The Girl's Favor (6)
How a terrified knight and a girl who looked utterly at ease had walked in. How the two of them had headed straight for the basement, as if they already knew every corridor of the manor by heart. How one of them had unlocked the door with a key and gone down. And how they had found the dungeon and gone inside.
Adri's account of following them into the dungeon was so thick with sound effects — whoosh! and crack-crack! and KA-BOOM! — that it was nearly impossible to follow, but boiled down, it went something like this.
A zombie had crawled out of a tomb, and they hadn't even bothered with it, simply punching through deeper inside. Then they had defeated an enemy that was a spirit still lingering among the living.
"A spirit? How on earth did they beat that?"
Vishy didn't know much about other monsters, but spirits she knew well. A spirit, a boss-tier monster of dungeons, was in most cases completely immune to physical attacks. Yet weren't both of those two fighters whose bread and butter was physical damage — a knight and a girl? Professor Carl from the Academy might have had some trick up his sleeve, but the other one...
That brat killed it by bashing it with a mace?
Come to think of it, she had used holy magic back at the entrance ceremony. So that was how she'd taken down the spirit. If she could fell a boss-tier spirit, then Lucy's divinity must be fairly strong. But how could someone who had spent years blaspheming the gods possess power like that? Was she genuinely beloved by God or something?
Adri cried this out and pointed at the ribbon on top of her own head. Now that she mentioned it, the ribbon hadn't been there before.
"It's pretty, sure. But how exactly did you receive it?"
Adri was a ghost. Which meant, naturally, she shouldn't be able to interfere with the physical world — and she certainly shouldn't be able to change anything about her form from the state she died in. Normally, there was no way she could take a ribbon and put it on her head.
"...Right. And what exactly did I expect from you."
Letting Adri's sulking wash past one ear, Vishy thought. This had to be that brat's doing too. Lucy Aln. Just what was that person?
Even when she'd first appeared in high society around a year ago, she'd been the same good-for-nothing as always. So how had she changed this much in just a single year? What on earth had happened to her? Someone who wouldn't so much as hold a pen had taken first place in the Soul Academy entrance exam. Then at the entrance ceremony, she'd stood on the front line of all that chaos. Could a person really transform this much in barely a year? Was this what people called talent? Was that brat nothing more than a lazy genius with a rotten personality? Or was there something else entirely?
"No idea."
Still, she was surely no ordinary person. Giving Adri's question only a vague answer, Vishy kneaded the back of her neck. Now that her weakness as a necromancer had been seized, she couldn't afford to defy that girl. The moment it came out that she'd touched the forbidden arts, the Church would have her marked for life. A noble daughter of a minor house like her would simply vanish without a sound. When simply keeping her mouth shut was something to be grateful for — and on top of that, the girl had destroyed the dungeon that had existed in this manor. She still didn't like that brat of a young lady, but grateful was grateful. For the time being, she'd hold off on the trash talk.
Vishy woke early the next morning and headed for the training grounds. The person who had taught her necromancy had always insisted on training at the earliest hour, so Vishy made a point of moving her body at dawn whenever she could — though yesterday she'd overslept and scrambled to class in a daze.
Arriving at the dawn training grounds with her messy hair tied back, Vishy found others already there ahead of her. The ones who stood out most were Lucy and Frey, sprinting at full power around the perimeter of the grounds. The two of them ran at a speed that rivaled a galloping horse, yet their expressions could not have been more serene.
"Loser swordsman. Getting tired yet? You're puffing there, aren'tcha?"
"Not at all. Are you sure it isn't you who's struggling?"
"Pfft. The loser swordsman I trounced, trying to provoke ME.pathetic, honestly."
"Grrrrr."
How could they hold a conversation while running at that speed? Vishy wasn't the only one staring at the pair in disbelief — most of the people at the training grounds were. Two small children running at a speed nobody could hope to catch was simply a wondrous sight. Of course, since one of the two was Lucy Aln, she of the notorious reputation, people would avert their gazes the moment it seemed her eyes might land on them.
Watching the scene quietly for a while, Vishy began her own training at a careful distance from the pair.
Vishy's bitter history with Lucy continued from there. It was during the mana theory lecture. Still unaccustomed to Soul Academy, Vishy had wandered lost all over before finally making it to the classroom, where she spotted a friend waving at her and let out a sigh of relief.
"Shame. A little later and you'd have been marked late."
"Shut up."
Firing back at the friend who was snickering at her hopeless sense of direction, Vishy took her seat and looked around the room. There was a strangely empty space inside the classroom — the area around Lucy Aln. The nobles who had been thoroughly chewed up by Lucy Aln during their seasons in high society naturally avoided her side of the room, and the handful of commoners were too intimidated to approach either. And so Lucy Aln had ended up entirely alone. Most people in that situation would have deflated or sunk into gloom, yet Lucy Aln calmly gazed out the window — as if this were a situation she was well used to.
"Vishy. At this point shouldn't we stop calling her the good-for-nothing lady and start calling her the lonely lady?"
"That..."
She'd almost answered her snickering friend out of habit before clamping her mouth shut. Yesterday's warning from Lucy Aln flashed back to her. Professor Carl must have told that brat, mustn't he. She'd thought he was a good man because he was handsome, but he'd gone and tattled like some petty little schemer. What on earth was Lucy Aln to that man?
"That what?"
"Nothing, just... seems kind of lonely, is all."
With nothing better to say, Vishy threw out the first thing that came to mind, and her friend laughed lightly.
"Lonely? She built that isolation herself. You think a girl who goes around calling His Highness the Third Prince pathetic cares about something like that?"
Her friend had a point. It had been Lucy herself who had shattered any hopes that she might have changed after the entrance exam and the ceremony. Calling the Third Prince the "Pitiful Prince," of all things. When Vishy had first heard that story, she'd genuinely wondered if the girl had lost her mind. Of course, she couldn't say that out loud now.
Vishy smiled awkwardly, and her friend narrowed her eyes.
"What's with you, Vishy? Decided to play nice today?"
"Play nice? I've always been nice."
"You two-faced witch."
Their conversation broke off as the mana theory professor entered the classroom.
"The flow of mana is..."
Partway through the lecture, the professor's brow creased slightly, and he raised his voice.
"Lady Aln."
At the sound of that voice, every gaze in the room flooded toward where Lucy sat. Lucy Aln was face-down on her desk, fast asleep.
No. What is that woman DOING?!
The moment the sleeping Lucy jerked her head up in a panic, the professor's voice turned a shade sharp.
"Would you care to tell us what I was explaining just now?"
Lucy said nothing. Of course she couldn't answer. She'd been asleep until this very second.
"This is going to be a total disaster."
Her friend snickered with evident delight beside her — but the scene Vishy was expecting never came.
"Loser professor. What you just explained was..."
Lucy Aln answered the professor's question without a shred of hesitation. Her answer was so flawless that the mana theory professor, who had been readying himself for a scolding, found himself utterly unable to add a word.
"Well... well done. Take your seat."
She was ASLEEP. How did she answer that?!Don't tell me she skimmed the board and just guessed?! Ha. So this is what the so-called geniuses are like.
Vishy couldn't help clicking her tongue, envious despite herself.
The next time Vishy heard Lucy's name was around lunchtime. Lady Baines, whose face Vishy knew from high society, burst into the dining hall in a fury. Even amid the murmur of the crowd, Lady Baines could not contain her indignation. Why on earth is she like that?
"Probably because she lost to the good-for-nothing lady."
The one who answered Vishy's bewilderment was her friend, coming from sparring class.
"To Lady Aln?"
"Yep. The brat's hopeless at everything else, but when it comes to fighting she's the real deal. Lady Baines couldn't lay a finger on her, apparently."
"Impressive."
"That's not even the surprising part. She beat Lady Kent before that."
Lady Kent — the champion of multiple tournaments held across the kingdom. A monster among monsters, widely expected to be designated the next Sword Saint. And Lucy had beaten her in a duel?
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
She was brilliant enough to take first place in the Soul Academy entrance exam, and she possessed martial skill enough to defeat Lady Kent? And on top of all that, she had divinity potent enough to actually wound a spirit?
"That's not fair."
Was it really acceptable for that much talent to be concentrated in a single person? "She really is beloved by God, isn't she," Vishy murmured — and her friend immediately rounded on her.
"Hey. What kind of blasphemous nonsense is that? The one beloved by God is an angel like Her Holiness the Saintess. There's no way God loves a brat with a personality like that."
Come to think of it, that was true. Considering the Saintess's pure-snow-white character, it stood to reason God wouldn't have much fondness for someone like that brat.
"If anything, she'd be beloved by a demon."
Hearing her friend's words, Vishy laughed without meaning to. Then she caught sight of Lucy entering the dining hall, and her lips froze.
Uh. Um.She didn't hear any of that just now... right?
Days are long. That was the thought I'd been having most often lately. Back when this world was a game, a single in-game day was something you could blow through in ten seconds flat if you hurried — you'd skim the "attended class" text, pick what to do for the evening and night, and that was that. But now that this was reality, the feel of it was completely different. Who knew having to live through a full twenty-four hours could stretch on like this!
If I could have spent all day training like I did back at the estate, it wouldn't have been boring at all. But here I have to sit through one snooze-fest lecture after another, and it's killing me. The trial period at Soul Academy is the stretch of the game where the unspoken rule is to do a couple of the required events and skip the rest! Why can't I just skip this part?! Quests would at least have made it bearable, but lately everyone runs away the moment I so much as open my mouth to them, so I can't even do that.
Ugh. I just want this stretch to be over already. Once a week passes and the semester properly begins, that's when I'll finally be able to enter the dungeon of Soul Academy.