Crime and Punishment
There exists a force beyond even our ability to perceive.
When the will of humanity takes root in that force, it becomes mana. When the will of a god takes root in it, it becomes divine power. When the will of a demon takes root in it, it becomes demonic energy.
What would happen if humanity ever learned to wield that unknowable force as it truly was?
It was the question Georg had clung to until the very end—both before he joined the Hero’s Party and long after.
In the final battle against the Demon King his circles and magic circuits had been completely destroyed, sealing the answer away forever. Yet Georg felt no regret. Even with ruined circuits he could still use magic tools. More than that, without him the Hero’s Party would never have gotten close to the demons who styled themselves gods. He was proud of it.
Until he joined them, the party had possessed no real countermeasure against demonic energy. Divine power could suppress only so much of it; even the Saintess’s prayers had little effect. While the Warrior and the Saintess held off the lesser fiends, the Hero—shielded by the blessings of the Holy Sword and the Goddess—had to cut the demons down before the corruption claimed him. That was their only strategy. Against the truly powerful it failed, so they could fell only weak demons and demonized humans. Even small fry were still demons, and that helped… but it was nowhere near enough to turn the tide.
Just as the Hero himself began to lose hope, Georg arrived with a formula that converted demonic energy into mana and divine power. The technique was so complex and specialized that it could be inscribed only into Georg’s own body—yet that alone was enough to reverse the war. His circuits decayed a little more with every use, but he had received an apology from the Hero he had always considered superior in every way. For the price of saving humanity, he thought, it was cheap.
Georg looked up at the spectator stands. A girl stood there wreathed in a black aura.
At their first meeting he had marked her as a potential enemy for using demonic energy. Now she looked like the answer to the question he had believed he would never solve. Watching the girl who handled something that was neither demonic energy nor mana, Georg felt the long-forgotten fire of scholarly hunger flare to life again. What was that power? How did she control it? What could it do?
The fact that she was a user of demonic energy no longer mattered. He was certain he could subdue her whenever he chose—after all, he had hunted tens of thousands of demonized humans. If conversation failed, he was prepared to knock her out and dissect her alive if that was what it took to learn the truth. Peaceful resolution would of course be ideal… but he had already forgotten about teaching Dogeon.
Dogeon, too, had become completely absorbed in the girl. Realizing there was no point continuing, Georg slammed a spell straight into him.
“Where do you think you’re looking, Han Dogeon?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
The murderous glint in the girl’s eyes as she glared at the boy was of no interest to him. The only thing that held his attention was the black energy coiling around her.
“…Aha. So it’s that young lady over there, is it?”
“How did you—?”
“Go on. She’s waiting for you. We’re finished for today.”
Georg wanted Dogeon to approach her as quickly as possible; that would give him the perfect excuse to observe her up close. If she asked why he was following, he could claim he was merely preventing a lovers’ quarrel from getting out of hand. She would have no good way to refuse.
The moment Dogeon started walking, Georg headed straight for Hoyeon.
For reasons I couldn’t begin to understand, Professor Georg was following me.
He’d never been the friendliest-looking man, but right now his expression had grown a whole degree more sinister. There was a faint, unnerving smile that made my skin crawl. As a mage he was brilliant; as a human being he was completely unhinged. That made me uneasy. In the original story there had even been a scene where he dissected a demonized human while it was still alive.
…She’s not even using demonic energy. He wouldn’t actually hurt her… right? There was no way I could predict a lunatic’s behavior, so I decided to just ignore him.
What I did know for certain was that if I didn’t calm Hoyeon down right this second, something terrible was going to happen. Wisps of black energy kept flickering around her, and her eyes were filled with pure betrayal and rage.
The closer I got, the more it felt like I was walking into a tiger’s den. An instinctive, primal warning screamed that I might actually be killed. My rational mind insisted she would never harm me, but every animal instinct I possessed was howling at me to run.
“…Hoyeon.”
After agonizing over how to open, I settled on calling her name and apologizing.
“Kneel.”
The girl standing before me was not my friend Hoyeon.
She was Baek Hoyeon—daughter of Baek Jeongho and Byeolbi, sole heir of the Baek Empire. It wasn’t just her usual imperial speech; every line of her posture and every cadence of her voice declared that she had been born to stand above others.
My body obeyed before thought could intervene.
“You know full well the crime you have committed.”
Only then did the belated regret hit me—I had taken her far too lightly. I had acted rashly without ever truly understanding who she was, foolishly believing a single word like “friend” would paper over everything.
…I never imagined she had a side like this.
Just meeting her gaze felt crushing. Moving was out of the question; even breathing was difficult.
“I… have committed a capital offense… Please… forgive…”
Looking her in the eye was impossible. Without even registering that someone was watching from behind, the best I could manage was to press my forehead to the floor and beg for mercy. The future of humanity, the events of Part Two—none of it crossed my mind. Pure terror that I might die right here welled up from the depths of my soul.
Still pressed to the ground, I strained every nerve in my hearing, waiting for her reaction.
“…Then confess your sins.”
What had felt like eternity finally passed, and her voice returned a shade less furious. A baseless hope bloomed: she was going to forgive me because I was her first friend, no matter how angry she was.
“Even though Lady Hoyeon was watching, I let my eyes wander to another girl. I offended Lady Hoyeon’s feelings and still failed to apologize properly.”
I listed every grievance I thought she might be holding, then cautiously looked up. The anger was still there, but it was far milder than before. Earlier my skin had literally prickled under her stare. The bone-chilling hostility that had filled her eyes was gone.
“So… you do understand what you did wrong.”
Rather than open my mouth and risk stoking her temper again, I kept it tightly shut and waited for her judgment. If I begged for forgiveness and she asked since when I had been permitted to speak, I wasn’t sure I could endure it.
“…For the time being, do not come near me.”
How long is “the time being”? And… am I forgiven?
I wanted to ask, but my lips refused to move. All I could do was watch helplessly as she turned and walked away.
…Yeah. I’m completely screwed.
“Uwaaah, I’m all done! Profes— huh? Professor Georg? Where did you go and leave Exipri all alone?”
Exipri’s voice rang out; she must have finished the entire course. It would have been nice to pin everything on her, but this was entirely my fault. I couldn’t blame an innocent girl.
Whatever else was true, I clearly needed to win Hoyeon’s heart back. The problem was that I had no idea how. Approaching her as a friend would only make things worse, and I didn’t even know what she liked.
I’ve been hanging around calling myself her friend and I don’t even know her preferences…
Self-recrimination could wait. Right now I needed a plan. Even she couldn’t be in constant real-time contact with her parents, and she did have a habit of being oddly lenient with me. Hope wasn’t completely dead.
Think. Something that could buy her goodwill…
…Ah. Right. In the original, the canine beastkin went crazy for bones.
Hoyeon was a tiger—feline family. Maybe the same principle applied?
After leaving the gymnasium I briefly wondered whether I’d gone too far. Then I remembered the way that guy had been cozying up to Exipri, and the anger flared right back up.
I know Dogeon can’t live looking only at me. Still… I didn’t want to see that.
And seriously—how long has it even been since he messed up, and he’s already ogling another girl?
So girls come before friends, huh?
…Is the male animal just a sad creature that can’t help itself? In the end, friendship can’t beat heat.
My old friends from before used to drift away the moment they got girlfriends, so my head understood. But it still hurt.
Wanting someone to look only at me and no one else… is that really so hard?
He’s a social butterfly. Sticking with just one person for long must get boring. Instantly getting tired of the girl next to him and swapping her out is what popular guys do, right? How much more so with a friend?
In that gloomy mood I headed straight for the dormitory. I opened my diary to write about the day, then closed it again. I still didn’t want to leave the academy.
More than anything else, no matter what he thought of me… he was still my one and only friend.
…But I’m not speaking a single word to him for two whole days.