Secrets of the Silent Witch - Volume 1 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The Silent Witch Speaks Fervently on the Golden Ratio

When Monica was about five, she had begged and begged her father for a certain object. The object she had wanted so badly was a tape measure.

Monica had learned her numbers and basic arithmetic faster than the other children her age; at five, she already knew from her father—a scholar—how to measure area and volume.

And so, she had asked for a tape measure because she’d wanted to find out the area and volume of the things around her.

Her father’s friend, who happened to be there at the time, was completely taken aback when he heard her request. But when Monica’s father heard her reasoning, he had smiled gently and given her a tape measure as a gift, just as she had asked.

Having acquired the object of her desires, Monica lost herself in measuring all the furniture in the house, as well as the sizes of her own limbs and her father’s.

“The world is filled with numbers,” Monica’s father had often told her. “Humans are the same—our bodies are made up of vast quantities of numbers.”

Each time she used her tape measure to figure out the area or volume of a nearby object, she felt in her bones how correct her father had been.

For young Monica, this had been an irrepressible source of joy and happiness.

* * *

…I walked around with that tape measure until the division markings wore down beyond recognition, didn’t I?

As her half-awake brain lingered on a dream of her childhood, Monica turned over in bed, at which point the morning sunlight coming in through the window made her face scrunch up. Slowly, she rose. The attic room didn’t have any curtains, giving the morning sun free rein.

Once Monica had gotten out of bed, the first thing she did—before even taking care of her appearance—was bring her coffeepot out of the drawer. Then she used an unchanted spell to create water and filled the pot with it.

It was said that water fabricated with magic was unsuitable for drinking, due to the mana it contained.

A human body could retain only so much mana, so consuming a large amount of mana-rich water would lead to magic poisoning. That was why Monica normally drew her water from a well.

But a little bit wouldn’t hurt. As one of the Seven Sages, Monica could store a higher amount of mana than normal people anyway. It wasn’t easy for her to come down with magic poisoning.

She filled the pot with the water she’d created, ground some coffee beans, and set them up on the pot. Then she took out a small metal trivet, placed the pot on top of it, and used another unchanted spell to create fire. Because a caster needed to maintain the intensity of the heat as well as its position, even a small flame like this required an intricate spell and quite a bit of control.

Nero, who was lying on the bed in his black-cat form, looked at her with mild exasperation. “Using your skills just to make a cup of coffee? Isn’t that a bit of a waste?”

“W-well… I can’t just use the kitchen without asking, so…,” said Monica softly in protest, pouring the coffee from the pot into the cup.

Nero jumped up onto Monica’s desk and gazed at her with his golden eyes. “Monica, I want to try some of that.”

“Really? Why?”

“I read it in a novel recently. Bartholomew, the protagonist, drinks coffee in silence—it’s very cool and refined.”

Monica thought for a few moments, then scooped up a little of the coffee from her cup with a spoon and placed it in front of Nero. Coffee probably wasn’t the best thing to give a cat, but Nero wasn’t a normal cat, so he’d be all right. Probably.

“Are you sure?” she warned. “It’s pretty bitter.”

“When a creature loses his sense of adventure, he atrophies.”

“…Was that in a book, too?”

“You bet. Dustin Gunther is the greatest.”

After naming one of the capital’s trendiest novelists, Nero gave the coffee in the spoon a quick lick. Immediately, the fur covering his entire body bristled.

“Hogyah-rah-phah!” he cried out—a peculiar exclamation neither human nor feline—and began rolling around atop the desk.

As she had expected, it didn’t seem to be to his taste. Nero let out a ragged breath, like a warrior just returned from the brink of death, then looked up at Monica.

“Yes, that certainly excited my sense of adventure. You must have some messed-up taste buds to be able to drink that and enjoy it.”

“……”

Monica ignored him and sipped her own coffee.

Hot and bitter as it flowed past her tongue, the liquid woke her hazy mind right up.

Suddenly, her father’s words came to mind: “First, eliminate the unnecessary. Once you have done that, the remaining numbers will be exceedingly simple.”

…But what’s unnecessary? she thought. For example, morning coffee certainly wasn’t unnecessary for her. It was important. But for those who hated coffee, such a custom may have seemed pointless. If only it were a formula. Then I could solve it right away. How difficult it was to suss out the unnecessary in a person’s mind.

Still sipping her coffee, Monica glanced at the ribbon and berries on the desk. She’d never cared about her hairstyle before. Prior to yesterday, she would have said for certain that ribbons were unnecessary.

The berries, too. Monica wasn’t overly fond of eating, so if not for the berries, she probably would have shrugged and just gone without lunch. She picked one up and popped it into her mouth. She didn’t normally even taste the food she ate, but for some reason, this time, she wanted to eat them with care and attention. So she made sure to pay attention to the flavor before she swallowed them.

“…Hey, Nero… Is there anything you think of as a ‘necessity’?”

“Hmm? What’s this? Philosophy so early in the morning? …Yes, I know the word philosophy. Am I incredibly smart and cool or what?”

“…Yes, you’re amazing,” said Monica flatly.

Nero pointed his right paw straight at her. “That’s it!” he said. “For me, your words of praise are quite the necessity. So give me more! Praise me! Write a ballad for me, in fact! Or a novel! Or paint a portrait—leave something for future generations so they know my greatness!”

That last part was definitely asking too much, but it gave Monica a tiny bit of joy to know her words of praise were needed.

“Also, it’s nice to enjoy things that aren’t necessary,” Nero continued. “‘Human life is full of the unnecessary, so why not enjoy it?’ That’s another quote from one of Dustin Gunther’s novels.”

For Monica, who had to try her hardest just to live, enjoying the unnecessary seemed like a monumental task. Nevertheless…

“I’ll…give it a try,” said Monica, picking the ribbon up off the desk. As she did so, she remembered something else her father had told her, his gentle voice replaying in her mind.

It’s the most difficult challenges that are the most enjoyable, Monica.

* * *

Lana Colette was sitting at her seat, her chin in her hand, flipping through a textbook.

Once Monica had found her, she managed to walk, legs trembling, to her side.

“I… I’m, um…”

“What do you want?” Lana kept her face toward the page, moving only her eyes to look at Monica—and when they saw her, they opened wide. “What happened to your hair?!”

Monica’s hairstyle wasn’t what Lana had done for her the day before, nor was it in her usual braids. Instead, the hair on the top of her head fluffed out unnaturally, with two braids forcibly affixed around it. It was rather avant-garde.

“I, well, I wanted to, um, do it like you did…”

“Your basic braids would have been better!”

Monica whimpered as Lana shouted at her. She looked down and shoved her hands into her pockets. Then she pulled out the ribbon she’d borrowed yesterday and nervously held it out to Lana.

“…Here… Um, so…thank…thank you for yesterday…”

Remembering her practice with Nero the night before, Monica squeaked out her thanks. She still sounded like she was about to die, but she’d been able to say the whole thing properly.

However, when Lana looked at the ribbon in Monica’s hand, she gave a dismissive sniff and turned away. “I don’t need that. It’s not in style anymore,” she stated brusquely, as if to say the conversation was now over.

Normally, Monica would have withdrawn immediately, tears in her eyes. But instead, she held herself firmly in place and desperately wrung out her next few words. “Would…would you…sh-show me…how to do it…like you did, p-pleesh?”

She’d stuttered the last word. She went red up to her ears, and since she was looking down, she couldn’t see that the corners of Lana’s mouth were twitching as she tried her best to hold in laughter.

“Well, I suppose you’ve given me no choice! Sit right there, okay?” said Lana haughtily, gesturing with her chin toward a place beside her.

Monica brought her chair over as instructed and sat down.

Lana speedily undid Monica’s hair. “Really, how on earth did you manage to come up with something so odd?! It’s unbelievable! Hey, do you have a comb?”

“N-no…,” responded Monica weakly.

Lana gave her hair a tug. “…I’m surprised you had the guts to ask me to teach you when you haven’t even brought a comb.”

“I-I-I-I’m…sorry!”

Lana sighed in exasperation, then took out her own comb. It was made of silver, with intricate openwork on the grip. Upon closer inspection, small jewels were embedded in it in the images of tiny flowers.

“Not too long ago, goldwork combs with bird motifs were in fashion,” she remarked. “But ones like this are much trendier right now. The smaller number and size of the jewels make it very cute. The craftsmen in Anmel are particularly skilled, so if you want the best, you have to get one from Anmel…”

Then, for some reason, Lana trailed off and began combing Monica’s hair in silence.

Why did she suddenly stop speaking? wondered Monica, mystified.

Then Lana whispered something so only she could hear. “It’s boring, isn’t it? What I’m talking about, I mean.”

Monica’s eyes widened. It sounded like Lana was sulking. Monica turned to look up at her.

Lana’s lips were turned in a frown, and she looked hurt. “My family bought their title, after all. I know you’re thinking that the things I say are vulgar and not worth listening to.”

“U-um…well…” Flailing her arms pointlessly, Monica frantically worked her mouth. “I—I get told I’m boring a lot, too… Well, because I, um, talk about numbers all the time…”

She could talk about anything related to mathematical equations and magical formulas. But she’d forget to pay attention to her listener’s reactions and keep talking far too long. Louis Miller had scolded her for it more than a few times. The handsome mage would sometimes twist her ear without mercy, smile, and ask, “Have you returned to this world, my fellow Sage?” Remembering it made her start trembling.

Lana gave a short laugh. “You’re so weird.”

“I—I am…?”

“Yes. Now face forward.”

With practiced motions, Lana tied the sides of Monica’s hair into braids. Once she had two, she bunched them with the remaining hair and tied them neatly with the ribbon.

“There, finished. It’s not so hard.”

“W-wow… That was so fast… Then the positions and angles of the braids are the key? No, wait, I should also consider the ratio of the different clumps of hair—”

“It’s not about numbers! You learn with your hands. Now, undo it and try it again yourself.”

Monica’s eyes widened at Lana’s words, and she exclaimed, “What?! But it’s so pretty… D-do I really have to undo it…?”

When Lana heard the words “but it’s so pretty,” her mouth twitched—the compliment seemed to have put her in a good mood—and then she cleared her throat, playing the big sister. “You can’t learn it if you don’t do it yourself. If you mess up and run out of time, I’ll redo it, so give it a try.”

“Ugh… It’s like breaking apart a neat, finished equation and writing over it with random numbers…”

“What kind of analogy is that…?”

Just as Lana smiled, half-exasperated and half-pleased, a commotion arose in the classroom.

It was still too early for the teacher to have arrived. Wondering what was going on, Monica looked toward the source of the noise. There, she found a male student she recognized—the young man with droopy eyes and brown hair.

I-it’s him…

Elliott Howard, the member of the student council who had accused Monica of being an intruder in the old gardens the day before. He took a look around the classroom, and when his eyes met hers, he grinned.

Monica gasped in fright and hid herself behind Lana. However, it was already too late. His leather shoes clapping across the floor, Elliott headed straight for her seat. Monica immediately leaped out from behind Lana and hid behind a nearby curtain.

Elliott sneered at her eccentric behavior. “I can’t believe you were really an academy student. In fact, I’m still not entirely convinced. Running away as soon as you see someone’s face? No proper lady would do that. I see—you really are a timid little squirrel.”

Trembling, Monica looked at Elliott from between the curtains. “I-I’m a h-human…”

“If you’re a human, then at least come out from there.”

“……”

Hesitantly, Monica came out from behind the curtains, and Elliott smiled. At least, his mouth was shaped like a smile—his droopy eyes were cold.

“I came here because I need something from you,” he said. “Would you come with me quietly?”

“I—I have, um, classes…”

“This class’s homeroom teacher is Mr. Thornlee, right? I’ll have a word with him about it. And it’s only the second day of the new semester anyway. They won’t cover anything that important.” Elliott walked several paces away, then craned his neck to look back at her. “I’m a member of the student council. If you want to get along at this academy, you should do as I say, newcomer.”

If Monica cried no, burst into tears, and ran away, she’d be no different than she was yesterday. So instead, she took a deep breath, then gave a little nod. “A-all right.”

Elliott Howard wasn’t even trying to hide his disdain for her, and his words were laced with thorns. Still, it was probably better than a certain Sage she knew, who would send offensive magic flying at her, smiling all the while. At any rate, that was what she told herself as she pushed her shaking legs to start moving.

* * *

Elliott stopped in front of a grand door on the fourth floor. All of Serendia Academy was extravagant enough to rival the estates of high-ranking nobles, but this door was especially splendid.

Elliott gave a light knock, then opened the door without waiting for an answer.

“Coming in.”

“Welcome,” came a mild voice from inside—a voice Monica had heard before.

Elliott held the door open and urged Monica inside with his eyes. Gripping her fists tightly in front of her chest, she proceeded.

“E-excuse me.”

The interior was spacious, with a scarlet rug laid on the floor. Every single room in this academy had extravagant workmanship that was incomparable to any normal school, but this one was particularly lavish. The detailing on the tables, chairs, and pillars was incredibly intricate. The headmaster’s room had been sumptuously decorated with rows of paintings and sculptures, but this place evoked a different sort of elegance.

Near the back of the room, a male student sat at an official-looking desk. His hair was honey-blond and shone in the light from the window, and his eyes were beautiful—light blue with just a touch of green.

“I apologize for calling you here so suddenly, Lady Monica Norton,” he said.

“Y-you’re, um, from yesterday…” This was the young man who had picked up Monica’s berries and protected her from the flowerpot in the old gardens. And he wore the same gentle smile now as he had then.

“Were you able to eat your lunch after that, little squirrel?”

“Um, thank…er, thank y-you for yesterday!”

I said it! I managed to say it properly. Monica’s goal for today had been to thank Lana and this young man for the day before. She quietly savored her joy at having accomplished both so quickly.

The young man softly tilted his head to the side. “I’m sorry? Did I do something that warranted thanks?”

“Um, you picked up my berries, and…and you brought me to the infirmary…,” said Monica, kneading her hands.

The young man’s face lit up in understanding. “You don’t have to thank me for that. It’s the student council president’s duty to safeguard the students.”

What a kind person, thought Monica in admiration—before processing what he had just said. If she wasn’t mistaken, he’d said something rather important. Very slowly, she looked back up and repeated, “Student council…president?”

“That’s right.” The young man nodded with a smile. He quietly rose and offered Monica an elegant bow. “I suppose I haven’t introduced myself yet. I am Felix Arc Ridill, the seventy-fifth student council president of Serendia Academy. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Monica Norton.”

“……”

So it turned out that the kind male student from the day before had actually been the student council president. That made him the second prince—and the one Monica was supposed to be guarding. Once she’d understood everything, her first thought was…

“U-um…,” she stammered.

“What is it?”

“…If you’re a prince, how come you, um, snuck out of the dorm last night?”

Elliott, who had been waiting at the door, flinched and looked toward Felix. “Wait, you snuck out last night? This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

Felix deftly avoided Elliott’s pointed stare and smiled at Monica. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about.”

“Um, well, I saw you from my window last night. You were standing outside the boys’ dorm…” There was no doubt that the suspicious person Nero had discovered the previous night had been Felix. But why would he be wandering around outside after curfew?

Felix responded to Monica’s unassuming question smoothly, his smile never lapsing.

“There was a new moon last night, wasn’t there?” He was implying that it would have been too dark to see anything from her window.

When Monica tried to respond, Felix, back at the desk, laced his fingers and rested his chin on his hands. “So you saw someone exit the boys’ dormitory in the middle of the night?” he continued. “Can you tell me what they looked like? We’ll have to strengthen the academy’s security.”

“Th-they were wearing a hood, so I couldn’t see their face. I only got a brief glimpse of, um, their blond hair and the back of their head…sir.”

“Well, we have plenty of blond students at the academy.”

The moment she heard this counterargument, a fire lit inside her. It was, perhaps, that particular drive of a scholar to prove her claim. Addressing a perfectly relaxed Felix, Monica clenched her fists and declared, “Th-the hooded person yesterday had the same, um, physique as you.”

“It wouldn’t be strange for someone to have a similar physique to me, would it?”

“It wasn’t just similar—it was the golden ratio!”

“…I’m sorry?”

Once her heart had been set ablaze, Monica ceased to take in her surroundings and became lost in the details of her proof—a bad habit of hers. Fortunately, there just so happened to be a movable blackboard for conferences pushed against the wall. Monica drew a simple picture of a person in it, then drew a rectangle around the head area.

“I am confident in my ability to accurately estimate the length of anything I see. The ratio between the width and height of your head is 1 to 1.618. This number is extremely close to the golden ratio, which humans feel to be the most beautiful. To be precise, the golden ratio is 1 to 1.61803398…and it goes on, but I’ll omit the rest.”

Without sparing a glance toward her baffled audience, Monica drew a horizontal line through the picture’s navel, essentially dividing it into an upper and lower half. Above the line she wrote a 1, and below it she wrote 1.618.

“Even if someone is wearing clothes, you can use the length of their legs to calculate the rough position of their navel. Both you, sir, and the person from last night produce the same golden ratio when your upper and lower body are divided this way. But wait! If we were to use 1 for the lower portion instead, then that would bring your total height, combining the upper and lower portions, to 1.618. The golden ratio again—almost as if it were purposely calculated! This property is extremely rare! If you were to measure yourself with a tape measure, you would see that my theory is…correct…”

It was then that Monica finally emerged from her passionate appeal. Her breathing was still erratic, but the trance was broken.

I… What was I just…? Still gripping the chalk, she awkwardly looked back at Felix and Elliott.

Elliott was standing still, eyes wide.

Felix, on the other hand, was leisurely calculating something, muttering to himself. “Last time I had my measurements taken, the number was…” After a few moments, his face lit up. “Wow, it really is 1 to 1.6.”

“……”

“I’ve been complimented on my appearance before, but never like this,” he said, less sarcastically and more as if he found the whole thing very amusing.

Monica unconsciously put her head in her hands. Ahhhhh! I’ve done it again…

She often lost track of what was going on around her when dealing with equations and magical formulas. And every time she did, Louis would end up twisting her ear, but… I can’t believe I did that in front of the person I’m supposed to be protecting, of all people!

In any case, she needed to stay in Felix’s good graces. Desperately, she tried to think of some excuse. Louis had once called her awful at this particular task—so she thought, and she thought, and she overthought. And what she came up with was this:

“The golden spiral, which is based on the golden ratio, uses the sequence of numbers in the song ‘Old Man Sam’s Pigs’ for each radius! In the sequence, the ratio between every pair of numbers gets closer and closer to the golden ratio. It’s a beautiful sequence… In other words, ‘Old Man Sam’s Pigs’ is amazing… No, wait, I meant to say, your proportions are amazing! Sir!”

If Louis had been here, he would have asked her what exactly her excuse was supposed to accomplish, then resorted to violence.

Hearing Monica praise both a member of the royalty and a song about pigs in the same breath, Elliott narrowed his eyes and groaned. “What on earth is ‘Old Man Sam’s Pigs’?”

Elliott didn’t seem to recognize the popular children’s song, but Felix struck his palm with a fist in recognition. “Oh, the nursery rhyme… I get it. So that’s what those numbers are.”

Felix seemed honestly impressed, and Elliott narrowed his droopy eyes to stare at him.

“Then the little squirrel has proven that you were loitering outside the dorm at night for an undercover investigation.”

“Yes, though it didn’t bear fruit, unfortunately.”

“Cyril would faint if he heard.”

“I know. So I was hoping you could keep it a secret.”

Judging by their exchange, Felix had been acting as a decoy in order to smoke out some sort of criminal—and without telling anyone about it, at that.

A-as his bodyguard, I can’t ignore that…, she thought. But would Felix explain if an outsider like her was to ask him? While Monica was worrying, Felix and Elliott continued their discussion.

“Come on, Elliott, she’s clearly a harmless little squirrel. Not only did she take no action after witnessing me last night, but she then accidentally let it slip here. She can’t possibly be an assassin.”

“But couldn’t it all be a ploy to make us drop our guard? The flowerpot incident yesterday was too unnatural. It’s entirely possible that Lady Norton here led you to where the flowerpot would fall.”

Monica let out a surprised yelp. She sensed even more suspicion being cast her way, and she couldn’t merely stand by and let it continue. “U-um, so that flowerpot yesterday…didn’t just fall by chance?” she asked nervously.

Elliott glanced at Felix, waiting for his decision.

Felix gave a smile and recrossed his legs in his chair.

“Why don’t I explain things from the beginning? It all happened two days ago when we discovered the student council accountant, Aaron O’Brien, had been embezzling funds from the council budget. When we pressed him on it, he fell into a state of confusion… So we decided to confine him to his dorm room until his expulsion was finalized.”

Aaron O’Brien was a name Monica remembered. That was the black-haired male student who had been shouting in the hallway two days ago as the others restrained him. Isabelle had told her his name.

“The student council would prefer not to let a source of internal embarrassment become public. We had hoped to keep Accountant O’Brien’s embezzlement a secret from the other students, tell them he had suddenly fallen ill and needed to leave school, and wrap things up quietly. Unfortunately, a bit of an incident happened shortly thereafter.”

* * *

It was the day before the opening ceremony. Felix had passed judgment on Aaron O’Brien only that morning, and he was working with the other council members to clean up the mess Aaron had left.

The most troublesome aspect was having to review the accounting records. Aaron had altered several items in the process of embezzling funds. Then, to conceal those alterations, he’d fiddled with other numbers—and he’d repeated this process several times. As a result, the ledgers were in a pretty terrible state.

The student council members were all working together to review them, but it would take considerable time to fix all the numbers. That day, they didn’t end up progressing very far. Time, however, continued to tick on, and with the opening ceremony coming up the next day, they couldn’t afford to devote all their time to revising the ledgers.

Around three in the afternoon, the student council adviser, Mr. Thornlee, made an appearance and said, “We need to prepare for tomorrow’s opening and entrance ceremonies.”

Felix would have to take charge of setting up for the ceremonies and had to go. He’d need the other male students to help him move things around, too. So he left the record reviews to one of the secretaries, Bridget, and the officer of general affairs, Neil, and took the other two, Vice President Cyril and Elliott, the other secretary, with him to the hall where the ceremony would be held.

The chairs for the new students had already been placed in rows, and a hanging sign was set up near the entrance. With the decorations mostly complete, Felix and the others would just be doing the final checks. Still, as they were running down their list, they noticed small things here and there, such as chairs missing, which needed to be dealt with.

“Let’s put the new-student ribbons into boxes according to their class. That’ll make the day go more smoothly than if—”

As Felix was giving Elliott instructions, Mr. Thornlee looked above Felix’s head and suddenly paled. “Look out!” he cried.

A moment later, Cyril called out, “Sir!” his voice almost a scream.

Hearing Mr. Thornlee and Cyril, Felix moved before his mind could even process what was happening.

A few seconds later, something crashed down where he’d been standing—the sign that had been hanging over the entrance.

This sign had been affixed to an anti-fall grating on the second-story window of the ceremony venue using metal clasps. In other words, someone had reached through the window and unclasped them.

They looked up and saw that the second-story window was slightly ajar—and in the window, they caught sight of a figure, just for a moment, before it quickly withdrew.

* * *

“… And that’s the long and short of it.”

After listening to Felix’s explanation, Monica was ready to faint. He had called it a “bit of an incident,” but to any normal person, it was quite literally an attempted assassination.

I—I can’t believe an incident like that happened on the very day I arrived here…! Feeling the blood draining from her face and her lips trembling, she looked at Felix and Elliott.

Felix had maintained his serene smile throughout the explanation, but Elliott was scowling. The latter reaction was the proper one in this case. Something was wrong with Felix. How could he smile so calmly when his life was the one being targeted?

O-or maybe members of the royal family are used to that kind of thing, Monica thought in a corner of her mind.

“U-um, did you find out who dropped it…?”

“Unfortunately, they got away from us. Isn’t that right, Elliott?”

“…Sorry about that. I wasn’t able to catch them,” said Elliott with a sulk before offering a few more details.

When the sign had fallen, three people had been with Felix: Mr. Thornlee, Cyril, and Elliott. Mr. Thornlee, being the only teacher present, had entrusted Felix’s protection to Cyril and gone with Elliott to chase down the culprit. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been able to find anything—even after splitting up to cover more ground.

Felix gave a relaxed sigh and shrugged a little. “It happened a few hours after we found Aaron O’Brien guilty. It’s natural to assume the two events are related, isn’t it? But when the sign fell, O’Brien was confined to the boys’ dorm. That means someone else must have dropped it.” He narrowed his blue eyes slightly, then gave Monica a meaningful look. “O’Brien implied he’d had an accomplice in the embezzlement. It’s highly likely that person was the one who dropped the sign.”

Felix had interrogated Aaron, but by then, Aaron had lost it and could only mutter, “It’s their fault… Their fault…,” over and over again. He didn’t seem to be in a state to talk about his collaborator.

As Elliott explained this, his lips twisted into a sardonic grin. “So we laid a trap to smoke out the collaborator—during lunch break yesterday.”

“…Oh, so that’s why you were in the old gardens…?”

“That’s right.”

If Felix was alone in the empty back gardens, the culprit would be highly likely to make another attempt. Their plan had been for Elliott to hide—they would wait for the villain to go after Felix, and then Elliott would restrain them. Unfortunately, Monica had arrived completely by chance.

“I’ll be honest. I believe you’re working with the culprit, and you intentionally led the prince to where the flowerpot would fall.”

Despite having come to this academy to protect the second prince, Monica was now being treated like an assassin. If Louis Miller was to hear about this, he’d probably laugh; say, Ah, everything you do is so unexpected, ha-ha-ha; and then clench his well-calloused fists.

I—I can’t get expelled right after infiltrating! If Louis found out, he’d be furious with me… And if I fail the mission, we might be executed…

Monica shook her head so hard, it almost twisted off. “I—I didn’t…do it…”

“Then where were you, and what were you doing, at around three PM two days ago, when the incident occurred at the ceremony venue?”

Twiddling her fingers, Monica traced back through her memories. Three PM two days ago. She’d been cleaning her room and telling Nero she wished she could be a cat.

“Th-that day, I was in the girls’ dorm…cleaning my room…”

“Is there anyone who can vouch for you?”

“…No.”

The only one with her at the time had been Nero, and she couldn’t exactly bring a talking cat in as a witness.

As she looked down, Elliott glared at her as though looking at a convicted criminal. His gaze was like a fist tightening around her heart, and her breathing became short and shallow. She was so nervous that oxygen wasn’t getting into her lungs. An awful sweat steadily crept through her gloves.

Once the tension in the air became thick enough to cut with a knife, Felix interrupted and admonished Elliott. “I don’t approve of you bullying small animals.”

“But you have to admit that this little squirrel is suspicious,” said Elliott, voice full of thorns. But then he appeared to think of something, and his lips turned up into a mean-looking smile. “I know. Let’s do it this way, then. Little squirrel, you find the culprit who dropped the signboard and the flowerpot. Then I’ll believe that you’re innocent.”

Monica’s eyes went wide at Elliott’s proposal. “Um, you want…me to do that?”

“The two of us would stand out too much. To be blunt, we don’t want to make this into too big of a deal. Even the other council members don’t know about our undercover investigations.”

“Huh?!” exclaimed Monica, eyes even wider now, as she turned to Felix.

Felix smiled wryly and nodded. “Indeed. In particular, our vice president, Cyril, is something of a worrywart.”

That made sense. When Nero and Monica had witnessed Felix the night before, he had been trying to lure out the would-be assassin—and without even telling Elliott about it.

But Felix hadn’t been targeted that night, either because the villain was too cautious to take the bait or for some other unknown reason.

If they couldn’t find the culprit soon, the case might remain unsolved. Felix and the others would want to avoid that as well.

“So? Will you do it? Will you search for the culprit?” asked Elliott, his mean-spirited smirk all but saying, You’ll fail anyway.

Monica balled her hands into fists in front of her chest. She didn’t like this at all. If it was up to her, she’d have holed up in her dorm room and stayed there. Nevertheless, she was in charge of guarding Felix.

“I’ll—I’ll—I’ll doot…,” she answered pitifully.

Elliott grinned evilly and turned to Felix, saying, “You heard her.”

Felix looked at Monica with a quiet, impenetrable smile.

“Oh? In that case, it’s a pleasure to be working with you, Lady Monica Norton.”