Treasure Hunt (3)
"Thank you for your hard work today."
At the words of Anton, the Combat Studies professor, Carl let out a wry smile.
Carl had stopped by Soul Academy that morning, and he had spent the entire day drowning in one handover after another.
When a new professor took up a post, there was normally a month of lead time to learn everything — but all of it had come crashing down on him in a single day. No matter how well Carl understood the inner workings of Soul Academy, the confusion was unavoidable.
"Let's call it a day for now and head home. We'll pick up the rest as the classes go along."
With that, Anton handed Carl a thick stack of documents.
"Professor, what's this?"
"Have all of that read by tomorrow too. Understood?"
The stack was nearly as thick as two hefty books pressed together, and Carl was taken aback — but he didn't voice a single complaint.
It was a considerable amount, true, but it wasn't beyond his capabilities.
After bidding Anton farewell and slipping out of the faculty office, Carl stretched as he watched the sunset bleed across the sky.
After years of grueling daily training, sitting down to wrestle with paper all day left his body itching with restlessness.
If it weren't for the duty he'd taken on — guarding the young lady — he might well have quit ages ago.
Chuckling to himself at the thought, Carl set off to find Lucy.
Where might the young lady be right now?
Every Lucy Carl had ever known was never one to sit still.
Whatever she had been like before, the Lucy who had changed after receiving the god's blessing was now utterly true to the nature of House Aln.
Which was to say, she preferred moving her body to resting it.
She must surely be training.
Having made up his mind, Carl was heading toward the training grounds when the words of a young girl drifted into his ears.
"Yeah. So the Trash-Talking Lady actually came up and talked to me."
The Trash-Talking Lady... that would be the young lady's nickname.
Carl slowed his steps and listened in on the girl's story.
"She came up to me while I was sitting at this table, called me a side-character lady, and started talking to me out of nowhere."
"A side-character lady? That's so mean."
"Right?"
Lady Lucy. Even at the Academy, you haven't broken the habit of looking down on everyone you speak to.
Well, she does call the Duke Partran's daughter the Airhead Lady, so I suppose expecting her to address anyone normally is a lost cause.
"I figured she was about to pull some kind of nonsense, so I just smiled and played along. Then she asks me if there's anything troubling me."
"Out of nowhere?"
"Yep. Said, 'I'll solve something that a side character like you never could.'"
"All that power, and she hasn't changed one bit."
"Honestly. If she weren't from House Aln, I'd have shoved her right back."
Listening to his lady's reputation being steadily dragged through the mud, Carl couldn't help but wear a bitter smile.
Ever since receiving Armadi's blessing, she'd spoken more crudely than ever, but she truly was a good person at heart — with a reputation like this, though, how would she ever make friends?
If only someone would come along soon who could see her kind nature for what it is.
"But you know what's strange? There really was something troubling me."
At those words, Carl stopped mid-stride.
So there really was something.
It seems Lady Armadi said something to the young lady again.
Which means the young lady is obligated to solve that girl's problem.
"Huh? Really? Like what?"
"That's a secret."
"Excuse me."
At Carl's greeting, the two girls turned to look at him.
At first they shot him suspicious glances, but once they got a look at his face, that wariness melted into curiosity.
"Who are you?"
"Good evening. I'm the new Combat Studies professor — I'm afraid I don't quite know my way around yet."
Not knowing the way was nothing but an excuse.
A former student of Soul Academy, lost on campus? Impossible.
It was simply the easiest way to dissolve their guard.
"Oh! You're the new professor! Where are you headed?"
"I was thinking of going to the training grounds."
"If it's there..."
The girl's wariness seemed to vanish entirely at the mention of his position, and she bubbled over with enthusiasm as she gave him directions.
"...Just head that way and you're there! Would you like me to explain it once more?"
"No, thank you. You explained it wonderfully."
When Carl smiled and declined, the girl made a show of her disappointment.
Seeing it, Carl waved the matter off — saying he hadn't been eavesdropping on purpose — and added this:
"If you ever have worries, feel free to come to me for counsel. I'll do everything in my power to help."
With that, Carl took his leave.
When he confirmed the girl's gaze trailing after him, he became certain: she would come looking for him before long.
When I tell the young lady about this later, she'll be delighted, I'm sure.
Carl was basking in the anticipation of Lucy's praise when, the moment he stepped out of the school building, he came face to face with someone he'd seen a few times before.
"You're the Aln family knight, aren't you? What are you doing here?"
Joy Partran.
The daughter of the Ducal House of Partran — cursed by Lucy with the humiliating moniker of the Airhead Lady.
The moment she saw Carl's face, her voice took on a scolding edge.
Everything about Joy's manner and bearing was overwhelmingly imposing.
So much so that even Carl, a seasoned knight, found himself straightening into a respectful posture without thinking.
How on earth can the young lady call a woman like this the Airhead Lady?
Is it simply that her nerve is as monumental as befits the blood of House Aln?
Young lady, you're incredible! Carl cheered inwardly as he answered Joy.
"I am here in my capacity as a professor of Soul Academy."
"Ah. So that's how it is. House Aln really does spare no expense. Though the Aln Lady doesn't exactly look like someone who'd collapse the moment something happened to her."
"She is someone precious to us."
Precious, is it.
Joy let out a quiet sigh at Carl's answer.
Lucy was the daughter of the powerful Count house of Aln, so calling her precious was hardly strange.
But if she was precious, then Joy wished she would be a little more careful with her words and conduct.
Joy no longer thought of Lucy as the rotten person she'd once been.
After all, Lucy was the one who had saved Joy's life when she'd been on the very brink of death.
The floor that had abruptly swallowed her whole.
The grotesque monsters she'd faced within it.
And their master.
Even after so much time had passed, Joy still met that figure in her nightmares.
The thousands of eyes that had looked down upon her.
The rotting hand that had reached for her.
The voice that had seeped out from within, proclaiming her death.
And. And. And.
"Lady Partran?"
Carl's voice pulled Joy back from the nightmare, and she let out a long, deep breath.
Ugh. It hasn't happened lately, though.
In any case, the Lucy she had seen in that dungeon was nothing like the irresponsible, irritable Lucy of before.
She had been the very image of a knight worthy of absolute trust.
Her language was still foul, granted.
But since that day, Joy had revised her opinion of Lucy.
How could anyone keep thinking of a person the old way after that person had saved their life?
Which was why Joy had decided that Lucy's calling Arthur the Pitiful Prince today wasn't malice — just her usual behavior, acting without knowing the circumstances.
Someone willing to throw away her own life to save another's would never mock the tenderest wound of the person in front of her.
And so, after a full day of agonizing over it, Joy had resolved to tell Lucy at least part of Arthur's story.
She couldn't share the most sensitive details, but at the very least she could tell her how much Arthur despised the word pitiful.
That way, Lucy would never call Arthur the Pitiful Prince again.
Yet Joy's plan had been creaking apart from the very start.
She had no idea where to find Lucy.
"Perfect timing, actually. Do you happen to know where the Aln Lady is?"
"If you're looking for the young lady, she'll likely be at the training grounds."
"The training grounds?"
On her very first day at the Academy — skipping the tour entirely and off working up a sweat?
Joy voiced her doubt, but Carl nodded with utter confidence.
Well, you are her knight. Of course you'd know her best.
Carl was right. Lucy was at the training grounds.
What neither Carl nor Joy had anticipated, however, was the fact that she was stirring up trouble even there.
"She's in a duel right now, isn't she?"
Lucy was sparring with a man armed with a spear.
Judging by the color of the scarf on his uniform, he appeared to be a third-year senior of Soul Academy.
"With a third-year, no less."
"So it seems."
There was no need to ask how on earth those two had ended up dueling.
One only had to recall Lucy's usual antics, and the answer wrote itself.
"She picked the fight herself, didn't she."
"..."
"Is that girl physically incapable of the word 'quiet'?"
Even as Joy heaved her sighs, Carl found himself utterly unable to defend his lady.
"How is she planning to beat a third-year?"
A vast chasm yawned between first-years and third-years at the Academy.
Soul Academy operated on a ruthlessly meritocratic system, after all.
That principle showed itself plainly in the Academy's year structure: to advance to an upper year within the Academy, one absolutely had to clear the standards the Academy itself had set.
Whatever status or power one wielded in the outside world was irrelevant.
Fall short of the standard, and promotion was simply impossible.
Which meant that being a senior at the Academy was proof of a genuine adept — someone who had passed trial after trial within its walls.
No matter how talented the Aln Lady was, blessed with the blood of House Aln, victory against a third-year was unthinkable.
That was how enormous the gap between years truly was.
And in truth, the duel before them was utterly one-sided.
The one holding the initiative was, without question, the third-year senior.
Lucy seemed to have all she could handle simply deflecting the rain of spear thrusts.
"Do you believe our young lady will lose, Lady Partran?"
Carl posed the question to Joy, who had been treating Lucy's defeat as a foregone conclusion.
"Isn't that obvious?"
"I believe our young lady will win."
"Whatever your feelings for the person you serve, that sounds like blind devotion to me."
"Blind devotion? How unfair. A knight of House Aln never allows personal sentiment into a contest of arms."
"You're seriously saying the Aln Lady will win?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Joy couldn't understand Carl's certainty, but she waited for him to explain.
A knight of the continent-renowned House Aln had declared victory on his house's name.
There had to be a sound reason behind it.
"Because our young lady hasn't taken a single wound."
So Carl said.
For a spearman, a fight was something like a time bomb, he explained.
Break your opponent down before they close the distance, and you win.
Fail to do so, and you lose.
If the spear-wielder were truly exceptional, the story might be different — but by and large, that was simply how it went.
"Judging by what I see, that spearman's skill falls short of overcoming his weapon's limitations."
Carl laid out the situation in level tones.
Considerable time had passed since the duel began, and yet Lucy bore not a single scratch.
Every time the third-year senior set his spear in motion, the distance between the two of them shrank a little more.
"The bomb is about to go off."
Once Carl explained it, the shape of the duel looked entirely different to Joy as well.
Lucy, leisurely cementing her advantage — and the third-year senior, desperately trying to shake off a defeat that was darkening by the second.
Carl had been right.
"The Aln Lady is going to win this."
"Didn't I say so?"