Misunderstanding in Langestin
‘What on earth is going on here?’
In the blink of an eye, the streets of Langestin had turned into a battlefield. Simon felt his body and mind seize up with cold.
Say, generously, that a terrorist attack in the middle of Langestin was somehow plausible.
But the person unleashing it wasn’t a pack of fanatic priests. It was Lorraine.
Crack!
The battle unfolded furiously. Lorraine moved in streaks of searing red lightning, and hot on her heels came feathers of pure white, homing in like guided arrows. Every time her crimson dagger carved through the air, feathers split apart and dropped to the ground in clumps.
Whirl!
Then the dagger spinning in her other hand snapped to a halt with a sharp clack! and shot forward faster than the naked eye could follow.
BOOM!
The dagger materialized right in front of Serne, only to be stopped by the shield magic protecting her. The massive shockwave shattered the surrounding windows and ripped floor tiles loose to go spinning through the air — yet Serne’s expression remained unbothered.
“I won’t stand by and watch your schemes any longer!”
Lorraine declared, her eyes blazing with light.
“And what exactly will you do if you don’t?”
Serne shot back with an eerie smile.
Lorraine’s crimson flashes and Serne’s white feathers collided head-on, clashing again and again without either side yielding an inch.
Convinced that if trouble was going to break out, it had well and truly broken out, Simon shouted.
“Wait, Lorraine! I think there’s some kind of misunderstanding!”
Lorraine’s chilling red eyes flicked toward Simon. But it was only a glance — she turned her head right back and focused on fighting Serne.
“Lor—!”
Thwup! Thwup!
Two skeletal hands came flying out of nowhere, seized Simon by the shoulders, and carried him bodily across the street, pinning him against the wall of the opposite building.
‘Lorraine’s skeletons?’
No matter how he struggled, they didn’t budge an inch. Pinned in place, Simon racked his brain.
‘Lorraine doesn’t want me dragged into this fight. But at the same time, she wouldn’t even listen to me. Why?’
It didn’t feel like she’d simply gone blind with rage — not a ‘stay out of this!’ kind of thing.
He turned the problem over for a moment, and the answer came quickly.
‘She thinks I’ve been mind-controlled by Serne!’
At last, the puzzle pieces in his head clicked into place. Simon raised his left foot and planted it firmly against the building wall.
‘Open Gate!’
The Overlord’s tentacle-blades shot out of subspace and sliced cleanly through the joints of the skeletons gripping his shoulders, disabling them in an instant.
Back on his feet, Simon’s eyes turned grave.
‘So the best thing I can do in this situation is—’
Drawing a short sword from subspace, Simon charged straight at Serne.
Locked in chaotic combat with Lorraine, Serne was startled by the ambush from behind and moved to counterattack—
‘Simon?’
—but managed, just barely, to stop her feathers mid-flight.
Simon immediately wrapped his left hand around her shoulder, pulled her in, and leveled the short sword’s blade at her throat.
“!”
Seeing this, Lorraine froze in wide-eyed shock.
The battle between two powerhouses that had seemed utterly impossible to stop had, at last, come to an end.
“My, my~ How bold of you~”
Rather than being frightened, Serne looked delighted as she snuggled right into Simon’s chest.
‘Come on, at least pretend to be nervous!’
This girl was truly incorrigible. Simon’s head throbbed, but with the fight stopped, now was his chance.
Simon looked at Lorraine and spoke in a grave, earnest voice.
“Trust me, Lorraine. I haven’t been brainwashed.”
She gritted her teeth.
“How am I supposed to believe that? What if this sloppy hostage act is all part of Serne’s direction?”
There was room for dialogue now, but Lorraine still hadn’t lowered her guard.
“Then let me ask you this instead. What makes you so certain I’ve been brainwashed?”
“It’s strange enough that two people with barely any connection at school are suddenly playing lovers. But above all — Serne made you sign a curse contract. That’s the decisive evidence.”
A curse contract was a sinister dark-magic item that unleashed a curse upon the signer the moment they breached its terms.
Only now did Simon realize what misunderstanding Lorraine had formed.
“See for yourself.”
Simon had a skeleton fetch the document from subspace.
Lorraine, still eyeing the two of them warily, examined the paper the skeleton handed over.
“……”
It wasn’t a contract at all — just an ordinary merchandise order form with a name and address written on it. A hollow feeling washed over her expression.
‘I saw him writing his name and just assumed it was a curse contract.’
Through her telescope, she hadn’t been able to make out the fine print. Even so, she’d attacked — out of overwhelming suspicion toward Serne.
It was the same psychology as watching a chronic drug addict pour some strange powder into their mouth: suspect first, ask questions later.
Her one and only thought had been to stop Simon from signing his way into the Ivory Tower.
Lorraine raised her communication crystal.
“Cease engagement. Fall back.”
The moment her order dropped, her henchmen could be seen retreating behind the lingering clouds of smoke and debris.
Thankfully, neither Lorraine’s henchmen nor the Ivory Tower’s shadowing party appeared to have taken a single injury. They all knew perfectly well that casualties on either side would complicate matters enormously, so both sides had carefully held back.
“The city of Langestin and the royal family have already been notified. Focus on damage control. Estimate the cost of the property damage and check for anyone injured. Deploy every person on standby and clean this up quickly. I’ll contact the Ivory Tower’s leadership separately.”
At her command, the henchmen scattered.
“Awww~ No fun at all. Did you really have to call off the fight just because of a little misunderstanding?”
Serne wore a satisfied smile, but she waggled her fingers provocatively all the same.
“We’re both an eyesore to each other, so why not just keep going?”
“If you want to fight me that badly, do it at Kizen.”
Lorraine strode over and took hold of Simon’s wrist.
“Let’s go back, Simon.”
“Not a chance.”
Serne grabbed Simon’s other arm. Suddenly pinned by both arms, Simon couldn’t move an inch.
“Simon and I have some business to attend to separately, you see~”
Serne replied, tugging at his arm. Lorraine, as ever, kept her composed poker face.
“Coming out here without filing any report is a violation of school rules in itself.”
“You’re out here too, aren’t you? Do daughters of Nephthys get special privileges?”
“And above all, I still can’t entirely believe you haven’t brainwashed Simon.”
Lorraine stared at him hard.
“Feeding him cotton candy, sending him off to buy ice cream, hugging him — what was all that about just now?”
“……!!”
At those words, Simon turned red to the very tips of his ears.
“Y-you saw— you saw all of that?!”
He was so flustered his voice trembled. Lorraine gave only a small nod.
“It’s— it’s a misunderstanding! Let me explain what happened—!”
“Oh come now, why ask about something so obvious between a man and a woman~”
Serne coiled her arms around Simon’s with a sly grin.
“We have business to attend to. It relates to the upcoming Mission Assessment, too. Things will sort themselves out just fine, so kindly butt out.”
“There’s no precedent for this — how could I possibly butt out? If it involves the Mission Assessment, report it properly, right here.”
As if she’d been waiting for exactly that, Serne drew a letter from inside her coat with a meaningful smile.
“Ta-da~ Simon and I have been invited to the Dresden royal ball! It’s a Designated Request targeting Special Admission Numbers 1 and 2. Naturally, the royal family would want the continent’s finest pair of first-years — one man and one woman.”
“……”
Lorraine’s mouth clamped shut, and Serne pressed on, triumphant.
“Understood, yes? We’re about to go shopping for ball attire. Plenty of people are going to see Simon walking around with the Ivory Tower’s heiress~ They’ll all be saying how wonderfully we suit each other, I’m sure. And once the ball is over, everyone will be talking about the relationship between Simon and the Ivory Tower!”
Lorraine stopped listening halfway through and was already pulling her communication crystal out of subspace.
The moment the connection tone rang, she opened her mouth.
“Hello, Mother.”
Serne’s eyebrow twitched. But in an instant she recovered her easy smile and swept her caramel-colored hair behind her ear.
“Seventeen years old and running to Mommy first. My~ Then perhaps I should give my dear father a call as well, after so long.”
He wasn’t her birth father, but Serne’s father was the current head of the Ivory Tower.
“Yes, yes, understood.”
Lorraine ended her call and looked at the two of them.
“That ball. I’m participating too. The royal family will be nominating me by the end of the day.”
Simon gave a hollow laugh. So this was what power looked like.
Lorraine crossed her arms and continued.
“You said you were going shopping for ball clothes? Then the three of us can go together.”
“……”
Serne pouted, her face twisted in irritation.
And so the three of them ended up shopping for clothes together.
The largest and most expensive boutique in all of Langestin. That was where they’d decided to purchase their attire for the ball.
‘Who am I? Where am I? Who are these people?’
The whole walk to the store, the pressure of the two girls flanking him on either side wore Simon’s body and mind down to the bone.
Serne, aggressive in a way that defied explanation, kept picking fights with Lorraine by dragging Simon into their skirmishes, and Simon had to keep a nervous eye on Lorraine’s mood the entire time.
It was torture.
‘I miss my team members already.’
Around the three members of Team 7, he could laugh and relax with his guard completely down.
Lorraine and Serne, by contrast, felt less like friends his own age and more like two impossibly haughty, demanding bosses he was serving. His vitality was being siphoned away in real time.
“Simon! What do you think?”
Serne emerged in a radiant, wine-toned dress.
“It suits you.”
“And besides that compliment?”
“……You look pretty.”
Serne had chosen daring outfits that showed off a woman’s figure. She made a point of selecting nothing but dresses with plunging necklines or exposed thighs, then standing in front of Simon to savor his reactions.
Simon pleaded with her to wear something a little more ordinary, given that they were attending as students.
Lorraine, meanwhile, was quietly picking out clothes on her own in a corner.
Her choices were just as one-sided — she kept gravitating toward sugary pastel tones and frilly, princess-style confections.
Honestly speaking, none of it seemed to suit her cool, razor-edged aura at all.
“Why do you keep picking those kinds of clothes?”
Simon finally had to ask.
“It’s my taste.”
“……”
There was nothing to say to that.
“How tragic~ Your sense for clothes stopped developing in infancy, I see.”
Serne, of all people, said this while dressed in a leopard-print gown trimmed with black fox fur. Wherever she’d dug it up from, she spread the fur piece out to partially cover her face and snickered behind it — ho ho ho.
Simon said,
“……Couldn’t you tone that sense of yours down just a notch?”
“Oh! That one’s cute!”
Serne breezed past him entirely and dashed off. It turned out the thing she’d called cute was a sheer, see-through dress.
Simon sighed.
“Ever since you were little, huh.”
“Mother always dressed me in dreary, formal clothes and dragged me from place to place,” Lorraine said quietly, holding up another frilly garment. “So I’m a little tired of somber things.”
“……Ah.”
In the end, a saleswoman with real professional pride took pity on Lorraine and picked out a single dress for her.
It was a classic, clean-lined black dress — and the moment she stepped out wearing it, the saleswoman and Simon, and even passing customers, stood gaping.
‘Wow. It’s like a completely different person!’
She no longer looked like a seventeen-year-old girl but exuded the air of a polished, sophisticated adult — and above all, it suited her perfectly.
It wasn’t that Nephthys had dressed her in drab clothes for its own sake. It was simply that this style suited Lorraine so well that no other option ever stood a chance.
Lorraine gazed at the pink princess dress with something wistful in her eyes, and it was only after Simon and the saleswoman showered the black one with praise that she reluctantly let it go.
“Ah — the gentleman will be purchasing one as well, of course?”
The saleswoman marked Simon as her next target. Without a moment’s hesitation, she pulled out two tuxedos, compared them, and handed one over.
“Would you care to try this one on?”
It was Simon’s first time buying clothes like this, so he accepted obediently and headed for the fitting room.
A short while later, Simon emerged looking sharp in the tuxedo.
He gave his bow tie a small adjustment, then asked.
“Well? How do I look?”
“……”
“……”
Serne and Lorraine — and even the saleswoman — said nothing for a long while.
Quietly, Serne began taking out money to pay the bill.