Yay~! Hero, Are You Watching~?
Rebecca was in a thoroughly foul mood. Whenever anxiety took her, she had a habit of biting her nails.
"This is pissing me off.... What the hell is he trying to pull?"
She had meant to dispose of Cecilia in the Snowfield. The reasons could have been piled into a mountain, but the one that mattered most was simple: Cecilia had become an obstacle to her future in every way that counted.
Lately, Hero Kim Yu-seong's eyes had started drifting toward Cecilia more and more often. Before they entered the academy, Rebecca had been able to swat every last glance away herself. A school, where she could not keep watch from morning to night, was an irritant on every front.
She could not afford to let her guard down. The Hero's one and only partner was her.
Even after they returned from the Snowfield, not a single person had mentioned what happened there.
Cecilia, stupid beyond saving, she could set aside. Eugene Sir Neferna, though—that unpleasant professor saying nothing at all—left a deeply nasty itch under her skin.
The moment Cecilia fell, he had thrown himself toward the cliff. If he had been watching, he would have caught on, at the very least, that the thing was Rebecca's doing.
Was House Clorand too much to cross? If that were the only reason, he ought to have opposed them openly when Kim Yu-seong and Rebecca were transferred into his class. However worthless a professor he might be, he would never have voluntarily called into his own classroom the people who had put his student in danger.
Too quiet. Quiet to an unnatural degree. ...Does he have some other scheme?
It was then that a shadow stretched long across the ground.
Pointed fox ears, a soft tail. Cecilia—who had kept her mouth shut tight through the entire class and stared at no one but Professor Neferna—was just then on her way back to the dormitory.
Rebecca stepped into her path.
"Hey. You. Wait."
"...Good day, Lady Rebecca."
Cecilia's face and voice were calm, but she could not hide the brief tremor that ran through her fox ears.
Rebecca's mouth curled at the sight.
"What the hell are you? Why haven't you said a single word to me since then? Don't tell me you're ignoring me now? How did you even crawl out of there alive? Down below, the monsters the family prepared—"
Catching the slip, she yanked the end of the sentence around.
"......I mean, the monsters in the Snowfield should have attacked you."
"The monsters... Professor Neferna disposed of them."
"That's impossible! You expect me to believe he took that monster without a single scratch?"
A monster already past its maturation. Even at the family level, she had heard they'd had no small trouble luring the thing in.
Cecilia's answer did not change.
"...The one who saved my life was Professor Neferna."
"Ha...! What exactly are you to that professor...!"
"........."
"Ha... ahaha...! Right. Now I get it. ......You put out, didn't you?"
"...............Pardon?"
"Of course! Nothing else explains it! Ahaha? You put out for him? Hahahaha! So you spread your legs once and suddenly the treatment changes? True to the beast, acting the whore? Can't fight your nature, can you?"
Cecilia's face began to burn with a bewilderment and shame unlike anything she had shown before.
"You parasites living off the forest might not understand this, but if you thought some academy professor's rank could stand against our house, you were dead wrong. Look, even now. They dumped you and me in the same class, didn't they? That professor does everything while watching his step."
"Professor Neferna is not that kind of person."
"......Ha! This bitch doesn't know her place...!"
The moment the furious Rebecca raised her hand—
"Oh my~ And what might this be about?"
A clear, elegant voice, like a bright stream softly breaking apart.
They turned. Silver hair like snow dusted with sugar, and eyes sparkling as if drizzled with strawberry syrup, curved into a gentle arc.
"A young lady of one of the Empire's foremost houses, saying such amusing things~ Whore...? Putting out...? Is that some abbreviation that's in fashion lately? Unfortunately I'm rather behind on trends, so I'm quite interested. I'd be grateful if you told me what it means. Please, I insist."
"......You... you're..."
"Oh dear, where is my head. Hehe, a pleasure to meet you. I'm Undine. It seems we'll be taking the same class."
Rebecca's face went rigid, and she threatened her, sharp as a blade.
"Can't you see we're talking? Get lost while I'm still using my words."
"I'm sorry for being tactless. It's just that this wasn't a conversation one could simply overhear and walk past."
A chill settled over the air, as if frost were coming down.
"Some lowly insect, daring... not knowing its place, running its mouth. Before I quite realized...... hehe."
Undine covered her lips and laughed, very softly. That was all.
My mana... scattered...?
Rebecca stared in shock at the hollow where her mana had been. Drained to an almost absurd degree.
Her mouth went dry. This was far too deliberate to dismiss as coincidence.
"Oh my... You don't seem to be in very good condition... Are you all right?"
"Shut up! Don't come any closer!"
"I can see that you're brave and full of confidence, but sometimes it matters that one knows where the line is. Professor Neferna, in particular, doesn't much care for people who cross it."
All at once Rebecca was seized by a wordless sense of wrongness—an alarm of sorts, born of the social instincts she had honed over more than a decade.
She had to run.
Obeying the order her brain issued, she forgot even her shame and bolted.
"I do hope that was enough for you to understand."
Undine said it with a small sigh.
Cecilia, ears and tail drawn in tight, fumbled to take in what had just happened, then first offered a careful thanks to the Undine standing before her.
"......Thank y—"
"Don't misunderstand. I stepped in only because Teacher was being insulted. It wasn't for your sake."
"......Yes."
At Undine's firm tone, Cecilia answered calmly.
Then, without the slightest warning, Undine's cooled face flared hot.
She sputtered.
"H... hnn.... I-if you were thinking, even a fingernail's worth, that I-I'm jealous right now, you are mistaken! I don't get jealous of anyone, you know?! You might call it the composure of the victor? I am, in both name and fact, the Official Wife♥!"
Undine, already turning to go, whipped her head back around.
"The Official Wife!"
She stressed it one more time.
Cecilia could only stand there for a long while, staring blankly as Undine vanished with a hmph, cheeks puffed round.
Her head tilted, just slightly.
"......Official wife?"
When Undine rounded the building, platinum-blonde hair was swaying there, and a pair of pure white wings shone.
"There was no need for me to come. Thank you, Undine."
"............So long as you know."
Freyja smiled brightly, as if she had been waiting for just that. Undine answered with a sullen face and brushed quickly past her.
The next day was busy from early morning.
I had been at the meeting place for two hours already, and every three steps I offered Freyja a polite bow.
"Thank you. Thank you. I shall repay Lady Freyja's grace exactly three months from now, in the form of my wages."
"...Enough already. What will Student Cecilia think if she sees this? She'll take me for a miser who won't even buy a colleague and a student a single meal."
"Kind Lady Freyja. I, who became a penniless wretch overnight paying for the measurement orb, am irredeemable trash. Please, tear into me. Insult me—the man who can't even afford to buy his own student one meal."
"Enough. We're done. Stop the joke. If you really want to treat her because you want to look after your student, then later, when you have the room, reserve an expensive restaurant for Student Cecilia alone. ...Will that do? I'm embarrassed, so seriously, stop. I'm getting angry."
Freyja said it firmly, her lovely brow drawn tight.
"Freyja... you're a really cool person, aren't you?"
"Hehe, you're only realizing that now? Do I look a little more like a man?"
"Absolutely! From the front, from the side, from above, from belo— anyway, from every angle... mm... a true... man."
I squeezed the words out with considerable effort.
......Student Cecilia, sitting right beside me. Please don't look at me with that meaningful gaze. Even I know I'm lip-serving nonsense I don't mean.
"R... really? You mean it? I seem like a man?! Manly?!"
The person in question, however, appeared to have taken it in earnest.
Perhaps even I lacked the nerve to look straight into eyes that full of expectation and lie.
Just as I squeezed my eyes shut and went to nod—
A thin, vicious whistle sheared through the air. A flash like lightning bled into the corner of my vision.
I yanked my bat free on reflex and shoved hard off the ground.
"W... whoa!"
"That was dangerous... A blade falling out of the sky all of a sudden. Is something going on? Are you all right, Student Cecilia?"
"...I'm fine."
Her face was calm. Her tail fur, bristled straight up, said she had been rather more startled than that.
Where I had been standing a moment ago, three or four sharp daggers gleamed.
I knew exactly where those daggers had come from.
"...Those lunatics in the Freyja Appreciation Society... I offer one line of lip service and they decide to assassinate me...?"
"Hm? What did you just say? Seasoned zucchini?"
"...Nothing."
"How dull...... Anyway, I heard the two of you got close. You did get close, right? Student Cecilia doesn't seem to think so. You're just deluding yourself, Eugene."
Freyja smiled playfully and turned the subject.
...Lady Freyja? A dagger just fell out of the sky... If you smile that brightly, as if nothing happened, it is really, really terrifying.
But I was not the sort to fuss over something so minor. I threw my chest out and answered with pride.
"Delusion is a harsh word. You have no idea how close we've gotten. A burning bond between master and disciple, forged at the crossroads of life and death—you wouldn't understand that, Freyja. Right, Cecilia?"
Cecilia stared at me with a blank gaze, then slowly, fumblingly, lowered her eyes to the plate of dessert.
At a reaction awkward to anyone watching, I froze where I stood.
Ce... Cecilia...? W-won't you... answer me?
A reaction like that is a fatal wound to someone as tender-hearted as I am.
"Somebody grab them! Thief!"
All at once the street grew noisy.
At that simple, forceful word—thief—every eye in the restaurant, and every passerby on the street, snapped toward the commotion.
Almost in the same instant as the scream, a flash burst at the far end of the lane. A deafening blast tore straight down it. Gas lamps, paved road, windows, and stalls alike shattered under the shock of air as a shadow flew at the thief.
"Hm. Oops. Killed him by accident. Hardly matters, does it."
"...That's...! The Hero!"
"As expected of the Hero! He took care of the thief in a single blow!"
Through the dust of the ruined street, the young man walking toward us at a steady pace was the owner of the Sixth Holy Sword: Hero Kim Yu-seong.
Our Hero did not so much as glance at the wrecked street. He left the thief's corpse—heart pierced clean through—lying in the road, and, however he had managed to find us, began walking straight our way.
I did not miss the way his gaze, traveling back and forth between Cecilia and Freyja, narrowed oddly the moment it landed on me.
He was the one to speak first.
"Ah, Cecilia. It's been a while. Running into you here—what a coincidence."
"........."
The moment the Hero offered that greeting and reached out a hand, I did not miss Cecilia's shoulders locking tight.
She backed away on reflex and hid behind me.
The way Kim Yu-seong's expression twisted was not only my imagination, either.
"Cecili... ah...? What do you think you're doing...? Are you avoiding me?"
".........!"
Cecilia, perhaps not having realized she had hidden until too late, belatedly trembled at the lips and carefully crept back out with her head bowed low.
A face gone utterly bloodless was difficult to read as anything good, no matter what pretty words one stacked on top of it.
Heh. Is this my cue?
My disciple had trusted me enough to hide behind my back. I could hardly pretend not to notice.
I caught Cecilia by the shoulder, a little roughly, and pulled her into my arms. Fingers spread into a triumphant V.
"........."
"........."
Silence.
Hm. Was that not it? Cecilia's face isn't reassuring either. I can feel the failure already.
Perhaps embarrassed of me, Freyja seized the nape of my neck and Cecilia's wrist and shot away from the spot, saying it over and over.
"This kid is actually insane, insane! I'm so embarrassed I could die! Augh!"
"Grow up a little!"
The words came with a smack across my back.
......But it's fun, so what am I supposed to do?
The Hero, drawing away, let a short mutter slip, and little by little his figure faded from sight.
A pitiful friend, unaware that my hearing left even the Fox Tribe far behind.
But Hero—I'll grant you the rest. Muttering "fucking bitch" just because you think no one's listening, though? That's a bit much, isn't it?
And not even at me. At Cecilia, who hadn't done a thing.
I chewed on a strangely unpleasant feeling, and hoped—earnestly, truly earnestly—that they would not make the wrong choice.
So long as they did not cross the line, there was no reason for me to step in myself and snap a growing sprout.
Even if I could not yet tell whether it was a flower or a weed, what had happened in the Snowfield could still be written off as a bit of cheek.
.........
This is absolutely not—not—me taking it out on them because I broke the measurement orb and my account is sitting empty!