Chapter 153
And the incident struck the very next day.
The trouble was that it had nothing to do with the witch.
"So you've gone and approached someone you had no business approaching. You don't know your place."
A girl stood before me. Her long hair was gathered into a soft, fluffy bundle, and those sharp eyes met mine dead on, level with my own. For the record, I am very short. Which is to say the girl in front of me was every bit as small as I am.
Her strength, however, was nothing like her height. She stepped in, caught my clothes, and lifted me lightly with one hand. My legs rose, drifting. I do seem to spend a great deal of time with my feet off the ground.
But this—I never thought I would be the one to experience it. This body is a woman's, after all. The same sort of thing had happened on the ship bound for Berne City, and yet who would have imagined a scene straight out of the romance fantasies from that faded world in my memory would actually befall me. I never expected to be the protagonist of a moment like this. I know the real thing takes a far more furtive, vicious shape. I didn't think it would happen this openly.
Meanwhile, the instant my clothes were seized and I was hauled up, Victoria came storming over in a fury, only to be caught by a classmate. Worrying about me. She must have forgotten what I am. I don't know how much this body can endure, but it is quite sturdy. And regardless of its performance, there was never any need to worry about a fight in the first place.
I could see the girl's eyes. Those brilliantly gleaming golden irises weren't fixed on me; they were sweeping the surroundings. There was no jealousy in them, no killing intent—only the look of someone hunting, stubbornly, for something. And when her gaze did land on me, she regarded me the way one regards a thing that doesn't belong.
"Do you even understand the situation you've walked into?"
"What situation?"
Thump. My body came down. My clothes were rumpled, but she had the strength to wring my neck and had only taken hold of the cloth to lift me. She had no intention of attacking. So what was I supposed to do?
"You're still not in your right mind. I'll have to speak with you somewhere safe."
The girl forced an expression of utter disbelief, shook her head with theatrical grandeur, and turned her gaze on Victoria, speaking as if she meant to discipline her in private. She had no such intention at all.
"You. Over there. If you've a complaint, come along."
She jabbed a finger straight at Victoria. Calling my side over like this—she must have meant to explain the situation. And with that, she seized my wrist and dragged me off.
"Lady Bearington. Even so, intimidating a commoner who knows nothing is hardly proper."
The girl who had taken me to Theodore last time blocked the doorway.
"I will settle this with words, so step aside. Lady Shekal. Do you imagine that standing under Theodore's name gives you the right to stop me?"
Perhaps because the words carried a promise that resistance would be something she regretted, the girl who bore the name Shekal fell back. She was a full head taller, and yet fear seeped across her face—whether from the weight of rank, or because the girl who bore the name Bearington was simply that strong. Half a year of studying together would be enough to know, more or less.
Shekal stepped aside and whispered to me, very small.
"If you're in danger, call for Lord Theodore."
Bearington heard it, of course. She only looked faintly surprised, said nothing more, and kept dragging me along.
Led by Bearington, I headed for the east wing—the exact opposite of the west wing, where Theodore had established herself. We didn't enter the building. At the place where the corridor bent at a right angle, we slipped out through a small door.
The moment we stepped outside, I felt the moisture in the air drying away. Hmm. I turned my head, and Victoria's expression was dangerous. To be precise, it was the face she had worn when she began slaughtering the sahuagin: the look of someone who has finished resolving to do what must be done.
Once outside, we entered a wood within the academy that still bore the marks of having been planted by hand. Only after we had gone far enough that no eyes could reach us did Bearington release my wrist. Then she walked a little farther off.
CRACK.
With her bare hands, she snapped a thick tree in two. I couldn't help wondering how a body that small produced force like that, but mana solves most things. The problem was that the soil at the roots was splitting, dry and crumbly.
"You didn't call us out here to be angry."
"So you did know."
Dusting off her palms, the girl called Bearington came ambling over.
"Huh? What the hell. You weren't about to mess with Bell over some stupid reason, were you?"
Bearington offered no particular reaction to Victoria's words. She simply came closer.
"The reason may be trifling, but the jealousy it stirs up among girls is anything but. Last year, the daughter of a man who works for our house was ruined so thoroughly she withdrew. By accident. Just once. For the sole crime of having spoken with His Highness the prince."
True enough. The prince clearly wasn't in our year. And the Cinderella dream, it seems, exists in every world.
Victoria looked at Bearington, then at me. Something clicked. She waved a hand, and the ground slowly dampened; water boiled up from every side in frothing bubbles, and the earth turned to mud.
"You're quite a dangerous person yourself, aren't you?"
Bearington regarded Victoria with keen interest.
"Dangerous? That's a rude thing to say. Weren't you supposed to be a noble young lady?"
"Polaris Valouin Bearington. Call me Pola."
At Victoria's words, Polaris let out a short laugh. Victoria looked at her as if unsure this was how any of this was supposed to go.
"I'm Bell. Victoria, beside me, gave me the name."
"I'm Victoria Vett. People I'm close to call me Tori. Call me that if you want."
No one but family had ever called her that.
"Gave you a name?"
Polaris looked from me to Victoria, puzzled. Victoria shot me a glance as if to ask why I had said that, opened her mouth, then stopped.
"Bell can explain."
She said it while looking back at me.
"It would be easier if you were the one to define it, but it can't be helped. In short, I am not a person."
"In the sense that your character is past saving?"
Polaris blinked, turning my words over, and pressed the question.
"It will be easier if you think of it as a species."
From her expression, she had asked while already knowing. So I told her it was what she was thinking.
"A monster? Out of nowhere?"
"Do people heal easily?"
I asked something everyone already knows. The royal house had promoted it aggressively—gone so far as to air a special broadcast about the ability I possess, and lifted the Harvesters up with it. It was the royal house, too, that had funded the Purple Twilight Society in its early days for that very purpose. Last night, a few of the people who managed the Society as a whole fought over the severed funding, then went looking for where the money had come from in the first place. That was when I learned it as well. And with that support cut off, the Purple Twilight Society is quietly beginning to crack.
In other words, there was a reason they had taken up volunteer work so readily. Yes. Who would do that sort of thing so easily if their livelihood weren't guaranteed? Most of the people in the Purple Twilight Society had carried grave wounds, and yet after contracting with me they healed as if the injuries had been washed clean. Even the princess had been healed.
"They don't. So that's why they ran that broadcast. I thought it awfully strange, for the royal house. It was to cover up a monster."
I suspect it was done for Princess Aurora, but I didn't say so.
"So you came out to mark, in advance, that you were the one who did it—so that I wouldn't be harassed."
At that, Polaris nodded readily. Like a bear scoring a tree to claim its territory.
"Were you a good person?"
"You mustn't sort people by good and evil."
Anyone can become a Harvester. I have my likes and dislikes too, but warmth matters more than that. Anyway.
"I'm not a particularly good person either."
So saying, Polaris went to a chair at one side of the garden and sat, then lifted a foot. Muddy water dripped from it. Seeing that, Victoria approached. Whether she noticed or not, Polaris pulled off her shoe, let part of her stocking sag, and wrung the water out as she asked.
"More to the point, why is House Theodore's mutt taking your side? From what I've heard, the one who made the biggest mess last year was that lame young lady."
"Lame young lady?"
Victoria asked it back. When she spoke from right in front of her, Polaris startled and looked up. As if to soothe her, Victoria set a hand on her shoulder and drew droplets up from the ground to wash the dirtied foot clean. Polaris blinked at the sight, and once she had confirmed that her clothes and shoes were washed clean and dried bone-dry, she let out a sound of admiration. Then she lifted her head, looked at Victoria and at me, and spoke.
"Why do you ask? She's that famous in society—no. Sorry. It's a story you wouldn't know. She was born with something wrong with her legs. And her head was sharp, so she's done a great deal. Plenty of good stories about her, and plenty of bad ones."
Here, noble and commoner alike, a great many people dress quite lightly. I had thought it strange that she alone wore long clothes. It was to hide her legs. If one side is impaired, only the muscles on the side you use would develop.
"I'd heard she helped ruin the daughter of a man who works for our house so badly the girl withdrew, so I assumed she had a filthy personality. But protection, is it..."
Her gaze turned to me.
"Does she want you to heal her legs?"
"She told me that if a dangerous situation comes, I should give the name Theodore first."
I said it to make clear that the rest had not yet been put into words.
"Selling a favor. Mm. A clever way to use it. Once there's a debt, it's easy to drag someone this way and that."
Polaris understood at once.
"I'd like to tell you to set that person's favor aside. But..."
Arms folded, she sank into thought.
"Theodore is the strongest faction, so it might be better to use me as the excuse and simply place yourself under her entirely. That treatment. Is it all right to do as you please? Can she even be healed?"
I nodded.
"Yes. If she wishes it, I'll do it."
In the first world, even those I suspected of hereditary disease all returned to normal.
"It's really all right to do as you please like that?"
"So far, no one has placed a restriction on me."
Last time I did set limits when I had to, but this third world has nothing of the sort.
"Do your best under Theodore. For reference, I can't speak for our year, but I'm told plenty of people in the years above still believe that if they do well enough, they'll become queen. So be as careful as you can."
I nodded.