Secrets of the Silent Witch - Volume 1 - Chapter Ep

EPILOGUE

The Little Hand in His Memories

By the time Monica got back to her dorm room and finished writing a report to submit to Louis, dawn was breaking. When she’d lived in her mountain cabin, she had often pulled all-nighters. But now that she had been on a regular schedule for a little while, her head felt heavy with lack of sleep.

She walked to her classroom on wobbly legs, listened to Lana criticize her hair, and sat through the lesson, barely registering the buzz about Mr. Thornlee’s sudden disappearance.

Her classes that day were a battle against drowsiness, and once they were over, she stifled a yawn and dragged her heavy legs over to the student council room.

When she got there, the place was empty. Apparently, she’d been the first to arrive. She did some light cleaning as Cyril had taught her, then some restocking. Finally, she opened the account books. But while looking at numbers would have normally perked her right up, today she found they just wouldn’t stay in her head.

…Oh yeah. I used so much magecraft yesterday… I must need sugar.

Indifferent to food, Monica only ever ingested the bare minimum required. Her breakfast had been coffee and a piece of bread left over from dinner. She’d brought her own berries and water with her for lunch. Normally, she could make do with that, but when she used a lot of magecraft, it was no longer enough.

Spells required energy. Because of this, it was said that many mages were partial to sweets. Louis, for example, would always sneak baked goods made by his wife, Rosalie, into his pocket, occasionally stuffing them in Monica’s mouth when she ran out of energy.

…I wonder if I have any snacks with me…?

Monica fished around in her pockets, but they were empty—she’d eaten all her berries for lunch. Telling herself that she only had to make it until her student council work was over, she eventually succumbed to drowsiness, and her face fell onto the desk.

While Monica was sleeping face-first in the accounting records, the door to the student council opened.

It was the student council’s vice president, Cyril Ashley. He had arrived second after Monica.

When he noticed Monica sleeping at the desk, his eyebrows shot up. He opened his mouth to yell at her…but then stopped.

“……”

Cyril unconsciously quieted his footsteps as he approached the desk and looked down at Monica.

She was a thin, meager little girl. With her small, seedy-looking body, she certainly didn’t appear seventeen. Her face was pale, and those eyes behind her long bangs were always looking down in hesitation. She was a plain, boring girl, the kind you could find anywhere—without even a shred of the elegance or beauty expected of nobles.

Cyril stared down at her right hand, still holding a feather pen. Most of the female students here had made-to-order gloves sporting lace, ribbon, and embroidery at the hems, but Monica’s were stark white, unadorned. The fabric was a little loose on her, as though they didn’t quite fit. That was how small her hands were—like a child’s.

The scene from the night before flashed through Cyril’s mind. The hand that had reached out for him after he’d fallen had been small like a child’s—but it had had deep callouses that didn’t match them. It had been the hand of someone who held a pen for hours each day.

Cyril gently removed the feather pen from Monica’s hand and returned it to its stand. Her right hand fell limp, its fingers stretching lazily out across the desk. As if to measure how small her hands were, he covered her right hand with his own, then reached a finger toward the edge of her glove…

“Oh? Cyril, you’re here already?”

At the sound of Felix’s voice from behind him, Cyril immediately jumped back from the desk. “Your Royal Highness! This isn’t what it looks like; this little brat is taking a nap in the sacred student council room, and I was just thinking of slapping her awake! Wake up already, you lazy runt!”

Cyril awkwardly raised his right hand and gave Monica a couple of smacks in the head. Monica raised her head off the desk, muttering to herself, her sleepy eyes going up to Cyril.

“…Lord Ashley?”

“H-hmph. Do you have any idea how silly you look right now? You are in the presence of His Royal Highness! Straighten up!”

Cyril grabbed her shoulder and shook. Monica continued to stare up at him…and eventually, she gave a crooked smile.

“…You’re not cold… That’s good…”

His deep blue eyes sprang open. He stopped shaking her and reached unconsciously for his broach. He worked his lips, trying to say something…when, just then, Felix reached in from beside him and pushed a cookie into Monica’s mouth. She began to chew on it, still dozing. Felix pushed the cookie forward as it disappeared into her mouth, then eventually brought out another one and moved it close to her.

Monica, noticing the cookie pushing against her lips, started biting that one as well, still dozing.

“That’s funny. She’s mostly asleep, but her mouth is still moving.”

“Uh, s-sir…?”

“Want to try, Cyril?”

The offer sounded like someone asking if he wanted to play with their pet. Cyril shook his head and said he’d rather not.

When Felix picked up a third cookie, Monica’s head swayed to the side, and her eyes opened just a little. Appearing as if she’d just woken up, she rubbed her eyes, then muttered something incomprehensible under her breath.

Though Cyril had no way of knowing, Monica was currently writing a report in her dreams. Reports were one of Monica’s least-favorite tasks. She never struggled to explain numbers or records but having to use sentences to explain a series of events was something she just wasn’t very good at.

Where do I even start…? she groaned to herself, racking her brain. I don’t know…

Meanwhile, Louis—who had appeared from out of nowhere—smiled at her. Now then, my fellow Sage. You do know what you should write, don’t you?

If I don’t write this report properly, she thought, Louis will be mad at me. But where in the world am I even supposed to start?

Oh, I know. There’s one thing I definitely need to tell him…

Remembering something very important, Monica looked at the person in front of her and said, “…Congratulations on your wife’s pregnancy.”

“Who the hell are you talking about?!” yelled Cyril.

Felix put on a perfectly serious face and turned to him. “Cyril, who’s the lucky lady? You better take responsibility for what you’ve done.”

“What?! Sir?! That’s not it! It’s a misunderstanding. She’s just asleep and speaking nonsense…!”

Cyril blushed, paled, and blushed again as he desperately tried to defend himself, not even realizing he was being teased.

All the while, Monica dozed on, trying to think of a good gift to present to the child of House Miller once they were born.

* * *

About a week after Monica had handed Mr. Thornlee over to Louis, his name appeared in the newspaper.

“Serendia Academy Teacher Arrested for Using Forbidden Magecraft!”

The newspaper was printed by a large company in the capital, so the incident became a topic of conversation even at Serendia Academy. Monica’s classmates were especially shaken, since Mr. Thornlee had been their homeroom teacher.

“I can’t believe Mr. Thornlee was doing such things! How scary… Monica, your right braid is coming loose.”

“Huh?! Oh, oh no…!”

Monica, who had been braiding her own hair under Lana’s supervision, quickly pressed her hand to the loosening braid. Her efforts, however, were in vain, and the whole braid fell apart in her hands. She’d have to do it all over again. It was easy enough to coarsely divide her hair in two and make a loose braid with it, but braids that went along the side of your head were quite a bit different.

“Uuugh… This is so hard…”

Lana had said it was cute when braids were gently loosened, but when Monica tried to do it, they just fell into shambles. Loosening them on purpose and having them naturally fall apart were entirely different things. Hanging her head glumly, Monica started over on her side braid.

“Come to think of it,” remarked Lana, “the newspaper said the one who arrested Mr. Thornlee was one of the Seven Sages.”

“Hu-what?!” The clump of hair fell from Monica’s hand.

Lana sighed and rested her cheek on her hand without noticing the way Monica’s face had tensed.

“It was Lord Louis Miller, the Barrier Mage. Have you heard of him? I saw him once at a party in the royal capital. He was a very stylish, handsome man.”

“Ah, um, I—I—I—I, er, I s-see…”

Mages attended social events surprisingly frequently. That went double for the Seven Sages, who stood at the pinnacle of magecraft—some even called them the king’s advisers. As such, they tended to attract attention wherever they appeared. Of course, Monica had never attended such a party.

“When it comes to the Seven Sages, the most famous are the Barrier Mage and the Starseer Witch, don’t you think? Oh, and the Witch of Thorns and the Artillery Mage and—”

“E-excuse me!” squeaked Monica loudly and suddenly, earning a dubious look from Lana. Her face flushing bright red, Monica showed her the braid she’d just finished. “Th-this braid—I poured all my effort into making sure its ratios and angles were all perfect… H-how does it look?” she asked, glancing up at Lana.

Lana smiled and said, “It looks excellent.”

* * *

The group that felt Mr. Thornlee’s arrest most keenly—even more than Monica’s class—was the student council. He had been their adviser, so it made perfect sense. And since it had come to light that he’d been involved in embezzling student council funds as well, faculty members had been in and out of the student council room all week. Things were about as busy as they could get.

“E-excuse me…,” said Monica before nervously opening the door. Classes had ended, and she had come to visit the student council room.

There were no teachers inside—the only person there was Felix, sitting at the office desk in the back.

“There aren’t, um, any teachers today, huh…?” asked Monica awkwardly.

Felix nodded serenely. “Yeah. It looks like things are settled for now. You’ve been working pretty hard for several days in a row, haven’t you?”

“N-no, it really, um, wasn’t that…that much…”

All the teachers rushing in and out had put her on edge, but being alone with the prince wasn’t much different. Trying to make eye contact as little as possible, Monica got to work on today’s documents.

Felix came up from behind and addressed her. “Oh, Lady Norton, your braid is coming loose.”

“Huh?!”

Flustered, Monica put a hand to her head and felt her right braid falling apart.

“Wh-what…? I thought it was perfect this time…”

Despite the perfection with which she handled equations and magical formulas, she still had a lot of research to do when it came to braids. Her angles were perfect, but perhaps she’d started in a poor position. Or maybe she should have braided them more tightly… She groaned to herself, undoing her hair and re-braiding it, but she couldn’t do very much without a comb.

“Shall I help you, Lady Norton?”

“N-no! I couldn’t, um, possibly b-bother you with this…!” If Cyril was to find out that Felix had helped her, he’d yell at her again for being disrespectful.

Felix replied to Monica’s flat refusal with a “huh” and narrowed his eyes meaningfully. “You know, Cyril or Lady Bridget will be here any moment. They’re both very strict when it comes to appearances… Who could say what would happen if they found you like this?”

“…Ahhh…,” Monica groaned.

“Want to run to the makeup room? Oh, but you’d probably be embarrassed if someone saw you in the hallway with that hair, wouldn’t you?”

Monica groaned yet again. The more impatient she got, the more her hair slipped through her fingers.

Felix grinned, now sure of his victory, and held out a hand to her. “Come here. I won’t tell Cyril or the others.”

Monica nervously approached him. He had her sit down in his chair, and then he went behind her and started braiding her hair.

First, he straightened her hair with a comb, then quickly twisted a braid on the side of her head. Finally, he took the leftover hair and tied it all together with a ribbon. His motions were swift and smooth.

“There we are.”

In less than two minutes, Felix had finished braiding Monica’s hair. She timidly touched it—but even when she stroked it with her fingertip, it didn’t feel like it would loosen.

“…That’s amazing. You’re very, um, good at this, sir.”

“A prince must do everything perfectly.”

I see, so princes must even learn how to braid hair. That seems more difficult than mastering magecraft or mathematics, thought Monica—an absurd notion—before suddenly realizing that she hadn’t yet thanked Felix.

“Um! Er, th-thank you!”

“You’re very welcome.”

Once Felix had returned to his seat, the other student council members arrived one after the other. Monica hastily went back to her own chair as Elliott spoke, his expression weary.

“Ugh, I really hate this,” he complained. “We’ve been cleaning up after Mr. Thornlee for days. And did you hear that he wasn’t only embezzling student council funds? Apparently, he even used forbidden magecraft.”

Neil answered him. “They say he was using the embezzled money to research magecraft, which is pretty expensive.”

“Was he really that broke…? Where does Mr. Thornlee’s family come from?” wondered Elliott.

“Luben,” said Bridget simply.

When he heard this, Elliott’s face filled with recognition. “Oh, I see. That’s not a very wealthy area, and it suffered a lot of dragonraids this year… Well, that’s just what happens when you try to reach above your station. You reap what you sow.” He smiled thinly, his drooping eyes narrowed.

Cyril was next to speak, documents in hand. “First former accountant Aaron O’Brien is caught embezzling, and then Mr. Thornlee, our adviser, is arrested. Trust in the student council is at an all-time low. We’ll need to be extra careful with our work from here on out.”

The room tensed at his words.

Felix looked over at Monica for some reason and said in a gentle voice, “Yes, Cyril’s correct. And that’s how it is, Lady Norton.”

What does he mean, “that’s how it is”? wondered Monica, straightening up. “Y-yes, sir.”

“Would you mind,” said Felix, “going around to all the club leaders and saying hello?”

“Saying…hello…?”

“Mm-hmm. Our new accountant still hasn’t made her debut. It’ll be very important for building up our trust with the club leaders.” Felix thrust a list out toward Monica. It included the names of all the major clubs at Serendia Academy.

Unlike the other student council members, Monica had joined at a strange time, so naturally, nobody knew her yet. Because the accountant dealt with budgeting, she was bound to have especially frequent contact with club leaders. Accordingly, she needed to introduce herself.

Unfortunately, greeting and introducing herself for the first time was one of the things Monica was worst at. And now she had to do just that for more than twenty clubs.

Her face tensed and froze as Felix placed the list in her hand. Then, as if to encourage her, he covered her small hand with both of his and smiled softly.

“You’ll be all right. You look incredibly cute today. Go introduce yourself. And have confidence.”

Both his actions and words seemed aimed at encouraging her, but Monica could hear a voice in her head finishing his sentence: I braided your hair myself, after all.

Of course, this perfect prince would never say anything so condescending.

As she sat there petrified, the list was plucked from her hand. It was Cyril, who was now looking it over for himself.

“If you want to make it to all of these, you’ll need to start immediately. I’ll go with you.”

Monica wasn’t the only one surprised at that.

Elliott’s droopy eyes widened as he looked at Cyril. “That’s very kind of you. What’s the occasion?”

“I’ve seen Monica Norton’s work this past week, and I’ve decided that she’s worthy of being introduced as our new accountant. That’s all.”

Monica gaped. Every time Cyril had seen her this past week, he’d scolded her for not being respectful enough to the prince, or for stammering too much, or for something similar. She’d been sure Cyril’s constant anger was because he didn’t think she was suitable for her position.

Cyril glared at her as she stood in shock.

“You heard me,” he said. “Let’s get going. Surely you won’t say you can’t, will you?”

Monica’s mind went back to what had happened that night a week ago—to what Cyril had said just before passing out.

No such thing as can’t…

I…I need to…live up to…

This young man wanted so badly to live up to someone’s expectations that he’d tried to hold his head high until right before he’d lost consciousness. Even while mana was eating away at his entire body.

…She’d honestly thought it was incredible.

And such an incredible person was now acknowledging her as his accountant.

Monica played with her fingers and did her best to squeeze out her next words…

“Um…er… I-I-I’ll do my besht!”

…only to stumble at the finish line. Her face went red, and she looked down.

Cyril’s eyes widened just a little bit before he snorted proudly and quickly started off.

“Very well, then. Let’s get moving, Accountant Norton!”

Accountant Norton. She’d never been called by her title before. The corners of Monica’s lips twitched as she replied in the loudest voice she could manage:

“…Coming!”