Silence
No matter how much time flows, the past cannot be erased. All the more so when it is someone's empty seat.
Since that day, I had been unable to sleep properly. The weight of that vacant place pressed down on my chest, dragging me under into the depths from time to time.
Only once—on the night that woman dressed me in strange clothes and hurled her vulgar questions—had my mind felt so full that, for reasons I couldn't explain, the emptiness could not be felt at all.
Clearly, it was because those repulsive questions had grated on me.
Nothing else could explain it.
"Miss Veloa?"
Roseline blinked, and the professor standing at the front of the lecture hall was looking at her.
"Miss Veloa. I've called you any number of times. Where exactly are your eyes pointed?"
"Ah—my apologies. What did you say?"
The professor stared at her for a moment, then let out a short sigh.
"You seem to have a great deal on your mind, so why don't you head back for today. I'll send you the notes separately."
"I'm quite all right. I can keep listening."
"I'm only saying this because you don't look well."
The professor's words carried more worry than reproach, and Roseline could not hold out any longer. She lowered her head.
"…Understood."
Before gathering her bag and stepping out of the lecture hall, her gaze drifted, quite naturally, to one side.
The seat where Marien used to sit was now a place where no one sat at all.
The desk was bare. No notebook, no pen, no small paper she used to fold in secret during class—there was not even a flower laid in mourning for the dead. And yet Roseline could not look away for a long while, as though someone were still seated there.
The road to the dormitory was no different.
The familiar street the three of them had always walked together. Chloe would grumble from up front, Marien would smile softly beside her and soothe her, and Roseline, picking her answers between the two of them, would end up laughing in spite of herself.
It had been a life filled with such small happinesses. Now she was alone.
Lonely was not a word that could carry it.
It felt as if the street itself had been hollowed out.
There was only one set of footsteps, and the voices that had sounded beside her were gone. Even when she turned her head, expecting someone to speak to her, there was nothing there but cold air and a shadow stretching long across the ground.
Still, she did not stop walking.
If she stopped, she truly felt she would look back.
And if she looked back, she would see it all again—the lecture hall, that empty seat, Marien's face lying unmoving beneath the pile of rubble.
So she kept walking, and at some point she found herself standing before her door.
The moment she opened her dormitory room, a piece of mail dropped to the floor with a soft tap.
"From the family."
The Veloa family crest was stamped in wax on the crimson seal. Roseline looked down at the envelope for a moment, then sat at her desk, broke the seal, and read.
To Roseline Veloa.
We have heard that an accident occurred during your Academy training. First and foremost, it is a relief that you were not seriously harmed.
We are told the Imperial inspectors and the Academy are currently looking into the circumstances of the accident. Refrain from unnecessary statements, and see to it that the name of Veloa is neither raised nor dragged into this affair.
As for the gold mine mentioned previously, it has been confirmed to exist in part.
However, at present only the mine's existence has been verified; the assay results are not yet settled. The scale and grade of the vein must be examined further as well, so it cannot yet be regarded as a means of restoring the family's finances.
Until the mine's development truly begins, the bonds falling due must be dealt with as they come.
Therefore, report the confirmed existence of the gold mine to Lady Arzen, and politely request her assistance regarding the follow-up appraisal and the negotiation of the debts.
Since you have already accepted her help, courtesy is what is proper.
Do not ruin matters with needless pride. At present, your reputation, too, is an asset the family requires.
Compose yourself, and act in a manner unworthy of shame before the name of Veloa.
There, the letter ended.
Roseline looked down at it for a long time.
There was, admittedly, a sentence confirming that she was safe—but strangely, nothing reached her. No worry, no relief, no warmth. What remained between the lines was warning, and face, and the family's name. Every sentence in that letter wound its way around and came back, in the end, to a single person.
Serena.
Roseline moved to crumple the letter—and stopped.
Strength gathered in her fingertips, but in the end she could not destroy the paper. Crumpling it might have eased her a little, but no amount of crushing a letter would make the family's debts disappear. The mine's assay would not be hastened, and no creditor would wait.
The family had been concerned that she had returned alive—but everything after that first line had been about Veloa's credit, about bonds, about the gold mine.
"The name of Veloa, is it…."
No laughter came.
Should she call it pride? This feeling of not wanting to bow her head before Serena Arzen any longer. This refusal to endure the fact that she had to seek that woman out again, even knowing exactly what sort of eyes that woman watched her with.
It was repulsive.
It was humiliating.
Roseline folded the letter and set it on the desk.
The letter from her family had not worried for her. Chloe had said she couldn't bear to look at her. And Serena had dragged her back to reality in the cruelest way possible.
And now even her family was telling her to go to Serena.
A long while later, an unfamiliar voice sounded from beyond the door.
"Lady Roseline Veloa. The Imperial inspectors have requested your final confirmation procedure."
"Now… you mean?"
"Yes. It will not take long."
Her eyes fell on the letter on the desk.
Refrain from unnecessary statements, and follow the official procedure.
Roseline rose slowly and pushed down the door handle.
"Understood."
When she opened the door, a figure in black gloves stood waiting.
The confirmation procedure took place in a small meeting room in the professors' building. A long table and a few chairs, bare walls, thin curtains drawn over the window. An unremarkable room—yet somehow all the more suffocating for it.
By the time Roseline entered, Chloe was already seated.
Their eyes tangled for a moment, but Chloe lowered hers first. Roseline, unable to bring herself to take the seat beside her, sat one seat over, leaving a gap between them.
Once she was seated, that single empty chair felt exactly like Marien's.
Saying nothing, the inspector in black gloves spread the documents open.
"This is the final statement-confirmation procedure for the training dungeon collapse. You will verify that there are no discrepancies between the statements already submitted and the Academy's incident records, and then sign. If you wish to add a statement, you may do so here."
At the words add a statement, Roseline's hand flinched.
The inspector slid two sheets of paper, one before Roseline and one before Chloe. Roseline read them slowly.
— Official finding: a lower-level cavity was discovered following the collapse of the central passage during training, resulting in the death of Marien Ruth.
— An unidentified monster appeared and attacked, resulting in the disappearance and presumed death of Theodore Graham.
— Roseline Veloa secured the survivors' location by recovering the team leader's Signal Stone.
— Serena Arzen contributed to stabilizing the escape route using Myeongsa.
Roseline stopped at Theodore's name.
Nothing written about Theodore Graham was incorrect—but she could not call it the truth, either. That ambiguity closed around her throat.
At the edge of her vision, she could see Chloe's hands tightening on the paper.
"Are there any errors?"
There were far too many—but the moment she said so aloud, Chloe would be sent back to that day as well. She would have to dig up everything all over again: digging Marien's hand free from the rubble, the instant Serena killed Theodore, and the memory of her own silence on top of it all.
Roseline pressed her lips together.
"…There are none."
"None."
The inspector nodded.
"Then please sign."
A pen was set down on the table.
What happens once I sign?
Just then, a low presence stirred near the door, and when she raised her head, Serena was standing at the threshold. She said nothing. She was simply watching.
As she always did.
Roseline drew in a breath.
This time, she did not want to move at anyone's command. She wanted to never put Chloe back inside that room again. She wanted Marien's final words to pass through no one else's mouth ever again. She wanted to bear the silence she herself had chosen, to the very end.
Roseline picked up the pen.
Her fingertips trembled, and writing a single name took far longer than it should have.
Roseline Veloa.
Before the ink had even dried, something inside her chest went hollow.
Chloe signed a little after her. When the two names came to rest on the same record, the inspector gathered the documents.
"Confirmed. Please refrain from making indiscriminate statements regarding this incident. Should further procedures be required, we will contact you again."
That was all it was.
The inspector collected the papers and left the room, but neither Chloe nor Roseline rose from her seat. When the silence had stretched on for a long while, it was Chloe who stood first.
"Roseline."
Chloe stood there a long time before she spoke.
"I don't… I don't even know why I signed. It's not because I hate you."
Her voice was worn thin.
"But it's not that I don't hate you, either."
"……."
"I still don't really know what's what. I'm sorry. Let's talk later."
She couldn't bring herself to hold Chloe back as she left with only those words. And yet it didn't feel as though she had turned away completely, this time. That should have been a comfort—but Roseline felt nothing at all.
Serena, who had been standing at the door, was still there.
"Are you satisfied? Everything has gone exactly as you wanted now."
"No. What I wanted was for you to listen to me. That just now—you chose it yourself."
Strength gathered in Roseline's hand.
"That is sophistry."
"Getting angry about it changes nothing. You didn't sign to protect me, did you."
"……."
"For Chloe's sake. For Marien's sake. So you'd never have to speak the words you've already swallowed."
Serena took a single step toward her.
"So it was your choice."
"Stop."
"You still ought to know. That this is the consequence of what you chose."
"I do not wish to hear that from you."
Roseline glared at her.
"I am not bearing this for your sake."
"I know."
"Then why are you smiling."
Roseline stared at her for a long moment.
"You are truly repulsive."
"Mm."
"One day, I will make you regret it. Without fail."
Serena did not reach out to stop her as she walked away.
Roseline walked down the quiet corridor alone.
In her hands there was nothing—no Signal Stone, no letter, no pen, nothing at all. And yet her fingertips were still frozen, curled as though gripping something that no longer existed.
Once again, Roseline did not break.
Instead, she signed a single line.
With her own name.
Beneath the silence she had chosen.