End-of-Semester Party
End-of-Semester Party
Frey, there's a country in the Elankaya Mountains that only the Gold-Eye Tribe knows about.
I told you once during the entrance exam. Do you remember?
**
The night air tasted of alcohol.
A night market blazing like a city that never slept. The market district, which had been on a downhill slide ever since the Black Death ravaged the land, was pulsing with life again. A festival marking the end of the first semester was in full swing, centered around the students of Tillet Academy.
Mid-June. Summer was slowly approaching, but the night air was endlessly cool.
The ground was properly dry, and the sky was spotless without a single cloud. Variable stars, dotted like white points on black drawing paper, added highlights to the street.
Yes.
It was a night that couldn't be more perfect for grand schemes.
I crossed the market district with leisurely strides. Just walking the street was enough to make me feel tipsy.
When I opened the pub door and went in, countless students had gathered in small groups and were clinking beer mugs.
"Hey, over here, over here!"
Among them I spotted familiar faces. Right, a drinking session would feel incomplete without that little runt. I settled my rear onto the seat next to Frey and ordered a 500-cc beer.
The cool, crisp taste of barley liquor.
I didn't especially like alcohol nor could I hold it well, but this was the exception. The beer I washed down with meat as a snack carried a faint sweetness.
I felt both cheeks growing warmer and warmer. Being weak to alcohol was the same in my old body and this one.
Having begun to hiccup, I glanced around. The possessor, seated at another table and flashing me a sidelong glare, came into view.
Good. All the cards had assembled.
"Anyway, what are you all going to do during break?"
I tossed the topic to my friends.
"Obviously I'm going down to the main house. Lodging here is so expensive!"
"Me too. I'm planning to go help my parents with some things."
Students whose family homes were in the provinces all shared similar thoughts. Well, there was no reason to stay at school unless you were taking a Seasonal Semester course.
"What about you then? Aren't you going back to your hometown?"
"I'd like to go down, but."
"Aether, where exactly is your home?"
Now that I thought about it, I didn't know where the original owner of this body was from. Had the original Aether even had parents or siblings to begin with? Assuming she did, that would be its own kind of problem.
"She's a member of the Gold-Eye Tribe. She's probably not from the Empire."
"Then is she an overseas student like Horde?"
"...In a sense, I suppose so?"
Since I had crossed over from another world to begin with.
"What kind of country did you grow up in? Kaurelia? Or somewhere the beastmen live?"
"Since she's from the Gold-Eye Tribe, she must've lived in the Elankaya Mountains. Wait, was there even a country there?"
One by one, my friends tilted their heads. The Elankaya Mountains were a massive geographical feature that encompassed the Empire, the beastmen nations, and the territories of magic beasts, so your nationality could change depending on exactly where you had lived.
If she had lived in a zone administered by the beastmen, that meant the original Aether had been a citizen of the Beastkin Federation. Conversely, if she had been in an uninhabited zone crawling with magic beasts, she would have been practically stateless.
"If it's not the Empire, then what country?"
"Is it the beastman nation after all?"
"It could be Kaurelia."
"Or maybe a city-state we don't know about exists in the Elankaya Mountains!"
"Like an ancient polis?"
With everyone apparently tipsy, they started openly speculating about my origins. The moment was right. I poked Frey in the side again and again as she just kept pouring alcohol down her throat.
"Bwuh," Frey let out a weird sound. She blinked her eyes and then lifted her head.
Fine, that's all I had to do, right? Nodding her head lazily, the runt pulled her lips away from her glass.
"South Korea."
That was just four syllables.
My friends' gazes shot toward Frey. The runt worked her throat and finished off the rest of her drink.
"South... what?"
"Aether told only me a long time ago. She said she's from a place called South Korea."
It wasn't strange that Frey knew my original nationality.
I had blurted it out during the entrance exam. At the time I'd said it without thinking, but looking back it had become a useful setup. The moment Frey finished speaking, I cut my eyes to the next table.
Vermel, who had been tilting his glass just fine, started hacking and beating his chest. His friends cackled, thinking the possessor had swallowed a bomb shot wrong.
"A country founded by the Gold-Eye Tribe?"
"I guess so!"
My friends' eyes swiveled back to me. I answered with nothing more than a shrug.
Since I didn't particularly have anything more to bring up, the topic flowed smoothly elsewhere. Because this was a table where mostly girls had gathered, talk revolved around things like romance and beauty. All I could do during that stretch was chime in with the others.
With all that chaotic chatter, time flew by. Midnight had already passed, and the hour was late enough to call it early morning.
My head spun, probably because I'd overdone it for the first time in a while. At least I knew my limit, so the disaster of blacking out didn't occur. The others were getting sloshed one by one, too.
"Blergh."
My head was managing somehow, but my body was hard to keep upright.
Under the pretext of getting the leftover beer from the next seat, I jerked my chin toward where Vermel was. Our eyes met. This time I jerked my chin harder.
Apparently he still couldn't catch a clue quickly. Only after I crumpled my expression did the guy get up.
"...I'm going to get some fresh air."
"Me too."
Feigning an inability to think straight, I flailed an arm and shoved Vermel's back. Different exclamations burst from the two tables, both steeped in alcohol. Brushing away stray thoughts, I shoved the possessor outside once more as if shooing him out.
Like that, Vermel and I lit up together in a secluded alleyway. A bitter scent stabbed deep into my lungs. Perhaps because of the drink, the outside air felt even colder than before.
"You...."
"Aren't you bored without something in your mouth?"
Drunk and staggering, I leaned against the wall. Then I rummaged through the pocket of the robe I had draped on. Two hard candies wrapped in silver foil came out with my hand.
"Which one do you want?"
One was a red candy, and the other was a candy tinged with blue.
"......."
Vermel narrowed his eyes as if deliberating, then took the candy that looked like strawberry-flavored.
"I'll head back inside first."
This was where the ordeal could take on a different meaning. After drawing a deep breath, I returned to my original seat.
As expected, the moment they saw me, the girls—who had been spinning some strange circuit in their heads—whistled and flushed their already-reddened faces even redder.
"What, what's going on between you two?"
"There's a rumor you two have a thing, is that true?"
I had to put up with at least this much. Pressing a hand to my temple, which ached as if about to snap, I shook my head.
"Ah, so jealous! I want to meet a guy like that too!"
"Elves marry elves, what do you mean."
"Hey, I'm just saying!"
The romance talk began again. This had nothing to do with me—I'd sworn eternal love to Halliday and Resnick's Fundamentals of Physics—but the alcohol seemed to have lit a fire under them, and they started using me in earnest as snack material for their stories.
Keeping in mind that this wouldn't end easily, I countered.
"Who on earth is saying that? How close have I actually stuck to him?"
"Oh my, are you playing innocent? You had one thing after another with him lately, didn't you?"
What.
"You don't know the rumors have been quietly going around campus? You two were glued together during every break lately!"
"That's bullshit."
"Ahaha! Her tongue's gone loose!"
"Hey, stop putting up an iron wall and accept him at some point. Didn't he keep sneaking glances at you starting about two weeks ago?"
No, reading changes in his expression was just something I did constantly.
"And, most decisively, after you got that award from the Chairman, didn't you stick right to his side in the hallway?"
Wow, so someone had seen that too.
"I kept proper distance, what are you talking about...?"
"So you're admitting you were close together!"
My eardrums were about to fall off from their shrieking and clapping. The only ones who didn't join the reaction were Frey and Rote. Rote sternly lectured me, declaring that dating on campus was forbidden—something a student council officer would say—while Frey, whose alcohol had apparently penetrated the blood-brain barrier at last, sipped her drink with half-glazed eyes.
"Wow, isn't this just perfect romance novel material? A handsome elf top-ranked entrant and the only Gold-Eye Tribe second-ranked student in the entire Capital! The Literature Club's about to produce a masterpiece, aren't they?"
The continuous misunderstandings made my head spin, but this too would pass. After a period of silent endurance, Vermel came back inside. I waited for a suitable interval and stepped outside again to sober up.
The soft crunch of my shoe soles against the ground was pleasant to hear. I entered the alley entrance where we'd smoked the Mana Cigarette earlier and checked the dirt.
[Tomorrow]
[Club]
I pulled a Mana Cigarette from my chest, stuck it between my lips, and lit up. A pale heat-haze bloomed before my eyes.
Tapping off the ash, I admired the constellations above. I let a faint smile drift toward the empty air. While I zoned out looking at the stars, the Mana Cigarette had nearly burned down.
I ground the fallen butt beneath my shoe until the embers died completely. Along with the ash of the Mana Cigarette, the Hangul traced in the dirt also lost its shape and became unrecognizable.
"Anyone up for the After-Party!"
"...That wasn't the After-Party?"
"I feel like I'm gonna be sick......."
My friends spilled outside—when had they settled the bill? Tossing the blue candy left over from Vermel into my mouth, I rejoined the group where Rote and Frey stood.
It was a dawn that made me crave a spoonful of hangover soup.
**
─ SYSTEM : The current probability of the world ending is 55 percent.