169. Final Exams
169. Final Exams
I stared quietly into Adelia's red eyes.
"Will that thought and feeling truly never change?"
I don't know what she meant by asking this. Whether I could keep Eurasia by my side for life?
No matter what happened?
"That's obvious."
"Eurasia's secret—"
"Stop."
I cut Adelia off.
"That isn't something I should hear from you."
"Wouldn't it be better to know in advance?"
"That would be true. Well, the fact that Eurasia had a secret... yes. I knew. But I decided to hear it from Eurasia."
Eurasia's secret.
I can't know what it is or what it's connected to. I can only... guess from the fact that Eurasia goes down to the main house once a month.
I am curious.
Why her expression is always so poor whenever she goes down to the main house.
What the smell of blood lingering on her when she returns from the main house is.
Why she's been keeping her distance so I can't even pat her head, and I want to ask.
But I don't ask.
Even from my perspective, if I asked Eurasia, who shows a blind devotion toward me, she would live carrying a burden she could never set down anywhere.
Then, before being crushed by that burden, she would force herself to open her mouth. I don't like that.
I am Eurasia's master, and Eurasia is in the position of having to protect me. Eurasia, whose nature isn't that tough, feels burdened by the title of personal knight.
So I don't want to place any more burden on her than that.
After all, we're really like family, like siblings... no, sisters?
Anyway... that's the kind of relationship we have.
And don't I also carry a secret no less than Eurasia's? Reincarnation. Eurasia doesn't ask about that either. So until she tells me, I won't bother asking either.
"You're incredibly... romantic, Miss Eliarnes."
Adelia smiled an odd smile with her eyes wide open.
"You act so rigid on the outside, but inside you're always having such tender thoughts?"
"What is that supposed to... How would you know what I think inside?"
"Belief, loyalty, affection... love? Sweet thoughts mixed from all those things, I'd imagine. Indeed..."
Adelia crossed her arms below her chest, gathering up two wicked lumps of fat, and touched her lips.
"I nearly made a grave mistake."
"They aren't sweet thoughts, but... yes. You nearly made a mistake. If you had spoken that story to the end, I would have hated you for life, perhaps even after death."
"Does that mean, perhaps, your thoughts about me could change?"
Adelia smiled brightly. Not content with that, she writhed and twisted her body, reddening to the tips of her ears.
...Disgusting. I barely suppressed the urge to flip her off right to her face.
"Anyway, I don't need to hear it. But... what you said this time, Professor, sounded like a warning, so I'll have to be careful."
"Hmm? Your form of address dropped to 'you' and then rose back to 'Professor.' Why is that?"
"It means I'm about to cut this conversation short and leave."
"Oh my... and just when it was getting good."
"I'm quite a busy person."
"That would be true. Even if you went down right now, there are so many students looking for you, Miss Eliarnes."
Adelia's gaze dropped to my waist.
My waist, where the subspace pouch hung.
Why is she looking at that? I stared at Adelia with that question in my eyes. Adelia giggled and blinked.
"The students who entrusted their luggage to you, Miss Eliarnes, have just arrived at the exam site."
"Ah... right."
I'd forgotten.
"Yes. Then I'll be going."
"Shall we go down together? The way down seems like it'd be boring and lonely. Night falls quickly in the mountains, so it could get dark soon. Aren't you scared?"
"If a professor and a student walk down a secluded forest path alone together, won't other people get strange ideas?"
"Strange ideas, hohoho. Would they imagine a forbidden love between student and professor?"
"If there's anyone thinking that, I'll smash their skull in. Not that. I mean thoughts like, 'Isn't that bitch cheating on the final exam?'"
"I could just hide us perfectly with my illusion magic?"
"I tried to refuse indirectly, but you really don't understand a student's heart, Professor."
"Oh my, was that a refusal?"
I clicked my tongue at Adelia, who tilted her head with an innocent expression. She knows exactly what she's doing.
"Yes. It was a refusal."
Then I spun around and tried to walk away.
"If you come down with me, I'll answer one of the questions you asked, Miss Eliarnes."
Those words grabbed my ankle.
"A question... I asked?"
"The day we first met, remember? The question you asked me then, Miss Eliarnes."
What questions had I asked?
But anyway, even if I asked again, wouldn't she be unable to answer because of that damn Restriction?
"It's fine."
"What's fine—"
"The Restriction placed on me. For this one time only, my master has permitted it."
Her manner of speaking changed. It shifted from a light tone to a serious one. Her voice lowered, and the atmosphere she carried changed. The seductively glistening look in her eyes sank into something dull, and a bleak light swirled within.
"You said you were curious about my master, Miss Eliarnes. Right now, I can tell you."
"Why now, of all times?"
"I received permission quite a while ago."
Received? Not that permission was granted, but that she received it?
Did Adelia ask permission to reveal her master's existence? To tell me? Why?
If so, why hasn't she said anything until now?
And that emotion that flickered across her face for just an instant.
Displeasure, confusion, worry, suspicion.
Why does she feel such emotions while looking at me and talking about her master?
From what I've sensed, I think Adelia the Black Wizard hides her emotions well. Yet that person, that Black Wizard, let her emotions show on her face.
Deliberately?
"However, I deliberately kept my mouth shut."
"Because your master only gave permission, but never ordered you to tell me? And now you've found yourself in a situation where you need something from me, right?"
"You know Black Wizards... no, you know me very well, Miss Eliarnes."
"Once I thought of it in terms of what would piss me off even more, your behavior started making sense."
"It wasn't to earn your anger, Miss Eliarnes, but still, shouldn't I get something out of it too?"
Adelia's atmosphere returned to normal.
The emotions she'd just held, the unsettling mood, all of it was wiped clean as if it had never happened.
"Now, with that settled! Regarding the topic from just now, I'll tell you after the final exam is over."
"Can't you tell me now?"
"If I tell you now, I'm worried you'll abandon me and leave, Miss Eliarnes."
I was planning to fucking sprint down the mountain the moment she told me. How did she know?
"As expected, I truly despise you... Professor."
"I'll earnestly pray that changes someday."
"Pray? A person who doesn't believe in gods and worships demons—where exactly would you pray? What, do you pray to the master you believe in and follow?"
"That's... not it."
Adelia's giggling face looked somehow sorrowful.
So what?
Whether that woman is sorrowful or happy, it's none of my business.
Without paying it any mind, I walked down the forest path.
"I will fulfill my duty as a professor in this final exam. So please, Miss Eliarnes, fulfill your duty as a student and take the final exam diligently! Properly! Okay?"
"I'll do it diligently and properly even without you saying so."
I can't half-ass this.
If I fuck up the finals too, I might get held back...
*****
By the time I arrived at the assembly point, the sunset had fully faded into evening.
And as I expected, a huge number of students had already arrived at the assembly point.
Faces full of exhaustion and irritation.
With faces grown thoroughly vicious and sharp, they were reading the final exam guide and conversing.
They seemed to be discussing how the final exam would proceed and what they should do in the meantime.
And each of them had a piece of jerky in their mouth.
They said each group would be provided with the minimum food and water needed to last fifteen days, and judging by the jerky in their mouths, they must have lost all their luggage.
Meanwhile, the four members of my group...
"Oh, my lady!"
"You all... what are you doing?"
"We're drinking tea!"
In the center of that bleak atmosphere, they'd set out a very, very elegant table and chairs... and were enjoying teatime...
They'd even installed an Artifact in the center of the table that scattered cold air...!
"I mean... I was asking why you're drinking tea."
"Her Highness... no, Silina suggested we each have a cup of tea before the meal, so I said sure!"
When I turned my gaze past Eurasia, I saw Silina tilting her teacup with her characteristic sneering expression.
She was sitting with her legs tightly crossed, drinking black tea in the middle of the assembly point.
A show of dominance? No matter how much you struggle, we've got plenty of room to spare—is that what she's showing?
"Ah... okay. Well, pre-meal tea. Yeah... it's important."
"Yours is a mint chocolate latte, my lady! Silina even saved it for you, saying it was yours."
"For you, I specially brought along some trash. How is it? Touching, right?"
If she hadn't added that one remark, I might have actually been quietly moved.
Still, well... hmm...
I'd been racking my brain because of Adelia this whole time, but seeing these kids relaxing and enjoying themselves like that... I wonder why I made it so complicated.
"My lady! Come quickly! I've warmed up a chair for you to sit in, nice and toasty!"
"It's summer, why would you make it hot?"
"Do you dislike my warmth, my lady?"
Hehe—Eurasia laughed coquettishly.
"Warmth, my ass."
I don't like the fact that I have to move according to Adelia's wishes.
But by doing small things like going to the field together or walking down the forest path together, I can obtain fairly significant information... And if with that information I can prepare myself, these kids, and even the comrades I might reunite with someday against danger, then.
It's an unpleasantness worth enduring.
"But is it okay to have a mint chocolate latte as pre-meal tea? Pre-meal tea is... isn't that supposed to be something else?"
"You don't care about that kind of thing."
"You can still eat dinner, my lady!"
"Eliarnes, why are you pretending to be all proper?"
[I ate a ton of kaya jam sandwiches as pre-meal bread! It was delicious!]
"Yeah. I am the kind of person who doesn't care about that stuff."
I patted Pina's head as she kept munching on something, then sat down in the chair.
The chair Eurasia had warmed... oh, it really was warm enough to make me sweat.
"So, Eliarnes. Do we have a separate plan?"
"A plan?"
At Silina's question, Stella perked up her ears.
A spy? Well, I don't care even if she is a spy.
"We just have to work hard, do we need a plan?"
"You... haven't read this, have you."
Silina narrowed her brow and held out the paper with the final exam details.
"I haven't read it?"
"Ugh, this is why you ranked 43rd from the bottom on the midterm."
I pinched Stella's side really hard as she butted in from the side.
Stella let out a tearing scream and rolled on the ground. I nudged Stella with my foot—thump thump—and read through the final exam details at high speed.
"Oh?"
While reading, I found a passage that caught my eye.
Any group that subjugates a captain-class Monster will be given a perfect score, and for subjugating groups only, the exam will end early.
"Captain-class Monster? So we just have to catch one of these?"
The moment I said that, several gazes gathered on me.
Not Signia. Their uniforms were different, so they were Hurnt students.
But these bastards, their eyes were no ordinary thing.
Eyes carrying some shady intent.
Of course, none of my business.
I grinned and said,
"Heh, those snake eyes, just—"