At Seventeen, Off to the Academy (1)
“...Please mind your manners. Do you have any idea what time it is?”
On a quiet night, I sat in my room in the Elleves estate, reading in peace, when Lia suddenly pushed open the door and strode in. I looked up at her and chided her coolly.
She wasn’t a child anymore. She was seventeen now, and yet somehow she acted even more impetuous than she had at ten.
If her body had matured that much, then the way she carried herself ought to have matured with it. A noble young lady was supposed to have dignity. Grace. Lia had none of that, and honestly, it was a problem.
“Ugh, I don’t care about that stuff! I’m seventeen now, so hurry up and keep the promise you made when we were little—get engaged to me!”
As if she were telling me to take her away at once, Lia stretched both hands out in front of her and waved them up and down.
It was such a frivolous gesture that it was impossible to mistake her for a proper noble lady. I let out a deep sigh and pressed my temples with my thumb and forefinger.
“Lady Lia.”
“Yeah? What?”
“Not what. I’m sure I’ve told you this several times already, haven’t I? Once you enter Bern Academy, you can’t answer people so lightly in that manner.”
Founded by the Empire itself, the Imperial First Academy—commonly called Bern Academy—wasn’t merely a place of learning.
It was a recognized social arena of the Empire, where not only imperial blood and nobility but also the most prominent merchants from every province, and even commoners who had proven their worth, could all be admitted.
If she went around speaking to other students the way she did to me, then it was inevitable that people would say, behind her back, She’s a noble, and she doesn’t even know basic etiquette.
So, in order to help Lia, that mischievous little lady, survive academy life without incident, I had personally stayed by her side from the year she turned fourteen and taught her etiquette piece by piece with painstaking effort. And yet all that work seemed to have been for nothing—compared to when she was fourteen, Lia hadn’t changed much at all.
“Cain, don’t worry. Didn’t the governess say so just the other day? That my manners are absolutely perfect.”
Or maybe she’d become even more of a tomboy than before she started learning manners...?
“That’s because the governess was being paid. She was just telling you what you wanted to hear, Lady Lia.”
“What are you talking about? That’s not it at all. I only act like this in front of you, Cain. When I’m with other people, I’m super polite.”
After everything I’d done for her, she claimed she behaved with dignity in front of others but let her guard down only with me?
Of course it was a lie, but if it were true, then there would be no more vicious little wildcat of a noble lady in the world. I let out another long sigh.
“So. What’s the real reason you’re here?”
“Huh? The real reason?”
“Yes, the real reason. Surely you didn’t come to my room in the middle of the New Year’s morning just to say something this trivial.”
I looked at her as I brought up the same thing we’d repeated for six years already—no, for seven, now that this year had begun.
Without saying a word, Lia came closer to me and pointed at the frames of the glasses I was wearing.
“Cain. You know you look really intellectual when you wear glasses?”
“Pardon? What is this suddenly about?”
“Wait a second. Stand up like this.”
She kept tugging at my sleeve, so I had no choice but to get to my feet.
Over the seven years since then, I had grown taller by the day, and now Lia, who stood about a head shorter than me, tipped her chin up to look at me.
“......”
Lia’s gaze darted over my face, my shoulders, the breadth of my chest, and then back to my face again. Her cheeks suddenly turned bright red.
Thinking she might have come down with a fever, I reached out to touch her forehead, but at that very moment, she flinched back and cleared her throat awkwardly.
“I, I’m fine. You can sit back down now.”
“Your face is flushed bright red. Are you sure you don’t have a fever?”
“I’m f-fine. It’s just because of you, okay...”
I had no idea what she meant, but Lia had always behaved oddly from time to time, so I supposed it was nothing new.
“Ahem. Anyway, Cain?”
“Yes.”
“I really can’t give you to anyone. You’re way too handsome to hand over to somebody else!”
“...Pardon?”
“What I mean is, you’re mine from now on too.”
“......”
Since when had a bodyguard become someone who could be claimed as private property?
The way Lia treated people like objects, that wicked-villainess side of her, left me momentarily dazed.
Then, with a snap, Lia pointed a finger at me.
“So once you’re in the academy, don’t you dare look at anyone else. You’re to look only at me! Got it?”
As she spoke, she must have bitten her tongue, because she scrunched up her brow adorably and stuck her tongue out a little.
“Yes, I understand. I am Lady Lia’s bodyguard, after all.”
“...Ah, good. Then sleep well, Cain!”
I’d been about to answer, “I hope you have sweet dreams too, Lady Lia,” but embarrassed by biting her tongue, Lia scurried out of my room before I could say it.
I looked at the closed door and let out a short laugh.
“Honestly...”
How could someone remain so unchanged? Compared to when she was ten, she hadn’t altered at all.
“Ah.”
No, that wasn’t quite right. Her baby fat had melted away, and her features had grown sharper, making her beauty all the more striking.
If she continued to grow smoothly without any trouble, then by the time she was twenty, she would probably be the most beautiful woman in the Empire, just as the original novel had described.
After idly entertaining myself with useless thoughts for a moment, I pulled out the notebook I had tucked away on the shelf and opened it.
It was my personal information notebook, neatly organized with everything I had investigated since I was ten and up to the present, now that I was seventeen. A tidy summary of countless facts.
At the very end, there was a densely packed list of students and instructors suspected of being members of the cult who had infiltrated Bern Academy.
At present, if you added together the total number of students and instructors at Bern Academy, there were roughly 3,000. Excluding the graduates and adding in the incoming first-years, the number came to about 2,950.
And among those 2,950, around 300 were suspected cult members. Even if I managed to investigate one person every two days, it would still take at least two full years.
“Hmm.”
I’d expected this to be a long and stubborn campaign, but I hadn’t imagined there would be so many of them.
With a soft thud, I closed the notebook and removed my glasses. Then I closed my eyes for a moment.
I needed something innovative. Some groundbreaking method that could dramatically shorten the investigation period.
...What on earth could it be? I thought about it for a while, but of course no good idea came to mind.
After brooding over it for a long time, I eventually climbed into bed and lay down.
“Mm...”
A good method. A good method to shorten the investigation period.
Thinking only that, over and over, I eventually fell asleep.
And so, I spent a whole month repeating that empty, hopeless line of thought.
To Cain Reinhardt, who would be admitted to Bern Academy as second-place entrant.
The day after I took the academy entrance exam, a single letter arrived at the Elleves estate, and with it, an idea struck me all at once.
“...Ah, this is it!”
“Huh? What is it?”
Lia, who was sitting on the sofa in the reception room and glancing my way, asked me the question.
I moved to her side and showed her the letter I’d received.
“Lady Lia. Do you know that the top and second-ranked first-years admitted to Bern Academy are given priority access to the student council?”
“Ah. Y-yeah, I know. I got a letter too. But why bring that up all of a sudden? Didn’t you say you weren’t interested in things like the student council?”
With a fluttering motion, Lia waved the letter that read, To Lady Lia von Elleves, who will be the top-ranked entrant to Bern Academy.
“Yes, I did. But now it seems I’ll have to take an interest.”
I answered at once and gave her a brief explanation of my plan.
“You know there are people hiding inside Bern Academy who are suspected cult believers, and that there are about three hundred of them, correct?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, if we try investigating three hundred people one by one, we probably won’t have enough time even if we keep at it until the day we graduate from Bern Academy. So...”
I tapped the middle of the letter with my finger.
There, written in the center, was the privilege granted to the top and second-place entrants: Priority Membership in the Student Council.
“Ohhh, I get it. Since it’d be hard for us to investigate on our own, we should get help from the people in the student council?”
“That’s close, but not quite right. To be precise, I’m not planning to get help from the student council members. Even among the current student council officers, there are students suspected of being believers.”
“Hmm, then?”
“As you know, Lady Lia, the student council’s main duties at Bern Academy are audits, inspections, and budgeting and disbursement of funds. We’ll use that.”
A typical student council might not hold absolute power, but a student council in an academy set inside a fantasy romance world was a different matter entirely.
If an ordinary student committed an offense, they would be brought before the student council officers for judgment. But if a student council officer committed the offense, the punishment would amount to nothing more than a slap on the wrist after a quiet internal investigation.
And those student council officers could also roam about as they pleased under the pretext of audits and inspections, supposedly checking whether each organization’s budget was being spent according to plan.
In other words, it was literally extraterritorial jurisdiction within the academy.
After hearing my explanation, Lia’s eyes began to sparkle.
“Aha, I get it. So what you’re saying is that we take over as student council officers, and then wield power however we want?”
“...No. I’m not saying we should wield power. I’m saying we should use the advantage of being student council officers to root out the cult believers.”
“Okay, got it! Cain, leave it to me! I’m great at bossing people around, too!”
Whether she had actually understood me or not, Lia’s enthusiasm seemed to be overflowing as she shot to her feet.
“Let’s go, Cain! Let’s get to Bern Academy quickly and show everyone just how terrifying Lia von Elleves and Cain Reinhardt can be!”
“The entrance ceremony is in a month, Lady Lia.”
“Ah! Right. Then we should show them in a month, huh?”
“Yes, exactly. In a month.”
“But that’s one thing. Still, what exactly do you mean by using the student council officers’ advantage?”
Lia asked the crucial question in a gentle voice.
I straightened up, interlaced my fingers, and brought them to my mouth.
“...I have an excellent plan.”