ACT 1: The Little Foxes in the House of Tablets
“And so, the monstrous flood Lord Yuuto created, known as the Jörmungandr, swallowed up the Lightning Clan army and swept it away.”
In a building in the eastern district of Iárnviðr, fifty children sat in a classroom at six long wooden desks arranged in rows, listening fervently to the words of their teacher.
They were in a vaxt, a type of school also known as a “house of tablets,” where in exchange for a sizable fee, well-off families could send their children to learn how to read, write, and do simple arithmetic.
“The Lightning Clan’s patriarch was hailed as undefeatable in battle, renowned as the Battle-Hungry Tiger Dólgþrasir. But powerful though he was, even he could not resist the floodwaters, and the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for us, the Wolf Clan!”
As the teacher finished his recitation, he reached for a nearby cup of tea to quench his tired throat.
He paused and took a deep breath before saying, “That will be all for today’s lesson. Make sure you review everything at home as well.”
With that, the teacher briskly left the classroom.
The children all sat in silence for a moment, watching him leave, then erupted into shouted conversation all at once. “Woooow, Lord Yuuto is incredible!!”
Some of the children, not content with just shouting, stood up from their seats and jumped up and down, cheering.
“Even a whole group of Einherjar together couldn’t beat the Dólgþrasir, but he was nothing to Lord Yuuto!”
“And just the other day he went and totally beat up some guys called the Panther Clan, right?”
“When I grow up, I’m definitely gonna exchange the Oath of the Chalice with Lord Yuuto!”
“Oh, me too, me too! It’d be a dream come true to fight for the Wolf Clan under him!”
“They say Lord Yuuto was the one who invented gritless bread, too.”
“I heard he came up with a way to make all sorts of things out of glass, like containers or ornaments that look like animals.”
“Oh, I saw some of those when I was in the palace courtyard with my father! The sunlight was shining through them, and they glittered with all the colors of the rainbow!”
The children all excitedly chatted about their patriarch, their eyes shining. To each and every one of them, he was a symbol of admiration, a hero.
“Wow, Master Yuuto really is amazing...” Ephelia muttered this to herself as she watched the chattering children from a little distance away in a corner of the classroom.
She was an adorable little girl of around ten, with a short bob of chestnut hair. However, she looked a bit different compared to the other children. To phrase it politely, her clothes and appearance were more simple. To phrase it rudely, she looked shabby and poor by comparison.
But there wasn’t much she could do about that. After all, this vaxt was normally a place only attended by children from the wealthiest families in Iárnviðr. But Ephelia was a slave, at the lowest rung of society in this city, and her lifestyle and appearance were nowhere close to that of those other children.
“U-um... Goodbye!” Ephelia stood up and gave her classmates a polite farewell before leaving. But the boys only paused for half a second to glance in her direction before returning to their conversations, and all of the girls ignored her completely.
No, on a second look, there was one girl who did turn to face Ephelia, smiling. But even that girl did not reply to Ephelia’s farewell.
Ephelia had known this would happen.
It made her feel miserable and pathetic, and honestly, she hadn’t wanted to say anything to them. However, the teacher had told all of them that one must always say a polite goodbye when leaving to return home.
She was being allowed to attend the vaxt as a special case at Patriarch Yuuto’s wishes, so she didn’t want to break any rules or act improperly. If she did, it would bring shame on Yuuto, to whom she owed so much. She couldn’t let that happen, no matter what.
She’d done all she needed to do for today. Ephelia gave a short, polite bow to her classmates, and left the classroom.
As she left, she allowed herself to steal one last, envious glance in their direction.
Ephelia was greeted by one of the guards as she approached the front gates to the palace at the center of Iárnviðr. At all times of the day and night, there were always at least a dozen soldiers posted here from the royal guard and special forces unit known as the Múspell Unit.
“Oh, you’re back, huh?” the palace guard said. “Good work out there, little lady.”
“Oh, th-thank you! Um, th-thank you all as well for your hard work today!”
“Ha ha ha, much appreciated.”
Ephelia had been passing through this gate on her way to and from school every day for a month now, and so hers was a familiar face to the palace guards.
“W-well then, have a good evening,” she said, bowing her head, and quickly making her way through the gate.
She knew that those soldiers were trying to be kind to her by interacting with her, but she couldn’t help her body’s reflexive impulse to shrink away from them when they spoke to her.
Ephelia had trouble dealing with big, strong men like them. Despite that, she had no problem with a girl like their captain Sigrún, even though Sigrún was even stronger.
The last day she could remember living peacefully in her old homeland had ended with a bunch of large, strange men breaking down the door to her house and barging their way in, pushing her mother down to the ground and stuffing Ephelia into a sack.
When she spoke to the soldiers, she couldn’t help it; the memories of that scene always came flooding back to her. Of course, she knew they were different from the bad men who’d kidnapped her, but...
Disappointed in herself for her reaction, Ephelia quietly grew more and more depressed, when suddenly she heard a voice from above her.
“Mm? Oh, heeey, it’s Ephy. Did you just get back from the vaxt?” The bright, friendly voice was calling her name.
Ephelia looked up to see another girl, only slightly older than her, sitting cross-legged on top of a date tree and peeling one of its fruits.
Just the sight of her pushed the sad feelings out of Ephelia’s mind, and she felt the spring returning to her step already.
Ephelia smiled up at the girl, not a fake, polite smile, but a sincere one from the bottom of her heart. “Yes, Lady Albertina. I’ve just now returned!”
“Oh, then welcome hooome!” Albertina greeted Ephelia in her usual merry, sing-song tone, and started chewing on the delicious-looking fruit.
The way Albertina moved and the way she was sitting, not to mention the fact she was on top of a tree in the first place, all gave off the impression of a wild girl from the forest without a speck of etiquette. But despite her mannerisms, she was a princess of the neighboring Claw Clan, a daughter by birth of its patriarch.
She was also Patriarch Yuuto’s direct child subordinate, and one of the Wolf Clan’s officers.
“Oh, right, here Ephy, I’ll split this with youuu.” Without warning, Albertina tossed one of the dates down in Ephelia’s direction.
“Wh-whoa!” Ephelia hurriedly grabbed the hem of her skirt and held it out to catch the falling fruit.
It was a bit embarrassing to do something like that in public, but food was incredibly precious, and she couldn’t allow any to go to waste. That was more important to her than worrying about appearances.
Ephelia knew that a slow, clumsy girl like herself would likely have failed to catch it if she had used her hands. She let out a long breath, relieved that she’d at least managed to avoid letting it splatter against the ground and be ruined.
“It’s reeeally goood, Ephy! You’ve gotta try it!”
“Thank you, but... still, I...” Taking the fruit into her hands, Ephelia felt her mouth begin to water despite herself. But at the same time, she was trapped by her self-restraint, worried if it was really all right for a slave girl like herself to eat this.
The fruits of the date tree were cheaper than grains on the market, and so they weren’t expensive or anything like that, but this date tree was on the palace grounds, making the dates the personal property of the patriarch. She couldn’t bring herself to just eat something like that without permission.
“Aw, come onnn, what are you doing?” Growing impatient with Ephelia’s hesitation, Albertina swiftly slid down from the tree.
From what Ephelia had heard, Albertina was an Einherjar with a rune called Hræsvelgr, Provoker of Winds, and could move at speeds even faster than Sigrún. Everything about Albertina’s effortlessly nimble movements suggested it was true.
Albertina said to herself, “Ahh, hold on, Kris told me, ‘Just say this to Ephy if she’s being difficult.’ Uhhh, now how did it go? Oh, right! ‘Hey what’s your deal girlie, you sayin’ you won’t eat my fruit, is that it, huuuuuh?!’”
But this is the patriarch’s fruit, not yours! Ephelia thought reflexively in response. Still, she wisely managed to hold herself back from actually saying it out loud.
“Kris” was Albertina’s twin sister Kristina.
Ephelia found herself giggling a bit at the situation, impressed at Kristina’s talent.
Just as always, Lady Kristina knows exactly how to exploit other people’s weaknesses, she reflected. If a lady of higher status told her so forcefully to eat something, Ephelia couldn’t very well refuse outright.
“In that case, I’ll gratefully accept it,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
“Yeah, eat it, eat it! Well, is it good?”
“I haven’t even taken a bite yet, Lady Albertina.” Giggling at Albertina’s behavior, Ephelia peeled the skin from the date and bit into it.
The sweet juice from the fruit filled her mouth, and its incredibly delicious flavor was enough to give her shivers. The fruits of the date tree were not only sweet, but contained a lot of nutrients as well, and so were widely loved by the people of Yggdrasil. Ephelia was no exception, and sweet dates were one of her favorite foods.
Incidentally, Yuuto had once said the flavor reminded him “of a sweet persimmon,” whatever that was.
“It’s very delicious,” she said. “Thank you again, Lady Albertina.”
“Heh heh! I seeee, good, good! When I tried one, it was sooo good that I just thought, ‘I have to get Kris and Ephy to try one too!’” Albertina flashed Ephelia a wide grin full of innocent pride.
“Oookay then, I’m gonna go give this one to Kris now!”
The instant she said that, a burst of wind rose up behind her, and she suddenly vanished from Ephelia’s field of vision.
Surprised, Ephelia looked around, and as she turned to face the palace proper, she saw Albertina already far off in the distance.
Ephelia bowed deeply in the direction of the departing figure.
She was working in the palace, so naturally she mainly dealt with adults, and the only other people her age coming in and out of the palace other than her were the two Claw Clan girls.
Perhaps that was why Albertina had made a point of always calling out to her, and with the girl’s relaxed manner, they had soon become quite friendly with each other.
Perhaps from Albertina’s perspective, Ephelia was simply someone the same age she could talk with, but Ephelia was incredibly grateful to know someone like her.
Ephelia had no idea where her old friends from her homeland had ended up, or even if they were still alive.
For her, Albertina was the only person her age that she had left to be friends with.
“Hello, everyone! I’m back!” Ephelia called.
In the southern block of the palace grounds was a large waiting room reserved for the female servants, who mainly took care of things like kitchen work, cleaning, and doing the laundry.
All of the slaves purchased by Yuuto were usually assigned to work here in the palace first, Ephelia being no exception.
Lessons at the vaxt usually finished up before noon, so Ephelia would come here afterwards and spend the afternoon hours reviewing and practicing the material from class, while also helping out the other servants with their work whenever they needed a hand.
“Oh, hey, Ephy. Welcome back!”
“Welcome back, Ephy! Ohh, come here and let me give you a hug!”
“Ah! Me too, me too!”
“Ohh, Ephy, hugging you just takes the stress right out of me!”
“Ohhhh...” Ephelia was powerless to resist as, one after another, the women crowded in around her and took turns embracing her.
She was already an adorable-looking child, and she was also a hard worker despite her age, who diligently strove to help the adults around her. Those qualities alone were more than enough to make all of her seniors at work love her dearly.
And recently, there was a new reason, as well.
“Ah, that’s right,” one worker exclaimed. “You came back at the perfect time. Take this to the patriarch in his office!”
“Ah! Yes, ma’am!”
“Ephy, hon, bring us back some treats today too, won’t you?”
“Ahh, just looking forward to those is enough to get me through the day, you know. We’re counting on you, dear!”
Whenever Ephelia received candy or other snacks from the patriarch, she always shared them with everyone instead of eating them by herself. Because of that, they were doting on her more than ever.
No matter the era, women have always loved sweet foods, and so throughout history, they have served as valuable tools in social intercourse.
And so it was that whenever it came time to take tea or refreshments to the patriarch, Ephelia was given the job even if there was someone else available.
“B-but you know I’m not always going to receive something, right?” Ephelia spoke anxiously, afraid of not being able to meet their expectations, but the older servants laughed and dismissed such a possibility with a wave of their hands.
“No, no, not to worry. You’re Lord Yuuto’s favorite, after all.”
“Right, exactly. So go on, then, dear.”
“Ohhh...” Ephelia let out a small whimper, but didn’t argue further. Taking the tray and pitcher in hand, she headed for the patriarch’s office.
Moments like this really brought home to her how truly bright and cheerful everyone here was. She honestly wondered if there even was another clan in Yggdrasil that treated its slaves as well as the Wolf Clan did.
The chores were difficult work, to be sure (especially now, during the winter season), but women who were ordinary citizens had to do the same sort of work in their own households, so it wasn’t like they had it particularly worse in that respect.
The number of daily hours they had to work weren’t any higher than an average citizen, either, and they were given proper breaks.
They weren’t screamed at or taunted, nor was there physical abuse like punching, kicking, or the whip.
They received proper meals every day, and though it wasn’t a lot, every month they received wages in copper coins.
Really, it was gracious treatment that left nothing to be desired.
Technically, slaves could buy their freedom and become citizens if they raised enough money to pay their own purchase price, but none of Ephelia’s fellow servants were saving up their wages, likely because they were just that satisfied with their current circumstances.
“It’s so different here from how it was in the Swallow Clan,” Ephelia whispered to herself, thinking back to the now-hazy memories of her lost homeland.
Back then, she had been the one being attended to by slave servants. It had only been a year since then, but it felt like so long ago now.
In the Swallow Clan, the slaves were all treated cruelly, enough so that it had left a terribly strong impression on her young heart that she never wanted to wind up as a slave.
Of course, she actually had wound up as one, which just went to show how unpredictable life really was.
As those thoughts ran through Ephelia’s mind, she arrived at the door to the patriarch’s office.
She immediately felt nervous. She fully understood that Yuuto was a kind person at heart, but the patriarch was still the patriarch. He was a figure with whom incompetence or even an errant mistake was an insolence that must never be allowed.
The very first time she had met him after becoming his servant, she had shamefully spilled tea all over his clothes. Ordinarily, such a thing would be grounds for at least a whipping, or in the worst case execution.
Ephelia’s mother was prone to worry about her greatly, which all the more reason Ephelia had vowed to never let something like that happen again.
She used her increasing tension to focus her mind, took one last deep breath, and called through the door: “Pardon me, I’ve brought some fresh tea.”
“Mm? Oh, hey, it’s Ephy.” A young man’s voice, warm and clear, called back to her. “Come on in.”
When Ephelia opened the door to enter, she saw the owner of the voice, a black-haired young man, seated at some sort of box-like table covered with a blanket, his legs sticking under it. He was hunched over the table and rolling a cylinder back and forth across a clay tablet.
He wasn’t being idle or goofing off; he was in the middle of attaching his seal to a message. As he slowly rolled the cylinder, it pressed into the soft clay the image of a wolf between the sun and moon, and the name “Yuuto Suoh” in Norse letters.
Indeed, this young man was the very same ruler recorded in the historical documents she read in her lessons, the great invincible hero the children all looked up to.
The beautiful, golden-haired woman sitting across from Yuuto — Felicia, she was called — took the clay tablet from him and set it carefully down beside herself. “Perfect. Thank you very much.”
Since the patriarch’s insignia was on the tablet, it had to be an important document of some kind, so instead of air-drying, it would likely soon be sent for firing in an oven so it could be quickly sent off to wherever it needed to go.
“Well then, Big Brother, since Ephy is here, shall we take a short break?” Felicia asked.
“Good idea.” Yuuto nodded at Felicia’s suggestion, and, with a long, deep sigh, he stretched his back out onto the floor.
“Here, Master. You are always working so very hard.” Ephelia offered those words of appreciation as she carefully, carefully poured the tea into his favorite silver drinking cup.
Apparently, Yuuto had had a terrible experience involving earthenware cups and bowls, and now stubbornly avoided using them whenever possible. In Iárnviðr, the average man’s pay for a month of manual labor was only around two bygg (approximately sixteen grams) of silver, so that silver cup was an incredibly expensive treasure.
Considering the amount of wealth and prosperity Yuuto had brought the Wolf Clan, no one would fault him for having a luxury item or two like that. However, from Ephelia’s perspective, it was so expensive that she was afraid to even touch it.
“Ah, thanks, Ephy. Ughhh, my aching shoulders...” Yuuto complained to no one in particular, still lazily sprawled out on the floor.
Seeing him like this, he looked to Ephelia more leisurely and carefree than even the boys she went to school with, far from the sort of person one would picture fighting on the battlefield.
She knew that in some of the surrounding regions he was also quite feared, and called the Infamous Wolf Hróðvitnir, but to her that somehow just didn’t seem to fit him.
Rather, though Ephelia was often afraid around Yuuto because of his status, to her he seemed most like an always-kind, older brother figure.
“That reminds me, Ephy,” he said. “It’s been about a month now since you started attending the vaxt. How are things going?”
Even now, despite the fact that Yuuto must be tired, he was asking her about her life.
Ephelia answered him while carefully pouring tea into Felicia’s teacup. “Oh, right. There was an exam the other day, and I received excellent marks.”
“Nice! Way to go! All right, then. As a reward, I’ll give you these dried dates.” Yuuto sat back up and picked up a small basket that was sitting on the table, and held it out to Ephelia.
Inside were a bunch of wrinkled, red dried dates, at least ten of them.
Dates were a sweet fruit to begin with, but drying them made them even sweeter, and they were popular this way paired together with tea.
“Thank you very much, Master,” she said. “I’ll be sure to enjoy them later, along with my coworkers.”
“You’re such a good kid, Ephy.”
“It’s the least I can do, because they’re always so good to me,” Ephelia replied, relieved that she’d managed to get something sweet to share with them today.
Of course, on days when she came back empty-handed, they would laugh and tell her it was fine so she wouldn’t feel bad. But she still greatly preferred seeing their happy faces.
“Then I’m glad to hear you’re getting along with the people here so well,” he said. “What about the ones at the vaxt?”
“The... teacher praises me a lot, and treats me very well.” Ephelia’s reply was a bit slow, but she managed to speak in a clear, firm voice. She hadn’t told any lies. She couldn’t say that she was getting along with the other children in her class, but she didn’t think she was being bullied, either. “I’m not having any real problems.”
From Ephelia’s perspective, this wasn’t a lie, either. Her time at the vaxt felt a little lonely and sad, but that was only for a few hours in the morning. A warm, happy place was waiting for her back at the palace. All she needed each day was a little bit of patience to endure the morning, and things were fine.
Yuuto had already done so much for her, and was busy with his work as the patriarch. She didn’t want to bother him, or be a burden.
And, with Yuuto having put his expectations in her, she also didn’t want to be weak or pitiful in front of him.
Yuuto stared at her in silence for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something. But in the end, the only thing he said was, “Hm, I see,” in a voice no louder than a whisper.
“I must say, Father,” Kristina remarked with a bemused smirk, “you do have a bit of an overprotective streak, don’t you? Actually, quite a lot more than a bit.”
It was the following day, and Yuuto was at the vaxt in the eastern district of Iárnviðr, pressed up against the window and peering inside the classroom.
Standing right next to him and holding his left hand was Kristina, who was now looking at him with a slightly exasperated expression.
Her basic appearance was of course quite similar to that of her twin Albertina, but where her sister had a cheery, guileless innocence, Kristina’s eyes seemed to see right through everyone and everything, and she had a cynical and cocky aura about her.
Kristina smirked. “When the day finally comes and Ephy’s suitor comes calling, I can picture you flying into a rage and shouting something trite like, ‘I’ll never give my little girl over to the likes of you!’ Heh heh.”
“Don’t you worry,” Yuuto shot back. “When it’s your turn, I’ll send you off with two ‘hips’ and a ‘hooray.’”
“And yet you are so cold and indifferent when it comes to your real daughter.”
“My sworn daughter, you mean. And I don’t think there’s a man out there big-hearted enough to take someone with your personality as his wife, anyway.”
“That is true. Why, you’re the only man that springs to mind, Father.”
“Fine with staying a parent, thanks.”
“Oh, you’re no fun.”
“Right. Anyway, Ephy’s more important right now.”
“You really are no fun at all, Father. In the end, I suppose to you I’m just another convenient woman to use.”
“That’s right, convenient and handy to have around. Your power is, anyway.”
“Oh, you won’t even deny it!” With an anguished, tearful expression, Kristina lifted her free hand to cover her crying eyes. No doubt it was all an act, of course.
Another thing she shared with her sister Albertina was that Kristina was also an Einherjar. She bore the rune Veðrfölnir, Silencer of Winds. It gave her powers that allowed her to conceal her presence, and by traveling with her and holding her hand, Yuuto could sneak around and avoid drawing attention despite his black hair and other foreign features.
He’d decided to utilize her power to secretly come observe Ephelia at her classes today.
None of the children at the vaxt had noticed Yuuto at all; they were focused only on inscribing letters into their clay tablets with sharp styluses. They were all working seriously, for if they didn’t, they risked the teacher smacking them with the switch he was carrying.
Back in modern-day Japan, corporal punishment in schools had long since been abolished, but it was quite normal and commonplace here in Yggdrasil, where the concept of things like human rights were pretty much nonexistent.
“Good, it looks like you’ve all finished.” The elderly teacher nodded to himself, satisfied, then raised his voice. “That will be all for today’s lesson!” he loudly declared, and promptly left the classroom.
In the next instant, the children all sprang out of their seats and began to talk excitedly, or run around the room and play. Yuuto smiled to himself. This, at least, was a scene no different than one in the world he had come from.
“I am the Infamous Wolf Hróðvitnir! Hear my name and tremble!” a boy called.
“Gh...!” Yuuto tensed up.
“Take this! Overwhelming Floodwaters Attack!”
“......” Yuuto found himself sinking to the ground as if he had been struck, his face beet red.
What the hell is this?
He already knew, though. He knew, but his mind was trying to refuse to process it. Meanwhile, his face felt like it was on fire from embarrassment.
“My, my, they certainly seem to be having fun,” Kristina said, in a tone and with a glance that were both deliberate. And the smirk, oh, the satisfied smirk on her face was detestable. “It must be so nice, being so popular with all the children. I’m envious.”
“C-come on, don’t make a big deal out of it.” Yuuto somehow recovered from his wincing long enough to respond to her.
Meanwhile, the children’s game of pretend continued, and two new shouting voices appeared.
“Distant foes, hear my voice! Those nearby, come and look upon me! I am the Battle-Hungry Tiger, Dólgþrasir!”
“And I am the Mánagarmr, the Strongest Silver Wolf! On your guard, Dólgþrasir!”
“Look, see?” Yuuto eagerly pointed at the two boys. “They’re pretending to be Steinþórr and Rún, too. It’s not just me.”
It was too embarrassing for Yuuto to take when it was just himself, but it wasn’t quite as bad once some of the other people he knew were part of it, as well.
“Hmmm, are you sure it’s really Big Sister Sigrún? It’s a boy playing the role.”
“Ah, good point. And the title of Mánagarmr is passed down from person to person, after all.” Yuuto finally recovered enough of his composure to make that sort of analysis. “Maybe he’s pretending that he’s grown up and inherited it from Rún.”
Now that he had a moment to think about it more calmly, he wondered if he shouldn’t feel honored instead of embarrassed that he was showing up in children’s games of make-believe like this. After all, it was proof that the population really liked him.
In a way, perhaps things like this were the greatest blessing he could wish for as the ruler of a state.
“How about this? Be crushed by the might of Mjǫlnir, the Shatterer!”
“Mwah ha ha! Thanks to the power of my cheats, your attacks can do nothing against me!”
As the boys continued to shout, Yuuto nearly choked on his own saliva.
No, this was unbearably embarrassing, after all. It was bad enough that he was starting to wonder if he would rather crawl into a hole and die than stay here and keep listening to this.
“My goodness, Father, must you react so loudly?” Kristina smirked. “It isn’t a big deal, after all. ...Heh.”
“Oy. Did you just laugh at me?”
“What? I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean. ...Pfffheheheh.”
“Yeah, keep laughing... I’ll make sure you cry later, dammit!”
“Eeek, noooo—” Kristina gave an impressively wooden cry of fear.
She was completely making a fool of him.
Machiavelli had written in his treatise The Prince that a true ruler must never allow his retainers to belittle or mock him. Perhaps this situation required Yuuto to act more serious and intimidating in his role as sworn father. But just as he was thinking that, Kristina spoke again in a more serious tone.
“Well, I suppose that’s enough joking around. Back to our original objective... Look there, Father.”
“Hm? ...Tch, damn it.” As Yuuto looked in the direction Kristina was pointing, he glowered and clicked his tongue at what he saw.
It was Ephelia, who was sitting by herself, completely apart from all of the other children, in solitude.
“G-goodbye!” She stood up and politely wished the other children farewell, but none of them responded to her. None of the girls even looked in her direction.
“Looks like the bad feeling I had was right on the money,” Yuuto said gravely.
Kristina, for her part, seemed to take a rather detached view of it. “Really? It doesn’t seem like they’re bullying her, so doesn’t that mean there’s no problem?”
She already looked like she’d lost interest in Ephelia, and was staring over at the cluster of girls who were happily making small talk with each other. The corner of her mouth turned up into an impish grin.
This was a girl who had no shame about publicly declaring and displaying a pretty twisted form of love for her sister, and she was always going on about how she disliked men so much that she didn’t want to hold Yuuto’s hand. Perhaps someone in the group of girls had caught her eye.
Well, Yuuto couldn’t afford to be as nonchalant as she was about the situation. “Hey, ostracism is bullying too. And that kind of thing leaves scars on the inside that hurt way more than anything physical.”
“Oh hoh?”
“What, Kris?”
Yuuto had been completely serious and meant what he said, so when Kristina responded by shooting him another smirking glance, it rubbed him the wrong way and he got testy with her.
Yuuto wasn’t a saint. Just because he was used to Kristina’s usual personality and behavior, that didn’t mean he could just overlook how uncaring she was acting after seeing what was happening to Ephelia.
“It’s just that you really are a kind man, Father. It’s really sinking in just now how much you fooled me with the ‘Tragedy of Van’ affair.”
“Hmph. Yeah, well, I’m well aware how soft-hearted and weak I am.”
Yggdrasil wasn’t a kind world. It was a place where the strong conquered the weak. And for someone who would stand above others and rule, there were times that required the strength to coldly, even cruelly, cast someone aside for the greater good, however close they might be.
He’d suffered the cost of lacking that strength during the most recent war, and was still self-conscious about it.
Even so, a person’s nature wasn’t something that was easy to change.
“Still, what am I gonna do about this situation...?” he muttered.
It would be simple enough to lean on his authority as the patriarch and order the children to be nice to her, but that had to be an absolute last resort. If he was too heavy-handed, the pressure would instead only put more distance between them.
“Hmm, actually, I just might have a wonderful idea,” Kristina said. “Would you like to hear it?”
“Go on.”
“Oh, but I cannot just give it away for free. The secret to the process of refining iron...”
“Wha—”
“...is what I would love to say, but perhaps you might be more willing to trade the knowledge of how to produce paper?”
She had started with a high demand to gauge his reaction, then immediately switched it for another one to gauge him again. She really was a wily little fox.
Yuuto paused to think. The Wolf Clan had recently begun manufacturing various items made from glass, and the profit from those far outstripped what they’d been making off of paper. It was no longer necessary for national security reasons to treat paper production with the same level of secrecy as something like the method for refining iron. Technically there was no problem accommodating a subordinate clan with access to the knowledge. However...
“That’s a pretty steep request to make, Kristina,” Yuuto chose to say out loud.
Though it might not sound nice to say, it was still an overly exorbitant price to pay in exchange for nothing more than improvement in the quality of life for a single slave. Kristina had taken advantage of Yuuto’s favoritism towards Ephelia to bargain for the highest price she could get in this situation.
He went on. “Get too greedy with me, and you might end up losing more than you gain.”
“Oh? Even though you were just thinking to yourself that my terms were within reason?”
“...Dammit. All right, fine. You really are way too dirty for your own good, you know.”
“Heh heh, you flatter me,” Kristina replied, wriggling her body in a flirty pose and blowing a kiss.
Yuuto just wearily stared back at her. “Yeah, no. I didn’t mean dirty in that way, and that wasn’t even a little bit sexy.”
“Whaaaaat?! I was fairly confident in that pose!” Kristina reacted dramatically, her eyes wide with surprise.
Yuuto could only chuckle wryly to himself, unsure how much of her surprise was real, if any.
She really is a little fox, he thought.
Of course, he was only referring to her shrewd cunning. She was still a child, after all.
“These are Lady Kristina and Lady Albertina, and beginning today, they will be attending classes here together with you all,” the teacher said. “Though they may be young, they have already exchanged the Oath of the Chalice directly with our great patriarch, Lord Yuuto, and they are also the daughters by blood of Botvid, patriarch of our neighbor the Claw Clan. Everyone, mind your manners with them.”
It was the following morning, and the twins stood smiling at the podium at the head of Ephelia’s classroom as the teacher introduced them to the class. Normally, the necessary procedures and paperwork would have taken one to two weeks, but this was the sort of situation where Yuuto’s authority was quite useful.
Ephelia was stunned, mouth agape. She hadn’t been told anything.
“Hi, I’m Albertina. Nice to meet youuu.” Albertina greeted the room with the bright, cheerful and innocent smile she always wore.
She wasn’t the least bit bashful in front of a room full of strangers.
And, as for Kristina...
“Well, she may say that, but actually this girl is my personal attendant. She won’t be coming here as a student.”
“Huuuh?! No, I’m attending the school! I really am!” Albertina began to shout in panicked protest.
Kristina shot her a cold glare. “Don’t tell me... Do you honestly think you’re ready to attend a vaxt, with your brains?”
“Uh, well, umm...!”
“Let’s have a test, then. Read these letters for me, Al.” Kristina pulled out a small clay tablet that she’d prepared in advance, and thrust it in front of her sister’s eyes.
“Guh... I... I can’t read it...” Albertina’s face fell and her reply was practically a moan of sadness.
Kristina sighed and shook her head as if to say good grief, then pointed to the letters. “It says ‘Albertina’ here. To think you can’t even read your own name... how pathetic.”
“No, that’s not true! That’s not what it says! Even I can tell that!”
“Tch, so even you managed to learn to read your own name.”
Albertina laughed boastfully. “Heh hehhh, of course I did! You shouldn’t underestimate your own sister!”
“By the way, the word was actually ‘Botvid.’”
“I’m so sorry Papa—!!” Albertina faced east and screamed an apology to her distant father, bowing over and over.
She was the princess of the Claw Clan, after all. The fact that she couldn’t read the name of its patriarch and her own biological father was more than a little problematic.
However, it was also pretty much par for the course with her.
“Ahh... Al, you’re as adorably hopeless as ever...” Kristina gazed at her sister with an expression of ecstasy.
This, too, was business as usual.
“Ah, er... ahem.” The elderly teacher in charge of the class had been swept up in the rapid pace of the twins’ conversation until now, but he finally broke out of his daze and tried to smooth things over. “Lady Albertina, please do not fret. You only need to work hard and study here.”
“B-but, but is it really okay for someone as stupid as me to be here?” Albertina looked up at the teacher with tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
The teacher responded with a smile filled with affection, as if he’d been waiting for her to ask him that. “It is why the house of tablets exists, and why I am here. Please, rest assured, it will be fine.” He spoke with full confidence, and perhaps the pride of over twenty years spent teaching.
“This is the state she’s in after over five full years taking lessons from a private tutor, by the way,” Kristina cut in.
The teacher’s expression froze. Her one remark was enough to quickly make him regret speaking and acting so optimistically.
Kristina took in the teacher’s stiff and troubled expression with satisfaction like the little bully that she was, then turned to face the other children and gave a graceful curtsy.
“My apologies for the delay in introducing myself. I am Kristina, daughter by blood of Patriarch Botvid of the Claw Clan, and sworn daughter of our Wolf Clan’s own great patriarch, Lord Yuuto Suoh. Everyone, I do hope we get along well.”
As she raised her head to meet their eyes again, she wore a sweet smile that was every bit the image of a noble lady.
The motions of her formal greeting were so smooth and practiced that even the teacher let out a quiet “ohh,” impressed with her poise.
However, if Yuuto had been in the room, he would assuredly have shaken his head and chuckled wryly to himself.
Because he knew that when this little fox wore her cutest and most sociable smile, she was unmistakably up to no good.
“Ephy, knead my clay for me, would you? Al’s, too!”
The first part of the day’s classes had finished, and the children were taking a short break, when Kristina loudly called Ephelia over and began giving her orders. She sat with her legs crossed and her cheek resting on one hand, looking like a queen on her throne.
“Um, r-right! Right away, Lady Kristina!” Ephelia dashed over to Kristina’s desk right away and began using both hands to knead the soft clay.
The standard practice at the vaxt was to recycle the clay tablets, re-kneading them into blank tablets for each new lesson. Normally, they would not preserve any permanent record of their lessons; the volume of tablets would quickly get out of hand, for one thing.
Albertina was a bit surprised at her sister’s demand, and tried to refuse. “Huh?! N-no, you don’t need to do mine, Ephy. I’ll take care of my own!”
“No, Al. This is Ephy’s job.” Kristina looked her square in the eye and responded flatly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“B-but...”
“No, Lady Albertina, you don’t need to do such work. Please, let me do it for you!” Ephelia’s eyes shone with eager motivation.
Time passed, and they entered their next break.
“Ephy, my throat is dry,” Kristina ordered. “Go fetch some water.”
“Right away, Lady Kristina!”
A few hours later, classes had wrapped up for the day.
“Oh, Ephy, my shoulders are sore. Massage them for me.”
“You mean, like this?”
After class, the three of them made their way back along the main street.
As they passed by a bakery that had recently become popular, the woman running it noticed Ephelia and called out to her.
“Oh, hey there little girl. I recognize you; you’re the girl I saw riding in the patriarch’s carriage before. Perfect timing! Here. This is some of my best bread. I’m pretty confident in the flavor. It’s freshly baked! Be a dear and give it to Lord Yuuto, would you?”
“Oh, r-right. I understand. I’ll make sure to deliver it to him.”
“Right. I’m counting on you.”
“Oh! Freshly-baked bread!” Albertina cried. “It looks so good... Yoink!”
“L-Lady Albertina?!” Ephelia squeaked.
“Mm, hua, Ehhy?”
“Oh, ohhh... wh-what should I do? That was a delivery meant for Master Yuuto...”
“And that concludes my report of the first day, Father,” Kristina said.
“Wh-why the hell did you start bullying her?!”
Later that afternoon, as Yuuto listened to the report from Kristina he’d spent all day waiting for, he couldn’t help the first lines out of his mouth being an angry retort. He’d sent her out to solve the problem, and instead she’d become part of it.
As for the lost gift of bread, it seemed Albertina had felt bad after seeing Ephelia worried and depressed, and had bought more bread with her own money as a replacement, so all was right in the end.
Yuuto was eating some of said bread now, and indeed, it was quite good.
“That is quite the unexpected claim,” Kristina said coldly. “I am doing nothing of the sort.”
“If it’s not bullying, then what the hell would you call it?!”
“Um...? I would say that I was making a point of expressing my favor for her.”
Kristina had a love of teasing people and getting a rise out of them, but normally she didn’t easily let others see what she herself was really thinking or feeling. However, this time she cocked her head to one side and genuinely looked puzzled. She really didn’t seem to understand what Yuuto was talking about.
“How could you call that... ah. So that’s how it is.” Yuuto was just about to continue his emotionally charged argument when he realized his mistake.
Going by the norms of 21st century Japan and viewing all of the children as “equal classmates,” Kristina was forcing Ephelia to be her own personal gofer. But as a “servant,” Ephelia wasn’t being treated poorly at all.
Ephelia was Yuuto’s slave and serving girl. Kristina must have only seen it as treating her appropriately according to her station.
Actually, the act of specifically relying only on Ephelia could be seen as a show of affection and favor for a servant, just as Kristina herself had said.
“Hmm, is it because Ephy is your property, Father? Was I wrong to use her without your permission?”
“Ah, er... It’d be a pain to explain it, so let’s just go with that.”
Even if he were to try to explain things from his perspective, he didn’t think a 21st century Japanese’s view on human rights would make any sense to her. And even if he took the time to try to bridge that gap, he wouldn’t stand to gain anything by it.
Figuring out what to do to help Ephelia was far more important right now.
“In that case, I will make it a formal request,” Kristina said. “Will you lend Ephelia to me for a few days? That should be all it takes.”
“...Do you have to do it this way?”
Kristina gave a deep, affected sigh. “They say great men have an even greater fondness for women, but you, Father, seem to lack any understanding of them.”
“Oh, shut up.” It was certainly true he didn’t know the first thing about them, but having it said straight to his face like this cut too sharply into his pride as a man approaching adulthood.
Kristina giggled at Yuuto’s sullen expression. “Very well, then. I shall explain my plan from the beginning.”
“Please do.”
“First, boys of that age and girls of that age do not readily make friends with each other to begin with. They mostly stick to their own.”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, that’s true,” Yuuto said, nodding.
Thinking back to his own childhood, from around the middle of elementary school to just before graduating from to middle school, he had only hung out with other boys, as far as he could remember.
The fact that he was a boy had been a very strong part of his consciousness, and the idea of playing with or spending time with a girl had been intensely embarrassing.
Because of that, he had begun acting cold and standoffish towards his childhood friend Mitsuki, and to Yuuto now, that was a part of his past he sorely regretted and wished he could take back. On the other hand, all the other boys his age had been the same, so what Kristina said made sense to him. It was just the way things were.
“And so, I planned to leave the boys out of this from the start,” Kristina said.
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense, since there’s nothing we can do about them.”
The boys weren’t deliberately bullying Ephelia; it was just that age for them.
And besides... Ephelia was still only eleven. It was too early for her to have a boyfriend. What Yuuto most wanted for her was for her to quickly make some female friends.
Kristina nodded and continued. “‘Then what about the girls?’ you might ask. Actually, I hit on what was going on the from the very first time I laid eyes on them.”
“Ohh, nice,” Yuuto said eagerly.
“The girls have a leader, a ‘queen,’ and she is ordering the other girls to ignore Ephelia and shut her out.”
“Hmm.”
That was a pattern of bullying present even in 21st century Japan, so it didn’t upend Yuuto’s expectations.
Actually, the fact that this sort of thing remained unchanged over thousands of years and multiple cultural eras left him feeling like he’d got a sense of humanity’s nature as a species, its karma.
“So, in other words, you wanted to enroll at the vaxt so you could sniff out the culprit, right?” Yuuto asked.
“No, Father, as I said, I understood everything the first time I laid eyes on them. I already know who it is.”
“Seriously, during that first trip? I’m amazed you figured it out in such a short time.”
“Oh, it was sooo easy, Father. I recognized her right away. After all, we are birds of a feather.” Kristina snickered to herself, her eyes cold and indifferent and her mouth twisted into a mocking sneer.
For a second, she looked to Yuuto far more mature than her age. A chill ran down his spine.
“Do you remember when Ephy said goodbye and left the classroom that day?” Kristina said. “There was one girl who smiled at her. Yes, just one girl. Smiling in victory at Ephelia’s shame, and basking in her own feeling of superiority.”
“That’s... pretty twisted,” Yuuto said slowly. “If she’s attending the same class as Ephy and the other kids, she can’t be more than twelve or so.”
“Girls mature emotionally more quickly than boys, Father.”
“Ah, I have heard that said a lot, true.” Yuuto could remember hearing comments to that effect now and then from the idle chatter and gossip of his mother and her friends.
Back then, he’d been eager to hurry and grow up, to prove he wasn’t a kid anymore. So whenever he’d heard them say things like that, it had felt like he was somehow losing to girls, and made him angry. He could still remember that feeling pretty well. Perhaps another one of the reasons he’d started giving Mitsuki the cold shoulder back then was as a reaction against those adults.
...Which, no matter how you thought about it, was exactly the way a stupid little kid acts.
“Hee hee,” Kristina giggled. “While little boys long for heart-pounding adventures, of winning glory through hunting and battle, the hearts of little girls throb as they dream of the day when a splendid, handsome man will appear before them and whisk them off their feet.”
“Hrm... So that’s how it is, huh?”
At first, that didn’t really strike Yuuto as feeling definitively true. But then he thought back to when he’d last visited Mitsuki’s room. She’d just started her first year of middle school at the time, and all the girls’ manga in her room had seemed like it was that kind of romantic fantasy.
Perhaps this was another example of a part of human nature that remained unchanged over thousands of years.
However, Yuuto had trouble agreeing with the implied premise that falling in love somehow signified becoming an adult.
He was quietly pondering to himself over this when Kristina brought him back on topic.
“I don’t see how you can act like this does not involve you. The queen of the class who ordered everyone to ignore Ephy did so because you are the one she’s in love with, Father.”
“Whaaat?!” Yuuto was completely blindsided by this.
In fact, he wasn’t sure he fully understood what she’d just told him.
“But... have that girl and I ever even met?!”
“Yes, you have. It was when you came on your inspection visit to the vaxt.”
“So that’s when! ...Er, wait, but I don’t remember speaking with any of the kids! So how?!”
Yuuto was bewildered by this. That day, he’d observed classes for a short while, then spoken directly with the teacher in a separate room. After that, he’d headed straight back to the palace.
He didn’t recall doing a single thing that would make someone pay attention to him, much less fall in love with him.
“As always, you grossly underestimate your own charisma,” Kristina smirked. “Well, putting that aside for now, I can conclude that that girl is making the others ignore Ephy because she’s jealous.”
“Hrm. Really...”
“Today, while I was having Ephy do all sorts of tasks for me, I used that time to ask a few unassuming questions. Indirectly, of course. Why, wouldn’t you know it, back during that inspection, it seems like you smiled so sweetly at Ephelia, patted her head so gently, almost like you were doing it deliberately. Do you remember that, Father?”
“Yes, I remember doing that,” Yuuto reluctantly admitted, with a bitter sigh.
For his part, he had been trying to do what he could to prevent Ephelia from being bullied. None would dare torment someone clearly favored by the patriarch, or so he’d thought.
And actually thinking about it rationally in terms of loss and gain, bullying Ephelia would only carry the risk of earning Yuuto’s displeasure when he found out. There was no return; none that he could think of. And conversely, if one made sure to become friends with her, there was the possibility they might benefit in a number of ways from a relationship with someone close to the patriarch.
But instead, the result had been his actions backfiring entirely.
Yuuto was once again awed by how difficult it was dealing with other people’s emotions. Then again, the girl in question was still just a child, so there was no point in harping on the subject of rational judgments of risk and reward.
“Thus, she ruins Ephy’s social life at school, and can bask in the feeling of superiority it gives her. ‘I’m so much better than her. I’m the one more worthy of Lord Yuuto’s love,’ is likely what she’s thinking to herself. Of course, considering you already have women like Aunt Felicia and Elder Sister Sigrún around you, one would not be wrong to call it shallow thinking only fitting for a child.”
Kristina capped her insult with a nasty, derisive snicker at the girl’s expense. It was a pretty caustic assessment.
Yuuto’s voice grew cold. “All right, what do we do, then? I just need to order that queen girl expelled from the vaxt, right?”
The lion that slept within his heart had very slightly begun to rouse itself.
Normally he was the epitome of mild-mannered, enough so that he never batted an eye at Kristina’s constant antics, which were disrespectful and impudent towards her sworn father however polite her speech might be. But despite the fact that she hadn’t exchanged any Chalice oaths with him, he still considered Ephelia a precious younger member of his family, and she was being hurt. He wasn’t kind enough to laugh that sort of thing off.
He knew it was bad form for parents to get personally involved in the conflicts of their children, but at the same time, he had a responsibility to her as the one who made her attend classes, and he had no intention of hesitating if it came to that.
“There is no need to make this into a major incident, Father,” Kristina said, shrugging her shoulders. Her expression was a little bit more tense than before. It seemed that even for the daughter and prized intelligence agent of Botvid of the Claw Clan, she felt her blood run a little cold when dealing with Yuuto in this state. “The point is that the other girls have no choice but to shun Ephy because they’re being ordered to by their queen.”
“Yeah, well, true.”
“So, naturally, I simply need to rise up and become the new queen of the class.” Kristina said this casually and offhandedly, with the same tone one might imagine for the famous quote, “If they have no bread then let them eat cake.”
“...Huh?” Even the famous commander renowned amongst ally and foe for his strange and unexpected strategies found himself taken aback and dumbfounded.
Kristina paid his surprise no mind and continued, holding up her index finger to emphasize her point. “When that happens, the hierarchy will make a complete reversal. After all, I’ve made it a point to show off to everyone that Ephy is my loyal follower.”
“...I see. So that’s why you started off by making her your gofer.”
“Is that the term in your world for showing favoritism to one’s underling, Father?”
“Uh, sure, let’s just go with that.” As usual, Yuuto countered a tough question by settling for easy misinformation. He was already groaning to himself over something more pressing.
He’d been studying up on how to become a better patriarch by reading articles on leadership and group formation, and he’d learned about the caste-like hierarchy of cliques found in schools in the United States.
At the top of school society for the girls was the “queen bee,” followed by her clique of “sidekicks,” and below them the hangers-on called “pleasers.” Those groups formed the upper half of the social pyramid.
It wasn’t as open and visible at Japanese schools as it was in American ones, but there was a pretty similar phenomenon of social caste behind the scenes there, too. It had to be the same here in the vaxts of Yggdrasil, and Yuuto had just been unable to see it.
No matter how many millenia might pass, people were still people. Humanity couldn’t escape from their essential nature as a species.
“But even still, to solve the problem by usurping the queen yourself... that’s definitely a ‘Yggdrasil’ way to tackle the problem,” Yuuto said, with a wry smile.
It seemed like such a brute force approach. But at the same time, there was something Yuuto could respect about that.
After all, applying outside pressure with his authority as patriarch was just as much a brute force approach, but could have unpleasant repercussions, while her approach would be equivalent to building a new order from within.
And it would mean that the matter would be settled among the kids themselves, which was much healthier in the long term.
Of course, ideally, he’d want Ephelia to be able to solve the problem with her own power. But she was still young, far too young and inexperienced. She didn’t need to be able to solve this herself yet. She just needed to keep learning, and bit by bit, learn how to handle this sort of problem.
Indeed, that was exactly the reason why he was having her attend school.
According to Kristina’s plan, if she became the new queen bee of the vaxt in the eastern district, then in the new order, Ephelia would automatically become one of her sidekicks, part of the upper social ranks. At the very least, no one would shun her anymore.
What sort of friendships she’d be able to make from that point on would be entirely up to her.
“All right, I’ll leave the rest to you, Kris.” Yuuto waved Kristina off with one hand. It would be crass to interrogate her any more at this point.
The current queen bee had succeeded in unifying at least a dozen girls under her control, and that was worthy of respect even if she was only twelve or so.
She seemed to have a problem with her personality, but viewing her with the calculating eyes of a patriarch, Yuuto could see she might have a promising future ahead of her. The sort of sly and underhanded behavior she’d demonstrated was, at times, necessary for those who would lead others. However, in the end, her craftiness was only that of a little fox.
The girl standing in front of Yuuto right now, with her thin, cold smile of anticipation, was something else. She was like a kyuubi, the nine-tailed fox beast of Japanese myth, a creature of bottomless evil and wiles.
It would be rude for Yuuto to question Kristina further because she was leagues apart from her opponent.
It would be no contest.
After class had ended for the day, Kristina spoke up in a bright voice, clapping her hands together. “Everyone, how about we all go to the bathhouse today? Father asked that I go inspect the baths before they officially open, to try them out and give him my impressions. And so I asked him, ‘I want to invite my friends to come, as well. After all, the more feedback, the better, right? Pretty please?’ And wouldn’t you know it, he happily consented!”
Of course, it went without saying that Kristina’s actual request to Yuuto had been nothing like the cute way in which she portrayed it.
It had already been a week since the twin princesses of the Claw Clan had started attending lessons at the vaxt.
At Kristina’s announcement, the girls gathered around her began buzzing with excitement.
“T-truly, Lady Kristina?!”
“Oh, I am just so happy I was able to make friends with you, Lady Kristina!”
“I’ll follow you for the rest of my life, Big Sister Kristina!”
Rumors had been spreading about the new bathhouse built on the outskirts of the city that would be open to the public, and it had become the hottest topic among the women of Iárnviðr, young and old.
Until now, the only places in the city with large baths had been the interior of the palace and the hörgr, the sanctuary at the top of the sacred tower Hliðskjálf. In other words, the only ones with access to them had been a subset of people in the upper echelons of the clan.
For ordinary citizens, it was most common to either bathe in the river or to wash and rinse oneself using a large bucket filled with water.
But it was winter now, and there was no one silly enough to suggest a dip in the river this time of year. And it was the nature of a woman’s heart to want to find a way to keep clean and pretty, no matter the season. Thus, there was heavy interest in the new public bathhouse.
“Well, then, let’s be off,” Kristina said.
She stood up to leave, the gaggle of girls following close behind her.
But then she stopped and turned to look back for just a moment, directing her gaze to a particular spot in the corner of the room. Her eyes were cold and uninterested, as if she were only glancing at a pebble on the side of the road.
A single girl remained sitting, one who had not been chatting together with the other girls around Kristina. She sat there alone, silently looking down, her clenched fists trembling, her lips pressed into a thin line.
It was the former “queen” of this classroom, the same girl who had ordered the others to ostracize Ephelia.
In the animal kingdom, once the leader of a herd of animals with a strong hierarchy is supplanted by a new, younger leader, the old leader either falls to the bottom of the hierarchy, or is driven from the herd entirely. In other words, that very thing had happened to her.
None of that mattered to Kristina. Not that girl, nor the fawning group of girls behind her with their noisy prattling, busying themselves kissing up to her. They were all equally worthless in her eyes.
“For all their talk of friendship, this is how people really are,” she whispered to herself in a voice no one could hear. She flipped a bit of her hair back with one hand as she turned to resume walking toward the door.
She was the born daughter of Botvid, a man who had used every scheme and plot, betrayed people and made them betray each other, all so he could at last rise to the position of ruler of their nation.
Children learn by watching their parents.
From the time Kristina first became aware of the world around her, she’d watched the way her father did things, and seen in great detail just how greedy and selfish people were, how quickly they were willing to betray each other.
“So happy to be friends with you?” she thought, sneering. “I’ll follow you for the rest of my life?” What an absolute joke.
Kristina knew they were the words of people who readily tossed aside the person they’d been loyally following until just the other day.
If Kristina fell from grace, they would forget those words and abandon her for whoever rose to the top next, without a doubt. She would be willing to bet her rank, even her life on it.
And people say children are pure and innocent. Just under the surface, they’re all like this. Ugly. Ahhhh, it’s so, so ugly.
What possible value was there in such shallow, superficial creatures?
“Honestly, Father is such a naive dreamer,” she muttered. Then she added, with a derisive smirk, “Though I suppose that is one of his cute points.”
Kristina couldn’t bring herself to believe in anything “clean and pure,” because she knew the extent of humanity’s ugliness and filth.
At the same time, she had an endless yearning for something truly clean and pure, because she knew the extent of humanity’s ugliness and filth.
And so, that purity needed to be tested.
Kristina longed for the sort of pure beauty that retained its shine even if you tried to dirty and defile it over and over. In her mind, that was what real beauty was. If it lost its luster just from being dipped in filth, then it was fake, nothing more.
“Oh, Al, my sweet sister, you truly are the best,” Kristina murmured to herself blissfully, dwelling on the mental image of her twin.
Albertina was truly the embodiment of Kristina’s ideal.
She was such a foolish and simple-minded girl, almost like an animal in some respects. And so, none of Kristina’s acts of trickery or humiliation could stain her. She remained innocent and clean, however much she was dirtied by her tainted sister.
Albertina was so dear, so precious! Kristina often wondered just how it was that such a person could be at her side.
Kristina had accepted Botvid and his ways, but perhaps Albertina had rejected them on an unconscious level.
“Um, would you like to come, too?” The familiar voice faintly reached Kristina’s ears, and she spun around to look back into the classroom. The surprise showed on her face, a rarity for her.
Ephelia was smiling and holding her hand out to the former queen.
If her smiling face or tone of voice had carried a sense of smug superiority, or the satisfaction found in revenge, then Kristina wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
She would have simply dismissed Ephelia in her mind as another worthless fake, and seen her as nothing more than a potentially useful tool for currying favor with Yuuto.
But Ephelia’s smile was from the heart, real and filled with kindness.
“Why... why would you ask me...?” The former queen looked up at Ephelia, disbelieving.
It was a natural reaction. Kristina stood still and listened in attentively.
Ephelia paused for a moment before slowly replying. “Well...”
Ephelia might have been only eleven, but she was still a girl.
She had known that this person hated her. And it would be a lie to say that she hadn’t felt any resentment at all over the way the girl had tried to exclude and humiliate her.
But Ephy also understood.
As a slave, she knew how painful it felt to have others look down on you.
How sad and lonely it felt to be treated like you weren’t even human.
That despair was a hopeless darkness without a single ray of light.
And someone had saved her.
Someone who smiled at her with kindness and warmth.
That smile had been her heart’s salvation.
She wanted to be more like that person.
And so, she smiled from her own heart. She did her best to give the girl the same kind of smile that person had given her.
“Well... after all, isn’t it more fun with all of us together?”
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