Fear
Ray's room—the workshop of the empire's only elixir specialist. Books and papers lay scattered across the floor, and three tables etched with magic circles were bolted to the walls. Ray crouched in front of those tables and yawned.
"Haaahm…"
She turned her head toward the window. The sun was just beginning to rise. She'd pulled all-nighters reading novels before, but this was the first time she'd ever seen the dawn over an elixir.
I'm sleepy…
Fighting to keep her drooping eyelids open, she stared at the table. Beautiful, luminous elixirs sat in glass bottles—the masterwork of her life, every drop of her effort poured into them.
…Not that I've ever actually tried hard at anything.
Ray was a lazy human. To be precise, she hated doing anything useful to society. A life devoted solely to her desires and soaked in pleasure—that had always been her life's goal, and she'd lived accordingly. When she didn't feel like attending class, she skipped it. She whipped up commissioned elixirs in about an hour, then pretended in front of others that it had taken a full day. When she wanted to sleep, she slept. When she craved something to eat, the maids brought it to her.
One hour of labor, ten hours of rest. That was her life's iron rule, the one thing that would never crumble. And then her desire for Lucia turned it all upside down.
I'm… more capable than I thought, huh.
Ray stared at the elixirs she'd made in genuine astonishment. Since she'd never once given her best at anything, she hadn't even known she was capable of this. Of course, aside from Lucia's request, she never intended to make anything like it again.
…She'll like it, right?
Carrying that fragile hope, she headed for Lucia's dormitory. Her eyes kept sliding shut along the way, but it was just a matter of delivering this quickly and being done.
Thud.
"Ow…"
It felt like she kept smacking her forehead into something, but Ray pressed on without stopping.
The herb-lover was dozing off with her forehead still pressed against the door, nodding up and down. And on closer inspection, a red liquid was trickling down the door. It looked like it was coming from her forehead.
Hmm.
It was genuinely pitiful, waiting like that—but it wasn't my problem to worry about.
Everything's so tiring these days.
I decided to nap until Lucia woke up. Absolutely not because I'd been forcing her to drink one mid-tier elixir a day straight from the original story. No, definitely not that.
About ten minutes passed like that.
"…"
A soft rustling came from inside as Lucia stirred.
She's up later than usual.
She normally rose at six, but by the look of things it was a full nine o'clock. Had she been that tired?
"…"
Lucia opened her eyes, and soon she was staring quietly at me.
Should I pretend to sleep a little longer?
She'd pulled that trick on me last time, so this was my turn. Just as I was deliberating over when exactly to open my eyes—Lucia closed hers.
Needless to say, she wasn't going back to sleep. Look closely and you'd see her peeking at me through slitted lids, exactly like I'd been doing.
Perfect timing.
[Lucia.]
"?!"
At my telepathy, she flinched, shoulders jolting, and snapped her eyes open.
"…Master?"
I stayed silent with my eyes closed. She let out a long, slow breath.
"Whew…"
Then, perfectly composed, she extended her left hand and stroked me.
When she does this, I actually feel guilty. I opened my eyes and looked at her. Those endlessly calm blue eyes gazed back at me.
"…So this time I was the one who fell for it."
[Sorry. I wanted to try it myself, just once.]
"It's fine. It was fun."
She said it was fun, though her face was utterly expressionless. Anyway. We spent a little while simply facing each other. I wanted to savor the moment a while longer, but still—duties are duties.
[Lucia. We have a guest outside.]
"A guest… is it Ray?"
I nodded at her question. She lifted her hand from my head and slowly rose from the bed.
I watched her walk to the door from the bed, peering straight through the wall with my clairvoyance.
Creak.
The chill of spring air slipped in on the breeze, and—
CRASH!
"A-aaah…"
Ray, pushed back by the opening door, crumpled to the floor.
"Lady Lucia…"
"…?"
With those parting words, she passed out cold. Right, come to think of it, she'd been pressing her head against the door this whole time.
How pathetic.
I shuffled out to the living room. Apparently I needed to see targets with my own eyes to use telekinesis. And there lay the herb-lover, sprawled across the dormitory corridor—with Lucia standing over her, staring down. The composition was… oddly grim.
[Gah.]
It was a scene straight out of a murder case.
"…Master. I didn't do anything."
Lucia said, as if offering an explanation.
[Really?]
I gave her my most suspicious-sparrow look. Shifty.
"Yes. She must have been leaning her head against the door… I heard her collapse when I opened it."
[I know. I was using clairvoyance.]
With that, I invoked my telekinesis.
Whoooosh.
The herb-lover floated up into the air.
Heave-ho.
I dumped her onto the living room sofa, casual as moving furniture.
"Nngh…"
If she still wouldn't wake from that, she must have been sleeping pretty deeply. Good.
Thinking that settled things, I started to head back to the bedroom—
"…"
Lucia was looking down at me. Her expression was perfectly calm, without a flicker of emotion in it.
"Master."
[Yes, Lucia?]
"…Do you use clairvoyance often? Even here, in the dormitory?"
Why ask that all of a sudden? I was puzzled, but I answered anyway.
[I use it from time to time. But not really in the dormitory?]
"…I see."
Having received my answer, Lucia walked straight to the kitchen.
"I'll make breakfast."
[Hm? Sure.]
Her face seemed a little flushed. Probably just my imagination.
Time passed, and it was noon when the herb-lover finally came to. She then began stripping off her clothes and trying to slam her forehead into the floor. The infamous naked dogeza.
Whoa!
Thanks to Lucia fleeing straight into the bedroom, I couldn't actually confirm whether she'd gotten her clothes off. Not that I care either way.
Honestly, someone like Ray easily counted as an A-rank beauty within the duchy. But I simply had little interest in women who weren't Lucia. That said—of course! I solemnly swear that even if the one undressing had been Lucia herself, I would never have used clairvoyance. …Probably?
Anyway. The herb-lover came before the bedroom and handed the elixirs over to Lucia. During their conversation, Lucia covered my eyes—but I didn't peek. Not once. The talk wrapped up amid Lucia's inexplicable behavior, and then—
"Well then, Lady Lucia, take care…!"
Creak.
The herb-lover, looking faintly flushed, closed the door behind her and left.
[Lucia.]
"Ah—yes. Master."
Something about her answer felt off.
[During that conversation just now. Why did you cover my eyes?]
"…"
Her calm gaze simply held mine. And time drifted on and on in silence.
"Master."
Lucia spoke at last, her tone unusually grave.
"There was no great reason for what I did."
[Really?]
I accepted that at face value and pressed on to my next question.
[Then, um. When your fingers parted for just a second, I saw something black. What was that?]
"…"
It had been visible for only the briefest instant. Something mostly skin-toned, with black fabric at the top and bottom. I asked purely because I couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"…I've heard one must be careful when consuming elixirs."
[Lucia?]
"Master. Would you help me? You said elixirs should be consumed as quickly as possible."
She kept deflecting, and eventually I had no choice but to let it go.
Ugh, seriously, what was that?
I had absolutely no idea what state the elixir-lover had been in. She clearly hadn't been wearing black clothes when she arrived—so why had I seen black fabric? Even the supreme brain of the Grand Magic Bird could not solve it. The truth of the case slipped away into the maze of mystery forever…
The Academy has a simulated training facility. It's a training installation that continuously summons artificial monsters made of mana. The upkeep costs were so astronomical that even nobles could hardly afford to rent it, yet academy students were allowed to use it once a day, up to six times a month.
Use all six runs, then head into the Tower of Time.
That was the plan Lucia and I settled on, and we headed for the simulated training facility at once. Six runs meant six days of waiting. Once we used them all, less than a week would remain before the exam. Lucia would be in rough shape when she came out of the tower, so if we wanted a few days of leeway, we needed to go now.
Just how far will she grow?
Back when I first discovered the Tower of Time, honestly, I hadn't seriously been thinking about beating Chloe. The academy was crawling with geniuses, and among them Chloe was the overwhelming number one. Consider that in the original story, Lucia had dropped all the way to tenth on her first exam.
I figured fifth place alone would be a miracle.
But now the math had changed. Armed with six Epic-grade elixirs, sweeping every run of the simulated training facility, and then utterly conquering the Tower of Time? At that point, I really thought we could take Chloe herself.
Let's do this.
Carrying that hope, we made for the training facility. The building's lobby was packed with students waiting for their turns.
"…There sure are a lot of people."
Lucia murmured quietly. She seemed surprised by the line of students standing before the reception desk.
[Even just the line looks like a twenty-minute wait.]
Even a Grand Magic Bird capable of triggering nuclear-fusion explosions couldn't cut the line. I could have shoved the students aside with telekinesis and breezed through, but that would only put Lucia in an awkward spot. So we waited the better part of half an hour, until I finally stood face to face with the receptionist—a girl with sleek brown hair.
"Hello, student. Are you here alone?"
"Yes."
Lucia answered calmly. The Basic Theory Professor was the exception, not the rule—Lucia was a proper young lady who used respectful speech with her elders.
"There's quite a crowd right now, so entries are being processed in groups of three. Would you be all right entering together with other students?"
"…"
Lucia went silent. Apparently she was reluctant to enter with strangers.
[If you're uncomfortable, we can come back. No need to force it.]
Lucia nodded… and then said,
"…It's fine."
"Thank you. Then we'll pair you with the two students waiting ahead of you."
The receptionist beside her—the one with short black hair and a generous figure—escorted Lucia away. We walked a short way down a long corridor, and the woman gestured toward some chairs partway along it.
"You'll be entering with the two seated over there. I'm going to check on an open room, so please chat while you wait."
And with that, she abandoned Lucia and left. She's not even walking us all the way there? If it were me, I'd have unleashed a review-bombing campaign on the spot, but Lucia approached the chairs without a word of complaint.
A girl with violet hair sat in one of the chairs, and a blonde girl stood in front of her. At first, the distance made them impossible to recognize. But as we drew closer, their faces sharpened into focus—
"…Oh? Lucia?"
Chloe greeted her with a bright smile.
"Don't tell me—you came here because you didn't have three people either?"
"…"
Lucia gave only the faintest nod, saying nothing.
"First the mock dungeon, and now this. I keep feeling like we're tangled up together somehow. It's like fate, you know?"
Grinning as if to prove no one else could play the lead in a romance novel, she went on.
"Anyway—this girl next to me is my friend, Veronica. You've heard the name, right?"
At her words, Lucia turned her head. A girl with violet hair and green eyes.
"…Veronica? Why aren't you saying anything? Your face looks awful—are you sick or something?"
Veronica sat frozen, her head bowed low.