As My Heart Commands
The next day was nothing more than an ordinary day.
Or so I thought it would be.
Monday morning—the kind of morning everyone is doomed to hate. Yesterday’s fatigue still clung to me, so I dragged myself out of bed with effort. I washed up the way I always did, put on my academy uniform, sat through classes, ate, and sat through more classes.
Maybe it was because I had finally declared the end of things with my party members the day before. Today I truly spent every hour alone. Only Aine hovered near me all day long, as if she had something she wanted to say. In the end she never found the nerve to speak first. I, for my part, still carried the sting of her betrayal; part of me wanted to seize her by the shoulders and demand why she had done it. But I had already decided to stop caring about any of them, so I never said a word to her either.
When the day’s lessons finally ended, I was walking toward the dining hall for dinner. Even I had to admit my routine was monotony itself. That ordinary-looking day, however, had no intention of letting me simply slip into tomorrow.
On the path to the cafeteria, someone came running toward me.
“Hah… hah…”
A blonde girl in uniform, gasping for breath. A face I knew far too well. Felice Ansberg skidded to a halt in front of me and opened her mouth.
“Wait—Louis Wallenstein, just a moment—”
Her face was twisted, her skin pale. Tear tracks she couldn’t hide still marked the corners of her eyes. The moment I saw her like that, I understood.
A pack of gargoyles hit their territory.
“What is it?” I answered coldly.
“G-gargoyles… a whole swarm of them invaded our domain.”
Exactly as I expected. So what? I had already made up my mind not to care about them anymore. I started to walk on, but Felice grabbed both of my shoulders. Honestly, it annoyed me. She shouted into my face.
“How did you know?! How the hell did you already know?!”
“Hah…”
I looked at her with pure contempt.
“I explained everything last time. You were too busy worrying about that Leo bastard to listen to a single word I said.”
“N-no, that isn’t—”
“Shut up and get lost. Just standing here with you is making me sick.”
This wasn’t my usual personality. Dealing with my former party members had made me meaner, and the curses kept slipping out more often. I had worked myself half to death for her sake. I had gotten myself hurt trying to hunt those gargoyles. Fine—whatever the reason, I had failed in the end, so I never expected gratitude. But the girl who knew how hard I had tried was now interrogating me instead. It genuinely pissed me off.
I tried to leave again, yet even after everything I had said she still wouldn’t let go. Just as I was about to pry her hands off by force, she screamed once more.
“Th-then! If you were so sure, you could have at least warned our domain!”
I forced myself to stay calm. She clearly wasn’t in her right mind. Hearing that her territory had been smashed the way it was in the original game would drive anyone half-mad. She was probably just venting her rage at me. My head could understand that much. My heart, on the other hand, was egging me on to put my fist through her face. So I compromised a little.
Slap!
I backhanded her across the cheek.
“I did warn you! You’re an Ansberg, aren’t you? I explained it to you in detail!”
I roared at her. Felice stared at me with a blank, disbelieving expression, as if she couldn’t process what had just happened.
“Let me ask you the other way around. After I went into that much detail, did you even pass a single word of it on to your own domain?”
I didn’t need an answer. Her face said everything.
“Hah. Of course you didn’t. You probably decided there was no point listening to anything the traitor Wallenstein had to say.”
I spat the words at her. I had sworn I would stop caring about them, but apparently I still had a lot bottled up.
“You’ve always been like that. No matter what I did, it was always ‘traitor Wallenstein.’ You never even tried to know me as a person. You judged everything by the name alone!”
“Don’t make me laugh! I-I never—”
Felice actually had the nerve to shout back as if she were the injured party. The louder our fight grew, the more stares gathered around us. I had zero intention of stopping, though. In the end our quarrel was cut short by someone else’s intervention.
A young girl stepped between us and pulled Felice away from me. She cried out,
“Stop it, Sister! What are you doing?!”
“Lu-Lucy?”
Felice’s eyes flew wide.
“You’re safe—”
“I’m so sorry, Young Master.”
Lucy ignored her sister completely, turned to me, and bowed her head. I looked at her. Lucy Ansberg. Felice’s younger sister. In the original game she was a sub-heroine who appeared while clearing Felice’s story route. In this world that had become real, she was someone I already knew by face.
From behind, Felice shouted,
“Lucy, why are you apologizing to that man—”
“Why are you the one yelling at him, Sister?! If it weren’t for the Young Master, Mother and I might both be dead!”
“What…?”
Leaving the dazed Felice behind her, Lucy turned back to me and this time bowed deeply.
“Thank you, Young Master. Because you warned us ahead of time, we were able to reduce the damage at least a little.”
That was it. That was all I had wanted. People say you shouldn’t expect anything in return when you help others. But having the person you helped turn around and curse you is a lonely, miserable feeling. A single word of thanks would have been enough. I couldn’t remember the last time someone I had helped actually thanked me.
“What…?”
Beside us Felice made another vacant sound.
“Y-Young Master?”
Lucy looked at me, flustered. I turned my back.
“Wait—Louis!”
A panicked Felice called my name. I had been fighting with her only moments ago, but now none of it mattered. In the end I hadn’t done it for Felice; I had done it for Lucy and the people of the domain. I had received her gratitude. That was enough. Quietly, I left the scene.
The night before, Lucy had received a letter. The sender was none other than Louis Wallenstein, so she tore it open at once. She had even felt a small flutter of anticipation about what it might contain. The contents were nothing like what she had imagined.
What… is this?
She raced straight to her parents.
“What is it, Lucy?”
Lucy told them the warning written in the letter—that a swarm of gargoyles would attack the domain.
“What on earth—”
“It’s what Sister Felice said. I just received the letter.”
She remembered the exact wording. No one in the family will listen to me except you, so if anyone asks, use Felice’s name. Sadly, that was the truth. The Ansberg count family, known as the Imperial Sword—or, to some, the Imperial Dogs. Her parents were exactly the sort of people that title suited. They would never have listened to anything from the traitorous Wallenstein count family. But the moment she claimed the message came from Felice, they believed it.
They tried to make what preparations they could. The problem was that the gargoyle swarm struck at dawn only a few hours later. Thanks to the advance warning they avoided the absolute worst, yet the lord’s castle was destroyed and the count left in critical condition. Lucy and her mother had been able to evacuate in time because of that same letter. With the domain in ruins after the attack and no capacity left to look after Lucy, the countess sent a small group—including Lucy—to the academy both for safety and to deliver the news to Felice.
The first person Lucy searched for when she arrived at the academy was not Felice. Leaving her maids behind to have the staff fetch her sister, she wandered the grounds looking for Louis Wallenstein. Midway through her search, the sound of shouting in the middle of the academy drew her eye. To her shock, the two people locked in a heated argument were Louis Wallenstein and Felice Ansberg. She rushed in at once. Young Master Louis had practically saved their house!
“Lu-Lucy? You’re safe—”
Felice spoke to her. Hah. Since when did you ever care? Lucy ignored her sister and first apologized to Louis. She had no idea what had happened, but how dare her sister raise her voice at him? Leaving the still-babbling Felice behind, she offered the gratitude that was rightfully due.
Immediately afterward, his expression changed in a strange way. The rage that had filled his face moments earlier vanished, replaced by an emotion she found hard to name. To her eyes, he simply looked terribly sad.
“Y-Young Master?”
She stammered, flustered. It was not the face of someone who had just received thanks. Without a single reply, Louis left. Lucy watched his retreating back for a long time. Then she turned a hard stare on her sister.
She had made up her mind. She was going to hear exactly what had happened between the two of them.