Entrance Ceremony (2)
Ellie’s guess had been right. Philia and Stella both drew in a sharp breath.
“Tha—”
“…”
Between the House of Cryford, to which Philia belonged, and the House of Blaze, to which Stella belonged, there was an old grudge.
The king who bore the name Blaze had once been the one true ruler, the conqueror of all beneath the heavens, and first among every sovereign.
But he had been driven back by the rising power who would become the First Emperor, and in the end he had no choice but to yield his hegemony. The final blow to that change of era came when a mage captured the king in battle—an achievement that, in that situation, was the greatest feat one could possibly hope to accomplish.
The earldom founded by that very mage, after being granted land by the First Emperor, was Cryford.
By contrast, the Blaze family had been allowed to keep the title of king, but only by entering the Emperor’s service together with the many other kings who had arisen in the new age.
As an aside, whether the new ruler of the world had meant it as courtesy or mockery when he formally distinguished them from the other kings by giving them the title of High King was still a matter of debate.
In any case.
That was why, no matter how many generations had passed since that battle—ten and then some—it was not a relationship Philia and Stella could easily join hands over.
It was even worse because they were mages, and magic passed down bloodlines in color.
That meant both gratitude and resentment were laid bare before one’s eyes in the clearest, sharpest form.
And yet—
“Really?”
Before the count’s daughter and the king’s daughter could say another word, Ellie reached out with both hands.
“But this is the Academy.”
She took hold of the red count’s daughter’s right hand and the green king’s daughter’s right hand.
“You’re both my friends. Come on, shake hands.”
Ellie was still smiling, but her eyes were firm.
So firm, in fact, that the two daughters of enemy houses ended up taking each other’s hands before they’d even had time to decide whether that was acceptable or not.
Standing beside Philia and Stella, who looked more horrified than anyone at their own behavior, Ellie nodded.
“Mm.”
This one act would not sweep away centuries of resentment.
Even if it managed to wash away the bitterness between these two girls, their families were not made of just them.
And yet it had shaken something loose, opening a path toward something new, like clear water poured into a pond that had stood stagnant for hundreds of years.
“You both did well.”
Holding their hands, Ellie shook them up and down.
“I don’t know what’s going on in your families, but inside the Academy—and in front of me—don’t bring that old grudge with you. Promise?”
“…Understood.”
“…Yes.”
Only then did Ellie look satisfied and let go. The moment the hand that had bound them was gone, Philia and Stella released each other too.
Still, neither of them pulled away.
Ellie called out, “Then let’s really go get bread now!”
And so the three of them really did go to the dining hall and eat lunch together.
It was awkward in more ways than one, but because Ellie was there between them, Philia and Stella were able to talk.
“Um, did you arrive a few days ago?”
“A week ago,” Stella answered.
Awkward. Hesitant. And yet Ellie immediately piled on with cheerful energy.
“Me too! A week ago! So you arrived on the same day as Philia?”
“Mm-hm….”
For Philia, the whole arrangement was rather difficult to deal with.
If Ellie had just gone on chattering by herself, Philia could have ignored her. She wasn’t the type to be hurt by that, and even if she were, she’d say with confidence that yes, she was hurt.
But once it became a three-way conversation, she was forced to participate.
Ugh, aaah.
Social skills and sociability were like any other skill: they atrophied if you never used them, and they improved only if you did.
Even when it was voluntary, from Philia’s perspective—having lived her whole life as a loner—this felt like being forced to do something unfamiliar and unknown. It was embarrassing, and honestly, exhausting.
“Ah, there’s my other friend. Clea! You come here too!”
“This is… truly a peculiar combination.”
A girl with light-colored hair approached.
Philia realized she’d found a chance to slip away.
“I-I suddenly remembered something I absolutely have to see, so I’ll be going now…!”
Leaving as soon as the young lady from Lacastre arrived was probably rude enough, but Philia no longer had the luxury of caring.
“Hah, hah….”
Once she’d gotten to a place where Ellie’s gaze would definitely not reach, Philia quietly wiped the sweat from her brow.
Later that night, when she lay in bed trying to sleep, the scene from the afternoon came back to her.
Pressing skin to skin with other people, gathering together, eating the same food, exchanging halting words in conversation.
Was that.
Good? Fun?
She didn’t know.
But there was one thing she did know.
…It was more manageable than I thought.
Things one cannot do well are frightening in themselves.
Philia had become a little less afraid of meeting people.
I still don’t know whether friends are really necessary…
Still.
Well.
It wasn’t something to reject outright… probably….
Possibly.
Maybe not.
Maybe yes.
After thinking over what she should do if Ellie came up to her tomorrow, Philia drifted off to sleep, turned on her side and clutching a stuffed doll she had brought from home.
And then, after the last few remaining days passed, the day of the entrance ceremony finally arrived.
A square had been set up on the lawn in front of the administrative building with ropes and ribbons, and a podium had been erected. It was a space for the headmaster to give a brief speech and introduce the professors.
The roughly hundred new students had gathered in little groups of their friends, already waiting for the event to end before it had even begun. After all, no matter the age, this sort of thing was boring to children.
There are hardly any parents here.
Standing on the grass, Ellie thought that to herself.
In modern Korea, a parent who didn’t even show up to their child’s entrance ceremony was practically treated like less than human, but at the Academy it was the other way around: being able to come was the rare thing.
After all, their parents were all either lords or their spouses, and they couldn’t exactly drop everything and head out just to watch an entrance ceremony.
Unless they were among the few nobles whose estates happened to be especially close, the only participants were the students.
So, in the end, this was an entrance ceremony with barely a hundred people. To Ellie, it felt sparse.
“Wow, there are really a lot of people.”
“All the new students are here, right?”
“They say there are even more people in the city square….”
The students around Ellie were whispering like that, but—
Our standards are really different.
Even if they were nobles, or perhaps precisely because they were nobles, they rarely saw crowds of this size. If she showed them the Seoul subway at rush hour, would they foam at the mouth and faint?
Incidentally, Ellie was wearing exactly what they had discussed last time: a linen tunic and blue trousers, and nothing more.
With no trace of noble ornamentation about her, many of the students really did mistake Ellie for some fearless child from a nearby town or city who had come to gawk.
“Shouldn’t they kick her out?”
“Who? Wait, shh! You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“About what happened a week ago.”
Such conversations were unfolding here and there across the lawn.
Ellie let those whispers drift past her ears and thought,
Where are my friends, anyway?
Philia, Clea, and Stella.
If it were up to her, she’d have liked to make a few more, but in the end, during the ten days between arriving at the Academy and the entrance ceremony, Ellie had only managed to make those three friends.
In truth, Philia was still in the middle of deciding whether she was really a friend at all, while Stella, who Ellie had met most recently, had ended up becoming friends with her almost without resistance, as if she’d simply been swept along by Ellie’s momentum.
“E-ELLIIIIEEEE…!”
“Hmm?”
When Ellie turned at the voice calling her name, Jaina hurried over and stopped in front of her.
“Huff, th-this… huff, hahh….”
After catching her breath, Jaina carefully took out what she had been holding close.
It was a scarf. Black like ink or the night sky, with a white star pattern embroidered in one corner.
“Hahh… fortunately, I finished it all in time… huff… if you don’t mind, I was hoping….”
“…Jaina.”
The wool scarf felt soft in Ellie’s hands.
When Ellie draped it around her neck, it matched the beige of her linen top and the blue of her trousers, making for a surprisingly lovely combination of colors.
“…Jaina.”
Ellie said her name again and touched the star pattern decorating one end of the scarf.
“This star was an accident, wasn’t it?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
Smiling, Ellie took Jaina’s hand. Those hands that had spent the last two days busily knitting the scarf for her and embroidering the decoration as well.
“Thank you. I’ll treasure it for the rest of my life.”
“W-What? N-no! Lady Ellie, someday you’ll become someone truly, truly amazing, so by then, something like this—”
“Jaina.”
Ellie was firm with the girl who was two years older than she was—firm both when she held her hand and when she spoke.
“Thank you.”
“A-ah, ahh….”
Jaina’s face turned bright red because she felt joy and, at the same time, worry that she might have done something pointless and burdened Ellie’s future self.
And yet joy won out in the end, because she simply couldn’t bear it otherwise.
“Th-then I’ll go now! Please enjoy the entrance ceremony today, and come back safely!”
“Yes. See you tonight.”
Waving goodbye to her maid and friend as she retreated in a fluster, Ellie looked around for her other friends.
So where are they? Ah!
Philia.
But—
Why is she with other people for once?
One girl and two boys were clustered beside her, talking to her, and Philia’s expression was exactly the same as always.
In other words, she looked like someone who was tired because she didn’t know what to say, but couldn’t bring herself to just cut them off and leave.
Well, I can’t just leave her like that. Guess I’ll help.
And maybe, through Philia, she could make new friends too. A friend of a friend was the simplest, most effective way to widen one’s social circle.
“Philia!”
Ellie approached with a wave. The three students talking to her turned to look at Ellie.
“Who are they? Your friends?”
The girl among the three gave Ellie a quick once-over and snorted.
“You’ve been hanging around with someone like this lately?”
Philia hurried to speak.
“Isabel.”
Again, Philia had no desire to make friends, but she didn’t want to make enemies either.
So she tried to cut the girl off before she put her foot in her mouth, but—
“This girl is also one of us—”
“What a vulgar scarf. Did you scrape together the money from some poor household just to buy that, thinking you could dress yourself up?”