New Party Member
What she had just said was a little…
No—quite a bit shocking.
Then Aine continued her story.
"Actually… my sister was sick. I needed the money."
Her words left me utterly floored.
Already…?
First things first—I needed to hear her out.
"I took her to healers and tried every medicine I could find, but nothing worked."
Well, of course it didn't, I thought.
I already knew why her sister was sick.
"I worked myself to the bone, but I just couldn't scrape together enough for a priest's treatment. That was when Leo…"
I nodded.
I more or less understood how it had gone down.
There was still a problem, though.
Aine kept talking.
"After that, I kept wanting to tell you the truth… but I was scared you'd be disappointed if you found out I'd taken money to vote for your expulsion…"
No—telling me everything from the start would have been better.
"I-I never planned on staying behind alone! I wanted to keep doing party work with you, Louis, even if it was just the two of us, so I secretly submitted a withdrawal form afterward!"
Although it ended up being the rest of us who got expelled instead, she added with a weak little laugh.
"You couldn't have applied for a new party with only two people to begin with. Didn't you need to graduate from the academy no matter what?"
"Hehe… I figured if I was with you, Louis, things would work out somehow…"
"You're hopeless, you know that?"
I said it to the girl wearing that sheepish smile.
"More importantly—why are you only telling me this now?!"
I gave her a light knuckle on the head.
"Ow! That hurts!"
"Even if you were worried I'd be disappointed… wouldn't saying nothing at all disappoint me even more?"
"Ah…!"
"Don't give me that 'I just realized' face."
"But… it is true that I sold you out for money…"
"Your sister was sick, right?"
I knew perfectly well what her sister meant to Aine.
Not because of game knowledge.
Once she and I had grown close, she had talked about her sister constantly.
"I-I'm still sorry."
"Well, if that's the reason, I can understand."
In the end, it had been one or the other: take the money and save her sister, or get expelled.
I could see it from Aine's side.
Of course, I knew that not even Leo could simply expel Aine from the academy on a whim.
But from the perspective of a commoner—an orphan, at that—hearing a threat like that from a ducal heir must have been terrifying.
Her recent stalking had stressed me out enormously, too.
But that, in the end, had also been because she wanted to come clean with me.
And on top of everything, she had submitted a withdrawal form because she wanted to keep doing party activities with me.
Never mind that the two of us alone couldn't have run a party anyway.
Honestly, as the one on the receiving end, it would be a lie to say I wasn't upset at all.
But hearing that the reason was her sister made it all right.
If it was about her sister, there was nothing she could do.
"Um…"
Aine watched my face carefully as she asked, voice small.
"Then… does that mean you forgive me…?"
"Not telling me right away was pretty annoying, but…"
"I'm sorry about that!"
"…Still, I know what your sister means to you. It's fine."
At my words, Aine's face lit up at once.
"Lo-Louis! Thank you…!"
"No, but listen. If you needed money, couldn't you have just asked me?"
"Huh? Louis, you don't have any money."
Right.
I'd constantly complained in front of her about being broke.
"…But I bought you meals pretty often, didn't I?"
"That's true. But to get treatment from the church, the money…"
Aine trailed off.
I already knew what she was trying to say.
Ah. Even for me, that would have been too much.
I dropped the subject and asked her something else.
"In the end Leo's plan failed. Did he ever demand the money back?"
"No, nothing like that yet."
"Good. If he tries to blackmail you, tell me."
Aine shook her head.
"I can't cause you any more trouble, Louis."
"No—you doing things on your own like this is more of a hassle for me. Talk it over with me first."
"Ah…"
Really. Even if I could somehow understand the part where they expelled me…
Going and withdrawing herself just so she could party with me?
I had no idea what she was thinking.
"And no matter how much of a big shot Leo is, he can't just expel people whenever he feels like it, so don't worry too much."
"Yes!"
The Epsilt ducal family's influence was certainly formidable.
But this academy was Luisa Falken's territory.
Even the Epsilt dukedom couldn't act too openly here.
Anyway, I had heard the whole story from Aine.
At first I had felt deeply betrayed, but after listening, I understood.
She hadn't truly betrayed me—she had even left of her own accord so she could keep doing party work with me.
And more than anything…
Honestly, right up until the expulsion, Aine and I had been close.
Her voting for my expulsion had hurt a great deal, even if I hadn't shown it.
To think it had been because of her sister.
And the fact that she had finally told me the truth made me feel relieved.
So… was that the end of the problems?
…As if.
There was still a problem left.
A very big one.
Earlier, Aine had said she'd taken money from Leo to get her sister treated by a priest.
But she had never properly said whether the treatment had actually worked.
If my guess was right, even a priest's healing wouldn't have done much.
I asked her.
"So, Aine—how is your sister?"
"…W-we did get her treated by a high-ranking priest."
The bright expression that had bloomed after I said it was fine vanished.
Aine looked ready to cry again.
"It didn't work at all…"
Of course not.
The disease her sister had wasn't an ordinary one.
I asked the thing that had puzzled me most.
"When did your sister start getting sick?"
"From the beginning of last year."
Damn. So that was when.
Obviously, I hadn't known a thing about it.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Well…"
Aine hesitated again.
I stared at her without looking away.
Eventually she answered, face faintly flushed.
"It's just… you're so kind, Louis. I was sure you'd try to help me."
She avoided my eyes.
"But I thought I couldn't keep burdening you. So I didn't say anything… and then my sister's condition got worse."
"And?"
"I kept agonizing over it, and just when I was about to ask you for help, Leo came along…"
I let out a small sigh.
For something like that, it would have been better to just ask me.
Then none of this would have happened in the first place…
No.
If Aine hadn't accepted Leo's proposal, I would still have been stuck dealing with those bitches.
And I would still have been putting up with Leo needling me?
Thinking about it that way, I started to wonder whether this might actually have been for the better.
"Then those times you disappeared on weekends and evenings recently—that was to earn money?"
"Yes. I needed money somehow so I could at least buy medicine."
"Stop."
"Huh…?"
Aine's eyes went wide, as if she had never expected me to say that.
"I'll take care of your sister somehow. Quit the job."
"Is that really true?! Thank you! Thank you so much!"
Without a hint of suspicion, Aine bowed her head over and over.
Tears of joy welled in her eyes as she kept thanking me.
"B-but… won't we still need money…?"
She asked carefully.
Yeah. We will.
A filthy amount of it.
Your part-time wages aren't nearly enough, Aine.
But we always had another solution: force.
…When you're short on money, your body suffers. That's how it goes.
Anyway, I told her.
"It's fine. And if we're going to do party activities, you'll need free time on the weekends, right?"
"You're accepting me?!"
She asked with pure joy written all over her face, so I nodded.
Besides, as things stood, party activities were already difficult.
Before we went back into the classroom, I asked one last thing.
"Aine—you're not sick yourself or anything, are you?"
"…I'm perfectly fine!"
I could tell she had hesitated, just a little.
"Disciple, you said you were going to the bathroom—why did you take so long? This master was bored!"
"…I shouldn't say this, but Master, don't you have any frien—have you considered making friends?"
I'd been about to ask if she had no friends, then quickly changed the question.
Her friends had probably all graduated back in the days when tigers still smoked.
Master answered in a slightly dejected voice.
"For some reason, the other students don't seem interested in getting close to me."
"Well, there is a generation gap…"
"Hm? What did you say?"
"Nothing."
"I feel strangely irritated. Anyway, as long as I have you, Louis, that is enough!"
I couldn't properly answer that cringeworthy line.
Anyway, I brought up the party matter.
"Master, how would you feel about adding one more member to our party?"
"Ohhh, I like it! We can hardly operate properly as we are!"
Our party currently had only two members.
It had doubled compared to before Master joined, but the party capacity was seven to begin with.
"Do you have someone in mind?"