The Hated Villainess
I tore after Elysia in a panic, but she had already vanished.
The dormitory, the classroom, every place she usually frequented—there wasn't a trace of her anywhere. Wandering around at random would only mean we'd keep missing each other.
"God, this is insane. I lost her again because of Chloe. Where the hell is she hiding?"
I clicked my tongue and wound my way back to the dormitory door. Settling onto the rough, grassy dirt, I decided to wait for her there.
The sun was already sinking. Time crawled by, and the rumors spread like wildfire. I sat still, but my ears stayed open.
The incident where Elysia had briefly lost control of her mana and gone on a light rampage had, in barely half a day, been twisted beyond recognition. In the rumors, Elysia had become a witch who'd inflicted burns on Chloe that would take two weeks to heal. Never mind that all she'd done was lightly scorch a single desk. Not a soul had actually been hurt.
"Hey. You are watching from the divine realm, right? Don't just sit there staring. How about giving me an answer, Astasia."
After making sure no one was around, I muttered into the empty air. Ordinarily she wouldn't have given me the time of day no matter how much I called, but this time even the goddess must have found the situation rather pitiful.
The dirt and pebbles on the ground began to move of their own accord. They arranged themselves into clear, deliberate sentences.
"Hehehe. You are the first to ever address me by name alone. My word. It seems you have no fear of divine punishment."
"I don't care about titles. What exactly am I supposed to do here? Goddess of Wisdom, Goddess of the Night Sky, whatever you are—what kind of lousy covenant is this supposed to be?"
"If the covenants go unfulfilled, a great calamity will befall this world. My child, who acts in my stead—I would be most grateful if you could show a little patience."
"I took that at face value, tracked down House Cadeliz, and even ended up as her guard. So what am I supposed to do now?"
"You need only fulfill the covenants I have given you."
"Purify Elysia's Witch's Red Eyes and save her from misfortune? Fine—but I need something to work with if I'm going to find a solution. If she keeps running off and making a mess on her own, there's nothing left for me to fix."
"...Hehehe... Elysia is a child born with the Witch's Red Eyes. From the time she was small, she will have lived under every manner of prejudice and pointing finger. Even as a daughter of the illustrious House Cadeliz. No—precisely because of that, she will have been alone all this while."
"I did my best, you know. Chloe keeps getting in the way, Elysia does nothing but snap at me, and I'm running out of time. Honestly, I'm just irritated."
"I suppose she cannot help being less than honest. That, too, is the nature of the Red Eyes. The Witch's Red Eyes do not inherently harbor an evil aura, but it is true they carry a somewhat aggressive mana and a demonic temperament. That every last bearer of the Witch's Red Eyes has walked the path of ruin follows the same principle."
I pressed my fingers to my brow at the words scrawled so naturally across the ground.
"Yes, yes. So in a few years Elysia will go dark just like the ones before her. That's the sixth time I've heard it. I'll save her before then, or whatever it takes, so just wait."
"It would be fortunate if it ended at mere corruption... but as I have told you before, the consequences will be enough to trouble the entire continent. Saving Elysia before such a thing comes to pass is the heart of this covenant."
"How can you be so sure? It might not happen that way."
"Whom do you take me for? My name is Astasia. Goddess of Wisdom and the Night Sky. Foresight of this caliber is well within my power."
"So that foresight of yours is why you snatched up some poor nobody and sent him on forced labor all over the world? Tch... Think you can do whatever you want just because you're a goddess? If you'd at least shown me that stuck-up face of yours, I'd have gotten a feast for the eyes out of it. You've got no sincerity at all, only ever talking through writing like this..."
As I grumbled under my breath, neat letters engraved themselves across the ground once more. They unfurled as if to comfort me.
"Stand by that child's side. Steadily, and as steadfast as stone. No matter what happens, you must not betray her. When the time comes, you will come to grasp the method of purifying the Witch's Red Eyes on your own. I shall help you."
"...I'll leave the second that's done."
"Just so. There are many covenants yet to fulfill. It would not do to linger overlong in one place."
The goddess's writing went on, still in that comforting vein.
"And.... once every covenant is complete, I shall someday reveal my form to you. Until then, I ask that you generously forgive your goddess, who can speak with you only through writing. You may not believe it, but it is for your sake. My beauty is without equal even in the divine realm. There is a chance that merely hearing my voice would rob you of your sanity. Ah... this is all because I am far too beau——"
Scratch, scratch!
I kicked dirt over the letters before the nonsense could stretch any further. The goddess Astasia clawed fresh words into the ground in protest, wild and frantic, but she couldn't outrun my foot.
I won.
"............What are you doing?"
I'd been squatting there, wasting time on that nonsense, when a pair of dainty girl's shoes crept into the corner of my vision. I followed them up a girl's legs—someone my own age—and met Elysia's eyes. She was frowning down at me, her face full of wariness.
"Move. I'm going in."
"......You hurt?"
I frowned harder than any greeting warranted. Her uniform was caked in dirt, as if she'd been tearing through the woods, twigs and leaves tangled through the fabric. Blood ran down her forehead where something like a stone had struck her. She ducked my gaze and tried to slip past me toward the doorknob.
"I don't have anything to say to you. Get out of the way."
"What happened to your clothes? Who did this? Did someone push you?"
"...Mind your own business."
"This situation is bad. So tell me the truth. Like it or not, I'm your guard. The kids at the Academy have the wrong idea entirely, and if they've been pulling something stupid..."
"A misunderstanding? Hah! What misunderstanding. You think I did it by accident? I started that fire on purpose. I was trying to burn that stupid, infuriating bitch to ash!"
She shouted it through clenched teeth. As if saying it was deliberate now, after the fact, would make anyone believe her. After she'd panicked and run away.
Elysia let out a cold little laugh.
"And who asked you to explain anything? Nobody requested that from you. So get lost. You don't care about someone like me anyway, do you? If this is some half-baked sense of duty as a guard, don't worry. I won't go tattling to His Grace. And this—I just fell earlier. Drop it."
She slapped my hand away with everything she had. She was putting up a wall now, complete and absolute. Talking her around in circles wasn't going to work anymore.
If I let her go like this, things would only get worse. That much was obvious. The wound. I'll have to find out what happened there later.
I brushed myself off, stood, and said it short and certain.
"I'll fix your Witch's Red Eyes. For good."
Elysia, who had been shoving past me to get inside, stopped dead. Even from behind, the shock in her shoulders was plain. I pressed the opening and kept going.
"I know it's hard to believe. Just trust me this once. Those Red Eyes are the problem, right? I'll figure something out. I can do it. So just wait a little longer."
"........."
"I'll help you with everything. Let's do it this way. If something annoying happens—if something you don't even want to think about happens—dump it all on me. Leave the cleanup to me. Anything. All of it."
At last, she looked at me. Panic, anxiety, surprise—a dozen feelings flickered across her face and died just as fast. What remained was anger, thick with suspicion.
"......Liar..."
"I'm not lying."
"You don't... you don't understand anything either..."
".........?"
She muttered something I couldn't parse, then composed her face, swept her silver hair back with a flourish, and sneered at me. She was still small, still carrying the last traces of childhood in her frame, and yet the killing intent rolling off her was cold enough to frost the air.
"Fix them? The Witch's Red Eyes? These blood-soaked, detestable things, you mean?"
"That's right. Your eyes. The witch's mana is the problem. Without that, you could live a normal life."
"You make it sound so easy. Just so we're clear—how, exactly? The Witch's Red Eyes are a hereditary disease of House Cadeliz. Every physician, mage, and priest in the history books threw themselves at it and failed. It's a demon's brand. And you're telling me you know the cure?"
"That's..."
"Oh, I see. Shall we gouge them out, then? These useless eyes. Want me to fetch you a spoon? You think I haven't tried? Do you have the guts for that? And you still say you'll fix them? Go on. Tell me how."
She laughed at me with a face worn down to nothing. I couldn't find a single word.
...How, exactly? Could I even do it?
Of course I didn't know. Astasia had said I would understand when the time came. Astasia was a goddess. If she said so, I had no choice but to believe her. It wasn't as if I followed any religion, or held any particular faith in Astasia—but when it came to the covenants, she had never once spoken nonsense.
The problem was that I had no way to make Elysia accept any of that.
When I said nothing, Elysia's expression iced over, as if she had known from the start that this was how it would go.
"You. Are you pitying me?"
"Pity?"
"Just because I let you stay close these past few months, you've gotten the wrong idea. Why should I have to take pity from you? Hah... A guard? Please. I could burn someone like you to cinders with a flick of my wrist...!"
"...You don't have to go as far as burning me..."
"It means you're the same as everyone else. If you understand that, leave while I'm still using words."
Elysia shut the door with a cold little snap. From the other side of a door that showed no sign of ever opening again, her small voice leaked through.
"...Don't you ever come near me again. Not if you want to live."
Not that I had any intention of doing what Elysia said. I had my own reasons. I still had a covenant to finish.
The door slammed shut and went black with soot.
Elysia didn't make it more than a few steps from the entrance before her legs gave out. Thin flames licked up around her. The inside of that sturdy wooden door had been charred like this for a long time.
Outside, she could never let her guard down. Only once she was inside a room she could trust would the fire slip out of her like this, now and then.
".............It hurts. Ow..."
The sting caught up with her late. The wound from earlier had been aggravated by the flames—the one she'd gotten tumbling through the brush. Lightly was a word chosen specifically to hide the things that would wound her pride. In other words, she hadn't simply lost her footing.
Elysia bit her lip and stood. Deeper in the room, stones and shards of glass lay scattered beside the bed. They hadn't been there that morning. Someone had thrown rocks from outside and broken the window. Sometimes they burst a bottle of milk along with them. Fortunately, not today.
"............Haa..."
When she was alone, her feelings always came loose. Her pride cracked. No matter what she did, she was always the villain.
I can't be like this... I can't let anyone see me weak...
For a girl who had spent her whole life watching other people's faces, this little single dormitory room was nothing short of a trigger.
"I hate this. I'm scared......"
Whatever she said, whatever she did, no one would hear or see. That fact alone was a relief, and she could stretch out on the bed and pour everything out.
"Anyone. Please...... Gray... Gray... help me......"
She buried her face in the pillow and let the grief come. There was no sign of anyone outside. After she had been that cruel, of course he would leave.
He won't come. He's already sick of a girl like me. He has to be.
Elysia bit her lip and swallowed her breath.