What Have You Done? (Part 2)
Wait… Could it really be because of this bracelet?
Gazing down at the band encircling her wrist, the words the workshop employee had spoken that morning flashed through Aurélie's mind. He had insisted that channeling her power would feel much easier than before, but she had assumed it was mere flattery. Was it not just an empty boast after all? How could that be, when it was nothing more than a crudely modified magic tool cobbled together with scrap iron?
“Where do you think you’re looking, Aurélie?!”
Conrad’s furious roar shattered her thoughts. Snapping her head up, she saw a heavy steel blade cleaving downward straight toward her crown.
Clang—!
Aurélie brought her sword up in an instantaneous guard. To her shock, her stance didn't buckle in the slightest—she didn't yield an inch of ground. If anything, it was Conrad whose arms recoiled from the sheer concussive impact. Watching him stumble back, the reality of the situation finally began to sink in.
I’m actually… stronger. Much stronger.
How on earth such a thing was possible would have to wait. First, she had an insufferable muscle-headed brute to deal with.
“Hmph. My turn!”
Clang! Cl-clang!
Lunging forward, Aurélie brought her blade down in a vicious chop. Conrad barely managed to bring his weapon across to parry. Having the tables turned on him—suffering the exact overwhelming pressure he had dished out only days before—threw him into utter disarray.
“Kh, damn it…!”
Conrad gritted his teeth, his expression twisting in agony as Aurélie leaned her entire weight into the bind, driving her sword down inch by inch. Conrad’s boots skidded backward across the dirt, his broad frame caving inward under the relentless strain. During their last bout, she had swung until her arms trembled with exhaustion without budging him a single centimeter. Now, a fraction more exertion felt like it would break him entirely.
“What’s the matter?” she taunted, narrowing her eyes. “Weren’t you telling me to try and hold out?”
“You little—!”
Conrad disengaged with a violent shove, leaping back to buy space. But Aurélie had no intention of granting him room to breathe. Surging forward in his wake, she pivoted on the ball of her foot, carving an upward slash from low to high. Conrad scrambled laterally, desperate to evade—
Claaang!
Unable to slip past the blade’s trajectory in time, he threw his crossguard into the path of the rising steel. He clearly thought he had successfully neutralized the blow.
He was dead wrong.
“Haaaah!”
With their blades locked tight, Aurélie summoned every shred of her fighting spirit and heaved upward with raw, explosive force.
BOOM!
With a sonic crack that ripped through the air, Conrad’s massive frame was launched skyward.
“W-Whoa, whoaaaa—?!”
Suspended helplessly midair, Conrad’s face turned paper-white with pure, unadulterated horror. Aurélie didn't let him fall. Closing the distance in a heartbeat, she whipped her body through another fluid spin—
“Hup!”
Smack!
Her spinning back-kick slammed flush into his solar plexus. Conrad shot across the arena like a bird plucked from the sky by a cannonball.
CRASH!
“Whoa, what the—?!”
“Did you see that?!”
A chorus of stunned gasps and wild shouts erupted from the spectators lining the railing as the boy’s burly form pulverized the wooden reinforced wall. Conrad slumped into the churned dirt, groaning in agony.
“Kaha… gack!”
He was in miserable shape. He clawed at the splintered planks, attempting to drag himself upright, only for his knees to buckle beneath him, sending him sprawling into the dust. It was the exact humiliation he had inflicted upon Aurélie during their previous match, repaid in full with interest.
“Match over! The victor, Aurélie de Clermont!”
The instructor sprinted toward the crumpled boy, barking the verdict across the grounds.
“Did Conrad just get sent flying? For real?”
“Aurélie overpowered him? In a contest of brute strength?!”
Standing frozen in the center of the ring, Aurélie listened to the stunned murmurs of her peers wash over her. You think you’re confused? I’m twice as baffled as any of you!
What in the world had just happened? The satisfaction of beating that arrogant meathead into the dirt was surprisingly muted compared to the bewilderment consuming her. Her focus narrowed entirely to the bracelet strapped around her right wrist. A faint, radiant azure glow still pulsed beneath the iron bands—the very item she had dismissed as a ruined, defective piece of junk.
That workshop employee… he definitely said—
“Lady Aurélie!”
Her family’s retainer and personal instructor rushed toward her, his face pale with concern. “Are you unharmed, my Lady? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, letting out an airy breath. “You saw it, didn't you? I won.”
“How many times must I instruct you never to meet a heavy blow head-on like that?! If you had lost that clash of strength, it would be you embedded in that splintered timber, not young Lord Harten!”
Even with Aurélie standing tall without a scratch on her, the instructor’s scolding showed no signs of stopping. Normally, she would have flared up, demanding to know why he was berating her right after a victory, but the thought never crossed her mind. Would she have achieved this same outcome without this bracelet? Absolutely not. No matter how brutally hard she had trained over the past week, no human could bridge that vast a physical deficit in a matter of days.
Which meant that without this magically over-modified piece of gear, challenging Conrad head-on would have been nothing short of suicidal reckless pride.
“You were just as stubborn last week, and look where it… Wait a moment.” The instructor trailed off, blinking in bewilderment as he glanced back toward the wall where Conrad lay groaning. “Lord Harten threw the entirety of his body weight into that strike. How in the heavens did you completely overpower him?”
His question caused the morning’s events to flash before Aurélie's eyes like a vivid montage.
She had flown into a rage because an apprentice clerk had dared tamper with her precious equipment without permission. She had scoffed in bitter disbelief upon hearing that he had swapped out refined platinum for common iron plates. She had completely disregarded his earnest, timid assertion that he thought she would like the result. And then, what had she told him as she stormed out?
‘Because you won’t ever be seeing me again.’
…Ah.
Oh no. What have I done?
“My Lady? Your complexion has turned dreadfully pale. If you feel unwell anywhere—”
“No, it’s nothing! I’m perfectly fine, so please don't fret!”
Waving her hands dismissively, Aurélie unclasped the bracelet. Staring down at the cold metal resting in her palms, she felt like the biggest idiot in the entire empire. And then, another realization struck her like a bucket of ice water.
His name.
She remembered his appearance with crystal clarity—his tousled mop of brown hair, his surprisingly delicate, handsome features, and his height, standing just a bit taller than her. Yet she had never once thought to ask for his name. He had politely addressed her as Lady Clermont from the moment she walked in, while she had treated him as nothing more than a nameless, passing workshop clerk.
“There’s somewhere I need to be,” she declared abruptly, turning to her instructor.
“Pardon? In that case, allow me to accompany you. I shall follow behind—”
“No! I’m going alone. Please don't follow me—just oversee the cleanup here, all right?”
Before the bewildered man could get another word in, Aurélie sheathed her practice sword, secured the bracelet firmly around her wrist once more, and bolted out of the training grounds.
Late afternoon rolled in, inching closer to the end of the workday.
“Hey, Noel! Aren’t you coming down to help organize the warehouse? The heavens and earth both know there isn’t a shred of work to do in this workshop today.”
“I can’t today, sorry,” I replied, waving my hand dismissively toward the warehouse manager poking his head through the doorway. “Master Walter stepped out and left me in charge. I have to watch the shop until he gets back.”
“So you’ve just been sitting on your rear all day? Man, must be nice to suck down sweet nectar on company time.” The man clicked his tongue, surveying the barren workbenches lining the room.
“Sweet nectar, my foot. I got chewed out by a student first thing this morning, so my mood is already in the gutter. Please don't rub salt in the wound.”
“What? We barely get any walk-ins as it is, and you still managed to catch hell from one of them? Talk about atrocious luck.”
“…Could you not?”
I knew he didn't mean anything malicious by it, which somehow made it even more irritating.
“A young noble lady came in to retrieve a piece of gear she left for a mana recharge,” I sighed. “I overstepped my bounds, and she tore into me for it.”
“Eh, that’s just how dealing with aristocratic snobs goes. Which is all the more reason for you to come out and do some physical labor! Nothing clears a cluttered head like sweating it out with your back, right?”
His words carried an oddly persuasive ring to them. Honestly, tagging along to haul brutally heavy crates sounded far better than sitting here letting the memory of Lady Clermont’s furious scowl play on an endless loop in my mind.
“How long will it take?”
“Hardly any time at all. If you lend a hand, we’ll be wrapped up before dinner.”
On any other day, I would have snapped back asking if he meant tomorrow’s dinner, but today the offer was genuinely tempting. Still, I couldn't just lock up the shop in broad daylight, and if I left the doors wide open and an expensive piece of equipment went missing, Walter would skin me alive.
“As much as I’d love to take you up on that, I really can't leave until the workshop master returns.”
“Tch, that old goat always vanishes right when you need him. Fine, help me out tomorrow then.”
“Sure. See you tomorrow.”
“Right.”
Watching the warehouse worker turn and walk away with a dejected slump to his shoulders, I leaned back heavily against my chair. Spread out across the desk before me was the parchment scribbled full of the magic formula I had mapped out the night before.
Whenever I looked at the intricate, beautifully streamlined logic woven across that page, I felt absolute certainty that I had upgraded the tool brilliantly. Yet the moment Lady Clermont’s enraged expression flashed through my head, every shred of my engineering confidence withered away. What good was crafting superior functionality if the client stormed off screaming bloody murder?
How was I even supposed to explain this to Walter when he returned?
‘Well, sir, the performance improved astronomically, but the customer blew her lid because I modified it without her consent and screamed at the top of her lungs before storming out.’
What an absolute circus. I didn't even want to imagine the look of sheer exasperation Walter would give me.
“Haaah…”
Letting out a miserable groan, I clamped my eyes shut. Behind my closed eyelids, the image of Lady Clermont from this morning surfaced once more. Even with her features contorted in sheer indignation, the furious noblewoman had been utterly breathtaking. And the tragic truth of the matter was that I would never lay eyes on that gorgeous face ever again.
Because I had thrown the opportunity straight into the gutter with my own two hands.
You absolute moron, I cursed myself. You should have just swapped out the mana stone, handed it back with a polite customer-service smile, and sent her on her way!
Had I done that, she would have thanked me kindly, and the next time her bracelet ran dry, she might have stepped foot into our workshop again. Once we were on familiar speaking terms, she might have even spared a casual greeting if we crossed paths in the academy hallways.
No, who was I kidding? I didn't even need that much. Just having an impossibly voluptuous, breathtaking beauty drop off her gear and listen to my explanations was more than enough reason to drag myself to work every single morning.
Languishing in my chair, the parting words she had hurled at me echoed loud and clear.
‘Because you won’t ever be seeing me again.’
Of all the times for my memory to be razor-sharp, it had to preserve her icy tone with pristine fidelity. Perhaps if she eventually noticed the monstrous leap in her bracelet’s performance, she might…
“No, stop dreaming.”
I shook my head vigorously. Even if she realized the gear was performing better, why would a high-ranking noble lady bother returning to a lowly workshop just to say so? It wasn't as if an aristocrat was going to leave a glowing five-star review and promise to visit again. We were two ships passing in the night, nothing more. Still, I had poured my heart and soul into overhauling that piece, so I could only hope she got good use out of it.
Whatever. To hell with it. I might as well catch some sleep.
Hoping to drown out the bitter waves of self-reproach, I buried my face into my crossed arms on the desk, preparing to doze off—
“…Um, excuse me. Are you busy?”
“…?!”
A soft, melodic voice—one I had been dead certain I would never hear again in this lifetime—drifted gently into my ears.