A New Hypothesis
Erincia~ Come on, just try this. It's really good. Heh heh heh.
I—I don't want to… That's a bug…
Why? Can't eat bugs?
Heh. Probably because they're the same species as you.
Eat. You should know by now—this doesn't end until you do.
Crunch. Grind.
Urgh…! Blegh!
Pwahaha! You idiot girl. I told you to eat it and you actually did. Erincia.
Heh. So? How does your own kind taste?
Please… just leave me alone…
I think I'm going to be sick……
Today's game is tag, Erincia. Fun, right?
But you know what's even more fun? If you get caught, you die. You'd better start running. Hahaha!
Thump-thump-thump!
Kyaaah—! L-Let me go…!
Pfft. You call that running?
Caught you. Time to die, then?
Thud!
Thwack!
Urgh…… a… it hurts……
Of course it hurts. You think I'd hit you to make you happy? Don't worry, though—I'll keep that pretty face unscarred.
Pfft. Blame those slow legs of yours. What else can you do?
Thud!
Hic… please… stop hitting me…
It's all for your own good. How are you supposed to survive this cruel world when you're this weak?
Heh. That's right. There's a saying for it, isn't there? What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger! Something like that?
Why…
Why are you doing this to me……
I just… want to study happily…
Erincia? You don't know why you keep getting treated like this, do you?
It's because you're weak. Because your house is weak. Ever heard of survival of the fittest? It's only natural for the weak to get torn apart by the strong. Simple, right?
Elden……
Don't just stand there looking at me with those pitiful eyes…
Please, please—can't you help me just once……?
Pfft. Young Master Elden? Looks like this girl's reaching for you—asking for help. Shouldn't you teach her a lesson?
…Shall we go have a drink, Young Master Blund. I have no interest in those already fallen.
Come now. Show us what kind of man you are. We ought to teach this pitiful girl that nothing is more futile than false hope, don't you think?
…Understood.
Ah……
Ahh… no…
Please, anyone… get me out of this hell…
Crush.
Urgh…! N-Nooo…!
Heh heh. Yes, Elden. That's the way. Crush that hand reaching for hope. So she never dares cling to empty hope again.
Hic…
Hic…
It hurts…
I think I'm going to die…
Even so… I never blamed any of you……
Because I was the one who didn't run, no matter how much it hurt……
Because I chose to endure the pain of hell for the joy of learning……
Hic…
But……
Truly…
M-My lady? Are you crying?!
Back then…
My lady!? Please wake up…!
It had been so unbearably hard……
"Did you have a nightmare?"
"Ah…"
Lumiang sat propped against the headboard, her upper body leaning into the pillows. Marien sat beside her, wiping the cold sweat from her arms and neck with a damp cloth.
"You were up later than usual, so I came in just in case—and nearly jumped out of my skin."
Her blue eyes were empty and unfocused. Her lips, cracked as if dried under a scorching sun, wouldn't quite close. Even the strands of hair plastered to her skin by sweat stayed where they were. It was a face Marien had never seen on her mistress, and she looked more than a little shaken.
Lumiang felt the same way.
After graduating from the Academy, she had never once had a nightmare.
She had left the pain and the tears behind at the Academy and come home, then buried herself in experiments and research built on three years of hard-won knowledge and wisdom.
With the learning she had clawed out of that three-year hell, she had erased those hells one by one.
She did not regret it.
If not for the chieftain of the Fiendkin's curse, she would never have had to call those three years hell—that was the only regret she allowed herself.
Because back then, it had truly been hard enough to kill her.
Hard enough that she had nearly defied her father's strict orders and revealed who she was.
Those were the days when the abuse right in front of her had been more terrifying than a curse that might kill her at any moment.
But she could never bring herself to do it—not when her father had begged her, tears in his eyes, to stay hidden and stay safe. For the father who had swallowed his tears to protect her, she could neither reveal her identity nor report the Four's crimes.
Even the scars carved into her body had to be kept tightly hidden.
Everything had been born of her own stubbornness, of choices she herself had made.
So she had decided it was right to bear it alone, and Lumiang had chosen forgetting over revenge.
Of course, whenever the scars from the abuse throbbed, the terror of those days forced its way back, and each time the world seemed to collapse around her until her whole body shook and she sank to the floor.
Fragmented, wretched memories.
Perhaps she had thrown herself even harder into research and experiments just to forget them.
And yet those memories still rose now and then to tear through her mind—which was exactly why she had chosen those same Four as the final candidates for this Marriage Tournament.
For complete forgetting.
For complete liberation.
Whether forgetting and liberation truly waited at the end of that path, she did not know.
In any case—
Whether thanks to those efforts or not, she had never once had a nightmare. That was why shock and bewilderment flooded her face now.
What was this?
Why a nightmare, after all this time?
Lumiang could not understand it.
Wiping her face, Marien asked with quiet concern,
"But… my lady."
"Mm."
"The Marriage Tournament… you have to choose your betrothed from among the final candidates, no exceptions, right?"
Lumiang nodded.
Just as no candidate in the tournament's history had ever withdrawn, there had never been a single tournament without a declared winner. Choosing one of the four finalists and holding the betrothal ceremony was how the Marriage Tournament always reached its grand conclusion.
That was the tradition of the Winterfell Grand Duchy—and her older brothers and sisters had all followed it, married their winners, and lived happily ever after.
"…That's right."
"Have you thought about it at all?"
Marien was the only person who knew of Lumiang's revenge. Ever since that revenge had begun, her mistress had been withering like a flower losing its light—and it frightened her.
Especially since Elden Raphelion's withdrawal, she seemed to be wasting away even faster.
Sometimes she muttered to herself. Sometimes she clawed at her hair and scribbled nonsense on paper. She barely ate. She abandoned the research and experiments she used to love, and spent whole days sunk in thought.
Marien knew she had started this for the sake of finding light—but in this state, she could not help wondering whether any light waited at the end at all.
Honestly, she had wanted to stop her.
Even knowing how the terror of those days still seized her, even knowing she could not easily shake it free—she still worried whether this was the right choice.
Reading that worry on Marien's face, Lumiang forced a smile and stroked her hair.
"Don't worry. I'll be fine."
"…I can't help worrying."
"Then, Marien—who do you think I should marry?"
"Hmm…"
It was a cruel question. Asking someone who knew Lumiang's scars to pick one of the Four was almost merciless.
When Marien could not answer, Lumiang answered for her.
"It'll be one of two people."
"Pardon?"
"Someone who truly reflects and repents. Or… someone who never regrets and never atones, right to the end. One of those two will end up marrying me, don't you think?"
"Ah…"
The first would be a happy ending for everyone. The second felt like it would be a bad ending. Marien could only manage a vague little sound in response.
Please, she thought—let my lady, at least, get a happy ending.
Knock, knock.
Having gathered herself, Lumiang sat in her study.
As the youngest daughter of the Grand Duchy—unbetrothed, not yet stepped fully into the world of adults—she had no official documents to review, no approvals to stamp. She was only there to wrestle with the impossible problem Elden Raphelion had thrown at her.
"My lady."
The one who entered was Gelwood.
"Come in. Please, sit."
He had come to report everything he had gathered and confirmed to the Grand Duke's daughter, who had ordered surveillance and investigation of history's first withdrawer.
Settling onto the sofa across from her, Gelwood spoke with concern in his eyes.
"Your color looks quite poor. Has something happened?"
The formal audience was only days away, and as the overall supervisor of the Marriage Tournament, he could not help fretting over the drawn face of the tournament's central figure.
Just as she had with Marien, Lumiang forced a smile.
"I'm fine. More importantly—was there anything unusual after graduation?"
"Nothing of note."
"…I see. And after the withdrawal?"
"That, I must admit, has been rather strange."
"In what way?"
Lumiang leaned forward with interest.
"He has refused all nighttime attendance at the annex, and he has not touched a drop of alcohol either."
"…Elden Raphelion?"
The report was so hard to believe that Lumiang had to ask again.
Drunken brawler. Lecher. Those two epithets defined Elden Raphelion. And those habits had always played out inside the annex—there was no reason to put on a farce in places where no eyes could reach.
Unless—
"He hasn't noticed the tail and the surveillance, has he?"
Gelwood shook his head firmly, cutting the possibility short.
"Impossible. The man is worth every coin we pay him."
"…All right. And the testimony is reliable?"
"Yes. A maid from the annex gave it herself. If anything, she said he refused her service outright."
"…Anything else?"
"Since declaring his withdrawal, he has taken up reading. He visits the library every day, I am told."
"What?"
Lumiang's brow furrowed.
The claim was that absurd. This was a man who would have burned books for kindling before he ever enjoyed the letters inside them.
"And at lunch today, after dining in the Great Hall with the person he had been reading with, he went to the training grounds with his escort knight."
"Wait. He dined with someone he was reading with?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"Young Lady Ariel Elrond, the Count's daughter."
"…What?"
Ariel Elrond.
At that name, Lumiang's pupils widened.
An unexpected name—one that had sunk beneath the surface of her memory, packed away in a box with countless others she had never needed to take out, left in some neglected corner—had just been spoken aloud.
At the same time, she recalled a golden-haired student with ringlets who had only ever read novels and never shown the slightest interest in her studies.
A bookworm and a scoundrel.
Opposing natures that should never have mixed—the combination alone was enough to raise suspicion.
"Do you know her?"
A new hypothesis rose in Lumiang's mind.
One she had never once considered. One she had never approached by any path.
Love.
If that force—capable of seizing natures at absolute opposite poles and forcibly mixing them—could work here, then perhaps it could solve this tangled, preposterous riddle.
If that power was strong enough to blend even water and oil, then perhaps it could free a researcher who had been clutching her head over an unsolvable problem.
"Could you arrange a meeting for me?"
"With Young Master Elden, my lady?"
"No. With Young Lady Ariel Elrond."