A Refrigerator Is Essential for the Kitchen
A refrigerator is an essential item for the kitchen, you know.
A blue somewhere between ice and snow.
That color spilled downward in elegant curves that fell nearly to her waist, and swayed once with a soft ripple.
Silvia von Espen.
She was a noble of the kingdom—a lovely girl whose combination of Pendragon-typical blue-and-white attire and pale azure hair left a striking impression.
But her true worth lay in the skill that stood in such sharp contrast to that delicate appearance.
Even before enrollment, Silvia had been a prodigy who stood out in ice magic. Innate mana, a temperament that never settled for less, and pride in her own ability—with all three virtues a hardworking genius ought to possess, it was no coincidence that she had become one of the most formidable students among the current second-years at the Academy.
Written out like that, she might seem like the admired class-president type who inspires the people around her…
"Hmph. Still standing there even after being told to get lost? You must be pretty desperate."
Wow. She's a textbook villainess, you know.
Silvia had a sharp tongue.
Raised in an environment that fawned over her as a genius, and armed with genuine talent of her own, the personality she had cultivated could be summed up in a single word.
Arrogance.
As if to prove that the somewhat cringeworthy nickname "Ice Queen" had not been given for nothing, Silvia began to press me with a cold sneer on her lips.
I already knew. I knew she was this prickly.
In all my long hours playing Chronicles of Rodoros, I had never met anyone quite as insufferable as her. And if that arrogant nature of hers never mended, Silvia would go on to make countless enemies and live a lonely life. Even now, every word she flung at the people around her carried a frost like a sheet of ice; even her classmates found it hard to approach her.
It was the very image of locking herself away in a solitary ice castle.
But well… that sort of thing.
At this point, it was no longer any of my business.
"Haa… You will not even properly hear the reason I have come. At this rate, speaking to you is no different from addressing a deaf person, you know."
"…A backwater noble, and you dare put words like that in your mouth?"
The air around us froze solid.
Not a metaphor—Silvia was genuinely preparing to manifest magic. From what I remembered, the spells she held at this point were strong enough that, if they landed on an unguarded target, killing someone would be nothing. But they would never actually fire. No matter how formidable a mage she was, this was a sacred classroom of St. Celestia Academy. The moment she used violence to harm someone in a place meant for learning, she would face disciplinary action severe enough to amount to expulsion.
So this was nothing more than an empty threat.
"I was going to go easy on you because you're a first-year… but it looks like you've gotten tired of living."
The way to break through that wariness was simple.
Gift her sweets.
No matter how high she built her ice castle, Silvia was a second-year who had been choking down this Academy's cafeteria food for a full year. Being human, it was only natural that she would be sick of the garbage meals here and hunting for new stimulation. Moreover, this Academy had a track record of going to war over a single stray cookie—it was a terrifying system for manufacturing lunatics.
Therefore, no matter how haughty an ice beauty she was, the moment I handed over the bag of cookies hidden against my chest, her submission would be all but guaranteed…
But there were far too many eyes watching right now.
Just imagining the moment I pulled out those cookies automatically sketched the most horrific possible futures in my head.
First, the entire class's attention would lock onto this spot. At the rustling sound, they would look over—and see a shape all too familiar and longed-for. The second they realized it was a bag of sweets, the loudest student would start screaming.
There's cookies over here!!! Chocolate chip cookies, even!!!
What? Cookies? Those are mine!
No! Please, just one crumb…!
Zombie-horde-like figures would come charging from every direction. After one round of cookie-plundering chaos had died down… every gaze would turn on the person who had produced them—me.
Under their merciless interrogation, I would end up confessing that I could cook. And from that point on, only miserable futures would remain.
In the least-worst case, I would be instantly kidnapped and turned into the school's communal cookie machine—
In the absolute worst case, the whole school would go to war over the cookie-capable me, and the Third Cookie War would break out.
Either way, my grand self-serving plan of making my favorites into regular customers would collapse… so this route had to be avoided at all costs.
In conclusion, what I needed now was a one-on-one with Silvia. And the most effective method among them was this:
Instead of dissolving her wariness, thoroughly exploit it.
"This lady's name is Carmilla de Valin."
Imitating the pride of a noble overflowing with dignity, I stood tall and declared:
"Should anyone dare insult my house, I cannot endure it—even if that person is a senior, you know."
"Ha!"
With a light sneer, Silvia looked me over with a twisted gaze—the look of someone asking what someone of my level could possibly do.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
In answer, I removed my gloves.
In my hands was a pair of them. I held them up for all to see and tossed them before her.
Thok.
In the silence of the entire room, the gloves settled on the floor with a small sound that still reached every ear. Every gaze gathered. It was a declaration no noble could fail to recognize.
"Silvia von Espen. I hereby formally challenge you to a duel, you know."
None other than a challenge to a duel.
"A duel?"
"That first-year's something else…"
"Not backing down is cool and all, but… the opponent is Silvia?"
At the bomb of a declaration, whispers rose all around. Of course—it was the reaction I had intended.
For a noble, challenging someone to a duel was the equivalent of asking them to throw down. Put simply, it was an extremely refined way of saying, You're pissing me off, so let's settle this with our fists. On top of that, once begun, a duel traditionally did not end until one side admitted defeat—which meant casualties were not unheard of.
Even Silvia, who had received the declaration directly, looked somewhat taken aback.
"You… sure you won't regret this?"
"Yes. Of course, you know."
"Just so you know—my magic isn't some half-baked undergrad level. It's been recognized even by mages who've fought through countless battles. So…"
Arms folded, Silvia looked down at the gloves, as if to say it would be wiser to pick them up right now.
"An amateur like you could get seriously hurt. If you don't want a painful experience, cancel the duel while you still can."
That, she was saying, was the least amount of generosity a senior could offer.
"Of course, I refuse, you know."
She had explained her own danger with a reasonably serious expression, but my attitude remained consistent. Without changing color in the slightest, I held to my confident stance—as if her magic were not even a threat to me.
"Is that so? You really do want to fight that badly."
By now, Silvia seemed to have realized I was serious. Rising from her seat, she at last picked up the gloves.
"Putting a hot-blooded junior in her place is a senior's job too, I suppose. I'll accept."
"The time shall be tomorrow after classes. The place, the hill on the Academy's eastern outskirts. If you accept, come there, you know."
"Fine. I don't know what trap you'll have waiting, but I'll overlook that much as a senior's generosity."
"Then, may you be well until we meet again."
I offered a light courtesy and stepped out of the classroom.
I had no idea what rumors would spread through the school after this… but she was such a difficult person to handle that having to resort to something this extreme was a hassle.
Well, what could I do? If I wanted a refrigerator, this much was necessary.
In truth, my worries had long since drifted in another direction.
But I have no idea what to do about the gloves I threw earlier, you know…
Should I go pick them up again? That would look pretty undignified, though.
Come to think of it, Silvia picked them up. Would she give them back tomorrow?
I knew how to issue a duel challenge, but I had no idea what happened to the gloves afterward. They were fairly expensive. Was my spending about to go up?
With those trivial questions for company, the day drew to a close.
Whiiish—!
An unfamiliar sound rang through the training grounds behind the Academy.
The instant it reached the ear—
Thwack—and a severed neck fell.
Clatter-roll…
Looking down at the bucket that had rolled to her feet, Silvia muttered,
"Heh heh… Insolent little thing."
Fortunately, it was not a human neck. Lifting the bucket that had been set on a training straw dummy, she suddenly felt a strange emotion.
Was it anger? Regret?
Turning over that feeling she could not place, Silvia traced it to its source.
Carmilla de Valin.
The fearless first-year who had suddenly appeared and asked her to become a collaborator in some plan of hers. On the surface, she looked like nothing more than an ordinary noble young lady without a scrap of ability…
And today, she had challenged her to a duel.
And the trigger for that, regrettably, seemed to have been Silvia's own words and actions.
"This is a problem. Lately my words come out oddly cold…"
It was not as if she had no idea why.
In the past, Silvia had heard of a certain phenomenon from her master.
The more a mage used magic of a single school, the more the caster gradually assimilated into that magic. For example, those who polished fire magic to the extreme developed fiery, explosive temperaments. Their constitutions grew hotter as well… and in the end, unless they cooled themselves with magic of the opposite attribute, they would burn themselves out. The name of that phenomenon remained oddly clear even now, more than ten years after she had first heard it.
Magic Assimilation.
From the very moment she first became able to wield magic, she had trained only in ice magic. Over more than ten years of casting it, her constitution and personality had already assimilated to the cold to a certain degree. That much, she could feel herself.
In the first year, her body temperature dropped.
By the fifth, anger no longer came easily.
Entering the tenth, the color of her hair began to change little by little.
And now, changes were gradually appearing in her words and conduct as well.
"Haha… At this rate, making friends is a lost cause."
Only then did Silvia realize what she was feeling.
It was a vague regret.
Maybe living an ordinary life would have been happier.
When she was a little younger, she seemed to have been more sociable. So Silvia remembered. In those days when she played with friends, every careless word that left her mouth had been warm. Now, in a way that made those days feel almost unreal, she had to carefully consider and revise every single thing she said, wondering how it would be taken.
But it was not something she could reverse at this point.
Her specialized talent for magic had set her high upon the heights of St. Celestia Academy.
Her family's decline.
Her parents' frail health.
And herself, who was slowly becoming something else.
If she followed the path given to her now, she would be able to be happy.
At the very least, that was what Silvia believed.
"Yes… happiness…"
Looking at the eyes roughly drawn in colored pencil on the severed bucket, she felt a sudden revulsion.
If the person she was now was someone who could smile while beheading a fake with that proud magic of hers…
What would she become in ten years?
Shhhk—
A blade frozen out of the air cut down the headless scarecrow—as if to sever the thought itself, a keenly honed edge. Long after it had felled the dummy, it left a deep scar in the stone floor before vanishing. Feeling her own magic, she murmured absently,
"Ahaha… What do I care about any of that."
Looking at the scarecrow now split cleanly in two, Silvia laughed.
It was a moment that made her look forward to tomorrow.