Literary Imagination!
After class ended, we finally had a moment to chat in the hallway. Truthfully, I wanted to go check on Lillia—who had saved me, shielded me, and even suffered with her head literally on fire—but the problem was that Elena was glued to her side. So I slipped out to the corridor first.
The first person to approach me while I was lingering in the main building hallway was Erika Waldmark.
“That was a close one, Maria.”
“Isn’t that professor a little unhinged?” I naturally launched into some teacher gossip. Honestly, Professor Machitov himself probably didn’t expect to be spared from it. After all, he was the type to act while fully prepared for the consequences.
Erika shrugged in agreement, though her expression said there was nothing to be done about it. “Anyone who’s both a witch and a mathematician ends up like that. If you filtered out all the mentally unstable ones, there’d be no one left at all.”
“In that case, since it’s just math, wouldn’t it be fine to invite professors who aren’t mages? Even if poor math affects magic ability, being bad at magic doesn’t stop you from doing math.”
“How naive, Maria. This is the Mountain. The place where the world’s most powerful mana gathers. You’re too strong to feel it, but even slightly weaker students often find themselves suffocating from the sheer density of magic in the air.”
“Isn’t that just altitude sickness?”
“…Do you really think the name ‘the Mountain’ has nothing to do with that?”
I’d meant it as a joke, but it seemed I’d struck the bullseye. I turned to Zophy.
“What about you, Zophy? As someone on the weaker side, how does it feel? Is the air around the mid-slope really that heavy?”
“I’m not that weak, you know? I’m in the middle ranks, thank you very much. But… well, now that you mention it. When I see Her Highness the Princess and my lady being so intimately close, my chest feels tight and I get this suffocating sensation. Could this be the academy’s version of altitude sickness…?”
Erika’s eyebrow twitched.
“I believe that may be symptoms of a different condition, Zophy Polinbaroque. I know the appropriate prescription, but it is regrettable that I cannot administer it. My feelings on the matter are quite sincere as well.”
“Yes, I feel the same way, Your Highness. I wasn’t hoping for Your Highness’s prescription in the first place.”
The mood was turning dangerous again, so I jumped in.
“More importantly, I need to thank Lillia. Honestly, my mind went completely blank back then and I nearly couldn’t respond properly. So…”
“Wahahaha! If you are looking for this red-haired baron’s daughter, then she is right here before your eyes, sawa-yo!”
Once again, Lillia Cosette burst into our little group with her signature loud laugh. It was actually nice that her laughter served as a kind of warning signal.
“Your hair didn’t turn red, though. It’s the same pink as before,” Zophy pointed out.
Lillia’s eyes widened in disbelief. “That can’t be! It burned so fiercely!”
“Hair doesn’t turn red just because it burns,” I added, siding with Zophy.
Lillia used her petite height to her advantage, shoving the top of her head toward me and protesting strongly. “But… it must have turned at least a little red, sawa-yo! It was that hot! How can it still be maintaining that lovely pink color without any change? It’s strange!”
With no other choice, I gently parted Lillia’s hair and checked her scalp. Sure enough, it was slightly reddened—not enough to call it a burn, but noticeably so.
“Your hair is perfectly fine.”
I stroked Lillia’s head lightly as I spoke. She melted at the touch and naturally tried to lean her whole body into my embrace.
“How can this be… I thought this was the perfect time to attempt a bold new image with red hair, sawa-yo…”
Right before Lillia could press her face into my chest, Zophy grabbed her by the nape of the neck and hauled her upright. Zophy patted Lillia’s shoulder firmly and declared with energy, “Come now, this is exactly when you need to pull yourself together. Stand on your own two feet. Properly.”
Honestly, I was a little disappointed. Holding Lillia looked like it would feel wonderful.
Erika, who had been quietly observing, apparently decided there was no reason for her to stay any longer. She gave my shoulder a light tap and stepped away. She must have realized I had something to say to Lillia and was making herself scarce.
“The other professors aren’t as much of a pain as that one, so don’t get too scared. See you later. I’ll be waiting.”
“Yeah, see you later, Erika.”
As soon as Erika left, I turned to Lillia and bowed my head.
“I’m sorry, Lillia. Because I dramatically destroyed the textbook, you ended up taking unnecessary heat…”
“No, no, not at all. It is I who has committed a mortal sin, sawa-yo. When I think about it, not only did I accuse you of being part of the Black Knight Order, but before that I even blocked the path of Letiaponk’s golden carriage with this insignificant person’s humble coach… If I do not step forward at a time like this to emphasize my loyalty as a faithful subordinate, I will not be able to preserve my life in the face of the Letiaponk family’s wrath!”
“Our family doesn’t execute people just for blocking the road.”
“But treating someone as part of the Demon King’s army is certainly grounds for complaint,” Zophy added unnecessarily.
“Th-therefore, this humble Lillia Cosette—who has simply read too many books and thus knows a lot, possesses a slightly good head for high comprehension, maintains solid foundations in basic academics, and has the unique charm of being small and in need of protection—shall do her utmost to atone for the sins she has committed against Lady Letiaponk, Wahahaha!”
“Can I pull just one side of her hair? Under the pretext of checking for burns.”
Zophy, who seemed to have gotten into a bad mood after listening to Lillia, whispered quietly to me. I rejected the suggestion.
“She already looks pitiful enough. Leave her be. For now, I’ll endure it with my own hair.”
“You’re rather cold toward Her Highness, yet far too lenient with that girl, aren’t you?”
“I’m a little weak to girls who have that unique charm of being small and in need of protection.”
Zophy let out a soft “Hmph” and backed off.
Come to think of it, there were a few more things I was curious about regarding Lillia.
“Lillia, now that I think about it, your name wasn’t mentioned among the top entrance exam scorers. Yet you seem to have tremendous confidence in your academic abilities.”
“Of course, sawa-yo. Linguistics, hermeneutics, logic, mathematics, and even ancient languages—these are the only subjects that a lover of ancient texts like Lillia Cosette must completely master!”
“Then why didn’t you make a name for yourself in the upper ranks of the entrance exam?”
“…That is because the academy’s entrance examination evaluates comprehensive ability…”
“So there was one critically lacking area,” Zophy guessed.
Lillia’s shoulders slumped as she hung her head.
“Literature alone…”
“Hm?”
“Literature alone, I simply cannot solve according to the predetermined intent, sawa-yo. However, does that mean this Lillia Cosette lacks literary imagination? That is not the case at all! Look here—while I would not go so far as to say that expressionism is the entirety of criticism, when reading a clear literary work by an author who is not an ancient scribe, the author’s life must surely serve as a milestone for interpretation. But what I usually read are ancient texts, or old fairy tales whose origins have never been revealed, or ancient myths that I myself was the first to excavate from the world!”
“That’s impressive.”
“When reading stories where even the author and origin are unknown, one requires an imagination on a level that ordinary people cannot even guess at! The symbols contained in the words may be the complete opposite of established theory, and the types of criticism possible are infinite—yet this narrow-minded academic world refuses to understand!”
“So you wrote a complete mess for the answer sheet.”
“…While interpreting a romance novel where the author is perfectly alive and has revealed all of their writing intentions, I offered the original interpretation that the female protagonist was actually an imaginary figure created by the male protagonist, who is still alone in his room indulging in lonely delusions… and received a zero, sawa-yo…”
Yeah, that would be problematic. No matter what, it was completely ignoring the author’s existence. Still, considering the academy’s entrance exam grading standards, getting a zero in even one subject would have been fatal to the total score. In high society, which only looked at comprehensive results, it made sense that she hadn’t drawn much attention.
Since she was a character who died too early in the original story, there really had been no information. I understood now.
I asked Lillia the next thing I was curious about.
“By the way, Lillia, you were sticking with Elena Kerru today, right?”
“Ah, yep. We’re apart for a moment right now, but we agreed to meet up again later, sawa-yo.”
“Did you notice anything strange about her? She doesn’t seem like an ordinary top student, or maybe she gives off the impression of having unusual sexual deviancies…”
“Hehehe, now this is a masterpiece, sawa-yo. However, even this Lillia Cosette has already grasped something.”
“Grasped something?” I asked with interest.
Lillia hopped in place and exclaimed, “That question did not come out for no reason! Something significant must have happened, and because of it, you need to investigate the true identity of the top student, correct?”
I nodded. Zophy narrowed her eyes and sent a suspicious look toward Lillia.
“If something happened, the timing must have been last night. And after I left the ballroom! That much is obvious. And if it had happened inside the ballroom, a considerable rumor would have spread from this morning, and the whispers among the freshmen would have reached even these ears of Lillia. Therefore, the location of the incident is somewhere other than the ballroom. However, it would not have been outside the school grounds.”
…Up to here, it was actually pretty plausible?
“But here is the problem! Since there are no more clues with which to continue the deduction, if I were to unleash the literary imagination that astonished the examiners, the truth of the matter becomes clear, sawa-yo. It is none other than this: Elena Kerru revealed herself as a member of the Black Knight Order and launched a nighttime raid on the dormitory building! She attempted to kidnap Maria von Letiaponk, but was thwarted by a hair’s breadth due to the interference of the maid over there, and thus the Demon King’s objective remained unfulfilled! Correct? Wahahaha!”
Well, that’s some literary imagination worthy of a zero on the literature exam, alright.