Misunderstandings Can Sometimes Be Sweet
Just what is this girl doing?
"Ugh… hic…"
Looking down at Silvia trembling with her eyes squeezed shut, I felt a strange sort of mood settle over me.
What's wrong with her?
Maybe she can't handle cold things or something.
"Um… Senior?"
"D-do as you please. I've already lost the duel… it no longer matters what becomes of me."
I've heard that kind of line somewhere before…
More importantly, conversation is completely impossible in this state. It's a problem.
For whatever reason, she looked thoroughly terrified.
"For now, try opening your eyes, at least."
"Ah… so you will not even grant me the mercy of a quiet end… How cruel. But a loser is given nothing. I suppose I must accept even that humiliation."
"I believe there may be a rather large misunderstanding here…"
"Finish it. With that cold blade of yours."
"…? It is cold, yes, but this is a frozen treat one calls an ice bar."
"Eh."
Only then did Silvia crack her eyes open and check the object right in front of her face.
Her expression was pure bafflement.
"What is this?"
What she finally saw properly was the ice bar held before her eyes.
I had been so pleased with my successful snack that I had held it out to share…
But judging by what she had been saying, she had somehow convinced herself I was about to finish her off while her mana was depleted.
There's misunderstanding, and then there's this.
This is a student sparring match. Who suddenly starts trying to kill people?
"Had you listened to me from the beginning, there would have been no room for such a misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding…? What in the world is going on?"
Questions were pointless.
Rather than launch into a complicated explanation, I simply pressed the well-frozen ice bar against her lips for a bite.
"Well, for now, do have a taste. You must have quite the sugar crash by now."
Silvia accepted it with a dazed look and turned the unfamiliar snack this way and that, inspecting it.
"Eating ice even in weather this cold… You have strange hobbies."
"Well, I am of the 'I'd die for iced coffee' camp, so it is only natural."
"I'd die for iced… what is that?"
"Ahem! Merely talking to myself. In any case, this is a proper snack, strange as it may look. Do try a bite."
At the word snack, Silvia hesitated a long while before gingerly biting down.
Crunch.
With that bright, crisp sound, color bloomed across her face.
"This… is delicious…!"
That reaction sealed it. Success.
"Then I shall try one myself as well…"
Success was already guaranteed, but watching her enjoy it so thoroughly made me curious.
Just how good does it taste?
I put the ice bar in my other hand into my mouth and gave it a light chew.
"Mmm~ As expected, it is absolutely divine!"
The first thing one noticed was the crunch.
That crunch was crucial.
Had I simply poured in juice full of water, what I would be feeling now would not be a crisp bite but something rock-hard.
So I had put real thought into it.
One solution for that texture would have been dairy. Dairy softens the mouthfeel, yes—but the moment it goes in, you no longer have a hard ice bar so much as a sherbet.
Pleasant in its own way, but it drifted too far from the ice bar I had in mind, so I hunted for another approach.
What I finally settled on was a recipe almost primitive in its simplicity.
Into an ice-cream mold: a few pieces of fresh fruit, then a syrup poured in just past the point of being too sweet.
For a little kick, a few drops of squeezed lemon juice to make the fragrance bloom…
And after that, one simply waited for the blizzard.
Because what froze was not pure water, it never hardened past the point of being edible. That was the beauty of it.
The result was not true ice that refused the teeth, but an ice bar with that beautiful, slightly yielding crunch—a soft shatter as you bit through.
"Mmm… The first crunch, and then the fruit fragrance that follows… This is truly exquisite."
Watching Silvia, who was now smiling faintly as she offered a serious critique of the flavor, I found myself smiling with a quiet sense of satisfaction.
As expected, nothing soothes kids like this better than a delicious snack.
Only minutes ago she had been trembling; now every trace of tension had vanished from her.
"Carmilla, you're incredible. To create a snack this delicious… I could never have imagined such a thing."
"My, that is kind of you to say—but this is a treat that could never have been made without you, Senior."
"What?"
She clearly did not understand.
For her sake, I added an explanation.
"Without your blizzard, this ice bar would never have frozen. It would still be nothing more than sweet water. So your contribution is rather considerable."
"…My magic… made this?"
"Yes. Truly befitting the academy's finest ice mage!"
At that, Silvia pressed a hand to her forehead and fretted for a moment before forcing the words out.
"No matter how I turn it over, I cannot accept it. I gave everything I had to eliminate you. More sincerely than ever before. And yet… why did it end like this?"
Her expression was complicated as she spoke.
Judging by her words, the outcome had been completely outside her expectations.
I could understand that, in a way.
This had been nothing more than a duel between students. There was no reason whatsoever for either of us to kill the other…
And yet Silvia had fought with an almost unnatural earnestness.
Was losing to someone that unbearable for her?
"Hmm. Are you disappointed in your own weakness, perhaps?"
"No. It isn't that. I don't quite understand it myself… but if anything, I think I'm glad."
Looking down at the ice bar she had taken a bite from, Silvia showed a faint smile.
"Until now… I thought my magic could only be used to hurt people. Apparently that wasn't true."
It looked a little like comprehension—
or perhaps like someone setting down a burden she had carried for a very long time.
Either way, she seemed genuinely happy.
"Had I known that was how you felt, there would have been no need to speak with you in the first place."
"You're right. Shall we hear it now, then? You won this duel. As the loser, I am obliged to grant your request."
As if the thought had only just occurred to her, Silvia asked:
"So in the end… what was it you wanted to say to me from the very beginning?"
It had taken long enough.
Everything that had tangled me up with this girl could fairly be said to have happened so that I could say these next words.
"Ah, yes. About that."
To Silvia, who was waiting for my answer with a faintly bashful air…
I smiled with all the benevolence I could muster and spoke the words I had been waiting so long to say.
Back at the dormitory, Silvia flung herself onto her bed.
Paying no mind to her scattering blue hair, the girl sprawled however she pleased.
It felt as though something stifling had come to a stop right at the tip of her chest.
"Strange."
It was not that her body hurt.
Nor was it that her heart hurt.
She had simply come face to face with an emotion she had never experienced before—something unknown.
"If I have to name a possible cause… it would be that girl, wouldn't it."
Carmilla de Valin.
Ever since she had gotten involved with that first-year, nothing had made sense.
Lined up as objective facts, the results were positive enough.
She had looked down on her as a freshman and struggled more than expected…
But because of that, she had suddenly manifested 3-Star Magic.
She had even gotten to taste a sweet snack one could hardly find at the academy.
And yet—why?
She found herself unable to simply rejoice over any of it.
Worse still, she could not even put her finger on the reason, and that was the most frustrating part of all.
That, more than anything, was the unresolved mystery she carried.
After a long stretch of aimless self-questioning, Silvia muttered under her breath.
"Is this… the influence of Magic Assimilation as well?"
Your personality has grown cold.
It had been five years since people around her first began saying that.
So what of her now, another five years on?
She was aware that, without her noticing, her manner of speaking and acting had changed.
But thinking carefully, it was not only her words and gestures that had shifted.
Look no further than what she had done to Carmilla today.
A duel, yes—but still a simple spar. There had been no need to pour killing intent into every spell.
And yet the self who had desperately tried to eliminate that girl was clearly abnormal.
As if she had become a cold-blooded creature who disposed, without mercy, of anyone who crossed her will.
The moment that thought landed, something tightened in her chest.
As if a cool chill were seeping into her heart.
For the first time, walking this path to its end frightened her.
Because at the end of it, she suspected, waited a self she would no longer recognize.
"But… it isn't only that."
What rose in her mind was the snack she had eaten that afternoon.
At first she had mistaken it for a cold blade meant to take her head, but Carmilla had explained that it was a treat called an ice bar.
A snack with a crisp texture and a wonderfully refreshing fruit fragrance.
Carmilla had told her that she had been able to make it thanks to Silvia.
Silvia did not know why…
But those words had felt, somehow, like salvation.
"Salvation…"
The more she polished her magic, the more the severed necks of straw dummies piled up.
To her, magic had always been something used to destroy.
And yet the very magic she had forced into being while trying to eliminate the enemy before her eyes had gone on to create a sweet snack.
Alongside that unfamiliar feeling came a single realization.
Magic… can be used like this, too.
It felt as though common sense itself had cracked open.
What was ordinary to anyone else was utterly new to her.
And so Silvia wanted to know more.
If she could come to understand a warmer world—one different from her own cold one…
Perhaps then she would finally learn what this stifling feeling was.
With that thought, Silvia murmured with quiet conviction.
"Carmilla… perhaps that girl is the answer."
She had a hunch.
If she stayed by that girl's side, might she not come to know a different world?
And conveniently, she already had the perfect excuse.
Having won the duel, Carmilla had made this request of her:
Senior, do cooperate with me in building a refrigerator.
Using the principles of ice magic to create a device that would keep food fresh for a long time.
Whether that was simply very much like her, Silvia could not say.
At the time she had accepted the proposal half in a daze—but looking back on it now, she was glad she had.
The desire to use this magic differently had only grown stronger.
"Heh… Looks like we'll be seeing each other often, Carmilla."
Why that fact drew a strange little smile from her, she did not know.
But even that unknown felt welcome to Silvia now.
A mystery that would be solved someday was closer to anticipation than to frustration, after all.