The Eternal 17-Year-Old, Alice Schiller
“Yeah. Not a chance.”
I muttered the words as I climbed the low hill.
A letter had arrived from Count Wallenstein today of all days. When I opened it, I found news that Count Ansberg’s funeral was being held—and that we were expected to attend out of courtesy.
He ought to say things that actually make sense.
I hadn’t seen Felice lately, and that was a good thing. Why on earth would I go there?
Just remembering the way she had snapped at me while I was struggling to take down a gargoyle…
Ugh. Getting pissed off all over again.
In the end she only believed me after the gargoyle swarm actually attacked. After that she apparently came all the way to my dorm to apologize.
Well, it was already too late. I had decided to stop caring about her.
Father could attend the funeral by himself. That was more than enough.
“Huff… huff…”
My breath was growing short. What I was climbing was a hill tucked into one corner of the academy. Some people insisted on calling it a mountain.
In any case, this was an enormous academy—multiple buildings, several snack shops, even its own post office. There was a forest inside the grounds and, right in the middle of that forest, a small hill. Truly a colossal place.
And at the top of that hill, inside a little cave, lived the legendary cadet.
“Master, shall I tell you a scary story?”
“Hm? What is this all of a sudden?”
“Well, the weather’s so hot I thought I’d give you a tale that chills the back of the neck.”
“…Disciple. It is the dead of winter.”
“Anyway.”
I launched into the story, dropping my voice to a sinister hush.
“In Helon Academy’s second-year Class A… there is a thirteenth student who does not exist.”
“They say she enrolled more than ten years ago…”
A soft gulp of saliva was audible.
“Her lifelong wish was to graduate from Helon Academy. Yet through some cruel accident she never reached that goal…”
“……”
“And so she became the academy’s earthbound spirit, appearing every rainy Friday the thirteenth to drag students away…”
“…Disciple.”
“Yes?”
“Is that story about me, by any chance?”
“Aw, come on, you’re imagining thi—”
Thwack! Thump!
“Ow! That hurts!”
“You vanish for over a week without so much as a whisker, then show up only to mock your master?!”
A slightly petite frame, a threadbare academy uniform. Cat ears jutting straight up from her head and a tail poking out from the back of her skirt.
The fateful encounter that appeared as an event inside the game—and my master.
The cat beastman, Alice Schiller.
Her nyan-nyan punches packed a surprising punch.
“W-Wait a second!”
Desperate to divert her attention, I hastily produced the food I had bought from the academy snack shop.
“Hmph! So you mean to bribe me with food! You dare insult this mas— om-nom-nom…”
The scolding died the moment the food hit her tongue. The nyan-nyan punches stopped at once, and everything I had brought vanished into her mouth in the blink of an eye.
“Munch-munch… om-nom-nom…”
I watched her with a faintly pitying gaze.
Until I started coming here, she had hidden in this hillside cave, surviving on mice and birds or by digging up wild roots. In the game you had to seek her out again and again, begging to be accepted as a disciple. But this was a world where the game had become reality.
The first time we met I had accidentally witnessed her meal. I immediately raced back with an armful of food from the snack shop—and just like that I became her disciple.
I studied her as she stuffed her cheeks, a complicated look in my eyes.
She looks even younger than I do…
Alice Schiller. More than a decade ago she had caused some kind of incident and fled into the imperial academy for safety. The beastman side had been desperate to capture her, but this was the Empire’s academy. They could not simply send people in to arrest a cadet. Of course they had petitioned the imperial family and even the headmaster directly. Both sides refused to allow any interference with a current academy student.
Helon Academy was the pride of the Empire. Laying hands on its cadets touched the Empire’s prestige itself. In the end the beastmen gave up and decided to wait. Sooner or later Alice would leave the academy for vacation or graduate—and then she would be theirs.
That calculation left her with only one option: failing every year.
For more than ten years she had remained the eternal second-year in everyone’s hearts… and on the school registry as well. After more than a decade of consecutive failures she lost the right to use the dormitories and slipped into the forest within the academy grounds. The small cave at the top of the little hill in the middle of that forest became her new dormitory. In her own words, she had “ascended the mountain for training.”
Ah, right. In this game the beastmen had founded a nation far to the east of the Empire. And “the east,” of course, meant the murim. The whole setting was bizarre enough to make your head spin, but it wasn’t completely incomprehensible.
Having finished every scrap of food, Master noticed my pitying stare and twitched her ears.
“What is it? That look of yours is most unpleasant, Disciple.”
“It’s just your imagination.”
“Well, no matter. Since you have finally deigned to appear after so long, this master must first check whether your skills have grown rusty. Demonstrate the footwork at once!”
She spoke with solemn gravity. For the record, the footwork I had found so useful while tailing that bastard Leo was something I had learned from her.
Channeling mana into my legs, I shouted:
“Dark Shadow Steps, First Form—Shadow Walk!”
Thwack!
“Did this master not tell you never to give the forms imperial-style names, Disciple?!”
Clutching my aching head, I performed the footwork in front of her. Her expression melted into satisfaction.
“Not bad. You may proceed to the next stage.”
She repeated the words she always said.
“As this master has told you time and again: master this footwork to its end, and you shall be able to conceal your body before any powerful foe.”
“Really?”
“Indeed. Even right under their noses… for roughly a tenth of a second or so.”
“That’s useless…”
Thwack!
True to her cat nature, her hearing was excellent. I had muttered it incredibly quietly…
“Enough of that. Why have you come so late? Far too late, is it not?”
“Ah, well…”
I poured out everything that had happened over the past few days—from the gargoyle subjugation to being kicked out of the party and winning the duel. Because she had already shared her own secret with me, I could not tell her I had fallen into the game, but every other story I shared only with her.
After hearing it all she spoke with obvious relief.
“Aha! Better this way! This master never understood why you kept helping those people in the first place!”
She laughed. I laughed a little awkwardly myself. After all, I could not speak of saving the heroines or preparing for the Demon King’s revival—those future events. Leaving those parts out had always made her find me frustrating. But now there was no longer any need. Her expression looked freer and more cheerful than ever before.
“Still… I do have to figure out how to handle party activities from now on. That’s a bit of a worry.”
I said it, but—
“Ahahahaha! You turned around and kicked them out instead! And in the duel you completely crushed him! Ahahaha!”
She was so delighted she could not stop laughing.
Some time later, after finishing that day’s training and soaked in sweat, I bid her farewell.
“Ah, Master. Vacation is coming soon, so I won’t be able to come here for a while.”
“What?! Di-Disciple!”
She called after me in a panic. For all her urgency she hesitated a moment, then said:
“Disciple… would it not be better to spend the vacation in closed-door training with this master inside the cave…?”
“Farewell!”
“Ah, nooo!”
Leaving her desperate cry behind, I hurried down the hill.
“Cheapskate…”
Alice muttered under her breath. Of course she was talking about her disciple.
Suggesting closed-door training together in the cave had taken real courage on her part… and yet he had fled without so much as a glance back.
“Hmph!”
Still, she thought over the story she had heard today. For some reason her disciple had treated his party members well without any cause. That had always irritated her. From everything Louis described, their behavior was enough to make her teeth grind. She was relieved he had finally come to his senses and cast them aside—yet she still worried he might take them back someday.
On top of that she had heard him fretting about how to handle party activities. Alone, of course, party work would be difficult…
Alice made a decision for her disciple’s sake.
She herself was still a second-year, and her disciple was about to become one as well. After this much time, the pursuit for her must have stopped by now. After all, they said even mountains and rivers change in ten years.
If she joined his party, he would be overjoyed, would he not?
“Heheh. My disciple shall be most surprised.”
At last Alice resolved to finish her training and descend the mountain. Granted, calling it a mountain was a stretch—the hill was rather low—but still.
“No, seriously?”
I was dumbfounded. Was the position of family head really this idle? I genuinely wondered.
I had sent several replies stating I had no intention of attending the funeral. In the end Count Wallenstein came to fetch me himself.
Yes—all the way here to the academy.