The Conspiracy (2)
As the daughter of a ducal house, Judith boasted by far the most formidable pedigree among this year's incoming class.
What was more, she made active use of that advantage of hers.
Barely a few weeks into the semester, Judith had already ascended to the very summit of the Magic Department's first-years.
"What sort of nonsense is that?"
"Why, it's what one says when an imperial traitor has the gall to show her face at Elysion."
Judith looked Garnet up and down with undisguised contempt curling at the corner of her mouth.
"Living a life scraping the very bottom of society—the sins you've racked up could never be atoned for, even if you tried."
"..."
Garnet only gritted her teeth, but being caged in like some worm crawling on the ground only sank her deeper into misery.
"You filthy disgrace of the Empire."
"You? A knight candidate? Don't make me laugh. The only thing you might qualify for is a brothel whore."
"Oh, perfect. Why don't you atone by offering your body to the soldiers, hm?"
"Pfft..."
Under the barrage of insults, Garnet glared at the girls as if she could kill them.
And somehow, a surge of helpless injustice was about to boil over into something more.
"Traitor? Me? Why is it always me you keep spewing this sh— hnngh!!"
At some point, the girl who had been prattling about brothels had gone dead serious, seized Garnet by the hair, and hauled her upward.
"Have you lost your mind? Where do you think you are, screaming like that."
The eyes pinning Garnet down were steeped in a deep, rooted hostility.
"My brother died at the Battle of Etram, fighting the demons. He was hit by a curse and melted away, so we never even found his body."
"Hhk, let go...!"
"I just can't understand it. Henrik can't even enter heaven, so why does a traitor's daughter like you get to waltz into the academy like nothing happened? Do you honestly think this is a just outcome? I really can't fathom what the professors are thinking."
"Stop it, let go of me...!!"
"Ha, so you really won't listen until someone makes you..."
The girl spat a hollow laugh and exchanged a glance with Judith, the ringleader of the pack.
Judith glanced sidelong at Garnet, then let out a small sigh.
"...That's enough. Push it too far, and even I can't cover for you."
It was, for all intents and purposes, a green light.
At that, the girls swarmed in and seized Garnet's arms and legs without ceremony.
Then the girl who had been haranguing Garnet conjured a sharp knife of ice and clenched it tight in her fist.
"That halfway-pretty face of yours—I'll turn it into a rag. Isn't that nice? A knight should have a few scars on her face anyway."
"Let go...!"
"If you don't like it, go run crying to your professor. So what if you get a few days in solitary? A fair price for carving a blade into a traitor's daughter's face, if you ask me..."
"Hhk...!"
Garnet thrashed with everything she had, but her body wouldn't budge an inch.
Before she knew it, tears welled up in her eyes, a half-and-half mixture of injustice and terror.
But fear that crosses its threshold has a way of curdling into blind rage.
The icy blade was being brought right up to the face of Garnet, bound hand and foot.
In an instant, she clenched her teeth, her eyes flying wide open, and wrenched her body with all the strength left in her.
"G-Grab her!!"
"Kyaaah!"
Tearing free of her restraints, Garnet hurled the girl with the blade straight to the floor.
"Who, who are you calling a traitor?!"
She charged straight in the direction where Judith had been lounging, watching the whole affair unfold at her leisure.
"What do you think you're— hnngh...!"
Before the startled Judith could even react, Garnet had grabbed her lustrous head of hair and yanked it without mercy.
Beneath Garnet's bloodshot eyes, large tears were falling drop by drop.
"I committed treason? Did I? Why do you keep pinning something I never did on me...!"
"Let go of me, Potts! How dare you lay your hands on my—!"
Judith hissed through her teeth, reached out, and clamped her hand tight around Garnet's braid, pulled back behind her head.
"Hnngh...!"
Jerking it down in answer, Judith sent Garnet's body pitching off balance.
Even as she fell, Garnet, goaded past all reason, only clung to Judith and dragged her down with her.
The two of them were soon rolling across the floor, a tangled, disheveled mess of limbs.
"What, what did I ever do wrong...!"
"You low-born lunatic, how dare you— kyaa—!"
Garnet and Judith clawed at each other and yanked each other's hair without pause.
"Wh-what are you all doing! Someone pull them apart, now!"
At one girl's cry, Judith's followers, who had been watching in a daze, snapped to their senses and threw themselves at Garnet.
"Haa... haa..."
Wrestled apart with both arms pinned, Garnet panted for breath, her hair a complete wreck.
"Have you no dignity at all? What is the meaning of this..."
And Judith, likewise steadied by the girls around her, glared at Garnet as she struggled to her feet.
"Judith! Are you all right?"
"There's, there's a wound on your face..."
At the shrill chorus of the girls, Judith's fingers drifted up to her own cheek of their own accord.
When she saw the blood welling from the scratch marks, her face rapidly cooled into a frosty fury.
"A fallen noblewoman who doesn't even know her place, daring to..."
Whipping her head around, Judith glared at Garnet as though she could kill her.
"How dare you draw blood from the heir of the Dragon?"
Garnet answered her gaze with nothing but a soundless, venomous smirk.
And at the sight of it, something flickered behind Judith's eyes.
"...I've made up my mind, then."
A chill curling her lips, Judith spread her palm wide and began murmuring a spell under her breath.
Before long, a pale blue flame materialized in the air above her hand, swelling into something enormous.
"Prepare yourself, Potts."
Having finished her incantation, Judith looked down her nose at Garnet, forced to her knees, and spoke in a voice clipped at every edge.
"I'm going to sear that face of yours beyond all repair."
"...Eep."
For the first time, stark, abject terror flashed across Garnet's eyes, which had been defiant until that moment.
"What's this? Only now does it sink in what you've done?"
Judith's lips curled further as she stalked toward Garnet one slow step at a time.
Garnet's gaze, though, was fixed strangely on something over Judith's shoulder rather than on Judith herself—but in the swirl of it all, no one had the presence of mind to notice so slight an angle.
"Don't worry. I'll take my time and do it thoroughly."
And just as Judith, standing at arm's length from Garnet, intoned her sentence with the gravity of a death verdict—
"This is the judgment of Vitelles upon an imperial traitor. Do accept it graciously... hngh?!"
Out of nowhere, Judith clutched at the crown of her head and shrieked.
The flame that had been blazing ferociously above her palm vanished without a trace, her concentration shattered.
"Who dares lay a hand on me again, with no idea of their place— huh?"
Whirling around to spit her fury through brimming tears, Judith froze mid-breath.
Fillings her field of vision was a tall man, fist raised, wearing a thoroughly unimpressed expression.
"Who said you could play with fire in the hallway?"
The true wellspring of the terror Garnet had harbored.
On the face of the man who had appeared—Kallen—there was nothing but exasperation.
"Good grief. I came over to see what all the commotion was about, and..."
Scratching the back of his head, Kallen cast a lazy glance around.
A platinum-blonde girl bound firmly from both sides, and the Magic Department students ringed around her.
"..."
A single sweeping look was enough for him to piece together exactly what had happened.
Frowning faintly, Kallen gave a little jerk of his chin.
"Let her go."
"S-sorry?"
"I said, let her go."
The notoriety of the new Basic Swordsmanship professor—who had beaten a student to within an inch of his life under the pretense of a duel—was well known even in the Magic Department.
The girls flinched as one and hastily released their grip on Garnet.
Garnet made no move to rise. She simply slumped where she was.
"Hey. You okay?"
"Hii— hiiek."
At Kallen's outstretched hand, Garnet instinctively shrank back.
Her dazed pupils trembled helplessly, as if an earthquake had struck.
What followed on the heels of her diluted fury was fear, once more.
The memory of that class, when she had stood at death's very door, was still seared into Garnet's body like a brand.
Even Judith's vicious threats felt like child's play beside it.
"Ah, aahh..."
The way Garnet's eyes regarded Kallen was unmistakably that of a herbivore cornered by a predator.
"Good grief. How badly did they torment you to leave your face looking half-ruined like that? Honestly, it's always the Magic Department causing problems."
Kallen clicked his tongue and muttered in rueful sympathy at the sight of her slumped on the floor.
Then Garnet, who had been whipping her head around in a panic, swiftly snatched up the sword lying on the ground.
"Doesn't look like any serious injuries, at least... Huh? Hey, hold on!"
Shooting to her feet, Garnet bolted down the hallway without so much as a backward glance.
Kallen belatedly reached out a hand, mid-mutter, but she was already vanishing into the distance.
"Damn it. She's certainly got a talent for making people's lives difficult."
Kallen stared blankly at the flailing platinum hair receding down the corridor, then let out a long sigh.
"Well, great. Now where am I supposed to look for her... hm?"
The girls who had been riding high on their bravado were already shuffling backward, putting distance between themselves and Kallen.
"You're Professor Kallen, I presume?"
Then someone from within the group stepped forward and offered a greeting.
Green eyes, half-veiled by glossy, silky locks of bright coral-pink hair, looked directly at him.
The girl's features, as precisely sculpted as a statue carved by a master artisan, boasted an astonishing sense of aesthetic balance.
The carelessly tousled hair and disordered clothing glimpsed beneath her painstaking affectation of aloofness only served to render her all the more pitiable.
Kallen could tell at a glance that the girl was the daughter of a noble house.
And that she was the ringleader of the torment he had just interrupted, besides.
"..."
That said, the way she carried on as if nothing had happened, even after taking a knuckle to the head, was frankly something else.
"So. What exactly was that whole scene just now?"
Kallen's brow twitched with irritation at her nonchalance as he spoke.
"Whatever could you mean, Professor?"
Judith only smiled serenely in return.
"A whole crowd ganging up on one person doesn't strike me as a particularly justified situation, does it?"
"Hehe. I hadn't realized you were the sort of professor who cherishes his students so. I'd heard you were a frightening man who beat a student half to death under the guise of a duel... but I suppose that was mere rumor."
"..."
Kallen flinched and averted his eyes from Judith's gaze for no good reason.
Her eyes narrowing into slits, Judith continued in a silken murmur.
"And I believe there's been a small misunderstanding on your part. That wasn't bullying just now... call it a light act of retribution."
"Retribution?"
"Yes."
She nodded her head with perfect composure.
Then, stepping slightly aside as if presenting her companions, she went on.
"Hanna here lost her own brother in battle against the demons. Lilleta's mother passed away from the plague that swept in from the Eastern Territory. And Michelle's fiancé went missing in the war against the beastfolk."
"..."
"Every one of them a student who suffered the grief of losing family to evil, all in service of the Empire. Compared to what these girls have endured, that little scuffle doesn't even amount to a minor disturbance, wouldn't you say? There's ample cause enough for taking revenge on a traitor's daughter."
Judith smiled brightly and carried on.
"Besides, it's asking a great deal to expect anyone to attend an academy crawling with vermin of that stench. Oh, and the Sword Department students must have it hard, too—having to breathe that same air day in and day out."
"..."
"The professors are far too busy for such things, so I've taken it upon myself to handle this matter. As a member of House Vitelles, I simply cannot tolerate such injustice—"
"Vitelles?"
And then, abruptly, Kallen leaned his body in right in front of Judith.
Nodding his head up and down, he scrutinized her again and again, utterly absorbed.
The weight of his gaze, sliding over her from head to toe like something sticky, sent a rush of hot humiliation flooding into Judith's cheeks.
"...What exactly do you think you're doing?"
Gritting her teeth, she began to speak in a voice clipped cold at every syllable.
"How dare you point such an irreverent gaze at—"
"So that's why your face didn't sit right with me... Vitelles, was it?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
At the unprovoked insult, Judith went blank for a moment.
"Right, right? They do have that distinctive red hair, come to think of it..."
Kallen went on mumbling to himself in the same listless tone.
It was the product of a perception drilled into his very bones.
Vitelles was one of the Empire's storied ducal houses, true—but somehow it always fell a shade short of House Phebiel, guardian of the Northern Wall, and House Aramis, whose line had inherited a Divine Relic for generations.
Indeed, the members of House Aramis were in the habit of sneering that the Vitelles—who styled themselves guardians of magic and the arts—were precious porcelain idols that would shatter at the first tap.
"...How dare you."
Cold fury seeped, belatedly, into Judith's face at the unlooked-for slight.
"Ignorant commoner or no, what gives you the right to insult a member of the great House Vitelles— hhk?!"
"There, there... must be rough for you all... stuck being treated as third-best forever. Where's a girl to pour out all that bitterness, hmm?"
Kallen didn't so much as pretend to listen. He simply gave Judith's shoulder a few consoling pats.
"Wh-what shameless— how dare you lay your hands on—!"
"Chin up. Keep at it, and someday you'll close the gap."
Having had his fun at her one-sided expense, Kallen finally dusted off his hands and turned away.
"I'm letting it slide this time because I'm busy. But if I catch you pulling this stunt again, I won't be so understanding. Got it?"
With that parting word, and without waiting for an answer, he strode off in the direction Garnet had fled.
Judith, her face burning scarlet with humiliation, didn't so much as register in his eyes.
"Good grief... now where am I supposed to look this time..."
Behind the receding figure of Kallen, Judith stood with her head bowed low, fist clenched tight, her whole body trembling.
"..."
The girls were far too busy watching Judith's mood to say a word.
It was quite some time before Judith finally raised her head again.
And on her face was carved the same elegant smile as always.
"...Elysion truly is in dire straits."
Judith spoke in a voice of perfect calm.
"A madman like that, a professor... and he even takes the side of a traitor's daughter. The Sword Department students must have it so hard, don't you think?"
"Y-yes, exactly."
"That's what I'm saying..."
At the sight of the girls tripping over themselves to nod along, Judith smiled once more.
"Well? Leaving someone like that to run loose... we can't just stand by and let it happen, can we?"
"Wh-what?"
"But... what could we even do..."
"He's a professor, though..."
The girls could only shuffle and hesitate.
He was clearly an entirely different order of adversary from Garnet.
At that, Judith's eyes narrowed to slits as she looked them over and spoke in a low voice.
"I happen to have a wonderful idea... care to hear it?"
