Academy End-of-Term Party (9)
Arthur stayed frozen for a long while, and it was only when a hand as heavy as a boulder settled on his shoulder that he finally came back to his senses. Slowly turning his head at the touch—far too thick to belong to any ordinary human—Arthur caught sight of Benedict's sternly narrowed eyes towering several heads above his own, and he stumbled backward.
"Good day to you, Your Highness, the Third Prince. What brings you here?"
"Ah. W-well. I received something precious from the young lady of House Aln, and I came to offer my thanks."
"Is that so? Then explain your eyes."
"Ba~kabaka Father! Have you already forgotten what I told you just the other day?!"
"N-no, wait! Lucy! It's not what you think!"
"Not what you think? What else could it be? Do I look blind to you, baka Father, or what?"
Watching the daughter berate her own father—a man she still had to look up at even while he knelt before her—and the father, all of his earlier majesty gone, hunching his shoulders and spouting excuses before his tiny daughter, Arthur let out a hollow laugh. Every elaborate thought he'd been entertaining a moment ago suddenly felt utterly foolish.
Still. She was so breathtakingly beautiful that he'd genuinely wondered whether that could truly be Lucy Aln.
"Has my baka Father turned into a gaping goldfish? How do you forget a conversation from less than a day ago?"
"...I'm sorry."
"I believe I heard that apology earlier today as well? Is my memory acting up? Or did I turn into an idiot too, being the daughter of a baka Father?"
There she is, all right. No one else on this earth could treat Benedict like that.
A long stretch passed like this, until Benedict's eyes began to rim with red. At last Lucy sighed, told him to do better from now on, reached her small hand up high, and patted his head.
Laughing through his tears at his daughter's touch, Benedict stole a cautious glance at her face before carefully broaching a question.
"Thank you, truly. Lucy. Ah—but there is one thing I'd like to ask."
"What is it? Go ahead."
"Are you really going up on that stage dressed like that? Won't you draw far too much attention?"
"How much of an idiot can one baka Father possibly be? If that weren't handled, why would I have dragged that pervert apostle all the way here?"
"...Pervert apostle?"
"It's been a while, Sir Benedict."
At the sight of Frete smiling brightly while wiping the blood smeared all over his face, Benedict's expression darkened viciously once more.
The only difference from the moment with Arthur was that this time, Lucy made no move to hold her father back.
"Apostle of the Art Cult."
"...Yes?"
"I believe you and I need to have a very serious conversation."
"Sir Benedict. In House Aln, do conversations involve raising one's fists?"
"A father's conversation with the man near his daughter goes exactly like this."
"I see. Understood. Then please leave me barely enough life to explain myself once everything is over."
"I swore I'd never set foot in this revolting place again."
"...Your Majesty the Second Queen. There are many people around us."
"I know. That's why I'm using a sound barrier to speak, obviously."
The moment Senar Soladin stepped into the end-of-term banquet hall, she smiled and returned greetings to the nobles of her faction waving warmly from across the room—all while her mouth spat out words bristling with thorns.
"Damn it all. What kind of torment is this, all because of that one lunatic woman."
Whatever the gentleness of her smiling eyes suggested, Senar's feelings toward the First Queen, Cavati Soladin, were anything but warm.
How could anyone cherish a thorn that had obstructed her at every turn, from her earliest girlhood all the way to this very day?
"Just bear it a little longer. It's only for a single evening."
"I know. I'm only venting. I simply can't endure it without letting a complaint or two slip out of my mouth."
It had already been years since she became the kingdom's Second Queen, since she first laid out her scheme to place her son on the throne and accomplish all her designs. Senar had socialized until she was sick to death of it; she was no fool who couldn't tell public duty from private grievance.
It was simply that the very fact of returning to the Academy left a sour taste in her mouth. Still, not everything about tonight was bad.
"Thank goodness Cecil has finally become something resembling a person."
Her son, who had never once delivered anything she asked of him, was for the first time behaving like an actual prince. Ever since his defeat at Lucy Aln's hands, something in him had seemingly shifted, and Cecil was now showing a maturity unlike anything he'd displayed before—so much so that even the old lords of the high noble houses, who had never cared for him, looked at him with new eyes.
"Thanks to that, he can finally do what must be done instead of fawning over those old fossils."
Tearing her gaze from Cecil and his circle, Senar slowly swept the hall with her eyes.
"While Lucy Aln is occupied, I'll quietly feel out the people around her."
The first to catch her gaze was the young lady of House Patran, wearing her practiced smile amid a crowd of noble daughters.
The colossal backing of the Patran name, and a sharp beauty that could rob even the boldest of people of their breath. The aristocratic poise etched into her very bearing. Add to that a magical talent that seemed to proclaim the strength of Patran blood itself, and the moment she appeared, she became a pillar around which the noble young ladies of the continent orbited.
And as the crowd of young ladies clustered around her made plain, the power of the Patran name was stronger now than it had ever been. Her achievements at Soul Academy, and a beauty that had grown ever more statue-like during her time there, had made it so.
Hard to approach her right now. If I cut in, she'll see right through me. I'll wait until the party is in full swing.
Though that dress she's wearing is gorgeous. Where on earth did she get it? Even the master craftsmen I know couldn't produce something like that.
I'll ask her about that later too.
Withdrawing her gaze, Senar's next target was the Saintess of the Church of the Main God.
By the Main God's will, the woman had spent years performing good deeds across the world without a moment's rest, and even though no one from the Church had escorted her here, she stood surrounded by a throng of people. Every single one of them was offering words of gratitude.
Thanks for saving their territory long ago. Thanks for saving a loved one's life. Thanks for resolving the grievance of one who had died wrongfully.
The endless feast of gratitude that followed brought to mind someone's famous remark: one might question the goodness of the Church of the Main God itself, but no one alive could deny the goodness of the Saintess as an individual.
Can't approach that one either, not now. That crowd is nothing but landmines worse than the old fossils around Cecil.
...Hm? The Saintess is dressed rather more lavishly than usual today, isn't she?
Looks similar to the Patran girl's—must be a gift from a friend.
That one's genuinely beautiful too. What kind of artisan made it? My curiosity keeps growing.
Setting that question aside for now.
Let's see... who's the relaxed one at the moment? Ah, that corner.
The young lady of House Kent. Born into a famed swordsmanship dynasty, she had crushed everyone of her generation and flaunted her extraordinary talent. Hailed as a future glory of the kingdom, and even now—merely displaced by Lucy Aln—a monster wielding overwhelming skill with the blade.
And a person who cared not one whit for the eyes around her—less noble than beast.
At the sight of Lady Kent cramming food into her mouth with abandon in a corner of the hall, Senar quietly averted her gaze. Going by past experience, approaching that one could only end in a headache.
That leaves only Arthur. Where is he? The party's about to start—why can't I find him anywhere?
More and more people have their eyes on him these days with all his rising exploits, too.
Just as Senar resigned herself to going to chat with her faction's nobles first, the lights in the hall went out.
So it begins.
At last, I get to see Lucy Aln with my own eyes.
The face so beautiful that even the Apostle of the Art Cult sings her praises. Let's have a good look, shall we?
Senar studied the stage with every intention of finding some flaw to pick at, some outlet for her contrarian spite—but the moment the figure glowing alone in the darkness revealed herself, every one of those thoughts scattered like ash.
In all her years as the kingdom's Second Queen, Senar had confronted countless forms of beauty, and she had always let the word beautiful stand in for every ounce of her admiration. At most she'd tack on an adverb like so or immensely; never once had she bothered to wonder whether any expression existed beyond beautiful. The Senar of the past had praised herself for this, calling it efficiency.
The Senar of now cursed her past self for the lazy fool she'd been.
How was she to describe the scene before her eyes? How could she explain a sight that turned her mind white blank just from taking it in? How was she to put into words that beauty which gleamed even through the darkness?
Should she describe it in tedious detail? Should she shamelessly enumerate how beautiful she was from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes? Or should she reach for a poet's metaphors?
Radiant, you say? Brighter than the stars, you say? That a sun in human form descended upon the darkened hall? That she looks like an angel the Main God has sent down to the earth?
I don't know.
That presence, which silenced the entire hall by merely appearing. That presence, which made one strain one's ears at the sound of small feet moving. That presence, which commanded total focus with every gesture of a hand, every turn of a step. That presence, which clutched at the heart wherever her gaze happened to graze. That presence, which made even an infuriating smile feel charming.
What am I supposed to call it?
Oh. I see now.
I was deluding myself.
The word beautiful never stood in for all my admiration. I simply knew no other word, and so I dragged everything I had ever seen down into the domain of beauty.
And now, in this moment, standing before a being that the word beautiful could never possibly contain, I finally understand what a stupid little word it is.
I despise myself.
A beauty too vast for the word beautiful to hold is right there before my eyes. A beauty that demands richer, more abundant language is standing right there.
And I am doomed to repeat that one word, beautiful, as I always have.
"Ahem."
Even as the angel with hidden wings took her place at the center of the podium and spoke, time in the party hall refused to move. The dead silence born when the angelic girl revealed herself seemed determined to last until the moment she vanished from view.
"Pfft. Good evening, you losers. The way you're all leering at me with those perverted eyes is suuuper disgusting, you know~? Staring at mirrors your whole lives and then seeing someone this beautiful—it must feel like a dream, huh? Oh dear. What will you do? You won't be able to look at a mirror again without shuddering~"
"...What?"
"...What on earth is that."
"...Is my hearing broken?"
And the one who shattered that ironclad silence was none other than the very girl who had created it.
As the crowd reeled between a beauty beyond all description and manners impossible to reconcile with any notion of nobility, the girl at the eye of the storm—Lucy Aln—sat there giggling as she looked down over the hall.