Suspicion Bites Its Own Tail (2)
The question had been festering in my mind for days now. Look at Niger's conduct, and he was unmistakably a madman drunk on murder — yet time and again, he showed me a face so utterly ordinary that I couldn't reconcile the two.
He seemed normal one moment, then mad-eyed with frenzy the next. The man was impossible to read.
So I'd concluded he must be hiding something, and I'd tucked my suspicions into a note.
And yet.
"Just as you could not bring yourself to trust me, I, too, cannot yet trust you."
That was the only answer my questions earned.
Well, fair enough.
Here I was, hiding almost everything about myself while facing him — hardly in a position to be digging into his secrets. The whole premise was absurd.
I let out a long sigh and dropped onto the bed. As it turned out, sleeping in broken fragments was more exhausting than I'd imagined, and I sank into sleep almost immediately.
Time flowed on, and Monday of the next week arrived whether I liked it or not.
Perhaps because I'd rested completely free of obligations all weekend, or perhaps simply because Niger had, for the moment, been quiet and asked nothing of my murdering hands, my heart was at its most peaceful since the possession began.
The reason I'd come up with for feeling good — no one needs to die for the time being — was ridiculous, admittedly.
Anyway. Monday morning.
"It's been a while, hasn't it? I trust you rested well over the weekend, Brothers and Sisters."
I cleared away the clutter in my head and greeted the students seated before me.
""Yeees~! Professor, we missed you!"
"Haha… how kind of you to say."
They must have been practicing their lung capacity all weekend, because my students welcomed me with voices even louder than last week's.
Bellatrix, for her part, merely glared at me again today, her mouth sealed shut. Lutz, on the other hand, watched me with the same delighted expression as the others — though even then, he kept breaking off to chat and giggle with Dorothy, the heroine seated beside him.
Seeing him already getting along nicely with one of the heroines was a relief, I supposed… wait. Why was I annoyed by this? I was the one run ragged persuading murderers and investigating criminals, while the so-called protagonist couldn't even blame his own shortcomings for his lack of skill… I decided I'd have to ask Professor Elia later how seriously Lutz was actually training. If he was slacking, I intended to beg her to whip him into shape, gently or otherwise.
"…Rest is good, but I do hope you'll all attend to your training as well. Only those who strive are worthy of reward, after all."
""Yes sir!!"
I said it while looking pointedly at Lutz, and he nodded back with an expression brimming with confidence.
Confidence was fine, of course.
It's serious, so stop smiling, you little punk.
After wrapping up morning homeroom, I walked the corridor. Free at last from the sight of our hopeless protagonist, my steps felt noticeably lighter.
Clop, clop—
Tap, tap—
The steady rhythm of my own shoes rang down the hall, and students rushing to lectures threw greetings my way.
"Good morning, Professor! Lovely morning, isn't it?"
"Yes. A good morning to you too, Sister."
The students scampered off with bashful smiles. There was something so refreshingly green about them that I couldn't help but envy it. In my old life, I'd withered away under the torment of university; the current me, meanwhile…
Sigh… don't even get me started.
In any case, one thing had been bothering me since a moment ago.
Clop— tap— clop— tap—
Footsteps, keeping pace with mine, as if following me.
"Sister, do you perhaps have something you'd like to say to me?"
I addressed the girl who had been glaring at me from my side. She'd been trailing me ever since I finished greeting my homeroom students, after all.
"…No. It's nothing. Just keep walking."
"…"
It really wouldn't kill her to use a little politeness, would it? But then, if I pressed the point — even the Academy was a world of ironclad hierarchy. What could anyone possibly expect from the Duke's daughter?
She turned her head away after that curt reply. For a personality she supposedly had by nature, she was prickly to an extreme degree, which told me I'd made quite the bad first impression that first day.
Well, I couldn't deny I'd glossed over things far too carelessly back then. Might as well apologize properly while I had the chance.
"If my interference during your entrance duel offended you, then allow me to apologize once more. I am sorry, Sister."
"No, you think I'm doing this over that…? Ha. Forget it. Just get to the lecture hall."
She broke off mid-answer, heaved a deep sigh, and changed the subject.
I nodded. We had arrived at the lecture hall at some point anyway — any personal matters could be untangled later.
Screech—
I breathed out and pushed open the door.
The chattering din that had filled the room until my arrival fell silent in an instant, and a sea of wide, sparkling eyes turned toward me. Bellatrix brushed past me and took an empty seat, and I greeted the class.
"Welcome, everyone. This is our second lecture."
Smiles had bloomed across the students' faces. Listening to the murmurs rippling through the quiet, it was clear every last one of them was looking forward to today's lesson.
"Ah… I can't wait for today either. What you showed us on Friday was so pretty, so lovely…."
"I bet he's got something planned again. Although apparently last year he just did a plain theory lecture, nothing like that."
Well… I had planned to show them something today, as it happened.
Just not what they were hoping for.
Like yesterday, I stamped my foot — thud — driving it into the floor.
The students watched the spreading divinity with anticipation at my familiar gesture, but confusion soon crept into their eyes.
Small wonder: the divine power that had blanketed the entire hall had, moments later, transformed into a barrier sealing in each student individually.
I stepped down from the platform and walked among them. Every time the clop, clop of my footsteps sounded through the silent hall, their eyes followed me.
"I spent the weekend thinking long and hard. What form of lecture would truly benefit you all."
I wanted to raise their level while stripping out everything useless. These students were destined to become rather important personnel, and I had no intention of wasting their time on fluff.
Later on, I'd realized I couldn't hold back everything that happened at the Academy alone. No matter how exceptional my abilities, I had only one body.
Which was why I'd thought: if there were plenty of students here who could handle divinity well — if more people could throw up barriers in an emergency and heal the wounded — wouldn't that make a difference?
"But the more I considered it, the clearer it became that theory is hardly necessary at all. After all, none of you will ever become priests."
A murmur began to spread among the students. At my declaration that I was cutting theory out entirely, some grew visibly excited — while others' eyes began to tremble with unease.
"And so today, we will discover your limits."
"Y-your limits…?"
"Yes. Your threshold — the total volume of divinity you possess. I need to know how much divinity each of you carries before I can revise my lecture plans going forward."
After all, I couldn't very well commit the atrocity of driving students with a thimbleful of divinity to exhaustion.
"The barrier before you is a high-tier protective spell that priests use in genuine emergencies. Your task, then, is simple: using divinity alone, scratch through your barrier and escape it."
The students who grasped the implications of my words began drawing out their divinity with faces drained of color.
Perhaps because it was their first attempt, barely a handful managed to summon it properly — but it hardly mattered. By the end of today, I intended to make certain that everyone could use it.
"Ah, and should any of you collapse from exhaustion, have no fear."
For no matter how mad with murder Niger might be, at his core he was a priest beloved by God.
My divinity was overflowing. And overflowing.
And so the lecture continued.
"*Sob*… *haah*… P-Professor…! I think I'm going to die…."
"Ah, there's no need to worry. Only monsters and black mages die by divinity."
"*Hic*… no, that's not what I meant…."
Students collapsed one after another with a thump of bodies hitting the floor —
"Besides, you're all working so diligently — surely I ought to lend at least a hand."
⟨ Recovery ⟩
I cast the recovery spell over my students, feeling an inexplicable surge of pride.
"Uh… Professor…? Why am I… standing up…?"
"Did I not tell you it was fine to collapse? I restored you, so all you need to do is find your strength again."
"No, no — how is *that* what 'fine' means…! Aaah…."
The revived students, every last one, let out a battle cry and set to work wielding their divinity anew. I nodded approvingly at the sight, then looked toward the other side of the room.
And the instant I turned my head, admiration escaped me despite myself.
Unlike the other students still floundering inside their barriers, Bellatrix had already nearly escaped hers.
No. That's absurd.
What kind of talent is that?
Bellatrix was calmly melting through her barrier, brow furrowed in a deep scowl — left alone, she would likely have been out within the minute.
Still, letting her escape just like that felt like a bit of a waste. Looking at it, that barrier was too light a test to show the measure of her limits.
So then — let's see if you can break through this.
With that thought, I reinforced Bellatrix's barrier alone. The moment the nearly-dissolved shield snapped back to life and sealed her in, she stepped back with wide eyes, uncharacteristically shaken.
For a while she simply stared at the barrier, tapping it absently. Then, catching on to what was happening, she fixed me with a razor-sharp glare, and I smiled and gave a small nod.
"What… what is the meaning of this?"
"Hmm, they do say the top-ranked student is a cut above. I simply hadn't realized you had a talent for divinity, not merely for magic."
"And what does that have to do with *this*?"
"Well… surely I must learn your threshold as well, mustn't I, Sister? Simply strive once more."
I beamed at her, and she hammered a fist against her barrier with a thud, her face twisted in fury.
"You… you're doing this out of spite, aren't you."
"Surely not. Everything I do is for your sake, Sister. And it is *Professor*, if you please — not 'you'."
I will make you taste your limits if it kills me. And no, this isn't because you keep glaring at me. Really.
From that point on, I devoted myself exclusively to Bellatrix.
I did occasionally revive the students who'd collapsed for a rest, but there simply wasn't another student with talent anywhere near her caliber.
She blasted out her divinity with ferocious intensity and eventually melted through the next barrier as well, and awed, I kept raising the barrier's tier higher and higher.
Her glare only sharpened with every step — but the unexpected harvest I'd reaped had me fired up beyond reason.
And so the students thrashed against the barriers I'd made until the final minutes of class, and in the end, only a single student broke free.
Bellatrix Feltner.
She was a major character, yes, but I'd never dreamed her talents extended to divinity as well — and yet she'd actually managed it.
Ultimately, she was the only one who escaped her barrier just before the lecture ended, glared at me like she wanted me dead, and then fainted.
Uh… hmm.
Was that maybe just a *little* too difficult?
That day, the Basic Divinity lecture produced a mountain of students felled by exhaustion, and I was summoned before the Headmaster to write a formal letter of apology.
A few strands of the Headmaster's hair fluttered to the floor as he sighed, do you even know what 'basic' means?
In the pitch-dark room, only blue moonlight streamed in.
In that darkness, I sat before the moonlit window, sipping tea and murmuring to myself.
"…What a lunatic of a professor."
The course name, Basic Divinity, was a lie from top to bottom. Where in the world was the "basic" in wringing divinity out of students until they dropped?
And the way he'd shamelessly reinforced the barrier the moment anyone looked close to breaking through — the man was plainly determined to drive us to collapse, whatever it took.
Which was exactly why.
My suspicion kept growing.
After all, the very reason I'd enrolled in a divinity course I couldn't have cared less about was that he seemed so suspicious in the first place.
So I took a sip of tea and let the memory of last week wash over me.
The night of the entrance ceremony.
The head of the family had summoned me, so I'd made a brief trip to the ducal estate before heading back to the Academy. The carriage was racing along the main road, and to relieve the tedium, I'd glanced out the window — that was how it began.
I saw a man in a hooded robe, walking. Strands of platinum-blonde hair fluttered from beneath the hood, and his brilliantly gleaming eyes were familiar. Features like those were hardly common.
Professor Niger. It was unmistakably him. What could he be doing, face hidden, on a night this late?
A seedless suspicion put out its first sprout.
Looking back, the man was suspicious in a dozen different ways.
"…Stop the carriage."
So with a single word I halted the carriage and jumped out.
Some instinct told me there was something hidden beneath the priest's mask, and I chased it without a plan.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't frightened — but I was a first-class mage. However chilling his eyes, however dubious his intentions, I was hardly the sort to lose to a mere priest.
I turned into the alley he'd disappeared down. A short distance ahead, his robed figure was still visible.
With every strand of that hair slipping free of his hood, my suspicion hardened into certainty.
Tap, tap—
My own footsteps, which I'd never once thought about, grated on my ears for no good reason — and while I wasted time taking off my heels to quiet them, he vanished beyond the alley's bend.
"…Ah."
I ran into the alley a beat too late. He was gone, like a mirage.
Down the length of the alley, a lone streetlamp flickered, as if broken.
Finished with the memory, I gazed at the moon beyond the window and sank into thought.
"Hmm…."
Considered carefully, he was suspicious in countless ways. It was only a gut feeling — there wasn't a shred of evidence, so strictly speaking, it came down to stubbornness on my part.
But watching his behavior today — the way he tormented us viciously until we dropped — I couldn't help wondering whether he didn't hold some personal grudge against me.
What reason could anyone have to push a person that far?
Under normal circumstances I would never go this length. But this couldn't be helped. What I was about to do was, as a subject of the Empire, the culling of the suspicious.
Having settled the matter, I summoned the ducal family's informant without delay.
"My lady. Is there something you require?"
"Niger Caritas. Investigate and surveil him — the Academy professor. Only within the bounds of not being caught."
"Yes, my lady."
The man bowing before me vanished like the wind.
Watching his retreating figure, I drummed my fingers lightly against the desk.
Niger Caritas.
I find myself wanting to know exactly what you're hiding.