It Was All for Momentum (3)
Writing letters of apology turned out to be a far happier task than I'd expected.
I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent writing them — so much so that I wondered if this might be the greatest achievement a professor could ever accomplish.
And so I wrote my apology with earnest dedication. Truly, with all my heart.
Then I submitted it.
"Professor Niger."
"Yes, Headmaster. What can I do for you?"
"Don't smile."
Happiness has a way of leaving a permanent smile on one's face.
"Headmaster, don't they say that smiling invites good fortune?"
"...These days, when you smile, I feel like I'm about to die of anxiety."
"Haha, what a terribly disheartening and sorrowful thing to say."
"Professor Niger, I suspect I'm the one who's disheartened and sorrowful here, wouldn't you say?"
What misfortune could possibly have befallen the man, that he scowled like that?
So I simply smiled and shook my head.
"Hmm, I really couldn't say."
"Hah... How many Letters of the Heart do you think I've received over the past week and this one?"
"Couldn't tell you."
Letters of the Heart. In a fantasy world, no less.
Well, I suppose the military did always feel a bit like a fantasy, in its way.
And knowing me, I'd probably have added something like a Letter of the Heart to it myself.
"Ninety-eight. Ninety-eight letters. Nearly a hundred desperate pleas poured in over just two weeks, is what I'm telling you."
Ninety-eight letters meant he was, without question, being hated.
At that point, one might even wonder if the Headmaster had committed some sins of his own in the past.
But that would be a problem.
Because if his sins piled up, Niger would go and kill him for it.
Why, you ask?
Because Niger was, indeed, a murderer — though to be precise, he was the kind of murderer who only killed the guilty.
I let out a laugh at the thought, and as a small bonus, offered the Headmaster a token word of comfort.
"Haha, is that so? You must be going through quite an ordeal."
"Fifty-two of them beg you to stop. The other forty-six beg for their lives."
...
Oh.
The one begging Niger for his life was me, lol.
You little brats.
I'd thought it might be time to ease up on them a little, but apparently it wasn't yet.
"Hmm... It seems my teaching has been lacking. I'll simply have to teach with even greater fervor."
"No, common sense says the exact opposite, doesn't it? Please, have some restraint. You're the only professor who can teach divinity, so why are you doing this to me, honestly..."
With that, the Headmaster seized my arm, his face a portrait of despair.
And in the motion—
his hair.
fluttered.
So, how many strands were left now?
"...And just where, may I ask, are you looking?"
Oh.
I'd have to count what remained some other time.
Defiance, they say, crumbles in the face of a greater fear.
That was how I'd always seen the world.
And why not? Even if I never showed it, the memories of my childhood sat buried deep in my mind.
My childhood — meaning, back on Earth, before I left home to find my own place the way any young Korean strikes out on his own. That is, before I left that world behind for the world of the novel.
This happened in my household back then.
I had the benefit of fine examples: the strict, patriarchal father everyone talks about, and an older brother who acted out through the full bloom of adolescent rebellion.
Looking back, he truly was a strict father, and my brother truly was a rotten one.
I grew up in that house.
Grew up watching my father, forever stone-faced, hold manners and propriety above all else.
And grew up watching my rotten brother take his stress out on me, day after day.
Naturally, the pattern seemed destined to continue: a father who, once stern, stayed stern forever, and a brother who, once he'd gone astray, was determined to go thoroughly astray.
Except it didn't quite work out that way.
Well.
How do I put this — my father's build was, frankly, like that of a heavyweight champion.
In other words: even the most natural of patterns kneels before overwhelming force.
There was this one small incident — my brother, drifting off into delinquency with the wrong crowd, got beaten like a dog on butchering day by our father, and tearfully begged forgiveness.
The problem was that what Father held in his hand during that small incident happened to be a wooden plank.
From that day on, my brother trembled at the mere sight of him.
I keep veering off track, but the point is: that was the lesson I learned watching it all unfold.
Ah — of course, that's not to say I beat or torment my students.
I merely figured that rebellion of the caliber that produces nothing more than a Letter of the Heart could be crushed with simply more rigorous lectures.
In other words: first, grind the students down with lectures so punishing they wouldn't dare write a letter at all.
And if that still weren't enough, fill every hour they might spend scribbling complaints with assignments instead.
The moment they realize that's a freedom they simply cannot attain, surrender becomes inevitable, no?
Thus: any defiance toward my lectures shall be suppressed by even more grueling lectures. That was my philosophy.
And so, today as well, the students' lectures — no, their penance — continued.
You might call it an hour devoted to confessing every sin they'd ever accumulated.
When I restored them, smiling all the while, they knelt with faces full of despair and repented their wrongdoings.
Seeing them pray and atone this earnestly, they might honestly be more devout than I am.
Yes. Precisely.
Since you plead your sins so fervently, I shall personally grant you absolution.
Ah — though only after a little more penance, of course.
With that thought, I sent a word toward Elohim.
"Ah, Elohim, behold — I am raising such faithful devotees in your name."
[...Are you, by any chance, out of your mind?]
Though naturally, the reply came from the murderer.
After the divinity lecture ended, two people were sitting together in Professor Elia's office.
"Bellatrix... are you... holding up all right...?"
One of them was, of course, Professor Elia.
"Not really... At this rate, I think I'm going to die soon. If I do, I'd appreciate it if you'd inform His Grace the Duke."
The other was Bellatrix, currently on the verge of death. In other words, me.
"The moment word reached the Duke, the entire Academy would be turned upside down..."
"I imagine the Heresy Inquisitors and the Imperial Audit Department would come storming in too, but hey — if I'm dead, it's not my problem anymore, is it?"
"Haha... That would be an even bigger affair, I suppose."
A priest and professor who'd killed a student through sheer intensity of instruction — even those veterans who'd dealt with every manner of criminal would probably find it a novel case.
Hm.
I did wonder whether they'd still be smiling then, too.
Anyway — what I'm trying to say, in this meandering train of thought, is simply this:
I was so thoroughly drained that I'd resorted to talking nonsense like that.
I didn't have the strength left to sit upright and speak with composure, the way I used to.
So I slumped.
Utterly indifferent to my station as a Ducal daughter, I gently set my dignity aside.
Her eyes held nothing but worry for me anyway, so there was no point minding appearances.
Professor Elia was a good person.
Ever since I'd bared my heart to her that time, things had, if anything, become far more comfortable between us.
For a Count's daughter, she was remarkably gentle and kind — hiding no emotions, wearing no masks. A strange breed, truly.
Well, that was exactly why she could blurt out something like "I don't like ugly men" to the man destined to become her fiancé.
And precisely because she was that kind of person, I could lie back on her sofa and carry on a conversation with an easy heart.
Gazing at my sprawled form with concern, Professor Elia spoke up carefully.
"Um... will you be able to come along today...? Or should I just go by myself?"
"...No. We're picking out a gift together, so we'll go together."
Professor Niger had been utterly despicable and worthy of resentment lately, but a promise made as the Ducal daughter had to be kept, didn't it?
Steeled by that resolve, I pushed myself up.
Creak-creak. Crack-crack.
My body chimed merrily from every joint.
"Um, shall we stop by the infirmary first...?"
"...Yes, we should."
And so, heeding Professor Elia's suggestion, we headed for the infirmary first.
Every inch of me ached.
Then we made our way out of the Academy with Professor Elia leading the way.
My muscles still creaked and groaned, but she, considerate of my condition, walked slowly.
"Professor Elia."
"Yes?"
"I'm asking because I genuinely want to know."
And I truly did.
"What is it you want to know?"
"Don't you ever think you're too good for him? For that lunatic of a professor?"
It just seemed to me that a woman like her had no business falling for a man like him.
The backing of a Count's house, a beautiful face, excellent swordsmanship, and a professorship at the Imperial Academy on top of it all.
The reasons were endless, and on those grounds alone, she seemed like such a waste.
"Well, obviously not. He's handsome!"
"...Is that all?"
"Of course. That face alone could feed me for the rest of my life, couldn't it?"
Well.
She wasn't wrong.
Still — could you really fall that hard for someone on looks alone?
"Ha... I have nothing to say."
"Right? So handsome there's nothing to say."
No — I meant I had nothing to say to you, Professor Elia. Not to Professor Niger.
Not about his face — about the fact that you, Professor Elia, had gone and lost your head over it.
That unspoken thought kept trying to spill out of my mouth, but I swallowed it down somehow and kept pace beside her.
Yes.
The world is full of every kind of person there is.
I suppose someone could lose their heart to a pretty face and end up devoted to a lunatic.
And for a person to be as purely, unrelentingly kind as she was — there had to be some price she'd paid for it.