Surveillance
For some reason, nothing tasted right. I had piled my tray with the exact same dishes as yesterday, so what was the difference?
It wasn't as though I were eating alone, and it wasn't as though I had grabbed something that didn't suit my palate. Why, then, did everything taste so different from the day before?
The mood was a little off, sure — but not enough to change the flavor of the food. And yet…
I could barely tell whether I was swallowing through my mouth or my nose. Not that anything actually went up my nose — if it had, I would have been coughing like someone wringing out a lung.
It was a figure of speech, alright?
Anyway. I finished the meal in a halfhearted, pick-at-it sort of way. And then I felt something else that was off.
Dogeon hadn't said a single word to me. Even if he had tried, I had no intention of answering — but still. Not one word?
When someone is clearly sulking, isn't the usual move to stick close and apologize? What did he think he was accomplishing, glued to my side and doing absolutely nothing?
I had almost never apologized to anyone, and almost never been apologized to, so I couldn't claim expertise. But even I knew that if you mess up, you're supposed to say, I did this wrong — please go easy on me.
He was a social butterfly. There was no way he didn't know something that basic.
The sight of him only made me angrier, so I put some force into my steps.
Of course, with the basic difference in our builds, even a brisk walk only put a few paces between us.
And it wasn't long before he caught up again. That made me want to go even faster — but then I would have been running, so I stopped myself.
The weight of the crowd's eyes, which I had been feeling for a while now, also played a part.
People had looked at me before, but never like this — never with that full-on, open-stare, we-are-watching-you energy.
So the rumors were finally making the rounds. Some shameless girl from another continent, they were saying, who had seized the upper hand from the first meeting.
…Why the story had to spread now, of all times, I had no idea. The timing, though, was spectacularly awful.
If I had been talking with Dogeon, the stares wouldn't have mattered. Right now, that wasn't an option.
Whether it was his real self or the persona he put on, just speaking with him was enough to settle my heart and mind in a way nothing else could.
The truth was, I still wanted to say something. But if I did, he might decide I was an easy mark — so I couldn't.
What I wanted was a friend I could talk to freely. An equal.
…And the one I had decided was that friend was also the one who had ambushed me without warning, which was why I was sulking this hard in the first place.
Friend or not, there were lines you did not cross.
Asking someone if they had any friends was obviously rude. I had thought a socialite wouldn't make a blunder that stupid. The disappointment was considerable.
Even so, I had no intention of cutting him off.
The walk back to the classroom was thoroughly unpleasant. The air was just breathable enough to get by on, and that made the whole thing feel even worse.
Ordinarily I would have bought something at the snack shop and eaten it with him at the rest area — but today I didn't feel like it.
Looking at Dogeon's face, with no idea what he was thinking, only made it worse.
All the way until PE, I kept sneaking glances to see how he was looking at me. The reaction I wanted never came.
At least put on a slightly solemn expression. I wasn't going to forgive him for it — but still. Mood mattered.
I had already decided he would be following me around anyway, so I might as well head to the gym and see what kind of class he was taking.
I had never known what they actually did during PE. I had never cared much about rumors, either, so I was a little curious.
And above all, I wanted to keep an eye on whether Dogeon was up to any nonsense.
After digging into my wounds like that, he might very well turn around and get along with everyone else as if nothing had happened. I had forgotten because he was my friend, but at his core this guy was still a harem-novel male lead.
The woman who said she would only look at him ends up being one of three-plus. Probably the writer's limited imagination at work, but still.
I would be watching. Just try talking to someone else. Even a single word.
With that thought, I headed for the gymnasium with Dogeon.
As expected — you can't trust rumors.
Having kept a close watch on Dogeon and Hoyeon, Edan felt once again that he had been right.
How is that supposed to look like a pair of lovers?
In the end, it had all been black propaganda, Edan decided.
A foreign princess obsessing over a commoner she had never met — that was the sort of thing that only happened in novels.
The way Hoyeon treated Dogeon, as far as Edan could see, was the way a superior treated an attendant: ordering him about, and occasionally tormenting him for good measure.
He had spent nearly every moment watching Hoyeon — except when she erased her presence and vanished, or when she went into the dormitory — and that was the conclusion he had drawn.
They did walk around together as a rule, and yesterday they had even held hands.
Someone had probably started the rumor based on that alone, he guessed. Looking only at that, it would be easy enough to get the wrong idea.
But anyone who had seen the two of them at lunch today would have known the whole story was nonsense.
Hoyeon had been radiating murderous intent toward Dogeon.
Having grown up in the underworld, Edan could sense killing intent, however faintly.
If even he was feeling it this thickly, then even someone who had never come near death must have sensed something — that was Edan's read.
In class she had been teasing Dogeon with her tail, showing a kind of interest in her own way. Then she had disappeared, reappeared, and suddenly turned hostile. That was what set Edan's suspicions turning.
Even so, he didn't take it all that seriously. A user of Demonic Energy was always on the edge of mental instability.
The hand-holding had probably been for the same reason.
For a moment he had even considered using Dogeon as a hostage to get leverage over Hoyeon. What a fool he had been, Edan thought, and moved on.
…Was this PE, or just a legally permitted hour of abuse?
Alright, I had already known the teacher was insane from the way he had asserted dominance over the class in the first session — but I hadn't expected this.
For a fleeting moment I had thought of him as a mentor. How stupid of me. Mentor, my ass. He was just a demon.
"Daniel, your steps are lagging!"
"AAAAAAARGH!"
If it had only been verbal hazing, I wouldn't have called him a demon. PE teachers with rotten personalities were a law of nature.
But behind the students who were running the course with every last scrap of strength they had — including the strength they had used as infants to nurse — monsters were chasing them.
Not real ones. Fakes built of Mana to look the part.
Still, the words he had spoken before the run began made it clear the man was a genuine lunatic.
They're only Mana-crafted illusions, so they cannot wound you — but they can make you hurt. Don't even think about taking it easy.
A few students were already screaming the kind of screams you only hear in hell, after the phantoms had bitten them.
—My arm… my arm…!
—It hurts, it hurts! Help me!
Dogeon was running near the front with an easy expression, but the farther back you looked, the more the faces changed.
The boy called Daniel was ashen and sprinting for his life, and a small girl with pink hair was running in tears.
"Waaaaaah~! Exipri, save me~!"
So her name was Exipri. Short as she was, she was running near the very back even with Mana breathing techniques.
Some kids were throwing themselves at the finish line on what looked like the final lap; others, poor things, got chomped by the phantoms when they were almost there.
I knew I wasn't supposed to think this while everyone else was giving it their all, but…
This was fun. Sitting in the stands and guessing who would make it and who wouldn't had its own entertainment value.
Was this how Roman citizens had felt watching gladiators fight for their lives in the Colosseum? Not that there was any blood here, or any dying.
Not that I was wishing for that, either.
I had come to keep an eye on Dogeon, but at some point I had just started watching this hellish PE period unfold.
Dogeon looked tired enough that he wasn't talking to anyone separately, which made it even easier to settle in and enjoy the show.
"The monsters that just chased you are C-rank beasts known as Chasers. Their numbers have surged of late, and even private homes have been taking damage."
"Their habits are simplicity itself. Once they fix on a meal, they charge without stopping. So if those had been real — what do you think would have become of you?"
If you boiled down the long-winded nonsense he was spouting into a single line, it came to this:
By the end of the term, I will personally make you strong enough to outrun those things.
…That about covered it.
If you just offered tribute to a god, you wouldn't need any of this nonsense.
Truly a strange continent. A very strange continent.
…I was only here as a student, though. Best not to get above myself.
Back to the main subject: Dogeon still wasn't doing anything of note. He did glance my way once, as if he knew I was there.
Alright. So he at least felt a little bad.
To doubt a friend even for a moment — maybe there was something wrong with me, too.
The sun was warm, and I was just full enough that sleep was starting to pull at me. Dogeon wasn't going to do anything stupid, so maybe I could take a short nap.
The seats were soft, as it happened, so I sank into one and decided to close my eyes for a bit. Surely he wouldn't hit on a girl in the few minutes I was out… right?