What Exactly Is Marriage?
“So the ghost was you….”
Just like last time, picking the lock looked like nothing to her. She must have been coming and going from the Academy infirmary as freely as her own room.
“Huh? Lucia, you were the ghost?”
“Yeah. You kept waltzing in and out of a locked infirmary, and weird rumors started spreading.”
Wait. That meant the reason other students had been able to get in and do unspeakable things was because she kept opening the door. It was all her fault. Wasn’t this the sort of thing that called for disciplinary action for corrupting public morals? This school really needed something like a student conduct committee.
“I don’t think so. The health teacher probably gave me a key.”
“I see… So where do I report that teacher?”
“Haha. Who knows.”
Come to think of it, the health teacher would have been Laward’s… original mentor. In the game, and probably in his previous life as well. There had been a teacher who found Laward in District 7, in the slums. Not someone he ever called his “respected teacher,” but the person had definitely existed.
“If you’re looking for the health teacher, she’s in Infirmary Two. They renovated recently and moved the whole thing over.”
“This place wasn’t even an infirmary to begin with.”
So what were they supposed to call it now? The Abandoned Infirmary?
“The health practice room?”
“…….”
“Ahaha.”
Lucia smiled sweetly, as if my reaction amused her.
“Oh, Lord Karma.”
Then, as if something had just occurred to her, she lifted her head.
“You were talking with my roommate in the cafeteria.”
“So that was you too.”
The infirmary ghost and Amelia’s roommate. All the same unsound student.
“You two looked pretty close—”
She needled me the way a middle-schooler might, treating a simple conversation with the opposite sex like a major incident. Her eyes, though, were not smiling.
“Amelia, I mean. You know she has a fiancé, right?”
…What?
“A fiancé?”
It was starting to feel like Amelia’s secrets were being peeled open one after another….
“Yes. A fiancé. I heard it straight from her.”
“That so. And why are you telling me?”
“Mm, I don’t know. I just thought you should know.”
Hearing that, the words Amelia had spoken not long ago seemed to ring again in my ears. That none of it had been for nothing, she’d said.
“A fiancé isn’t a husband yet. Amelia’s only at forty-five percent, you know. You can relax.”
“Who are you even talking to right now?”
“At first I thought Amelia was under surveillance. Around the dorms, I could feel eyes on our room. I’m good at noticing that sort of thing.”
Lucia gave a short laugh.
“Well, of course. Lucia’s usually the one doing the watching. Professionals can spot each other a mile away.”
“Professionals, huh.”
“It bothered me, so I asked. She said they were people her fiancé sent.”
She shrugged and went on.
“These days even fiancés send assassins, apparently. What exactly is marriage?”
“Fair point… I should keep that in mind.”
“Just give the word and Lucia will take care of it. We share that room, after all. Having something like that stuck to us is unpleasant.”
“I’ll tell you when the time comes.”
“Yes. Preferably on the side of taking care of it, please.”
The way she said “unpleasant” almost sounded genuine—rare for Lucia.
“More importantly, Her Highness sure opened up to you easily.”
“Amelia? Ah, yes.”
…I called her Your Highness. Why did Lucia get to use her name? That felt unfair. Then again, without succession rights, she might not even be a “Highness” anymore.
“At first she ignored me even though I’m a third-year, but now she talks to me just fine. The hierarchy’s been settled.”
Lucia lightly clenched and unclenched a fist, smiling.
“What are you going to do if you rank higher than a princess?”
Succession wars, elections—did they even need any of that? Just crush people with raw power the way Lucia did. No—I really ought to start considering that approach seriously.
“We fought over who got the bottom bunk on the loft bed, and Lucia won.”
“That was all…?”
“Oh, Lord Karma. Did you know Amelia is actually ridiculously strong?”
“Hm?”
I’d just gotten a straight answer from Amelia herself a little while ago, but it was too early to pretend I already knew.
“I was shocked. Honestly, I looked down on her for being last place in the second-year sword division.”
“You’re last place in the third-year sword division yourself.”
“If it hadn’t been a day when I slept straight through first to fourth period, I might have lost. I might have tasted the humiliation of ranking below a princess….”
Lucia’s lack of diligence was enough to tear a sponsor’s heart in two, but at least it told me Amelia had thrown everything she had into something as trivial as a bunk bed. If she was going to put that much effort into that, what had been the point of hiding her strength for two whole years…?
Clunk!
While I was clicking my tongue, the infirmary doorknob rattled.
“Haa… Open again… I clearly said this is an Academy….”
Someone muttered outside the door.
Creeeak—click!
And the door opened. It opened completely.
“What… are you doing in here?”
The voice from behind me was one I knew. A voice I had never been able to hear in the game, one I was now grateful I could hear at all.
Dark red hair. A mature presence that only made her more attractive. The woman I had wanted to romance even more than the heroines.
Grace.
“P-please leave. If anyone finds out you were here, unpleasant rumors will start circulating.”
What. Even the teachers knew what Infirmary One had become? If they knew, they should have done something about it.
“Hello, Miss Grace.”
Lucia poked her head out from around my shoulder.
Wait. Whether she meant to or not, of all places, of all situations, to show herself right here—
“Wh-wh-what are you doing with a student…!”
Grace pointed a finger at me. At the same time her face flushed deep red. Her eyes lost focus and trembled so hard that if this had been a comic, they would have been spinning in circles.
“I knew you were after our female students…!”
The Daywin–Grace route. Locked once again.
Daywin–Grace Route
Locked once again.
Coins in possession: 500
Even after gaining another three hundred coins, I was still a long way from fifteen hundred. Maybe from now on I ought to prioritize challenge tasks that paid large sums. Light, trivial ones like the Infirmary Ghost were better saved for those times when I was short by a hundred coins or so. The items I would need going forward would probably start at four figures by default—I didn’t have the luxury of leisurely scraping together hundreds at a time.
I opened the challenge task list again. This time sorted by “highest reward.” Surprisingly, the gap in rewards was wider than I’d expected—there were even tasks worth tens of thousands. Which meant the difficulty scaled accordingly. For example, killing the final boss.
I scrolled down to a more reasonable range—the four-figure challenges. Around there, most of what came up involved the Death God Cult. In the game, earning four-figure coins meant Laward had already grown considerably. Twenty years old. The story after Laward’s graduation. The point where the fate of the world hung in the balance. The game asked whether you would choose the heroine, or your mission.
Death God Cult challenges were mostly about eliminating named monsters and officers. Named enemies from the Death God Cult started at a thousand coins. Officers would be far higher.
“…No way.”
Tap, tap. I scrolled a little farther up.
Reward:10,000 Coins
☠ DEAD ONLY ☠
There it was, just as expected….
The bounty on my neck. Ten thousand coins.
Whether I lived or died was not the question. Dead Only. I had to be killed.
I’d anticipated it, but facing it still left a bitter taste. At any rate, I had confirmed I could earn coins by carving through the opposing camp one by one. The problem was that I needed a thousand coins right now, and I still had no way to meet those enemies. I’d have to think a little more about how to earn coins.
Snap—
I closed the system window and headed for the cafeteria.
“Kgh.”
…The moment she heard what I had to say, Amelia choked. A rather undignified sound for a princess.
“Keh, kgh. What… did you just say?”
“I asked why you hid the fact that you have a fiancé.”
“I-I did not hide it! Hide it, you say!”
Amelia waved both hands frantically. The fastest Amelia I had ever seen.
“…I am sorry. Hasgard—are you… very disappointed?”
Huh? Disappointed? What was she talking about all of a sudden? Why would I be disappointed? I only wanted to tell her that her fiancé seemed to be trying to kill her. That her life was still being targeted.
“Are you… very angry?”
Head bowed, Amelia carefully lifted her eyes as she asked. Her voice had grown so small it was almost inaudible, and her fingers fretted with her hair.
“Why would I be angry….”
“I-it will never happen again. I swear it. I will tell you everything. The fiancé is nothing more than an arrangement between our houses. Y-you know how these things are.”
“I really don’t.”
“Did you never have talks of an engagement yourself…?”
“Now that you mention it, I think I did. I refused the moment I heard her age.”
“Age? She was older than you?”
It was the opposite that I disliked, actually.
“Being able to refuse at all is already unusual… I never had that chance. I had to promise marriage to a man I had never even met.”
“Things seem even worse between you now than when you didn’t know each other at all.”
“I must have become an obstacle. Well, it’s the succession rights, as always. They latched on early, thinking I would become king—and now I am of no use.”
“And so they try to kill you.”
“Exactly why they try to kill me. A ducal house cannot simply request that the royal family break an engagement. Huhu.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“I thought you would understand this sort of thing perfectly, but you have a surprisingly endearing side.”
She smiled warmly, then returned to her usual expression.
“You need not worry. As long as I am at the Academy, there is little they can do. I know they are watching, but it is not as though I can strike first either.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“Once the election is over, everything will be fine.”
Amelia said it with a bitter smile.
“What if.”
“What if?”
“If you found the ring again and could enter as a candidate—what would you do?”
“Even if I joined, the other candidates have already been courting the vassals’ votes. I would already be too late.”
“Still—what if.”
If something so ominous kept happening that even an Academy founder turned undead looked trivial by comparison—and if the person who resolved it all became the leading candidate—
“What would you do?”
“Do not say such things, Hasgard.”
Amelia’s expression darkened a little.
“It is not that I wish to leave those who aimed for my throat alone. If you say something like that, I end up placing my hopes in you again. I end up leaning on you. I do not like that.”
As much as her face had darkened, the eyes heated by anger shone all the brighter. That was answer enough. Helping her recover the ring and win the election would not be a waste of effort. Amelia would almost certainly throw everything she had into it.
The moment I unconsciously nodded—
Hmm—!
The matchbox in my inner pocket buzzed.
“Excuse me a moment.”
I lightly pressed the area near my pocket and left my seat. While looking for somewhere empty, the infirmary briefly crossed my mind, but I obediently went to the restroom instead.
Hiss—
“I’m listening.”
I murmured quietly against the match-flame.
“Lord Karma, we’ve found another hideout.”
“They may have realized they were being followed—it looks like they already abandoned the place and fled… but a few traces remain.”
Rustle. Next came the sound of paper being picked up.
“Here—we found a fragment that didn’t fully burn. It looks like they left in a hurry before the documents finished burning.”
I was curious what would make them relocate so urgently, but for now I focused on his voice. I had no choice.
“Daywin Hasgard.”
Because my name had just come out of nowhere.
“I don’t know who the name written here is, but… that’s what it says.”
“Right. Is that all?”
I forced myself to keep my composure and asked. He shook his head from side to side.
“We tried to bring him in, but only met interference and counterattacks. Even now, leaving this place….”
— the rest is burned away —
“Ah, the rest of this part is burned.”
“Doesn’t matter. Is that the end?”
“No. There’s more.”
He drew a breath and read the remaining portion of the document.
“We have no choice but to deal with him. We will abandon him and look for another candidate. The twins have been sent.”
“What does this mean…?”
“…Understood for now. Keep pursuing them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Four voices overlapped at once.
Right. All this time I had been telling Amelia her life was in danger—and now I was in the same position. They had given up on turning me into a villain and meant to eliminate me instead. A ten-thousand-coin neck.
“…Hah.”
So even in this life I was the one being hunted. The reason seemed different, at least.
“Not bad.”
The coins were walking over on their own two feet. This was nothing like my previous life, when all I did was run.
This time, I would look them straight in the eye and face them.