You Can Protect Someone
It was a strange sensation. Something warm and soft seemed to swell inside her chest.
Lefonya jerked her head away, deliberately avoiding Pelens's gaze.
What was that? He sounded like he was actually worried I'd get hurt.
Her brow furrowed as she gave a small shake of her head. That was impossible. She had been pestering him relentlessly, so he had surely said it just to make her stop. He was someone who still could not forget his deceased little sister—so paralyzed by grief that he could not bear to guard another soul, refusing even to graduate from the Imperial Academy. There was no way he would worry about Lefonya, a child brought in merely to fill that sister's empty seat.
"Do you get it now? So quit sighing like that. What kind of five-year-old goes around sighing all day, anyway?"
Pelens gave her head an affectionate pat before straightening up. Lefonya lingered, staring after his retreating figure for a long time.
Still, if he meant what he said… isn't he throwing his entire life away?
If he refused to do anything simply because his sister had died, remaining an Academy Fossil forever, his future was painfully easy to predict. Sooner or later, he would be expelled or forced into a dishonorable graduation. Unable to find any purpose, he would idle his days away until death finally took him—cast out by the family to die in the gutter, or hidden away in shame until he wasted away behind closed doors.
…Not that it's any of my business. I can barely keep myself alive, so who am I to worry about someone else?
She turned her attention away. If she failed to find the family heirloom in time and Duke Craitan dissolved her adoption, she would fail her mission and die by the Pope's hand all the same. She wasn't in any position to pity others.
Lefonya steered the wooden horse and set off, heading in the exact opposite direction from the one Pelens had taken.
I should stop pestering him to be my guard.
Suddenly, an unbidden pang of envy stirred within her toward the family's real youngest daughter, whose face and name she had never even known. What must it feel like to have someone remember you and keep looking for you, long after you were dead?
Something I'll never know as long as I live.
The longer she lived as the Craitan duchy's young lady—the more she acquired the things meant for the true daughter of this house—the heavier that inexplicable hollow envy weighed upon her.
Lefonya scowled, shaking her head vigorously.
Did my brain really regress to five years old just because my body did?
She needed to get a grip. She was well past the age of drowning in childish self-pity. She wasn't a real child, so what excuse did she have for failing to keep her emotions under control? Brusquely, she wiped the sentiment from her mind.
And in that very instant—
Clack.
Distracted by her thoughts, Lefonya had failed to watch the path ahead. The sudden jolt brought her sharply back to her senses. The wooden horse had caught on a jagged rock, pitching violently forward.
"…Huh?"
A vast expanse of water filled her vision—the estate's deep, dark lake. Lefonya blinked. That single, fleeting moment seemed to stretch into eternity, as though time itself had ground to a halt.
"Uh…"
Unless she actively steered it, the magical wooden horse only moved in a straight line. Lost in thought, she had let it roll forward blindly. Straight ahead, without stopping.
"Are you kid—"
Before the curse could even leave her tongue—
SPLASH!
Lefonya's body and the wooden horse plunged into the Craitan Ducal Estate's lake with a deafening crash.
Gurgle…
The dark depths proved far deeper than she had imagined. Lefonya sank slowly through the murky water alongside the heavy wooden horse.
How could I make such a stupid mistake?
She calmly held her breath.
A real five-year-old would panic right about now, but not me.
Blinking against the stinging water, she began to swim with practiced ease. Taking an unexpected dip was startling, but hardly fatal. It was only natural, considering the Pope had thoroughly drilled her in diving, breath control, and swimming during her training. Back then, poking your head above the surface before your time was up meant a beating that brought you to the brink of death.
Recalling those bitter memories, Lefonya began stroking upward toward the surface. But just as she rose, her gaze caught the wooden horse tumbling down into the abyss.
More specifically, the lavish jewels and rare mana stones encrusting it.
And the very first gift she had ever received in her entire life.
"…!!"
Her limbs froze in mid-stroke. Those priceless jewels and mana stones were sinking toward the lake bed. Her very first present was plummeting into the mud to be lost forever.
For reasons she couldn't explain, the Duke's face flashed across her mind. His anxious, hesitant expression when presenting the toy, followed by that tender, radiant smile when he realized he had been the very first person to give her a gift.
Before her rational mind could stop her, Lefonya moved.
Of course it's sinking, you idiot, you weighed it down with that many gems!
Abandoning her ascent, Lefonya plunged deeper, swimming toward the sinking horse.
It was sheer survival instinct. The first time she had laid eyes on those gems, she hadn't thought about how pretty they looked—she had calculated their price. Her immediate thought had been how many months of starvation a single stone could prevent. And here was an entire toy studded with dozens of them, powered by high-grade mana stones to boot.
Even though she knew diving deeper pulled her further from the surface and burned through what little oxygen she had left, she couldn't stop herself. It was simply too valuable.
That horse is worth more than my entire life.
That was the only reason. It had nothing to do with the Duke's smiling face. Risky behavior for sentimental reasons was the height of stupidity, and she was no fool.
Gurgle.
Her chest suddenly seized. The brilliant sparkle of the gems grew dull and dim as they sank further into the sunless depths.
It was my first present…
And quite possibly her last.
Her brow knitted in self-directed irritation at such a foolish thought. The oxygen in her lungs was depleting far faster than she had calculated.
A child's body… can't hold its breath for long at all…
Even so, her eyes refused to look up toward the shimmering light above, fixed entirely on the toy plunging into the dark.
Gurgle…
Her vision blurred, edges fraying into darkness.
If I… die here…
Would anyone remember her? Would anyone miss her the way they missed that lost child?
Strength drained from her limbs, yet she refused to let go of her reaching stroke. It felt as though if she could just grab that sinking horse—if she could just clutch those gems that no longer shone—everything would turn out all right in the end.
Just then—
CRASH!
The water churned with violent force. A figure surged through the murky blue, grabbing her tiny wrist and hauling her upward with desperate power. As they rocketed toward the surface, the sunken toy fell away, and light burst across her fading sight.
"Gasp!"
Dragged out of the water, Lefonya collapsed onto the grass. Air rushed violently into her lungs, triggering a harsh, racking fit of coughs from deep within her chest.
"Cough! Cough!"
"A doctor!! Get a doctor right now!!"
Sprawled limp upon the damp earth, Lefonya forced her heavy head up to look at her savior. Standing over her, drenched from head to toe and screaming at the top of his lungs, was Pelens.
"Sen… cough, hack!"
Pelens spun around the moment her faint croak reached his ears. When his eyes met hers, a chaotic tempest of dread, fury, worry, and grief swirled violently in his gaze.
"Are you insane?!"
He shoved his soaking hair back from his forehead, shouting at her in utter outrage.
"If you fell in, you should have swum right out! Why—can't you swim?! No, wait, you were swimming downward! Why the hell were you diving toward the bottom instead of going up?!"
Lefonya peered up through wet lashes. Water was streaming down his face in sheets, making it impossible to tell whether it was lake water or tears.
"…The horse." Her tongue was numb, slurring the words together into a frail mumble. "The horse… sank."
Her voice was so faint it sounded like a candle on the verge of guttering out. Pelens froze mid-shout, his breath hitching.
"It was my first… gift. And… it was 'spensive."
"Ex—expensive?! You little brat! Stuff like that can be replaced anytime! Do you hear me?! I could buy you a mountain of those right now!"
None of that matters if you're dead! What good is a toy if you don't make it out of the water?!
Swallowing the rest of his fury, Pelens stared down at the foolish five-year-old. But the child only let out a small, hollow scoff.
"…Not for me."
The soaking wet girl shook her head slowly.
"I could never…"
Even if I died and were reborn, I could never have jewels like that.
Lefonya lifted her gaze toward Pelens, who stood completely paralyzed, words failing him. Her pale lips parted once more.
"Senior saved me."
Perhaps it was because she had brushed so close to death and survived, but the wretched young man before her looked more pitiful than ever. It was a tragedy to see someone throw away a perfectly good life to live as a reckless delinquent, and he seemed just as foolish as she had been—chasing a lost toy straight into the dark.
"See? You can protect someone."
"What?"
Lefonya looked back at him with an expression entirely drained of emotion.
"You saved me. If it wasn't for Senior, I would've died just now."
She wiped the wetness from her face with a trembling palm, her small hands shaking violently from the exertion of fighting the lake's undertow. Releasing a soft breath, she reached out and took a firm grip on the soaked hem of Pelens's sleeve.
"Graduate."
Pelens stared down blankly at the tiny hand clutching his clothes.
"You could do it all along. You just chose not to. So graduate."
Graduate from playing the family disgrace, and graduate from the Imperial Academy.
"Besides… I need Senior."
"You… need me?" Pelens's eyes widened, trembling.
He looked so utterly stunned—as if hearing those words for the very first time in his entire life—that a quiet chuckle escaped her lips. Perhaps because she had nearly drowned, the suffocating knot that had gripped her chest for so long finally seemed to loosen. Pelens could only stare, dumbfounded, at the bright smile blooming on her pale face.
"Didn't you hear anything I said before? I told you I wanted you to be my guard. …Though I won't force you anymore."
Lefonya patted the back of his hand with her small fingers, offering clumsy, gentle comfort.
"You protected someone today. You'll do great next time, too."
"Kid, you…"
His words broke off midway.
"Hey! Kid!!"
Unable to hold herself up any longer, Lefonya's five-year-old body collapsed, consciousness slipping away into blackness.
Ah. Being five is so weak. Truly useless.
With that final, dry thought, she closed her eyes.