I Want to Read Minds (2)
"Hey… how exactly did you hear that?"
"Who knows. Maybe whoever cast the soundproofing magic was sloppy."
"That can't be."
If Ailen, who hadn't even been in the classroom, could hear it, then everyone inside the classroom would have heard it too.
But outside the classroom at the time, conversations like these had been floating around.
Young Master Raufen and Young Master Katram having a secret talk?
Someone from the First Prince's faction and someone from the Second Princess's faction whispering together…
What on earth were they talking about? Is the balance of power shifting?
All that long-winded nonsense made it obvious they hadn't heard a thing.
"Well, anyway. You were the sloppy one."
"I can't accept that."
"That's because you're an idiot. Magic that reads people's hearts… our ancestors gave up on that ages ago."
"Why would they give up on it?"
"Because it doesn't lead to progress."
"Progress?"
"Frey, do you know the story of the birds that went extinct because they had no natural predators?"
"I do."
On a certain island lived a small species of bird. At first the birds flew freely and moved with sharp speed. No one could catch them.
But as time passed, the animals that threatened the birds disappeared. At some point, nothing remained on the island that would eat them.
The island became a paradise for birds. They no longer needed to flee. They could leisurely peck at insects and that was enough.
As the years went by, the birds stopped flying. They stopped moving quickly. There were no predators left to threaten them, after all.
Then one day, humans landed on the island that had belonged only to birds. The humans had come to survey islands across the region.
Humans, who hated loneliness, also kept pets. Three of those pets escaped. Cats.
The three cats discovered that the island was full of amusing toys. Fat birds that couldn't even fly, everywhere.
The birds approached the cats without the slightest wariness, and the cats slaughtered them without mercy. Only then did the birds try to flee—but their wings and their speed were both far too lacking.
Within a year, every bird on the island had been hunted to extinction by the cats.
"What does that have to do with mind-reading magic?"
"Think about it. If everyone could read each other's hearts, would conflict still arise?"
"Well… if you saw how disgusting the other person really was, wouldn't you fight even more?"
"It works both ways. You'd both realize how foolish and repulsive the other is. And if that went on for hundreds of years?"
"Conflict disappears?"
"Exactly. People fight over the pettiest misunderstandings all the time. If they could read minds, fighting might vanish entirely."
"Then isn't that a good thing?"
"What did you take that bird story for? The end of conflict is stagnation, and stagnation is regression. History proves it, doesn't it?"
"History?"
"Nations that lived in peace for centuries, only to be wiped out in an instant by another country."
"Ah."
She was right. Stable nations grow soft in peacetime, their military development slows, and in the end they are swallowed by foreign peoples from beyond their borders. History books are full of hundreds of such cases.
Stability tramples progress, and a nation that has regressed gets eaten by another.
Ailen was saying that mind-reading magic would stagnate humanity.
Even if every human in the world shared mind-reading magic, the result would be the same. Conflict between humans might disappear—but plenty of other races lived in this world besides humans.
The world was not so gentle that one could simply stagnate and still survive. That had been an unchanging truth since ancient times.
"That's why mind-reading magic was deemed unnecessary. It was even banned by law."
"The development of the magic itself was banned?"
"The great founder of the current Empire forbade it. So don't even dream of developing anything like that."
"I wasn't planning to develop it."
"Besides, reading minds isn't even fun."
"Pardon?"
"People make the effort to understand each other precisely because they can't read minds. Now imagine you could read them freely whenever you wanted. Life would get pretty dull, don't you think?"
"I'm a pacifist, so I think I'd be fine with that."
"A pacifist would just get hurt."
"For example?"
Ailen pointed at a noble young lady in a maid outfit who was currently flustered.
"She thinks you're a creepy pervert masochist who keeps hitting on the princess."
"……"
"Just kidding. But you got hurt, didn't you?"
"You startled me."
Even so, the idea that a classmate might actually think of me that way was a shock.
"So don't go wishing you could see straight into people's hearts."
"Haa… understood. Thank you for the advice."
"Then you'll become my retainer?"
"I'd rather not."
"Honestly. Why refuse to serve such an excellent princess as your master? I just can't understand it."
"Didn't you just say that figuring that out is the fun part?"
"When the fun goes too far, blood pressure rises."
"What is that supposed to mean."
In any case, I had received good advice. But one thing still bothered me.
"Even so, if you could read minds, you could at least smooth over petty quarrels, couldn't you? What if you only used it for that?"
"Idiot. You already know how to open someone's heart without magic like that."
"Pardon?"
Poke.
Ailen popped a scone into my mouth. I sat there with my mouth open, staring blankly at her.
Ailen smiled brightly.
"You loosened my heart just like this, didn't you?"
"Mph. Mmph."
"Oh, your face is red. Have you fallen for me?"
I barely managed to chew and swallow the scone before shouting,
"As if I would!"
"What a shame. Your face seems to disagree."
"Illusion magic. It's because of the illusion magic."
There was no way I liked Ailen rather than my young lady. Absolutely not.
"Whew. If you've eaten enough, I'll release it now."
"Right. My turn this time, is it?"
When the illusion magic was lifted, the other students who had been watching looked disappointed. Professor Violet was frantically scribbling something in her notebook—what, I had no idea.
"I'll cast it only on you. So just act however you want."
"You're not going to cast anything extreme, right?"
"Of course not. Ready?"
Ailen counted as if casting a suggestion. One, two, three.
And the scene that unfolded was…
Slap.
"Kyaa!?"
I immediately shattered the illusion magic Ailen had cast. The forced rupture of the spell sent Ailen tumbling backward onto her rear.
"Ow, ow, ow. Frey! What do you think you're doing?!"
"What kind of illusion did you just show me?"
"I don't know."
"I'm not in the mood for jokes."
"I really don't know. I just structured it so it would show you the future you yourself were imagining. The same way Professor Violet did."
"……"
"I fell because of you. Aren't you going to help me up?"
"S-sorry. But you should have cast it so it wouldn't break that easily."
"You're seriously the worst. And for the record, in advance—I like you."
"Why is this conversation following a template?"
I helped Ailen to her feet. Professor Violet looked at the two of us and embroidered two plus signs in the empty air.
"B-both of you are w-wonderful! W-would you perhaps c-consider becoming g-graduate students—"
"Professor! Look at this! Yohan won't wake up!"
"W-what did you say!?"
Professor Violet bolted off in a panic. Watching her go, Ailen laughed and asked me,
"So what illusion did you see?"
"It's a secret."
"You're going to be that petty?"
"I've always been petty. I'm from a cadet branch."
"Fine, I won't pry. Not digging into a retainer's private shame is also a virtue of a good master."
"I never said it was private shame!"
I spent the rest of that day at the Academy in a strange, restless haze. When Ailen pulled her usual minor pranks, I normally let them slide—but today I overreacted to every single one.
My reactions were so intense that Ailen actually apologized, something she almost never did. I immediately bowed my head and insisted the fault was mine. Even if she was being lenient right now, a princess was still a princess.
"Huu… I'm exhausted."
In the carriage on the way home, I thought back to what I had seen in Ailen's illusion magic.
No matter how I looked at it, it was insane. Me, wanting something like that? Impossible. That was the behavior of the lowest kind of human being. But magic did not lie…
Forget it. This would remain my secret alone for the rest of my life.
For now, I needed to focus on what I had to do.
The moment I arrived at the mansion, I went straight up to my young lady's room. I took a deep breath and knocked.
"Young lady. It's Frey. May I come in?"
No answer. Was she planning to ignore me again today?
"I don't know what I did wrong yesterday. But I want to make it up to you. Could you open the door?"
Silence. Haa… should I give up for today?
Then it happened. A strange current of mana stirred from inside my young lady's room. This was… teleportation?
There was no reason for my young lady to use teleportation. In an instant, an entire scenario assembled itself in my head. Someone was trying to kidnap the frail young lady of House Katram in order to blackmail the Duke! That someone was using teleportation right now to abduct her!
Without thinking of anything else, I threw the door open. My young lady's safety came first!
"Who are you! Trying to take the young lady—!"
The instant after I shouted with such confidence—
I found myself face-to-face with the Duke, who wore a startled expression. And behind him, someone wearing an Academy uniform…?