinity is so pitiful that even low-tier spirits can't absorb your mana — they just spit it right back out. Isn't that right?'
'Yeah, that's right…. I can't even handle a low-tier spirit on my own, so without Lilith….'
'…Hold on, Miss Agnes. Don't get all gloomy on me — you're supposed to fire back at me. Something like, "You've got nothing on me except spirit affinity, you cow," or, "I could crush a nobody like you easily without relying on any spirits."'
'Y-you've got nothing on me except spirit affinity, you c-cowwww…!'
'That delivery is way too flat. Could you put a little more rage into it, please?'
'I-I don't know. I did my best. Let's just use some other method instead of….'
'…Fine. I'll figure something out about your amateur acting, Miss Agnes. But we're still going through with the plan to fake a falling-out between us.'
Agnes rapidly replayed that final exchange in her head — the last conversation they'd had when they first hatched the plan to pretend there was bad blood between them.
So this "different approach" meant Lilith would provoke her over something they hadn't prepared at all.
From Agnes's position, it was certainly an unforeseen situation — and, in a way, a genuinely brilliant solution.
No one would be fooled by her wooden, rehearsed reactions anyway, so Lilith had simply decided to bring in a completely different topic and draw genuine reactions out of her on the spot.
“Miss Agnes?”
“…Huh? Wh-what?”
“Why haven't you said a word this whole time? Was hearing that your magic circles were subpar that devastating?”
“N-no, it's just….”
“Or did you fail to understand me properly? Shall I repeat myself, then? A magic circle riddled with curves, with no symmetrical structure and no clear starting point, has zero practical value — it's nothing more than a circle you drew to comfort yourself.”
“……?!?!”
When Agnes failed to react, Lilith simply repeated the insult, twisting the knife.
Worse, the second version was far more vicious than the first, and it carved straight into her chest. Agnes reeled from no small shock the moment the words landed.
That's… acting, right? It has to be acting…?
If Lilith didn't actually harbor thoughts like that, could she really have pulled them out on the spot like this?
Agnes knew Lilith was deliberately picking a fight with her. But a treacherous little thought began to bloom in her mind — what if, this time, the content was genuine? And, naturally, a rebuttal came bursting out of her mouth in response.
“Th-that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Curves, no symmetry, no clear starting point, so it has no practical value? Or is it just that your intelligence isn't sufficient to understand my magic circles?”
“…I'm sorry, what?”
“It's first-year academy knowledge that curved structures are superior for reducing mana loss and increasing a circle's output. Calling my assignment — built entirely from curves — impractical is just a stupid answer. Of course it feels impractical to you. You can't even properly memorize my circle, all you can do is copy it while staring at mine, and that's why you're calling my magic impractical. Am I wrong?”
…Yes. This, I can do.
No matter how hopeless she was at acting, an argument like this she could counter naturally, effortlessly.
Granted, she was a little fuzzy on whether Lilith actually meant any of this… but either way, for now she had no choice but to assume she did and fire back in kind.
If she didn't, deceiving the academy students and MacHeart would be next to impossible. Or so she'd believed…
“What exactly is the point of skimping on one or two mana with such an elaborate structure, when the spell only costs about fifty to begin with?”
“Cast it thirty times and you get one extra use out of the same total mana. Too dumb to do the math?”
“What I'm telling you is that getting one extra cast of a low-tier spell means absolutely nothing. And rather than fussing over drawing a circle that's nothing but curves, wouldn't your attention be better spent on multcasting or prepping your next spell?”
“Why would I waste effort on a circle so easy I could draw it with my eyes closed? Your premise is wrong from the ground up.”
It had begun as a staged quarrel to fool MacHeart's eyes, but as time went on, Agnes found herself growing genuinely invested in the magical debate itself.
To any outside observer, it looked like a screaming match between two people one step away from a falling-out — but in truth, she and Lilith were engaged in a passionate, serious discussion about magic.
For Agnes, who had almost no one she could call a friend, talking about her favorite subject was pure joy, whatever angry shape it wore on the surface.
…And so, perhaps it was only inevitable that Agnes, swept up in that rising excitement, would let her guard down for a moment and step over the line.
“Why do you even struggle to draw such a simple circle? Is it because all the nutrients that should be feeding your brain went straight to your chest fat and made you stup— …ah.”
“……”
As long as the conversation stayed on magic itself, no amount of barbed words between them mattered. It was, after all, a debate wearing the mask of a quarrel, a discussion wearing the mask of rage.
But the instant personal attacks entered the fray, it could no longer be called a debate at all.
Carried away by the moment, Agnes had blurted out a remark about Lilith's body, and panic seized her. Just as the thought of apologizing began to form in her head—
Lilith, instead, flashed a cold smile and coolly returned fire.
“Th-that just slipped ou—”
“And I suppose you're that short and that flat because all the nutrients meant for your body went straight to your head instead, Miss Agnes?”
“……Huh?”
Tragically, Agnes had overlooked one crucial fact.
If the quarrel had remained purely within the specialized domain of magic, she could at least have held her own on paper and kept up a plausible-sounding exchange. But Lilith had only ever been ceding ground to Agnes on magic itself, simulating a debate through sheer verbal skill.
And if the fight ever spilled into territory beyond magic, there existed no universe in which Agnes could win.
“Come to think of it, that doesn't really apply to you, does it, Miss Agnes? After all, you have exactly one fewer place for nutrients to reach than I do. No wonder that head of yours works so much harder than mine.”
“Th-that's…. I mean, that's….”
“Actually, I wonder if your fiery temper comes from lacking the room in your chest for compassion? People do say 'warm-hearted' to describe a kind soul — and by that measure, Miss Agnes has the coldest, most frigid chest of anyone alive.”
“Li-Lilith…? Th-that's enough, the joke's gone too….”
“How careless of me. For a moment there, I entirely forgot the difference in our physical endowments.”
And with that, Lilith made a show of crossing her arms beneath her bust and lifting it upward. Under this relentless, airless barrage, Agnes's head was starting to spin.
What is this conversation — this one-sided, unbearably unfair pile of nonsense?
Seconds ago they'd been having a magic debate disguised as a quarrel. How had it mutated into this?
Sure, the topic had changed because of her own slip of the tongue, but did she really have to go this far?
Weren't we friends, Lilith? Why would you say things like that to a friend?
While Agnes was living through hell in real time, Lilith simply carried on cheerfully with the insult-laden quarrel.
In fairness, Lilith hadn't planned to go this far at first. She knew better than anyone that Agnes carried deep complexes about her height and her chest.
Under normal circumstances she would never have dragged such a topic into a quarrel — it was too cheap a move. But Agnes's accidental jab about chest fat had lit the fuse.
Agnes had been the first to spit out a weakness about physical features — something Lilith had deliberately refrained from mentioning — and so, from Lilith's perspective, permission had been granted. With a topic like that on the table, the loser of the quarrel was decided before either of them opened their mouths.
Naturally, from that point on, the quarrel became nothing but a merciless one-sided rout for Agnes.
At some point the back-and-forth had collapsed entirely into a solo offensive, and the anger steadily piled up inside Agnes's heart — until Lilith's final remark became the killing blow that detonated the rage of a certain red Chihuahua.
“You know, now that I think about it, I finally understand why your magic circles are so full of curves, Miss Agnes. There isn't a single curve anywhere on your body — nothing but straight lines — so I suppose you wanted your circles to feel the contours you never go….”
“ARE YOU FINISHED YET?! YOU—YOU LUMP OF LARD, YOUUUUU!!”
And so, Agnes exploded.
Completely forgetting what the whole conversation had been for in the first place.