Chapter 57
Chapter 57
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: Suspicious Behavior (2)
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‘I tweaked it a bit out of annoyance, though.’
Was he really going to sign it?
With an uneasy heart, I glanced sideways at him. Arthur was quietly scanning the contract I had written.
-Scritch-scratch.
Without a word, he signed it.
Then he pushed the contract toward me.
“…”
Arthur had already signed it, so I had no grounds to refuse.
With a twinge of regret, I signed it as well. Theodore retrieved the contract and tucked it into his pocket.
“What happens now?”
“We take it to the Chancellor for review, and once approval comes through, it becomes official via my mana.”
“Sigh, whatever. Do what you want!”
“Yes.”
Theodore’s habit of responding so promptly and precisely was grating on me today for some reason.
Anyway, Arthur looked at me with an expression asking if this settled things.
It left a bad taste in my mouth, but there was no helping it.
“So, how exactly are you going to help? Like Enoch Clark, just standing guard at my door?”
“After the promotion exam soon, all that’ll be left are double-major classes. I’ll stick with you then.”
“Ah, got it. Just hearing that makes me feel secure.”
I smirked inwardly with satisfaction.
The promotion exam was just under a week away, so until then, it’d be hard for Arthur to follow me around as a bodyguard.
***
“Hello.”
But my expectations were boldly shattered.
“No way…”
It was all because of Thorn Crown House’s peculiar academic administration.
The very next day, Arthur had advanced his scheduled promotion exam under the pretext of extra study and earned top-grade examiner qualifications before boldly taking the seat next to me.
“Heh heh! Woof woof woof!”
Cookie, meeting someone other than me or Shirley for the first time in ages, wagged its tail furiously and bounded around.
I tried to calm Cookie, who was alternately stepping on me and Arthur while shaking its butt, but eventually switched the lesson to target practice.
“If it’s a hassle, just turn away and tell it no…”
“It’s fine.”
Cookie, that beast with legs apparently glued to the sky, showed no sign of getting up as it sprawled on its back.
Arthur gazed at the flopped-over Cookie and gently stroked its belly.
I moved as slowly as possible to avoid aggravating my sore leg and watched Cookie drool cutely.
‘How embarrassing…’
My kid was embarrassing no matter where I took it.
Cookie was now drooling all over while reveling in Arthur’s touch.
Pretending not to see Cookie, I pulled the trigger.
-Bang!
Though my bruised knee throbbed even at rest, the pain eased once I moved lightly—it was bearable now.
I didn’t know if other abilities had developed in place of my vanished magical aptitude, but my marksmanship was pretty good.
In a different world, I could have some confidence in it.
Not that it meant much among all these renowned mages, no matter how well I shot.
‘Well, it’ll be good for talent shows later.’
Watching Arthur pet Cookie with a carefree expression, I strangely felt at ease.
We hadn’t gotten the contract notarized yet, but it was true that dealing with Arthur had become much easier since that day.
It wasn’t that I felt reassured just because we had a contract.
It was simply that this Arthur seemed so much more vibrant than the one who had yelled at me, calling me a traitor that day.
‘That was a terrifying expression, but why did he look so sad?’
Shirley, Theodore, Arthur—they’d all been caught up in some unimaginable future event, enduring despair beyond comprehension, and I was undoubtedly at the center of it.
-Bang! Bang!
Firing two pre-loaded pistols in succession, I shredded the center of the target.
The moment the two holes merged into one large one, I realized the room had gone silent.
“…”
It was a chilling gaze.
Clutching the now-empty breech-loading pistol that couldn’t fire anymore, I slowly turned around.
“—Don’t mind me.”
Cookie had fallen asleep at Arthur’s feet before I knew it.
Arthur leaned against a corridor pillar not far from Cookie, observing me like a subject of study.
His eyes were coldly detached.
His expression, devoid of any joy, didn’t seem human at all.
“…….”
I very slowly approached the side table with the gun case and cleaning tools, tidied the inside of the gun, and reloaded.
“There’s something I want to ask.”
-Click.
As I fiddled with the unloaded gun, hammer uncocked, Arthur’s gaze followed my hand.
His demeanor flipped so suddenly it made me wonder if he had multiple personalities.
Arthur didn’t reply, but I took his quiet staring as waiting for my next words and opened my mouth on my own.
“I already asked Theodore, but I want to hear it from you directly.”
“…Go ahead.”
“You really don’t remember anything?”
“—Yes.”
I hadn’t expected much reaction, but hearing it straight from him left me hollow.
I nodded.
There were no more misunderstandings left to clear up with Arthur.
‘Or rather, none left to pretend there weren’t.’
I picked up my two pistols, each loaded with final rounds, and headed to the target.
-Bang!
-Bang!
To make the shot count obvious, I deliberately hit once on each side of the center before putting the guns away in the case.
Only then did Arthur’s gaze, which had followed my gun hand the whole time, finally lift.
“That question you just asked—I’d like to turn it back on you.”
A while later, as I checked the lock on the gun case, Arthur added belatedly.
I was still confused about which Arthur this one in front of me was.
I couldn’t agree more with Theodore’s words that something was off about him.
Arthur spoke as if he truly had no idea what he’d done.
“When I opened my eyes, my head felt like it would split open, and my sense of seasons was completely gone. I thought it was summer, but it was already autumn. There was crusted blood on my head where it had been treated.”
‘That’s because Theodore smashed your head.’
I answered Arthur only in my mind.
I didn’t want to explain the situation back then and confuse his already muddled memories even more.
“The weird part was that there were signs I’d broken my restraint.”
“Breaking the restraint leaves traces?”
“It has to. It felt like living with a prison perfectly fitted to my head, but suddenly that feeling was gone, and I felt refreshed.”
“It couldn’t just be that you felt good—yeah, figures. I’ve never experienced mental suppression, so I don’t get what it feels like for you.”
“You’d understand if you experienced it yourself.”
Arthur cast his eyes downward.
It seemed polite at a glance, but the emotion in his eyes bordered on suspicion.
Muttering a quiet response like to himself, I turned my back on Arthur and strode out of the shooting range.
Arthur followed without hesitation.
‘Is he planning to tail me all day like this?’
I’d heard from Judith that Arthur had taken the promotion exam a week early and passed on the first try.
Now, Arthur just needed to pass the academy’s final prepared promotion exam to earn Swordmaster qualifications.
Whether it was fitting inspiration from Arthur’s rapid growth or not, Judith had been diligently practicing with her sword ever since I finished my major classes.
That meant Arthur would be following me like this through lunch and dinner too.
‘When’s Theodore getting here?’
Theodore was taking double-major courses in Wooden Cross Class with Arthur.
Arthur could now skip all major classes on his own after passing the promotion exam, but Theodore was still attending his major classes in Thorn Crown House.
“No matter how I think about it, Arthur, I don’t think you need to tag along like this.”
“A promise is a promise.”
“…No, rather, it looks like the Guardian whatever is about to bolt…”
“That won’t happen. In this state, they’d strike when I’m not around instead.”
So either way, the result’s the same, isn’t it?
I was even dragging around this Arthur tail for nothing.
His calm explanation was so absurd I shot him a glare.
Undeterred by my glare, Arthur calmly rattled off his point.
“Even if it’s the opposite, it doesn’t matter. I want to know if it’s human or something malevolent.”
“…”
If the Guardian Angel was truly an Aegis Academy cadet, it wouldn’t hang around with Arthur watching.
But if it was a real ‘angel,’ it might pull off some mischief despite Arthur’s vigilant guard.
Since last night—more precisely, the half-day since we parted—Arthur laid out the hypothesis he’d formed.
“The ‘death spirits’ handled at Aegis Academy usually mean regular spirits. If a death spirit was the culprit, Thorn Crown House’s spirit mages wouldn’t have stayed quiet.”
We call spirits exposed to special powers or whose souls have warped and fallen ‘death spirits.’
The peculiar powers pure spirits gain upon corruption or mutation differ from normal spirits, excelling especially in destruction on average.
“I’ve never heard of death spirits that can write either.”
“A highly advanced one might, but something that powerful would’ve attempted a more fluent conversation.”
Chatting as we went, we passed the long corridor and entered the Wooden Cross Class main building lobby.
Sunlight slanted through the high windows, illuminating the dim interior, but it couldn’t fully dispel the building’s gloomy atmosphere.
“Let’s talk more later.”
As soon as we entered the lobby, the stares following us exploded in number.
All my efforts to pretend I wasn’t hurting were for naught—rumors had ballooned, and now every cadet in Wooden Cross eyed me warily.
Stares shouldn’t have form or weight, so why did these countless ones piercing toward me feel like needles?
“Alma Cruise. Arthur.”
Then, cutting through the stares, Theodore appeared.
As expected, Theodore had finished his morning major class and joined us.
For someone like me, a shooting major in Wooden Cross Class, this bodyguard detail was overkill.
Ignoring the dozens of eyes fixed on me as best I could, I crossed the lobby.
To distract my thoughts, I kept mulling over Arthur’s words.
‘If the self-proclaimed Guardian Angel isn’t a death spirit, then there’s only one answer: a real human or the embodiment of evil that’s died.’
So which was the Guardian Angel?
If the former, I had plenty of ways to deal with it, but somehow I was convinced it wasn’t.
‘We’re getting close.’
An ominous sense of déjà vu had been lurking around me since some point.