Under the Moonlight
The headmaster’s office lay in a building set slightly apart from the classroom wing. I walked slowly across the campus in the opposite direction from the cadets streaming toward the dormitories and cafeteria, passing nameless trees that had just begun to unfurl delicate flower buds. My gaze lingered on them before I realized it, and my pace slowed. This is no time to be distracted. Focus, Ruwina. I had to hurry if I didn’t want to be late for my lunch appointment with the headmaster. Biting my lip, I lifted my chin and strode forward.
Ordinarily I had about as much interest in flowers as any other man. The faint flutter I felt just now had to be Lewina’s emotion, not mine. The way my sensibilities had softened still felt foreign. I wondered what Lewina herself would think if she could see me now. The quiet around me only invited more thoughts. Slap! I smacked both cheeks hard enough to make them sting, then looked up at the building ahead.
Beyond the broad central garden stood an elegant three-story structure where the academy’s so-called “important people” resided. In the original story it had appeared only once or twice in the background. A young woman waited at the entrance, apparently there to greet me.
“Welcome. You must be Cadet Luna Adelst?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Just as the rumors said. Please follow me.”
There were so many rumors about me that I had no idea which ones she had heard. She seemed to serve as the headmaster’s secretary. I could only hope the rumors weren’t vicious and hadn’t reached his ears.
As we walked down the corridor I mentally rehearsed what I would ask the headmaster. He was doing me favors at Queen Line’s request, but I doubted he would grant access to a restricted area so easily. Still, remembering that Lewina had entered that zone in the original story, it might not be as difficult as I feared. There was even a chance the headmaster himself had intended to send her there.
In the original work, Lewina had arrived at the academy still recovering from serious injuries. She would have visited the headmaster soon afterward; the environment here was too harsh for a princess who had never used her body for anything strenuous. Before coming, I had spent several months building basic stamina. The body that once struggled to run a hundred meters now handled kilometer-long jogs without collapsing. Because of that, I had adapted to classes easily and had no immediate reason to see the headmaster. Looking back, I realized I had put it off too long. I should have introduced myself earlier, if only to greet him. Since Line had personally asked him to look after me, there must be some connection between them.
All of this is Rendel’s fault. During breaks and after class I had been busy avoiding him or preparing to avoid him, so I never found the time to meet the headmaster. That idiot protagonist. He could have just asked any of his friends to deliver the handkerchief, or sent one of them instead. Ran, for example. Or Ran Geilt. The top second-year operator, Cadet Ran Geilt.
While my desire to see my favorite character in the flesh ran wild, we arrived at a certain door.
“This isn’t the headmaster’s office?” There was no nameplate.
The guide smiled softly and opened the door. “It’s the dining room. The headmaster is already inside. Please go in.”
“Ah. He arrived first.”
It was poor manners to keep an elder waiting. Still, I had rushed straight here after class and it was already this late. I decided to simply enjoy the meal with a light heart.
“Excuse me.”
The door closed behind me with a soft click. I straightened my posture and quickly scanned the room. Even though it was daytime, heavy curtains were drawn and a chandelier blazed brightly over the lavish dining hall. A buffet spread covered an entire wall, and among the ten or so tables only one was occupied—by a single person. An elderly man sat with his arms folded, eyes closed, an enormous pile of plates stacked before him. The headmaster opened his eyes the moment I entered.
The chair nearly toppled backward as he shot to his feet.
His voice was loud enough to make my ears ring.
After that striking greeting, the meal proceeded with almost no conversation. A full buffet had been laid out, yet only two people were eating—one of them an abnormally large elderly man. The atmosphere was more than a little awkward. I had always believed that older people ate less, but the mountain of food on the headmaster’s plates would have been difficult for even a healthy young man to finish. What astonished me more than his appetite, however, was what he had shouted the instant he saw me.
Lewina was a princess of Karmanu, so it was proper to address her as “Your Highness.” But for a general of another nation to call himself “this humble servant” was completely unexpected. Had we been at an official function, it would have caused a diplomatic incident.
“Heh heh. Staring so intently at an old man’s face is bad for my digestion.”
Even as he spoke, he inhaled a T-bone steak in seconds. I now understood how he maintained that massive frame. I finished my own modest portions of salad, pasta, and steak. While I emptied one plate, the headmaster cleared eight. If he ate like this every day, the academy’s food budget had to be enormous.
When the meal finally wound down, the headmaster wore a satisfied expression.
“Most people insist on talking even while eating, but it seems Your Highness shares this old man’s temperament.”
“It’s simply bad manners to talk with your mouth full.”
The Korean dining etiquette imprinted on me at an instinctive level had spoken for itself.
“Heh heh. The Karmanu royal family’s education is truly exceptional.”
I caught a subtle nuance in his words—he spoke as if he knew the royal family well. I decided to ask directly.
“Headmaster, forgive me for being blunt, but are you familiar with our kingdom?”
“Of course. It seems Her Majesty Line didn’t tell you anything.”
“No. She only said that if anything happened I should come see you…”
The headmaster chuckled warmly and stroked his long beard.
“Well, it was a very long time ago and the connection was brief, but I once served in Karmanu.”
“Really? Then are you from Karmanu as well?”
“Hmm. I came from somewhere a bit farther away. Explaining everything would take quite a while. Shall we move to a more suitable place?”
I followed him to the headmaster’s office on the second floor. Two soldiers standing guard saluted the headmaster and bowed to me. Once inside, he retrieved something from his desk—an old, faded photograph in a frame. The faces inside were familiar.
“Ah!”
A young girl who resembled the childhood memories inside Ruwina’s head stood at the center. Behind her, a boy of unusually powerful build caught my eye. The moment I realized who they were, goosebumps raced down my spine.
The tragic imperial princess from the monumental first work of the Aindium series, Aindium. And the super soldier Jade who had escorted her as she fled the empire’s internal strife to seek refuge abroad. Their story—how the princess and the power-armor soldier escaped the empire, passed through the republic, and settled in a foreign land—was covered in detail in the middle and latter parts of the work. The boy who had once evaded the protagonist’s party, been captured, surrendered, and eventually fought alongside them as a major supporting character now stood before me as an old man. I never imagined I would meet a character whose epilogue I had always been curious about in this manner.
“Do you recognize them?”
“Yes.”
“Heh heh. As expected of Her Highness the Imperial Princess’s bloodline—your mind is sharp.”
“Pardon? Ah, yes.”
Come to think of it, Lewina would not have known who Jade was. Therefore the person I was supposed to recognize in this photograph was none other than the imperial princess. The imperial princess’s bloodline. It was not hard to guess what those words implied. The age, the gender, and the person who remained in Ruwina’s memories.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a photograph of my grandmother as a child.”
“Doesn’t she resemble you perfectly?”
Line and Ruwina’s grandmother had been the imperial princess who fled into exile. In the original work she had been a minor character—a young girl who only appealed to a certain niche audience. Seeing that her descendant Ruwina appeared in this new story, it seemed the production team had prepared something special. It would be my job to uncover what that was and unravel it.
“It has been a long time since I recalled the past. I left Karmanu due to personal circumstances, leaving Her Highness behind, but I still consider myself a knight who serves her.”
“But Grandmother…”
“Yes. I know.”
Sadness filled the headmaster’s eyes. Ruwina and Line’s grandmother had passed away two years ago. A man who called himself her knight could not have been unaware.
“I visited late for the funeral. At that time Her Majesty Line asked me to look after Princess Ruwina at this academy. The decision was finalized several months ago.”
Only now did I understand how Line had become connected to the headmaster of Alitus Aindium Academy. Jade took out what I thought was a cigarette—only to pop a large candy meant for children into his mouth.
“Pardon me. Given my condition, I require steady sugar intake. Now, shall I hear why you have come all the way here?”
“Yes. I would like permission to enter a certain restricted area.”
I took out a sheet of paper I had prepared in advance. It was a fairly accurate map of the academy that I had asked Neria to draw, with one location marked. It was the area behind the school that students were forbidden to enter.
“This is…”
The headmaster narrowed his eyes and pointed at the red circle on the academy blueprint lying on the table.
“Are you perhaps referring to Fairy’s Hill?”
“Yes! That’s right. Fairy’s Hill.”
Since the name matched the event map from the game, I nodded vigorously. The headmaster stroked his beard and tilted his head.
“Hmm. I wonder whether this is coincidence or fate.”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
“In truth, it is the very task I intended to ask of you, Princess. I was going to request that you scout Fairy’s Hill once.”
So, just as I expected, in the original story the headmaster had asked Lewina to do this. Jade smiled gently, took something from a drawer, and held it out. It was a military communicator.
“That place cannot be entered by ordinary people.”
“Is it dangerous?”
There had been no such description in the original work. The headmaster shook his head.
“Not at all. It is simply impossible to enter. No matter how many people go together, no matter how carefully they follow the correct path, they cannot reach it.”
He drew a line on the map from the school to Fairy’s Hill and stopped his finger just before the hill.
“It should be around here. Any closer and a powerful magical effect occurs. You lose your way and return to the school, or suddenly become dizzy and have to turn back. There were attempts to enter using Aindium as well, but the engines would suddenly shut down and it took days just to drag the units back out.”
Yeah… I suddenly don’t want to go anymore.
The headmaster studied my expression and smiled.
“But you, Princess, should be fine.”
“Could you tell me why you think so?”
“You will probably understand once you go yourself.”
Jade laughed heartily and refused to explain further. Had Fairy’s Hill always been such a terrifying place? The protagonist Rendel had simply walked in without any trouble.
“And this communicator?”
“Just in case. You will be entering alone. If you were to collapse, it would be a serious matter. It also functions as a location tracker. If you remain motionless for too long, we will come find you even if it costs us our lives.”
“I see.”
It seemed safer to simply remove whatever magical barrier was there. The fact that the Alitus Kingdom had never succeeded in doing so suggested something extraordinary was hidden inside.
“By the way, the rumors circulating lately are rather disturbing.”
“…What rumors have you heard, Headmaster?”
“It pains me to say it, but there is an outrageous rumor that some insane second-year cadet has dared to set his sights on Your Highness.”
Jade’s eyes began to burn with a murderous light that looked ready to swallow a man whole. At this rate the protagonist would be attacked by the headmaster before any enemy could reach him. I waved my hands frantically.
“It’s just a rumor! Ren—um, the senior isn’t a bad person.”
“Your Highness! I fear that scoundrel may have deceived your innocent heart with sweet words!”
“I told you it’s not like that! We’ve only spoken once.”
Before Rendel could become permanently labeled a womanizer inside the headmaster’s mind, I decided to wrap things up quickly.
“I’ll head to the hill right away! Would it be all right to miss afternoon classes?”
“By all means. I will inform your special instructor.”
“Thank you. Oh, and please don’t call me ‘Princess’ outside.”
“Understood.”
I repeatedly impressed upon the hot-blooded old man not to cause any trouble, then headed for the hiking trail behind the building. My bag already contained two days’ worth of water and rations. After carefully storing the communicator Jade had given me, I began the real ascent.
“Still nothing today.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. Luna is so strong that the kids can’t catch her.”
“……”
Only after listening to the excuses from the girls in Class 8 of the first-year division did Rendel finally understand. Luna was avoiding him. If not for Ran’s pointed remark, he would never have realized it. When he thought about it, it was strange that Luna kept disappearing even though she must have heard he was looking for her. Whenever he thought about Luna, his mind refused to work properly and his judgment clouded over.
Another wasted day. Rendel returned to the classroom with a bitter taste in his mouth. After all the special classes ended, evening approached. He had absentmindedly used Luna’s handkerchief to wipe away his sweat, so before dinner he washed it thoroughly in the laundry room, hung it carefully on the clothesline in his room, and opened the window to air the place out. That was when something strange caught his eye.
The mountain behind the school visible from the dormitory was one of the off-limits zones. Hiking and mountain training took place on a different peak farther away, and marches were routed to avoid the restricted areas. Yet what was that light? It was not the season for fireflies, and the glow was clearly artificial.
“An Aindium?”
Judging the light to be an Aindium’s night running lights, Rendel immediately left the dormitory. He had never heard of Aindium training at this hour—especially not inside a restricted zone. He needed to check first before alerting anyone. If a large group went and got lost thanks to the fairies’ prank, the damage could be severe.
The “fairies’ prank” referred to the phenomenon of losing one’s way on the hill. Every new student experienced it at least once as part of orientation, so Rendel knew roughly where the effect began.
“Rendel? Where are you going?”
It was Carson, a male classmate from the CT Club. Rendel pointed toward the mountain behind the school.
“There’s something strange on Fairy’s Hill. If I don’t come back for a long time, tell the instructors and prepare for combat.”
“What? Hey, what the hell—”
Rendel sprinted away so quickly that Carson’s words could no longer reach him.