Do I Look Like I'm Dating?
Do I Look Like I'm Dating?
It wasn't over just because I'd blocked one death flag for Herlein. Vermel decided to stay in the capital to keep an eye on Professor Herlein.
Meanwhile, I was leaving for a while. This way I could dodge the magic beasts' surveillance and start preparing for real action.
We'd have to spend the time apart. That was its own problem. Not being able to talk to Vermel in real time — someone who knew the future — meant we might make the wrong call if a sudden situation came up.
So the two of us gradually extended our clandestine meetings. We decided to sleep while the carriage was moving and, until then, focus on getting as much information out of Vermel as possible and exchanging opinions.
Naturally, the hours we spent together increased. Maybe that was why. Sometime in the last few days, a strange rumor had started circulating.
"Hey, so is it actually true that you two are going out?"
It had reached the point where I was actually getting asked stuff like that.
A group of female students had appeared out of nowhere, cornered me, and asked the question. Completely flabbergasted, I shot back a single word in a surly tone.
"What."
It was a gesture of defiance. As in, I really had no relationship with him whatsoever.
Not that we genuinely had no relationship, of course. We were both from the planet Earth — same hometown, even the same nationality. It wasn't strange for two people from the same place to feel a bond.
"You two have been stuck together all day for days. You think we wouldn't notice just because it's break?"
"I knew this was coming. Ever since the end-of-term party. They're totally going out, right? Take it from me — Chloe, Doctor of Love — it's confirmed."
"But Chloe, you've never been in a relationship."
"Shut up, Liera."
The two of them were now running with a string of bad inferences right in front of me. Their deductions soon lost sight of the original question and devolved into an argument.
I sighed and was about to slip away when another girl ambushed me.
"So? When did you start dating?"
That one hooked everyone's attention. All three girls turned to stare at me.
One of them even pulled out a notebook and pen, ready to take notes.
A notebook and a quill pen. In my personal experience, the kids who walked around with those were mostly from the Literature Club or the Newspaper Club.
If they were from the Literature Club, they were probably looking for story material. The Newspaper Club, though... that needed no explanation. They were definitely hunting for a scoop.
"A love story between the top-ranked elf and the second-ranked Gold-Eye! Isn't this perfect novel material?"
With that one sentence, I knew they were in the Creative Writing Club. To think I'd suddenly become the subject of a romance novel. For someone who'd built a wall between herself and romance her whole life, it was absurd.
I shook my head and registered another protest.
"It's nothing like that."
"Liar. What else do you call a guy and a girl who spend all day together?"
Ugh, this was giving me a headache.
Even if I revealed that Vermel and I were from the same hometown, these girls wouldn't believe me. Worse, if that information reached the ears of a magic beast that might be monitoring me at that moment, it would only attract unnecessary suspicion.
"Just whisper it to us. We won't say anything to the Student Council!"
"The Student Council?"
"Dating's banned on campus. The Council enforces those boomer school rules, and it's so annoying."
By now I was getting lightheaded. I wanted out of here, any way I could.
I was stuck inside a girl's body, but my original self was male. I couldn't fully comprehend the female thought process.
One thing was certain, though. These kids had already accepted the rumor that Vermel and I were passionately in love as fact. It was the principle of presumption of guilt, plain and simple.
I glanced at the time. Every minute and second mattered.
In any case, the person who'd caused this mess was me. For the sake of the big picture, I needed to change my story here.
I thought for a moment, then spoke.
"You keep this between yourselves. It's a secret from everyone else."
"Ohh!"
I brought my index finger to my lips and shushed. The girls' heads turned into a flower garden — they started bouncing and flailing around. I took a few slaps to the shoulder before I was finally able to escape.
Fuck my life.
**
Rosemary clutched the screen, trembling.
"Wh-wh-wha... what the helllll?!"
It was a scream most unlike her.
She pushed the screen up, then pulled it back down. She repeated the motion for quite a while. A mechanical body couldn't possibly have hand tremors — and yet her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Today hadn't been any different from usual. She'd been monitoring her eldest sister while making preparations for the Demon King resurrection plan, when...
─ Keep this between yourselves. It's a secret from everyone else.
Well, the sister in question had gone and blurted out a sudden confession of love.
"Aaaargh!!"
Her head was spinning. This wasn't even about different races — an elf and a Gold-Eye, having that kind of relationship?!
"This is a disgrace to the Gold-Eyes!!"
Rosemary tore at her hair and fumed. Beside her, Duke Blanton opened his mouth, his tone thoroughly unimpressed.
"Did I not tell you? There is no other reason that person would hover around an elf."
"So they even held secret meetings?!"
"How else would you explain it? Whenever they visited Professor Herlein, the two were always together. The answer speaks for itself."
At Duke Blanton's words, Rosemary fell silent.
He'd infiltrated the Empire as Duke Blanton decades ago. He was far more learned in human society than Rosemary.
Blanton's insight encompassed the wide range of human emotions. Humans whose houses trembled over love, humans who ruined affairs out of jealousy. Blanton had witnessed such scenes and saved them as data in his body.
He had spent decades categorizing and mastering the waves of human emotion. If the findings from the 4th Seat's scope were undeniably true, then perhaps...
"You know as well as I do how deep the wound between Gold-Eyes and elves runs."
Rosemary popped a piece of rock candy into her mouth and protested.
"I urge you not to view it that way, but simply as a matter between a man and a woman. Human history is rife with cases of enemy nationals falling in love, betraying their homelands, and fleeing together."
Rosemary's eyes still held incomprehension.
There was no helping it. He would simply have to keep persuading her.
"This boy Vermel Horde is an elf who could certainly charm plenty of women. His features are distinct, and his height is well above the average even among his race. His personality is decent, and he shines in his studies too."
There would be women scattered all over vying for him. In fact, when Rosemary had poked around the Literature Club or whatever it was, several female students had already written romance novels using him as the subject.
The content had been a little odd, but Rosemary hadn't paid it much mind back then.
"I'm well aware that a face like that elf's drawing in women isn't strange. But—but still!"
"Indeed. Our Technical Advisor is not that sort of person."
"Exactly! That's why it's so strange!"
The one doctrine the Goddess and the Demon King had uniquely agreed upon and taught to their respective forces.
[The mind follows the body.]
"Only when the body changes does the heart follow."
"One might also argue it's because she has not yet undergone Corruption."
"Right, so we're of the same mind. Jack, I'm rather fortunate to have a subordinate like you."
Rosemary rose from her seat and rolled up her sleeves. Her hands were as slender as her small frame.
"The violin."
Taking the violin from Blanton, she sat by the window and dressed the strings with pine rosin.
Soon, she began to play. It was a lonely yet beautiful melody fit for a full-moon night. Her playing was so superb that even those not subjected to brainwashing would have instinctively applauded.
For a time, Rosemary closed her eyes and played Tineella's Requiem.
"Have you thought of a good stratagem?"
At last, when she finished playing, the corners of her mouth curled upward. Rosemary's blue eyes shifted back to yellow.
"Yes."
Immersing herself in art seemed to have lifted the fog that had filled her head. The girl, now back to her original calm state, began reviewing her own scheme.
Everything surrounding Aether had been deeply suspicious.
Why did Aether and Vermel move together? How had they intended to conduct their clandestine meetings without her noticing? Had they completely sided with humanity? And when they'd gone to Herlein, why had the two of them acted in concert?
"Love, is it."
Indeed, with that emotion, everything was easily explained.
A faint, bloody smile crossed her lips. Rosemary placed the violin in its case, closed the window, and poured premium gasoline into a glass. She handed a glass to Blanton as well, twisting her lips.
"Raise a toast, Jack. I, Rosemary of the Requiem, have devised a stratagem that kills three birds with one stone."
Blanton grasped her meaning precisely. He recalled the words the 4th Seat had spoken the other day.
If they wanted to draw Aether back to their side, they simply had to make her feel completely betrayed by humanity.
"Oh-ho."
"It seems you understand."
The crux was how to execute that. Ever since those words had been spoken, Rosemary had been fabricating various stratagems.
Now there was no need for them. Everything had become far simpler.
"Before we stop by the west, tell Akasha that Big Sis will be returning to the Magic Tower at the start of December."