Lessons and Encounters (8)
Because Celine said nothing and did nothing, Marei also kept his mouth shut, unsure how to handle the situation. Seizing the momentum, Jubalen began to ramble on arrogantly.
“Celine is talented, you say? She studies well and she’s beautiful. Of course, it’s not because she’s mine or anything… but anyone can see she’s pretty, right? That blue hair, that pale skin. That damn bad-tempered vampire…”
Splash!
A brown liquid splattered straight through Jubalen’s dark brown hair as he chattered excitedly. The scent of milk tea and the sticky sweetness of brown sugar spread for a brief moment. Jubalen frowned deeply and whipped around to identify who had dumped milk tea on his head.
“Oh dear, my mistake. My hand slipped. Could you go away? It stinks.”
“Ahahaha, Princess Philia. You always seem to have accidents, don’t you? Just like at the last social gathering.”
“It was on purpose. I wrapped it up as a mistake so you could be grateful and fuck off, you stupid bastard.”
Philia, who had approached at some point, hurled the empty plastic cup at Jubalen’s feet. In a manner completely unimaginable from her usual refined, cat-like demeanor, she glared at him with raw ferocity.
“I have plenty I’d like to say to a princess who spouts such ridiculous sophistry, but I’m busy. It must be nice to have the leisure you do. If you’ll excuse me.”
“What, do you have an appointment at some brothel?”
“I suppose people only see what their eyes allow.”
“So that’s why you spent the night at that high-class fairy five times just last week?”
Jubalen’s face flushed crimson, then purple.
“You must be quite free with no official duties, to pay such attention to me?”
“What the hell are you even saying, you half-wit?”
Jubalen struggled to maintain some elegance while Philia casually hurled insults. Seeing him desperately holding back his rage, she snorted in open disdain.
After glaring at her for several seconds, Jubalen spun on his heel and stalked away with quick, angry strides.
“Ph-Philia…?”
“Hello, Marei. Ahem… ahem…”
Looking somewhat embarrassed, Philia gave a small cough. The events of the previous day flashed through Marei’s mind, and he subtly avoided her gaze, but Philia smiled as though nothing had happened.
“I said I’d come right away, but I ended up later than that pest. Sorry.”
“…Um, are you not on good terms with him…? You spoke so harshly…”
“‘Him’? You should call him ‘that bastard.’ Only those who act like people deserve to be treated like people. Trash that’s only half-formed doesn’t merit the title. Anyway, Marei, is Celine all right?”
“Yes, my lady.”
Celine bowed her head slightly.
“Marei, why didn’t you say anything?”
“I-I’ll do it next time…”
The sight of Jubalen groping Celine’s breasts and spewing obscene words had displeased him, but given that Marei himself lined up the twin sisters to ravish them side by side and daily filled his adoptive mother’s womb while demanding she get pregnant, he was in no position to criticize anyone else. That truth, however, was something he would never admit even in death.
“I’ll take my leave now…”
“Sit down, Celine. Marei, you said Celine was your mentor, correct? I thought we needed to talk. I meant to do it when the two of you were together, but I kept putting it off and this is the result. This is Marei de Pawen. And this is Celine Ferdinand of the spiritist family bound by contract. Greet each other properly. In this space, I’d like you to treat one another as colleagues rather than senior and junior.”
Celine bowed once more, and Marei followed suit. Philia burst into bright laughter at the sight, as if she found it endlessly amusing.
“As I mentioned before, the principality has three heirs. Myself as the eldest, my younger sister as the second, and finally one bastard child from a concubine—that jerk.”
Since it was a story he had heard before, Marei nodded in understanding.
“Whether the old man has gone senile or simply fallen for his favorite concubine’s wiles, thanks to those movements the principality is now split into three factions.”
Philia held up three fingers.
“The eldest daughter and legitimate heir of the family—me, Philia the Blood.”
Two fingers remained.
“The illegitimate bastard, Gaben the Blood.”
The final finger.
“My younger sister, who inherited the thickest blood of our ancestors and is called the reincarnation of Rumania’s founding king.”
Philia’s hand had already curled into a fist.
“I am the rightful heir, and those with sound minds support me. The military and administrative branches, for example. The bastard has the external powers that want to embed their influence in the principality—like the trash we just saw—along with the diplomatic department officials he’s bought off.”
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Philia let out a small sigh. She added that it was embarrassing to even admit the diplomatic department, which should move for the nation’s benefit, was instead filled with those who moved the nation for their own gain.
“And then… claiming atavism or whatever, my younger sister who possesses the exact powers of the founding emperor from the history books. Thanks to that, the senate—whom we rarely even see—has gone mad calling her the reincarnation of Rumania’s first emperor. The girl herself, however, doesn’t care in the slightest.”
Philia let out a small, bitter laugh. It carried a sharp edge, as though she were thinking of her sister.
“Because I’m protecting and embracing that girl, the senate and those traitorous bastards have made me their primary target. The senate is determined to crown that gentle child emperor. Even if I fall, they’ll risk everything to settle matters with the bastard. Then the principality… at the very least, more than half of it would collapse. After that, the Governor-General of Valter would naturally annex us in the name of the empire’s stability.”
At the sudden mention of Loren’s name, Marei could only nod, caught between reactions.
“The losing side loses everything. Whether it’s me or the bastard. I’m fighting while carrying that clueless, naive little sister on my back. Various interests cling to us like leeches, turning the principality into a powder keg. That’s why I’m even dragging a young lady from a distant foreign land to my side like this.”
“I’m sorry.”
Seeing Celine bow her head, Philia gently brushed the girl’s hair behind her ear.
“Having been essentially exiled to Valter for three years, I’ve become entangled in so many things that I no longer clearly know who my enemies or allies are. Once I graduate and return to the principality to act directly, I’ll finally be able to distinguish friend from foe.”
“Ah…”
The image of the impossibly strong female swordsman at that clothing store, the elderly administrator Norman, and that middle-aged cook rose in Marei’s mind.
“At first it was so small I barely paid it any attention, but after leaving it unattended for three years it has grown large enough to threaten me. On top of that, the senate is sharpening their knives to stab me in the back. Not a very fun story, is it?”
“No, my lady.”
At Celine’s answer, Philia smiled faintly and crossed her legs elegantly.
“She’s a senior at school, right?”
“Yes, senior.”
“Good, good.”
Philia clapped her hands lightly. The sound rang out softly yet somehow left a lingering resonance.
“I do want to look after Marei, but I’m quite busy these days. I can’t devote myself entirely to academy life. You understand that too, don’t you, Celine?”
“Yes.”
“Then you look after him. The world is already saying a young fox is wagging her tail at him. They claim it’s an impossible strategy, but we’re serious.”
Philia looked at Marei and smiled deeply.
“Pardon?”
Celine echoed the word “serious.”
“Taking the vampire princess’s first time, whispering love into her ear, and promising to take responsibility. However, be careful about what happened yesterday.”
“Ah… Y-yes!”
Realizing what Philia meant, Marei nodded. Celine, who had shown almost no change in expression until now, widened her eyes in clear surprise as she stared at him.
“I made him promise to seduce me so that I could come to like him. Hehe… It feels good just thinking about it. Marriage… well, that’s still far away. For both me and Marei.”
With a faintly flushed face, Philia reached out to Marei. He unconsciously took her small hand, and she pulled him firmly into her embrace.
“I don’t know if I love you yet, Marei de Pawen. But I think I like you. When I’m with you, I feel my heart pounding wildly. Don’t worry about yesterday. Just don’t do it again from now on.”
His ear pressed against her subtly swollen chest, and through it he could hear her heart thumping violently.
“I don’t know much about love. I never had the luxury to learn it. But it’s clear that I like you. So teach me about love. Make my heart race even harder.”
“I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“It’s fine. I read the letter. Professor Idrien handed it to me this morning, so I wondered what it was.”
At Philia’s words—she was nearly the same height as him—Marei could only nod, as if enchanted.
“Still…”
“Yes, that’s enough.”
Philia lightly patted his head with her palm. Saying her schedule was tight, she rose from her seat, rubbed her forehead against his in a gentle nuzzle, and left.
Left alone with Celine, Marei didn’t know what to say and remained silent. It seemed she felt the same.
“….Have you gotten used to school life?”
“Ah, yes!”
It felt even more awkward than when they had been introduced as mentor and mentee. The one improvement was that Celine’s eyes now held him completely. He felt as though he stood before her not as a passing stranger, but as Marei de Pawen.
“You haven’t canceled any classes, right?”
“No.”
Marei naturally pulled out the paper on which he had written his timetable and showed it to her. Celine stared at it with a dazed expression. A deep, heavy sigh followed.
“You’re sure you can handle this… right?”
“….Probably?”
The light in Celine’s eyes vanished as she looked at the densely packed, multicolored timetable. Although the system was nicely dressed up as mentor-mentee, in practice it was little different from forming factions within the academy. There were advantages, but also clear disadvantages that could lead to mutual rejection. Since Principal Loren placed greater weight on the advantages, the system continued unchanged.
Most students formed appropriate groups through casually assigned mentor-mentee pairings, got to know one another, and enjoyed secondary benefits such as adapting to school life. However, the small number of students with clear goals were already building factions and laying plans for the future.
Whether that was good or bad, Marei couldn’t say. But the fact that Loren condoned it made one thing clear: what the governor-general wanted from the students was precisely such connections between noble houses. Thus it had become a continuing tradition—though the school itself was only a few years old.
Still, because they were officially bound by the mentor-mentee system, upperclassmen did help juniors with their studies. Even so, when Celine looked at Marei’s timetable—filled from morning to evening with classes—she couldn’t even imagine how to approach it.
Tactics and strategy with Professor Julia Pahu, magic studies with the Ksakru sisters, Professor Icher de Valentine’s black magic class that no one took and therefore had no past exams, Professor Lee Ha-eun who beat students and drove them out, and even the Eastern swordsmanship class that everyone avoided.
The sheer volume of class hours was ridiculous, but what was worse was how completely off-track it was from the direction of Celine’s own studies. This reckless boy had simply stuffed every class that interested him into his schedule, intending to digest them all. Unless he was a true genius, the workload looked likely to crush him.
She thought his foundation in magic and liberal arts was sufficient, but the problem was Professor Idrien Ksakru. The absurd volume of lectures, assignments, and merciless pace that earned students the label of “future imperial university talent” if they could keep up—Celine had some grounding in elemental magic, yet helping with Professor Ilien’s white magic classes seemed far easier by comparison.
“To be honest, I don’t have confidence. Marei… I am studying elemental magic, but even I would barely be able to follow Professor Idrien’s class right now.”
“I see…”
Truthfully, Marei had never attended Idrien’s lectures. With Ilien, they had merged their bodies during class, discovering new pleasures and making decent progress. But for Idrien, consumed by carnal lust, any time spent with Marei was simply time spent intertwining bodies.
“I have a weak constitution, so I’ve never learned swordsmanship or martial arts. I’m sorry to say this… but you’ll have to handle that yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Icher de Valentine… of all things, black magic. Really… I’m sorry as a mentor. There’s nothing I can help you with. Forgive me.”
Celine honestly raised the white flag without any pretense. Marei simply looked at her, having no particular thoughts, but she blushed to the tips of her ears and quickly lowered her head.
“I-it’s all right! Everyone is kind and… teaches me well…”
“Professor Idrien Ksakru?”
Celine asked again, as if she could not believe it. To Marei she was a rebellious yet eagerly active meat slave, but to Celine she apparently seemed like a demon that had crawled out of hell.
“P-Professor Idrien is also cute… and kind. She teaches well… and is very proactive…”
“Should I believe that… or not…”
To Marei, the clumsy yet eager Idrien was incredibly adorable and lovable. Of course there were times when she charged ahead wildly and it was hard to keep up, but since Labella trusted him and had said it was fine to chase after the wild mare that was Idrien, it didn’t feel particularly burdensome.
“I have no way to help you with your studies… What should I do…”
“U-um… Then, could you teach me a little about spirit magic?”
“Spirit magic? Wouldn’t it be better to learn that from the professors…?”
“I’m just curious.”
Marei had spoken casually upon seeing Celine’s dejected expression, but she was now looking at him with a strange gaze. Even though his schedule was already packed, the fact that he still wanted to learn something new made her think that the Pawen family was indeed the Pawen family. Yet when she saw him smiling like a gentle fool, he also seemed foolish. Perhaps the most accurate description was that she simply could not understand him.