Are You My Master?
Are You My Master?
A massive wall had appeared.
No, actually, it hadn't just appeared; it had existed from the very beginning.
The wall known as social status blocked Irion's path once again.
Apparently, a slave cannot enter the Academy.
It was a detail he had overlooked. He thought that if he became a knight, he would naturally be able to follow her.
But he couldn't.
"But even His Highness the Prince told me to come to the Academy?"
"That was just a formality. You actually believed that?"
"Then you can just emancipate me, Milady!"
"Why should I?"
"Even a commoner can go to the Academy, right? If I'm emancipated, I can go too! Wow! What an incredible solution!"
"I wonder. Why do I feel like you'd run away the moment I set you free?"
'Sharp woman. Did she learn mind reading instead of Black Magic?'
Renoa's prediction was spot on.
Normally, even if one became a commoner, they would aim for a stable path as a knight of Edelheid, but Irion was different.
'Why would I stay here if I'm emancipated? I'd bolt immediately.'
To him, being a commoner was far better than being a knight belonging to Edelheid.
Irion did not give up.
It was either being set free or following Renoa. One of the two.
"It wasn't that long ago that you were almost assassinated, and you're going to separate from me? Are you in your right mind?"
"At the point where a Prince is enrolling, is there any place in the world safer than that? I don't think so."
"Then are you going to leave me behind? Alone in this vast Duchy?"
"Well..."
Actually, this was something Renoa was also contemplating.
If he were an ordinary slave, she would have left him behind without a second thought.
Some people take their pets with them when they travel, but Renoa was the type to leave them at home.
When traveling, one should only enjoy the travel; taking a pet along is just a nuisance.
The same applied to Irion.
She could just leave him at the mansion.
All she had to do was forbid him from leaving the Duchy without permission.
With Irion's peculiar sociability, wouldn't he get along fine here too?
"..."
However, memories from the Edelheid villa suddenly flashed through Renoa's mind.
The way he immediately hit it off with maids he'd never seen before, acting like a friendly younger brother.
The social skills that allowed him to get close even to Helena, who was of noble birth.
As if that wasn't enough, he had a track record of capturing the heart of the haughty Florencia.
And was that all?
Just a few days ago at the Imperial banquet hall, he had completely enchanted numerous young noble ladies.
His history with women was so extravagant it was absurd.
He was a man she simply couldn't trust out of her sight.
If she left Irion here and departed for the Academy, trouble was bound to happen.
Not to mention the maids, he might end up with every woman in the Duchy at his side.
"..."
"Why are you suddenly glaring at me?"
"You'll have to come with me."
"Right?"
Irion, unaware of Renoa's inner thoughts, was simply excited that permission to accompany her had been granted.
"But regardless of my permission, it won't be easy to enroll as a student. There will be backlash from the Academy side and other students."
"Hmm..."
"Since you're a slave, maybe it'll work if I label you as a daily necessity..."
"Pardon?"
He thought she was joking, but Renoa was pondering with a serious expression.
Irion barely suppressed the urge to say something.
After thinking it over, Renoa soon came up with a clever plan.
"I believe Familiars are allowed to go together."
"A Familiar? Like a pet?"
"More accurately, an existence that assists at the master's side."
For example, it could be an animal, or a spirit. It could also be another entity summoned through magic.
"That's just a pet."
"A competent pet."
"You want me to be a pet on top of being a slave?"
"Isn't it better than being a daily necessity?"
Renoa spoke shamelessly without changing her expression.
As always, she looked stern, but the corners of her mouth were turned up ever so slightly.
She was definitely teasing him.
'Look at how I'm being treated.'
How are the choices 'Pet' vs 'Daily Necessity'? Still, a living creature was much better than an object.
"I'll go with Familiar..."
"Good. Then we'll have to make a contract."
"A contract?"
Now, Irion, who shuddered at the mere mention of the word 'contract', asked warily.
"It's not like it'll work just by calling you a Familiar. We need an official mark."
"Can't we just not do it? I think the slave contract is enough."
"That just makes you a slave. If we're going to deceive them, we have to endure this much trouble."
Renoa slowly stood up from her seat and approached right in front of Irion's nose.
"The method is simple. We carve an imprint on the body using the master's blood or mana as a medium. Hand it over."
At the firm command, Irion held out his hand with a reluctant expression.
Renoa lightly cut the tip of his thumb with a small blade of wind.
A bright red drop of blood formed into a bead.
Then, she pressed the drop of blood onto the back of Irion's hand. Immediately after, she quickly drew a pattern with skillful movements.
Renoa's cool mana seeped into his skin.
Soon, a green light flashed vividly from the pattern, and it was engraved like a brand on the back of Irion's hand.
"How is it?"
"Whoa! A Command Seal!"
"What?"
"No, it's nothing. Nothing feels particularly strange. Anyway, is this it?"
"Yes. It provides the minimum appearance of you being my Familiar. Though I don't know if the Academy will recognize it."
"It's simpler than I thought."
Irion looked down at the brand engraved on the back of his hand.
"Is there any way to make the brand invisible? Or at least move it somewhere it can't be seen?"
"You should be able to hide it. Probably."
He didn't like that it looked like a tattoo. In his entire life, he had never touched alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, or tattoos.
'More importantly, what is this feeling?'
After making the contract, he felt a strange sensation.
The source was Renoa.
It felt as if an invisible thread stretched out from her and connected to a corner of his chest.
That thread became a passage through which all sorts of emotions flowed in.
Pressure.
Burden.
Fear.
Hostility.
Fatigue.
Combative spirit.
Raw, unrefined emotions stripped of their packaged shells.
At the end of those numerous complex emotions, there was one sensation that clung to Irion with a strange stickiness.
'Relief? No, is it possessiveness?'
He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but it was distinctly different from the others. It was almost the only clear emotion.
"What are you doing?"
"No, it's just that I feel something strange since the contract. It feels like emotions?"
"..."
"Aha."
Irion nodded. Seeing Renoa's reaction, he could be certain.
These were Renoa's emotions.
As a Familiar, he could sense her psychological state in order to best cater to his master's whims.
"You..."
The rims of Renoa's ears turned red as her secret inner thoughts, which she had shown to no one, were discovered.
Simultaneously, a new emotion flowed into Irion through the thread.
"Mmm, this is the taste of anger. And is that shame? What delicious emotions."
At that sly commentary, Renoa's eyes shook violently.
Her cheeks, which had been white to the point of being pale, were already flushed red down to her neck.
She wanted to scream and hurl curses right this moment, but the reason she couldn't was her meager pride and final dignity that she had maintained her whole life.
"Stop it... this instant."
Since a thick murderous intent that surpassed anger was being transmitted, Irion stopped messing around.
"Then we will be cleaning the mansion, so please go and have a look around in the meantime, Milady."
The maids bowed to Renoa.
Renoa and the two people who always stuck by her side, Irion and Bibi, stepped out into the street.
Their current location was Valerion, a massive academic city where the Imperial Academy was situated.
Having arrived early for the upcoming Academy entrance, the group had unpacked their belongings.
While there were dormitories operated by the Academy, only commoners or lower-ranking nobles used them.
Children of high-ranking nobles or the wealthy would buy a mansion in the city and commute from there.
Renoa was the same.
There was no way she, who disliked mingling with others, would live in a dormitory.
For that reason, the family had purchased a mansion.
The servants who came along organized the luggage and cleaned the mansion.
It was a large mansion, but since they were all capable servants, they would be finished by evening.
"Is there anywhere you would like to go, Milady?"
Bibi, who had escaped the mansion cleaning under the pretext of being Renoa's exclusive maid, asked.
"I wonder."
"In my heart, I, your capable maid, would like to guide you, but unfortunately, this is also my first time coming to Valerion."
Renoa pondered how to kill time until evening.
An unfamiliar emotion flowed into her. Her heart tickled, and clear bubbles popped one after another.
It was Irion's emotion.
Just as Irion could know his master Renoa's psychological state, Renoa, as the master, could also know her Familiar Irion's state.
And Irion was currently brimming with anticipation.
"The Academy, let's go to the Academy!"
"Why are you so excited?"
"I mean, I'm about to attend the Academy, how can I not be excited?"
It was the setting of the original game.
Soon, he would be able to see various characters. Naturally, he might see the protagonist as well.
Since coming to this other world, Irion was in his most excited state.
"Fine, if you want to go that badly, let's go. I was planning to visit once anyway."
At Irion's strong appeal, the group stopped by the Academy.
"Whoa! The Academy!"
Irion ran around making a fuss like a child.
Seeing the background he had only seen through a monitor screen spread out before his eyes was both fascinating and very pleasant.
'That must be the Great Hall where events frequently break out, and if I go next to it, the training grounds will appear, right?'
Irion's mind was working non-stop, matching the knowledge from the game with the terrain before him.
"This is the first time I've seen Sir Irion so excited."
"He's like a fool. He's not a child. Does he even have any awareness of being a knight?"
Renoa followed behind Irion with a leisurely pace.
The more Irion ran around in excitement, the emotional line flowing through the path connected to him made her heart feel soft and fuzzy.
Experiencing such high-purity joy flooding in without filtration was an utterly unfamiliar sensation that had never existed once in her life.
Although the strange foreign feeling she was experiencing for the first time was uncomfortable and tiring, strangely, it wasn't too bad.
It even gave her the illusion that it was warming up her inner self, which had always been frozen like ice, just a little bit in a pleasant way.
'Is it really this good?'
Influenced by Irion's emotions, Renoa looked around the surroundings, turning her head.
It was fascinating that such a large educational institution existed, but it didn't seem like something to be that happy about.
Regardless, he was unpredictable.
As Renoa indifferently scanned the plaza, a girl entered her field of vision.
Short hair with a transparent light blue hue, as if strands of clear water were hanging down.
Opal-colored eyes that emitted all sorts of brilliant colors, impossible to define by any single color.
The girl, who exuded a very mysterious atmosphere, was wearing the Academy uniform.
"She seems to be an Academy student."
"Probably an incoming student. A commoner, perhaps."
"What makes you think so?"
"She doesn't have any attendants, so she's likely not a noble, and seeing as she's wearing the uniform even though classes haven't started, it's obvious."
Since she came from a humble home and had no proper clothes to wear, she was wearing the uniform provided by the Academy.
Of course, she could be a returning student, but if she were, she wouldn't be staring at the Academy with such a dazed face.
Renoa's guess was that she was a country girl who had come up from the outskirts.
"She seems to resemble someone."
"..."
Renoa didn't answer Bibi's words, but from the moment she first saw that girl, she was overlapping her with someone.
With Irion, her slave, who was childishly looking around the Academy.
But what Renoa thought was similar wasn't the way the two of them were looking at the Academy.
The girl's figure, standing alone in the middle of the empty plaza, was emitting a dazzling presence amidst the quiet background.
It was a radiance.
The same radiance Irion had shown during the match with the Minotaur.
That crude yet brilliant light was also flickering, albeit faintly, from that girl.
It was when Renoa's thoughts reached that point.
Irion's innocent joy, which had been making her heart feel fuzzy until a moment ago, evaporated in an instant.
What rushed in to take its place was a confusion mixed with shock so heavy it felt like it would stop her breathing, and a faint longing.
Irion, who had been running around the Academy until just now, was standing like a stone statue, staring at that girl.
And then.
"...Elody?"
From Irion, something like the girl's name escaped.