Self-Satisfaction
"...You tricked me."
That was what Elice threw at me as we headed back to the academy after a lunch that had been, in its own way, satisfying.
"Me? Trick you?"
"Of course you did! You made it sound like something important had happened!"
"Choose your words carefully, Elice Axstra. I never said anything of the sort to you."
You dug that up on your own.
You found it out with that uselessly sharp information network of yours.
It wasn't wrong. I had never once brought up whatever had happened with Aria to Elice in the first place.
Elice seemed to already know that, too. She only declared her next words while trembling all over with rage.
"I'll get my revenge. Rian Tryce."
"...On what grounds, exactly, are you planning to take revenge on me? Shouldn't you be taking it out on the informants who fed you exaggerated information?"
"Anyway! Just know that one day I will absolutely get my revenge on you."
"Ah, right."
Honestly, it was absurd. An open-ended vow of revenge aimed at someone who had already received a terminal diagnosis. The sheer ridiculousness of it almost made me laugh out loud.
I wonder which will come first—my death, or Elice's vague revenge finally reaching me.
Being targeted for revenge by Elice Axstra. Thinking of the original Elice, that was not a sentence to take lightly.
I could brush it off with a laugh only because I was already living on borrowed time. Even a brief consideration of the shadowy image Elice Axstra carried in the original novel made it clear this was no laughing matter.
There was something like that, wasn't there.
A first-year underclassman who kept pestering her with confessions simply because she was pretty—vanished without a single trace left behind.
In the original it had only been an event meant to heighten the mystery and dread surrounding the character of Elice Axstra. But imagining myself in that position made it genuinely terrifying.
All he had done was confess his feelings to a senior he liked. And one day, without a sound or a rumor, his entire existence had been erased without anyone noticing.
While I was thinking roughly along those lines, Elice—her usual blank expression restored—opened her mouth again.
"Haa. Whatever. What are you going to do about that?"
"...About what? You have to tell me what 'that' is before I can answer."
"Your fiancée's family. The Brilliant Duchy has started collecting information on your scoundrel past, you know?"
Elice pressed on as if scolding me for how many times she had to say it before I understood.
"There's a limit to how much I can block on my end. It's getting hard to hold them off now. Don't you have any plan to deal with it?"
"I think I already told you this yesterday. There's no need to stop them."
"What, so you're really planning to break off the engagement with that girl?"
"...If Elena wants it, then that's what I'll have to do."
As I had said before, I had no particular intention of preventing a breakup between Elena and me.
It was an undeniable fact. That the scoundrel Rian Tryce and Elena Brilliant did not suit each other.
An absolute, unchangeable truth.
"That aside, why do you keep taking an interest in this?"
"Pardon?"
"I told you yesterday I didn't care. So why are you personally blocking it?"
And what I was actually curious about was something else entirely.
Elice Axstra, who never moved unless there was something in it for her—what possible reason did she have for trying to stop my engagement from being broken?
"...That is..."
Elice flinched as if I had struck a nerve.
Seeing that, I began to wonder whether the theory I had only been guessing at in my head might actually be true.
"You... don't tell me."
"..."
"You don't have feelings for me, do you?"
It was a reasonably logical deduction. From my perspective, there was simply no other benefit Elice could gain by preventing my breakup.
But it did not take long for that theory to be thoroughly disproven.
"What kind of nonsense is that, Rian Tryce."
"...I'm really sorry. Could you not look at me like that? It's scary."
Because the moment she heard me, Elice—who until then had at least been wearing a minimal customer-service smile—hardened her expression into something terrifying.
Look at that icy face.
She could kill someone with that and still have room left over.
Even if I had received a terminal diagnosis and no longer clung to life, that did not mean I wanted to die right this second.
Fortunately, after hearing my thoroughly sincere apology, Elice quickly smoothed her expression out again.
"Don't spout such ridiculous nonsense. I'm already in a bad mood as it is."
"I'm truly sorry."
"Haa. I wasn't going to say this, but if you're going to make useless misunderstandings, I have no choice."
"..."
"Isn't it obvious? If you and that girl break off the engagement, where do you think her next marriage talks will go?"
"Prince Mikael?"
I already knew this well; it had appeared in the original novel.
After Elena broke off her engagement with Rian, the imperial family itself had arranged marriage talks between the prince and Elena.
...By that point Elena and the protagonist had already started growing closer, so it hadn't meant much.
If not for the original protagonist's existence, I suspected Elena would simply have married Prince Mikael von Felias.
Of course, Elice—who knew none of this—was looking at me as if I were pathetic.
"At least you're not a complete idiot. Late as it is, you managed to get the answer somehow."
"..."
"If that girl really marries the prince, there won't be a single family in the empire that can stand against the Brilliant Duchy."
"...So I'm a check to restrain the Brilliant Duchy's growth? For the sake of your family's expansion?"
"Yes, something like that. That's why I've been trying to prevent your breakup with her as much as possible."
It made sense.
As the sole heir of the Axstra Marquisate—the emperors of the underworld—Elice was already filled with ambition. To her, Elena and the Brilliant Duchy must have been thorns in her side.
Should I tell her this?
Of course, I already knew the original story, so I knew the future Elice feared would never come.
But I had no desire to reveal the contents of the original, and even if I did, I doubted whether Elice would believe me.
"...Well, that's unfortunate."
I chose the path of simply keeping my mouth shut.
She'll figure it out on her own.
It's not like she dove into family affairs at such a young age for nothing.
It was absolutely not because I was annoyed at being treated as nothing more than a check.
Elice, who could never have dreamed of what I was thinking, made a sullen face as if she were the one in a bad mood.
"Exactly. A scoundrel like you should have stayed by that girl's side forever."
"...That somehow feels unpleasant."
"Do you have a rebuttal?"
"No."
No, that's not it.
It was true that I had been using Elice based on knowledge from the original story up until now.
So I did feel a slight sense of guilt.
"Trash."
"..."
"A truly trash human being who has never been even the slightest bit of help in my life."
Hm.
Thinking about it again, I don't feel all that sorry after all.
Of course, I did not say that out loud.
"Haa. What crime have you even committed? This is all because I was lacking and let someone like you discover my identity."
"That's somewhat true..."
"Enough. This conversation only makes me feel worse, so let's stop."
Cutting me off with the claim that she was in a bad mood, Elice immediately brought up a different topic.
"What are you going to do about the second-semester midterms? Are you just going to maintain an average like last time?"
"...Has that much time already passed?"
"Yes. Roughly two weeks left."
The second-semester midterms of the Sacred Academy.
The first major event that occurred in the original novel, and the occasion when the original protagonist first left an impression on the main cast.
If the first semester had been the protagonist solidifying his foundation, the second semester was when he began proving his capabilities.
"...Do I have to aim for just average again this time?"
For reference, I had roughly kept to the average on the first-semester midterms.
I could have scored higher, but I had deliberately missed a few questions out of fear of being suspected of cheating.
"Didn't you get suspected last time for doing that?"
"Exactly. That's why I'm deliberating."
The problem was that even after deliberately missing a few questions, I had still been suspected of cheating.
It was another moment that made me keenly feel how the original Rian Tryce had been treated by others.
"Can't you just solve them according to your actual ability? If you get suspected, you just prove yourself and it's over."
Elice frowned as if she could not understand the dilemma itself.
Well, she wasn't wrong. As she said, if I got suspected I could simply prove myself again.
The old me would have accepted Elice's words. I would have stayed up all night studying under the pretext of preparing for the future, aiming for the highest possible score.
...But now there's no need to get ordinary or good grades.
The current me was no longer the person I used to be.
I was like a snowman whose future of spring had already been decided.
A being that would melt away.
A being that would soon dissolve without leaving a single trace in the world.
No matter how diligently I gathered cold snowflakes, I was a snowman that would melt before the vast existence called the sun.
Did a being like me really need to study hard just to get good grades on a test?
"...What does a grade matter? It's not like doing well on one single exam is going to change the future."
"Well, you're not wrong. For me too, and for most people, it's nothing more than self-satisfaction."
Yes. Self-satisfaction.
For the current me, studying to get a good test score would truly be nothing more than an act of self-satisfaction.
A word that felt far too distant for someone who had decided to live as comfortably as possible in the little time he had left.
That was what the word "self-satisfaction" meant to me.