Kizen's Most Suspicious Student
Simon had spotted a blue-haired boy who looked exactly like him — a perfect doppelgänger — trailing after White, weaving back and forth with a somewhat awkward air. There was no need to guess who it was.
Erzebet! What are you doing over there?
As luck would have it, she noticed him watching, turned around, and even waved with a beaming smile.
"What's wrong, Simon?"
Lorraine approached, tilting her head. "Is something the matter? You're sweating."
"No, no, no! It's nothing!"
Simon forced a desperate smile and steered his friends' attention away. "C-could you all wait here for a moment? I have some urgent business... Five minutes! Five minutes is all I need!"
"Urgent business? What, all of a sudden?"
Lorraine asked, blinking. Beside her, Eshu covered her mouth and waggled her eyebrows up and down.
"Off you go~"
"?"
Lorraine stared at Eshu, still utterly lost, but she only snickered. Serne seemed to have caught on as well, lazily waving her hand, when Toto suddenly cut in.
"Me too! I'll come along."
He was coming too? Awkward — but as long as Simon could slip away from this spot, anything would do.
"Th-then, we'll be back!"
"Yep~ hope it's a *relieving* errand."
Leaving Eshu's parting shot behind, Simon and Toto darted into a deserted alley nearby.
"Uuugh, I held it in way too long."
Toto began fumbling with the waistband of his uniform trousers. "Gotta go quick, gotta—"
Sorry, Toto.
Simon unfolded the Sleep he had prepared and layered curse after curse over Toto's body. Toto swayed, crumpled to the ground, and soon sank into a deep snoring slumber.
"Whew."
Simon raised his head. "Come on out, Erzebet."
Ssssrip!
Something dropped with a plop from a stretch of wall that had held nothing at all — an upside-down Simon, ankles bound in spiderweb, dangling from the wall.
"I've missed you so, Lord Commander!"
Her voice on the verge of tears, she snatched him into a tight embrace. Simon turned his face away as if to avoid it.
Hugging myself... anyone who saw this would find the whole picture deeply unsettling.
"What are you doing here?"
She stared blankly at him. "The order given to this maiden — to tail White. Have you forgotten, my lord?"
"I know that. What I'm asking is why you had to tail him wearing *my* face!"
"I was attempting to catch his eye, you see."
She untied the webbing from her legs and lowered herself properly to bow in greeting. "He seemed rather fixated on you, Lord Commander, so this maiden thought that if he caught sight of your face, he might follow."
"...That was far too dangerous."
Simon heaved a long sigh. Still, he had delegated full authority over information-gathering methods to Erzebet, so he didn't press the matter further.
"So? Was there anything to show for it?"
"Setting aside one moment of blankness, he appeared to be an entirely ordinary student. He does bear a resemblance to Magnus suspicious enough to warrant a double take, but he exhibited no suspicious behavior whatsoever."
"Hmmmm."
Then Erzebet raised her index finger in a straight line. "However — one thing is strange."
According to what followed, on the third day of the dispatch, White's activity had dropped dramatically, as though his body had completely discharged. The dispatch side was furious down to the last hair and chewed him out, but White didn't so much as pretend to listen. In the end, they threatened that if he didn't meet his work quota by today, they would contact Kizen and send him back — and White still didn't react.
But that evening.
White, in the middle of a deep sleep, suddenly snapped his eyes open and bolted out of the lodging.
"And that was the first time this maiden lost track of his movements entirely."
"Why?"
"He vanished. Pop — into thin air."
Her expression grew grave as she explained. "It appeared he had traveled via a teleportation circle someone had prepared in advance. But a teleportation circle invariably leaves traces behind after use — and there was not even that."
Simon's eyes gleamed sharply. If it were the Blood Heaven Sect's warp gate...
A powerful spatial magic capable of intruding even into the depths of a dungeon. That technique left no trace.
But going on circumstantial evidence alone, it would be reckless to rashly connect White to the Blood Heaven Sect or the Cabal.
"So what happened next?"
"This maiden had rubbed her own scent onto White's body for tracking purposes. I waited near the spot where he had vanished, and after a short while, White reappeared."
Her face froze over as she spoke. "The time he was gone: a mere five minutes. And the scent I had applied to him was gone without a trace. White, upon returning, simply walked along looking none the worse, and then cleared the entire backlog of his work in one go."
"......"
White's display of performance had satisfied the dispatch side, and by all accounts, the field evaluation had passed without incident. Simon crossed his arms as the explanation wound down.
"Suspicious. He's definitely suspicious."
How on earth had he ended up entangled with such a shady character? he wondered.
"Is he really *that* suspicious, my lord?"
"Of course he is!"
"If we are naming suspicious parties, then one might say: vanishes from the dormitory at every opportunity. Commander of the Legion of Betrayal. Wields Divinity. Combines Divinity and Jet-Black."
A meaningful smile crept across her lips. "Furthermore, this maiden believes the one with connections to the *reigning Saintess* holds the higher place of honor."
"......."
Hearing that, he had no rebuttal. So I'm the most suspicious person in all of Kizen.
"Fine, understood. We'll go over the details once I'm back. Keep watching White — report immediately if he does anything else strange."
"As you command."
Suddenly sweeping away the spiderweb and returning to her original form, she spread both arms wide. "And the reward for this job, my lord?"
"...Ugh."
Simon flushed red. "D-do we really have to do this *right now*?"
"Yes!"
Shuffling over with his face turned aside, he squeezed his eyes shut, stepped in, and gave Erzebet a light embrace.
"You must pat the back too, you know? Pat, pat."
Simon obediently did as he was told.
"Eheheheheh."
Her mouth stretched wide open, drool dripping freely. "Ahhh~ that flustered expression one can never see at any other age — to this maiden, it is a reward more precious than the極domain itself."
"That's enough now!"
Simon quickly backed away. "I'm counting on you to keep up the good work!"
"By your command, Lord Commander."
Erzebet bowed with perfect courtesy, then soared off along a strand of spiderweb. Simon let out a sigh and turned back around.
Snore... snore...
Toto was still sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Because Sleep had taken him mid-fumbling with his pants, he lay face-down in nothing but his boxer shorts.
Somehow I feel a little guilty about this.
Simon approached. Just then, Toto broke into a goofy grin and shook his head side to side.
"E-Eshu...! Not there...!"
What kind of dream are you having, buddy?
Simon clapped his hands with a sharp crack.
"Hup!"
Toto's head shot up, and he hastily wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. "S-Simon?"
"You okay?"
Simon crouched down. Toto blinked with a somewhat dazed expression. "Uh... hm, what happened to me?"
"You rushed in here, smacked your head on that pipe over there, and passed out."
Simon pointed to a creaking pipe in a plausible spot. Toto nodded without a shred of doubt. "Oh... oh, I see. How long was I out?"
"About five minutes. You feeling okay?"
"Y-yeah! Weirdly enough, fainting actually cleared my head and I feel way better than before! Amazing!"
"That's a relief."
"And it feels like I was just having a really nice dream, too..."
Toto furrowed his brow as if trying to recall something — and then his face flared bright red. "N-never mind! It was nothing!"
He flailed his arms and shouted. Simon gazed steadily into Toto's eyes.
"Your mouth said Eshu's name a minute ago."
"!!"
Toto's jaw hung open, and both his cheeks ignited like a blast furnace. The reaction was so transparent that Simon burst out laughing before he could help it.
"I'll keep it a secret."
"Really? You promise?!"
Even as they left the alley together, Toto clung to Simon's arm and reconfirmed the secrecy agreement over and over.
Phantassus-style Sleep made its subject dream pleasant, favorable dreams — or whatever dreams the caster willed.
Which meant...
"Do you like Eshu?"
Simon asked abruptly. Toto's face turned scarlet all over again. "N-no no no! What would I even— with Eshu—?!"
Excessive denial, as they say, is affirmation.
He'd just been toyed with by Erzebet, who was ages older — and now the tables had turned, giving him the chance to tease a same-age friend. It felt strangely refreshing.
The catalyst was probably Serne's courage trial.
From the looks of it, the two of them had run around clinging to each other in terror — and when a teenage boy and girl go through something like that, a spark or two is bound to catch where none existed before.
Simon felt positively disposed toward his roommate's new development.
— Simon, you don't yet understand Toto. Toto's timidity always trips him up despite his potential. I believe experiencing a position like this one would do him a great deal of good.
That had been Fitzgerald's assessment of him.
And in truth, while Toto had shown cripplingly low self-esteem back in first year, during this Club Season he'd been handing out flyers to students and even serving as the discipline officer keeping first-years in line — his personality was gradually, incrementally turning proactive.
Toto could grow beyond what he was now. Perhaps even his fear of the opposite sex could be overcome through romance.
"I'm rooting for you, Toto!"
"R-rooting for *what*?! Don't say stuff like that!"
By the time Simon and Toto returned, events were on the brink of full-blown catastrophe.
Lorraine was shouting something with a face full of fury; Serne stood with her arms crossed, smiling — but radiating a murderous aura. And caught between the two of them, Eshu was desperately playing peacemaker.
Suddenly burdened with the solemn duty of preventing a war between Kizen and the Ivory Tower, she was drenched in sweat. But even Eshu, friendly as she was, couldn't do a thing about the gulf between these two.
"What's this? Fighting again?"
Just then, Simon walked over with an easy smile. The killing intent of the two girls, who had looked ready to grab each other by the hair that very instant, broke off as if it had all been a lie — one brushed the hair by her ear, the other flashed a sweet smile.
"Honestly, you two are so childish I don't even know what to say~"
"...You. Just you wait."
Today, once again, Simon had saved the Continent. Eshu stared at him with a look that said, how on earth does he DO that?
"Well, it seems the gentlemen have finished their business too — shall we get going?"
"Yeah!"
Back to the main matter at hand: in this city, they needed two things.
Food ingredients to last through the training camp. And the various undead supplies for this round of Dullahan creation.
He didn't know whether the city had a necromancer supply shop, but a place dealing in monster carcasses there most certainly would be.
"Let's split into teams."
Simon proposed. "Two of us go for food ingredients, three for the undead supplies."
"Then I'm going with Simon, obviously~"
Serne smiled sweetly and latched onto Simon's arm. Lorraine's gaze came down like a blade of pure menace.
Everything's going exactly as planned.
In truth, Simon had intended to handle Lorraine and Serne from the very beginning — and at the same time, to give Toto and Eshu a window of time alone together.
Serne would come to his side, and Lorraine would come to his side if only because she couldn't stand the sight of that. All that remained was to depart naturally, and—
"How about we decide by drawing lots? That'd be more fun, wouldn't it?"
Out of nowhere, Eshu cut in with the lottery proposal, and the other students nodded along.
Damn. It's over.
"How should we pick, then? Coin flip? Or something like rock-paper-scissors, only between the people offering?"
Simon grew anxious. At the very least, the terms of the draw had to be set by his side.
"Let's do a lot draw."
Simon opened his sub-space and pulled out the wooden skewers left over from the Dullahan materials used in class. Cupping his fist around them so their ends couldn't be seen, he spoke. "The two who draw the cut sticks go together."
"Sounds fun!"
The other students agreed immediately — after all, any way of deciding was fine by them.
Simon operated his Jet-Black with exquisite care, drawing it toward the hand gripping the skewers.
I'll have Lorraine and Serne draw first, in that order, then use Jet-Black to whittle the remaining skewers so that—
"Then I'll go first!"
Eshu popped out of nowhere and plucked a skewer. The rest of the students immediately grabbed theirs one by one, and the whole order dissolved into chaos.
And so, a short while later—
...How on earth did it come to this?
Simon sighed inwardly.
"We're off!"
Eshu was waving, her hand resting on Simon's shoulder.
Lorraine and Serne, hostility on open display, were glaring daggers at each other — and standing in the middle of it all was Toto, wearing a face on the verge of tears.
...I'm doomed.