The Blueprint
The Blueprint
─ SYSTEM : The <Black Death> Trial progress has reached 100 percent.
That cleared the first major hurdle.
Right near the end, Rote Saliere caught the Black Death, but because I had already asked Sepia Gliston beforehand to produce a cure as quickly as possible, we managed to pull through somehow.
Thanks to all that effort, the academy recorded zero deaths.
It was a truly extraordinary record. If only I could connect to the community, I would have posted proof immediately.
Vermel quietly spoke the command to bring up the system window.
─ SYSTEM : Aggregating causality data to calculate the probability of the world's destruction.
A translucent window appeared before his eyes. It was the privilege granted to him by the Goddess who governed this world.
After a brief loading period, the system window chimed clearly and displayed the result he had been so eager to see.
─ SYSTEM : Current Bad Ending probability is 75 percent.
As expected, the probability had dropped. With this, he was one step closer to the Happy Ending.
And in the process, Vermel had incurred three debts to Aether.
First, she had produced the Black Death Prevention Scroll that he had originally planned to make and distribute himself.
Second, when he asked her to enter the Underground Waterway together during the outbreak, she had readily agreed.
And third.
'This is the one I can't understand.'
She had nursed the infected Saliere twenty-four hours a day to prevent the Ironblight Symptom from spreading.
The fact that she was making Pulse Scrolls could be dismissed as coincidence. She was a character with exceptional dexterity, and the game had never detailed what her school life was like before her Corruption.
The trip into the sewers with him was also something from the Hidden Route, so he could understand that. He just had to chalk it up to stupidly good luck beating impossible odds.
But nursing Saliere around the clock, to the point of neglecting her own body—that he could not comprehend.
─ Sorry, but can you lend me some money?
When she had called him and said that, supposedly to save her roommate, it honestly felt like getting hit in the head with a hammer.
"......."
He had thought that knowing the original story would let him handle things with at least some flexibility.
But her pattern was far too erratic. At this rate, he would have to investigate everything again from scratch.
Vermel decided to observe Aether closely for the time being.
Sure enough, the very day classes resumed, she began acting strangely, deviating from the original work.
She must have stopped by the library early that morning. Aether walked into the classroom carrying an armful of books stamped with the Tillet Seal. When he glanced at a few, they were all volumes on Continental History.
'Why history all of a sudden...?'
First-years barely studied history. Final exams were right around the corner—did she really have the leisure for that?
"Everyone, it's been so long! I'm so happy to see your faces. The Black Death may not be completely gone, but seeing you all back at school fills this teacher with deep emotion."
"So does that mean you'll end class early today?"
"No? To keep up with the finals schedule, I'll have to run straight through to the make-up lectures, too. Now, everyone open your books."
While grumbles erupted from his classmates all around, Aether alone read a history book with an unwavering posture. She was stealing glances at the book she had brought and drawing something.
'What is she drawing?'
Not content with class time, she kept her pen moving during breaks and lunch as well. Even when Prince Clion picked a fight with her, she just kept scribbling without much of a reaction.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
Every time Vermel, unable to contain his curiosity, craned his neck toward the front seat, Aether hurriedly folded the paper and hid it under her desk.
He didn't necessarily have to ask her directly. Saliere, who sat right next to her, must have seen it.
"What was she drawing?"
Vermel seized the moment when Aether took her papers and left her seat to ask Rote, but the answer he got was unsatisfactory.
"I don't really know either. She was writing in letters I've never seen before...."
Her eccentricities did not stop after just one day.
The next day. And the day after that. And the day after that one, too.
'It's already been a week.'
Aether pored over books about the continent's history every single day, scribbling away at something. Whenever he found a spare moment, Vermel approached from behind, but she must have noticed him, because she would hide the paper and smile slyly.
"Do you really want to know that badly?"
"I'll write off the ten Gold Coins you borrowed from me last time, so come on."
"That got settled after I talked it over with House Saliere."
He had to at least know what she was doing so he could take appropriate countermeasures. It absolutely was not due to some idle curiosity.
"Then I'll give you one Gold Coin."
"No."
Most of his recent conversations with Aether went like this. And every time, he got brutally shot down.
"What's this, are you two flirting?"
"Wow, no way."
Eventually, he even started hearing this nonsense from the girls in his class. His head, which already ached, was about to shatter.
Flirting with Aether? Riding a surfboard made of a man-eating shark would be safer than that.
Waving his hands dismissively, Vermel shooed away the paparazzi disguised as classmates. The world was on the brink of destruction; he had no time for romance, even if it killed him.
Time passed regardless. Finals crept up before he knew it.
─ SYSTEM : 'Black Day Aether' is observing you meticulously.
And Vermel began feeling a threat to his personal safety.
─ SYSTEM : Exercise extreme caution.
'Why the hell are you doing this to me!'
Everything had been quiet until now!
This was bad. At this rate, he wouldn't even be able to handle the Second Trial in time.
The Second Trial, <Guillotine>.
To pass this Trial smoothly or skip it entirely, he had to keep his eyes on the Imperial Palace. This was the point where the demons who had infiltrated the Empire were beginning to stir in earnest.
The person he needed to focus on was the currently imprisoned First Prince. Because the prince was living in seclusion somewhere in the Imperial Palace, Vermel, being an elf, had to build connections with the Imperial Household to prevent the second trial.
Clion, the Second Prince. He had to get him to come to his senses and talk somehow.
But now, just as he was trying to stop the Second Trial, Aether—the trigger for the Fourth Trial—was exhibiting erratic behavior. The thought that he might have to handle two Trials at once was driving him mad.
It was around then.
─ SYSTEM : Current probability of heading toward a Bad Ending is 67 percent.
"That's impossible. It went down, didn't it?"
Just a short while ago, it had clearly been 75%.
But the fact that the probability had dropped without any particular incident meant that someone other than himself was advancing the story and drawing closer to the truth of the world.
"...Furthermore, to commend the efforts of Mr. Vermel Horde and Miss Aether, who worked tirelessly within the academy to ensure we safely overcame this Black Death crisis, we hereby present these awards."
At last, the end of the term. After receiving his certificate from Robespierre at the closing ceremony, Vermel sank into deep thought. Right beside him, the golden-eyed girl shot him a sidelong glance, a mysterious smile tugging at her lips.
Something about it was really irritating.
'Please, just let nothing happen during the break.'
The two of them walked down the hallway to return to the classroom.
At that moment, Aether made a sudden move. She had been following behind at a distance, but then abruptly drew up beside him.
"......?"
His mind went blank for a second.
This was the same Aether who always maintained a one-meter distance from others, with the usual exceptions of Rote or Frey. Now she had started walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Vermel without any warning.
A gap barely a handspan wide. A precarious distance where their elbows might brush at any moment.
If a female friend suddenly did this while they were walking down the street, he would have jumped for joy, calling it a Green Light. But this was different.
─ SYSTEM : System warning. A life-threatening situation may occur.
Vermel had never felt closer to death.
Aether fixed her eyes on him with a blank expression, the whites of her eyes showing beneath her irises.
She was damn pretty. And I mean, you have to put the stress on it correctly. She was 'damn' pretty.
A face of nation-toppling beauty, a countenance that could set the Empire ablaze at the slightest misstep—staring right into it made his stomach churn.
Regardless, Aether laid a single sheet of paper on top of the certificate he was holding.
"......?"
A short sentence was written on that piece of paper. Having subconsciously been dying to see what Aether had been drawing all this time, Vermel scanned the phrase without a second thought.
[Q. Is there a monster that can see hundreds of kilometers away, yes or no?]
[Yes/No]
[Blink twice for yes and once for no.]
A nonsense riddle. It was completely out of the blue.
He didn't know if the Black Death had made her lose her mind, but she kept pulling strange stunts that diverged from the original story.
He felt bewildered. Even so, Vermel drew upon his future knowledge and gave his answer.
Blink. Blink.
"Okey."
With that, Aether quickened her pace and left first. Left alone, he belatedly realized he had made a fatal mistake.
"...She didn't get her memories back, did she?"
Because if she had, he was well and truly screwed.
**
[So, what exactly have you been messing around doing for a whole month?]
"What do you mean."
[You told the possessor you'd reveal yourself to them soon, and then you didn't. You stayed up all day drawing something like a Feynman diagram, calling it a 'grand picture.' You suddenly claimed you were studying history and then did nothing but read Continental History books! So when are you going to study Magic Arts, and when are you going to make this hydrogen bomb thing? Is this the so-called grand picture you were talking about, Master?]
"Well."
[Since we can use Flame Speech between ourselves, just tell me with your inner thoughts. Why have you been so frustratingly silent!]
"All right, all right."
Because.
[Because...?]