There Was an Incident—and There Wasn't
There had been an incident—and yet, there hadn't.
In the days that followed the duel, an unexpectedly quiet stretch of time settled over us. Riel and I had both been watching Alan warily, but he never made any particular move. He simply sat there, for reasons I couldn't guess, staring blankly out the window as if his mind were somewhere else entirely. He no longer did any of the things he used to—clinging stubbornly to Riel, striking up conversation, trailing after her wherever she went.
I was relieved. And uneasy, all the same.
There was one other thing that had changed.
Liliana had not set foot in the academy since that day. I'd wondered if she'd withdrawn entirely, but that wasn't it.
A few days after the duel, a letter arrived from Mother.
Dear Kyou,
They've placed Liliana under house arrest, I hear.
Baron Edwin learned that she was the reason you were drawn into a duel. He sent someone to fetch her home at once and has confined her as punishment.
— Mother
Frankly, Liliana had some cause to feel wronged about the duel having happened at all. And yet, I was told, she accepted the confinement without a word of protest. She must have felt a pang of conscience over what she'd done during the fight, I suppose. The deathly pallor of her face afterward had said as much.
...If she was going to regret it that much, she shouldn't have done it in the first place.
As for whether Liliana continued at the academy, I sent word to the Baron to let her do as she pleased. Once the house arrest was lifted, she would probably come back. Not that I had any intention of concerning myself with it anymore.
And then there was the change that mattered most.
The seating.
After the duel, the atmosphere around Alan and his followers had grown so bleak that the homeroom teacher decided to reshuffle the seats earlier than usual, hoping a change of mood might help. And then she looked at Riel. Of course she did—Riel was the acting class president. Not that she'd wanted the job. The reason she'd ended up with it was Alan Ludwig, naturally. When no one volunteered, the teacher had asked for nominations, and Alan had put Riel's name forward on the spot. According to Riel, he'd pulled her name out of nowhere so suddenly that she'd panicked and barely managed a word before the whole thing was decided.
"Miss Riel, might I ask a favor of you?"
The favor in question was preparing the lottery slips for the new seating chart. The homeroom teacher hesitated as she asked, and Riel nodded. The teacher looked startled. And no wonder—until now, Riel had never said a word no matter what the teacher asked of her, leaving the poor woman in an awkward bind. Now, even if it was only a nod, she had actually answered.
When I looked closely at her face, I could see a faint smile at the corners of her mouth.
"This is perfect timing!"
In the library's secret room, Riel snip-snipped paper into numbered slips with a knife as she spoke.
"I was wondering what I'd even do with being class president, but I never thought a chance to use it like this would come along."
"What are you planning?"
"My seating luck has always been the worst, hasn't it?"
Come to think of it, she had told me about that. Even at Sunday school as a child, and here at the academy too—every time they drew seats, Alan always ended up sitting near her.
"If I'm the one making the slips and the drawing box, I'll make sure we dodge him for certain!"
"Riel, you don't mean..."
"That's right! I'm going to cheat!"
The cheating itself was nothing elaborate. Ahead of time, Riel quietly palmed the slip for the seat in the far back corner. She passed me the one for the seat beside it. The slips for the two seats in front of ours she tucked deep into a seam of the drawing box, as if they'd gotten caught there by accident. Then, when our turns came, we would go through the motions of drawing and pull out the slips we'd set aside. Whoever drew last would be the one to find the hidden slips—but Alan Ludwig, by virtue of his name, would be among the very first to draw. The chance of him pulling a hidden slip was vanishingly small.
The scheme worked beautifully. Riel succeeded in sitting well away from Alan. The seat in front of me went to a girl I'd never even spoken to, and the seat in front of Riel—
"Miss Liliana isn't here, so let's assign the remaining seat to her."
—became Liliana's. Of course, she was under house arrest and wouldn't be coming to the academy for some time yet.
From up ahead, Alan was staring at where Riel and I sat, wearing an expression of utter disbelief.
What. Why. So what.
Now that the world of the novel had become my reality, watching things the original had never properly depicted unfold right in front of me felt surprisingly fresh.
Take this, for instance: familiars.
In the novel, they'd been sketched in with little more than a note of what type they were and then passed over. They hadn't occupied any great share of the original story, so that was fair enough. Once the magic classes had progressed far enough, each of us was to summon a familiar and form a contract. The original had mentioned this part in passing—enough to note who summoned what. Alan, up ahead, summoned a fairy that scattered a gentle light, just as he had in the original. I could see him chatting with the people around him after the contract was done.
"Nngh... this isn't working."
Right in front of me, Riel was hunched over a sheet of paper inscribed with a magic circle, groaning with effort. She'd never been good at summoning magic, so of course she was struggling.
"Woof!"
The familiar I summoned was... a dog. A dog that scattered faint wisps of green mana—cute, more than it was cool. I was pretty sure a breed like this had existed back in the real world...
Kyou Ventus's familiar had never appeared in the original, because Kyou Ventus had left the academy before the familiar lessons even began. So looking at the creature in front of me, I felt a genuine sense of novelty. Then again, just taking this class together with Riel was a novel experience in itself.
"Ah! I did it!"
The magic circle began to glow red, and Riel cried out in delight, utterly unconcerned with anyone around her. In the original, Riel's familiar had been a small fire drake that breathed scorching flame. It had been far too powerful for her summoning skill, showing signs of going berserk, and Alan had stepped in to subdue it. Bracing for whatever might happen, I moved to Riel's side, wariness rising. I was winding myself tight, ready to protect her at a moment's notice, my newly summoned familiar at my side, when—
"...Nyaaah?"
"...Huh?"
"Waaah!!"
What emerged from the magic circle was nothing like a fire drake. It was radiating heat, yes—but a warmth more gentle than scorching. A red-furred cat, shedding a soothing heat into the air around it.
Well. I hadn't expected even this much to diverge from the original. Just in case, I didn't drop my guard, watching carefully—but the cat familiar simply sat there, its paws tucked neatly in, gazing up at Riel and nothing more.
Riel approached, chanting the words of the contract rite.
...The contract went through without a hitch.
"From now on, your name is Frey."
She even succeeded in naming it on the spot. A perfect familiar contract. And just like that, one of the original story's incidents—Riel's berserk familiar—ended without ever coming to pass.
...My familiar's name?
"Let's do our best too, Baduk."
"Whine..."
Hey now. Don't give me that look.
From a distance, a pair of eyes watched Riel, who had just completed her familiar contract.
Alan Ludwig, of course.
Alan's feelings were a tangled mess. All this time, he had been convinced that insufferable highborn brat had been dragging Riel around against her will. He had sworn he would make that guy pay and protect Riel himself. But the day of the duel, reality had driven home that he'd been wrong.
Both he and Kyou Ventus had taken light injuries in the fight. And in that moment—when Riel hadn't so much as glanced his way, when she'd run to Kyou Ventus and fussed over him—Alan had felt something inside him break.
Why... you're my childhood friend... you're the person most precious to me...
That scene still flickered behind his eyes. He hadn't been able to face Riel properly since. Up ahead, Riel was laughing as she summoned a familiar together with Kyou Ventus. She looked utterly happy.
She's never... she's never once shown me a face like that...
He'd thought it was only shyness. Only embarrassment. It wasn't. In front of Kyou Ventus, she wore an expression of pure delight. Even after years at her side, it was a face Alan had never seen.
"So it's true... Riel really does..."
Should he give up?
It was while Alan was wrestling with that thought that a voice cut in.
"Alan, why are you spacing out like that?"
"Yohan."
Yohan was as close a friend as Alan had. The son of a first-generation lesser noble, he'd grown up in circumstances similar to Alan's; they'd met at the academy and become friends.
"Is it because of Lady Ignis?"
"......Yeah."
Yohan looked at Riel, smiling in the distance.
"Maybe... it would be better to just give up?"
"Hmm..."
Yohan knew Alan was in love with Riel. The guy had girls falling for him left and right, and this sinner of a friend had eyes only for her. But even to Yohan's eyes, Riel already looked terribly close with Kyou Ventus—a completely different person from the one she was around Alan. No matter how you looked at it, Alan didn't stand a chance.
...If Alan kept chasing Riel without letting go, wouldn't both of them just end up miserable? Wouldn't it be kinder to have him let go and find someone new?
Thinking that, Yohan opened his mouth.
"Alan... I think..."
"But... I don't want to give up. I really like Riel."
"......"
At Alan's words, whatever Yohan had been about to say died in his throat. Yohan's eyes held no emotion at all, as if they had been scraped hollow.
"Yohan, what am I supposed to do?"
"......"
"...Yohan?"
Alan looked at him, puzzled by the silence. Then, all at once, Yohan spoke.
"Huh...? Well, that's true, but the way they are already..."
"You're not the kind of guy who'd quit over an obstacle this small! Was everything you've felt for years only worth that much?"
Yohan was saying the opposite of everything he'd been thinking a moment before. The words leaving his mouth were fierce, as if to spur Alan on—and yet, for some reason, his eyes looked empty.