A Plausible Misunderstanding
Leo’s teeth ground together so hard I could hear it clear as day.
Ugh, those molars are gonna crack.
With hands that shook like leaves, he unfastened the sword at his waist. The treasured blade bore the crest of House Epsilt. He thrust it toward me as if the motion alone cost him everything.
“Don’t you dare think this is the end of it.”
He tried to threaten me, but I couldn’t have cared less. Ignoring every word, I simply took the sword he offered.
I closed my fingers around the hilt and started to pull it free—
Tried to pull it free…
Trembling.
Huh?
For some reason the blade refused to move. Looking closer, I saw that bastard Leo still had a death grip on it, refusing to let go.
Seriously. Pathetic.
I fed a trickle of mana into my arm and yanked. He lost his hold in the most ridiculous fashion imaginable. With the Epsilt Treasure Sword finally in my possession, I offered him my heartfelt thanks.
“Well, thanks?”
Naturally, he didn’t seem inclined to accept my sincere gratitude at face value.
Veronica gazed at Louis Wallenstein standing at the front of the classroom.
Before long Professor Ian Dexter called them forward. As she walked toward the front of the room, Veronica’s thoughts drifted back to the day of the duel.
Even before the challenge began, she had already known Leo Epsilt’s plan. It wasn’t hearsay—she had personally helped him put it together. She hadn’t wanted to, not really, but if she refused there would have been no shortage of others willing to take her place.
So instead she had decided to warn Louis beforehand. On the very day the duel was declared she had made him an offer: if he would simply apologize to her first, she would tell him everything Leo intended—and she would apologize as well.
She had meant every word.
The day Louis struck her, Veronica had finally come to her senses. The fact that he had actually hit her had been that shocking. Only then had she been able to look back on her own behavior—the cruel things she had said, the way she had treated him. She had told herself it was all just teasing. Because Louis seemed to take it as a joke, she had assumed he wasn’t hurt at all.
Looking at it honestly now, that had never been true. Her actions had been far too vicious to dismiss as mere playfulness. So she needed to apologize.
The trouble was, Veronica had never once been the first to say she was sorry. The very idea made her skin crawl with embarrassment. With Louis, though, she could manage it. If he would just say he was sorry for hitting her last time—just that one sentence—she would tell him the whole of Leo’s scheme and offer a genuine apology of her own.
But even as the duel drew near, Louis never came looking for her.
Veronica wanted things to go back to the way they used to be. No—if they returned to their old relationship, she would treat him even more gently than before. She wanted to trade those silly pranks again, to walk side by side the way they always had. Having him ignore her completely like this was unbearable. If it lasted forever…
Ugh, it’s awful. Louis, please…
Her silent plea went unanswered. Louis never sought her out, and at last the hour of the duel arrived.
If the match went ahead and Louis lost because of the scroll she had crafted—if he were expelled—Veronica knew she would not be able to stand it. In the end she went to him first, racing to the waiting room in a panic that the duel might start without her.
“Louis! Don’t you have something to say to me?”
She asked him one last time. He said nothing. A flicker of resentment rose that he still would not apologize, yet Veronica understood she had no right to hold that against him.
So she told him everything—that Leo had prepared a binding scroll. Afterward she waited, hoping. An apology might be too much, but surely he would at least thank her.
What left his mouth instead was a cold dismissal.
“Get out.”
The unyielding figure before her was so unfamiliar that tears nearly spilled. Veronica fled the waiting room at once. Trudging back through the crowd of cadets, she felt wretched. At the same time she understood exactly how Louis must feel.
Before everything between them had broken, how well he had treated her. Had she ever once thanked him properly? Always too embarrassed, always too awkward, she had never managed a sincere “thank you.” She had been grateful every time, yet she had only ever grumbled. Had Louis felt then the same hollow ache she felt now?
With her spirits already low, the duel began.
She knew little of swordsmanship, yet as the minutes passed the truth became unmistakable: Louis was toying with Leo. And at last, driven into a corner, Leo moved to activate the scroll. Veronica, who had known it was coming, cried out in her heart.
Dodge, Louis!
Yet Louis did not so much as twitch.
Why…?
A terrible thought struck her.
Don’t tell me he doesn’t trust me?
If he lost the duel for that reason, the grief would be too much to bear. Then the twist arrived. Louis, who should have been caught by the binding magic, moved without the slightest hindrance. The others might have missed it, but Veronica—a genius where magic was concerned—saw clearly: the one who had flinched was Leo. He was the one bound.
Immediately afterward came the glorious sight of Louis smashing Leo head-on. Veronica was moved, yet her mind still seethed with questions.
What on earth just happened?
She could not ask the wrecked Leo, nor did she want to. When the duel ended she sought out Louis Wallenstein once more.
“Louis, what happened! You didn’t even try to dodge—”
Louis looked at her with pure contempt and spoke.
“Yeah. About that binding curse scroll.”
“Curse…?”
He answered the blank look on her face.
“I knew everything. He was trying to make a curse scroll, so I swapped my hair for his.”
Veronica’s mouth fell open. So Louis had already seen through Leo’s entire scheme? Her help had never been needed at all? Admiration warred with lingering confusion. Why was he looking at her with that expression? It had never been this cold before…
Then Louis spoke again.
“What, did you think I’d fall for it? Are you that shocked your little plan didn’t work?”
“W-what are you talking about… Louis, why are you like this?”
“Ha. Why am I like this.”
He laughed, soft and sharp.
“I kept wondering what the point of the trap really was. He could have kept the whole thing secret to the end—so why tip his hand even a little?”
“Louis, what are you saying…?”
“Think about it. Activating a scroll needs an opening. Do it mid-fight and you risk getting cut down while you’re still casting. But if I had believed your lie? The moment he triggered the scroll I would have tried to dodge instead of attacking.”
“Louis, wait—I didn’t even know it was a curse scroll—”
“If I hadn’t already known Leo’s plan, it really would have been a disaster.”
He sounded almost impressed.
“Wow. Never expected him to scheme that hard. I always figured Leo was just an idiot…”
Veronica shook her head hard.
“Or maybe his brain only works when he’s doing something rotten?”
She stared at the mocking Louis, stunned. Everything was going horribly wrong. Louis was under a massive misunderstanding—and the worst part was that even she could see how plausible it sounded.
“No, Louis! I really didn’t know! I told you everything I knew because I was worried about you!”
She pleaded with everything she had. It only seemed to disgust him further. His voice rose.
“Oh, you didn’t know? If you really cared about me, why wait until right before the duel? You could have said something earlier—even a little.”
The shout left her speechless.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Tell me at the last second and I won’t have time to think or prepare. Right?”
She wanted to argue. But how could she possibly admit the shameless truth—that she had been waiting for him to apologize first? While she frantically searched for words, Louis finished.
“Whatever. I never thought you’d go this far either… but now I know.”
With that he walked away again.
Veronica felt it in her bones: if she let things stand, the break between them would become permanent. So she resolved to use the terms of the duel as her excuse. Using that as cover, she would be the first to apologize.
And today was the day.
She watched Esther step forward and offer an apology that barely deserved the name. After Elin came her turn. Putting more sincerity into the words than she ever had in her life, Veronica spoke.
“Louis… for lying about you, for kicking you out of the party, for treating you so badly all this time—I’ll apologize for every bit of it. I mean it.”
Please, she thought. Let even a fragment of that sincerity reach him.