Secrets of the Silent Witch - Volume 3 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

I Don’t Need a Reason

Lana Colette, a second-year student in Serendia Academy’s advanced course, was heading to her elective classroom when she spotted her friend Monica from behind.

Monica was wearing riding clothes—and not a skirt meant for riding sidesaddle, either, but culottes designed for straddling the horse. She must have been on her way to horseback-riding class.

Lana was surprised when Monica had chosen horseback riding as an elective, but when she heard she’d be taking the class with Casey—an experienced rider—Lana had privately sighed in relief.

But then Casey had suddenly withdrawn from school.

Lana had heard about the situation only through the grapevine, but apparently, Casey had been urgently called back to her homeland to deal with family affairs. That wasn’t an uncommon occurrence at Serendia Academy—one noble girl or another was always leaving school because she suddenly had to get married.

But since Monica had so few friends, Casey’s departure must have been an awful shock for her. Monica had been glumly hanging her head ever since the other girl left. She’d even started behaving strangely around Lana. Not even her snapping at Claudia during lunch could break Monica out of her gloom.

Now, too, as she headed away in her riding clothes, Monica’s back was hunched and lifeless. Lana trotted up to her and gave her a tap on the shoulder.

“Monica, your jacket’s hem is inside out,” she said.

“Lana?” responded Monica. “Oh, ah… You’re right… Thanks.”

With slow motions, she fixed her hemline, then lowered her eyebrows and smiled uncomfortably. Her expression was tenser than usual.

Lana wondered what she should say to a friend who was depressed like this. She tried to come up with a topic, but all she could think of were the latest fashions and trends, and she knew Monica wasn’t interested in any of that stuff.

Something she’d know about…, she thought. The academy, the festival… Oh, right! All the girls were excited about one thing in particular right now. Lana’s voice bounced as she asked Monica about it.

“Hey, have you decided what dress you’re going to wear to the ball after the school festival?”

“Huh?” Monica’s mouth hung open a bit, and her eyes widened into a blank expression.

At the very least, Lana had been expecting to hear something like, I haven’t gotten one yet, but judging by her friend’s expression…

“Monica, you do know there’s a ball the night of the school festival, right?”

“Yeah,” replied Monica. “I saw it on the schedule, but I thought we’d be participating in our regular uniforms…”

Lana was suddenly reminded that her friend was a transfer student. In general, students attended events at Serendia Academy in their uniforms. But for the balls that followed those events, of course, each student would don formal dress of their own choosing. Those held after the school festival and the graduation ceremony were particularly lavish. Everyone would be dressed to the nines.

“U-ummm,” stammered Monica, playing with her fingers, “can’t I just go in my uniform?”

Lana looked pointedly at her. “Monica, you’re part of the student council. You can’t do that.”

Monica groaned.

The student council members were in charge of the ball. She couldn’t sit it out, and if she took part in her school uniform, it would doubtless harm their reputation.

“Do you have any dresses, Monica?” asked Lana.

Monica shook her head without a word.

“Right.” Lana put a hand to her forehead. There were two weeks until the school festival. She doubted her friend could get a dress ready on her own by then.

“I can lend you an old dress of mine if you want,” Lana told her. “The colors and design would be out of fashion now, though.”

“B-but…,” Monica stammered, looking down.

Lana glared at her. “What? You don’t like the idea of wearing a hand-me-down?”

“No! It’s just that, well, I…” Monica’s voice shook, like she was about to cry. Her drooping eyebrows squeezed together, a film of tears covering her round eyes. “You’re always helping me out, and… Well, I haven’t repaid you at all…”

Monica’s head hung lower and lower. Eventually, all Lana could see was the whorl of her hair. She pressed a finger to it.

“I’m not doing this to be repaid, you know.”

“But…”

Monica was always so serious. Apparently, she’d been worried about repayment this whole time. Lana removed her finger and snorted.

“I…I don’t need a reason to do nice things for my friends, do I?!”

She’d tried to be cool as she said it, but her embarrassment caused her to stumble over the words a little. She twirled a clump of hair around her finger to hide it.

Monica slowly brought her face up to look at her friend.

“Lana, you’re so cool…,” she murmured, full of admiration.

Lana sniffed proudly, and Monica gave one of her usual, awkward smiles.

“Um, Lana… Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. We’ll have to tailor the dress a bit, so come to my room the next chance you get. Oh, and by the way, do you have a corset?”

“I’ve never worn one…”

“What?!” exclaimed Lana, her shock robbing her of any semblance of ladylike modesty.

Lana was, at this very moment, wearing a simple corset under her uniform. It was perfectly normal—a basic aspect of grooming—for any girl their age.

But as she studied Monica’s body more closely, she understood why this wasn’t the case for her friend. Monica looked for all the world like she was in her early teens—and not in a delicate way but in a too thin way. It was even easier to see now that her riding clothes were accentuating her curves—or rather her lack of them.

“Well, I suppose you don’t have any fat to pull in to begin with,” observed Lana.

Monica groaned again.

That said, creating a bit of constriction at the waist and stuffing her chest a little would probably make her look more feminine. Lana decided then and there to send off for the corset she’d used in her early teens.

The Silent Witch Monica Everett was one of the Seven Sages—the kingdom’s most skilled practitioners of magecraft. She was also extremely shy.

She hated being in front of others and would sometimes even faint from nervousness. Because of that, she had holed up in a mountain cabin, doing nothing but magecraft research and other numbers-related work.

However, her colleague, the Barrier Mage Louis Miller, had recently strong-armed her into a mission to guard the second prince, and Monica had very reluctantly transferred into her target’s school, Serendia Academy.

The academy was an elite school for noble children, and the things they studied—proper etiquette, ballroom dancing, and the like—were completely new territory for Monica, whose talents all lay in magecraft and mathematics. Nevertheless, with some help from her friends, she had already overcome several trials.

Now she was about to face her next challenge: one of her electives—horseback riding.

“I’m Monica Norton, a second-year student in Serendia Academy’s advanced course. Pleased…to meet you!”

It had been only a month and a half since Monica had transferred into the academy. But she didn’t bite her tongue or stammer. This was the most fluid, energetic self-introduction she’d ever given. She bowed to the horse in front of her.

…That’s right—she’d just introduced herself to a horse.

Obviously, the horse wasn’t going to respond like a human might. It whinnied, its mind clearly somewhere else.

Okay… I’ll do…my best! Monica thought. She’d been down in the dumps lately, but after talking to Lana, she was feeling a tiny bit better. Rallying the little burst of energy her friend had given her, she clambered up onto the horse. Aided by the teacher’s hand, of course—she couldn’t have done it on her own.

Oh… Oh no, I’m… I’m so high up…!

Monica had never had the opportunity to ride a horse before, and the animal’s height exceeded her expectations. She felt her body tense. Though she didn’t have a pathological fear of heights, she still felt more trepidation than excitement at the prospect of being higher up than usual. What if she fell off?

As she froze in the saddle, the teacher, an older instructor who was used to handling horses, spoke to her in a calm voice.

“Try walking the horse around slowly first.”

“O-okay!”

The horse began to walk at a languid pace—about the same speed as a human… But that didn’t matter.

“Eegyaaahhh?!”

Monica shrieked as the slight vibrations caused by the horse walking sent her hurtling to the ground.

Whispered voices came from around her.

“Hey, that girl just fell.”

“That’s Monica Norton from the student council, right?”

“How in the world did she manage to fall off a horse that slow?”

Monica whimpered. Her motor skills were absolutely abysmal. She was clumsy, had awful balance, and tripped over nothing all the time. When it came to horseback riding, that lack of balance was lethal. The shaking of the horse as it walked and the minute slant when it began to turn were all it took to throw her stiff, tense body off its back.

“Owww, that hurts…”

She tried three more times after that, each attempt lasting less than a minute before she fell off. The exasperated looks from those around her stung her as much as the physical pain.

Why can’t I just…do things like everyone else can…? she wondered, biting her lip. In all honesty, she knew why. She couldn’t do the things the rest of them could because in the past, she’d never tried—she’d always run away.

Clenching a fist to revive her shattered enthusiasm, Monica got up and faced the horse again. I want to learn how to ride a horse. I’m going to learn, and then…

A girl’s face flashed in her mind. She was smiling, her hair like a horse’s tail. Then, one day, I’ll be able to…

“I’m surprised you chose horseback riding,” came a familiar voice from behind her.

Monica froze. Why was he always catching her by surprise like that? She turned around, and just as she’d expected, two gorgeous blue eyes met her own

“Your Highneeesss…”

“You’ve improved,” came the reply. “You made it through all two words without stammering.”

Felix Arc Ridill—the kingdom’s second prince and the one Monica was supposed to be protecting—covered his mouth and chuckled.

This took her by surprise. Had the prince chosen horseback riding as an elective? As she stood there in astonishment, he hopped up onto the horse. Not onto the saddle, though, but into an unstable position right behind it.

Then he extended a hand toward her. “Come.”

“Huh?”

“It’s my job as your senior to guide you, isn’t it?”

Monica wanted to avoid the negative attention she’d surely get by allowing Felix to teach her. But more than that, she wanted to improve. She bowed quickly and said, “Th-thank youph,” choking on the second word.

She’d managed to introduce herself just fine to the horse before, but she still had problems when it came to people. Disappointed with her lack of progress, she took Felix’s hand. He easily pulled her up onto the horse. For how slender he was, he had strong arms.

“Posture is very important when riding,” he explained. “Always keep your back straight. Now bring your shoulders back.”

“R-right!”

Her fear had been causing her to lean forward when she’d been alone, but she felt better now that someone was behind her, providing support.

“Keep your body loose,” continued the prince. “Let your feet dangle naturally. And keep your eyes up, looking into the distance… There you go. Let’s try walking a bit.”

Felix gave the horse a light nudge in the side with his feet, and it began walking without complaint. When Monica squeezed the reins, the prince put his hands atop hers.

“When you want to tell the horse to do something,” he said, “it’s not good to rely too much on the reins. If you pull them too hard, it’ll hurt the horse.”

Now that she thought of it, Monica remembered panicking and yanking on the reins before falling the last few times. She looked down at the horse and lowered her eyebrows. “Did I hurt you earlier…? I’m sorry…”

The horse gave a whinny, though it didn’t appear to have understood her.

As Felix watched, he seemed a little surprised. “Are you not scared of horses?”

“Huh? Um, w-well…,” she stammered. “No…I’m not.” She was scared of falling from a high place, but not of the horse itself. To be honest…people were scarier.

“Hmm,” Felix hummed in response.

They moved along for a little while without speaking, and eventually Monica saw a rather large stone. It had been placed there on purpose as an obstacle.

Monica’s hands immediately tightened on the reins, and Felix patted them.

“If you want to give the horse an instruction, first, move your legs and your center of gravity. The reins are secondary,” he explained, gently shifting his weight. That was enough to cause the horse to walk cleanly around the obstacle.

To Monica, it felt like the horse was much more subdued than when she’d been riding alone. Maybe it was just her imagination. “He’s…calmer than before,” she remarked.

“Horses are sensitive creatures. When their rider is nervous, they can tell.”

“Oh…”

In other words, Monica’s own mental state had been unsettling the horse before.

“The first thing to learn is how to ride with the proper posture. If you can learn the posture and how to trot, you’ll start improving by leaps and bounds.”

“Trot?”

“When a horse runs, it does so in a one-two rhythm. We call that a trot. You switch between sitting and rising along with the rhythm. It lets you avoid all the shaking, putting less burden on you and making it easier to balance.”

I see, Monica thought. So horseback riding isn’t just about sitting there and holding the reins. It’s a binary system… Since posture and rhythm are important… I guess it’s kind of like dancing? She was once again struck by how many things needed to be physically tried in order to be understood. She nodded to herself, fascinated.

“Posture,” Felix whispered into her ear. Monica hastily straightened out her back. Her hunch was habit at this point, so if she stopped thinking, she’d immediately curl up.

“If you lean forward,” explained the prince, “it’s much easier to fall. But if you lean too far backward, it’s difficult to keep your balance. Concentrate on keeping your back straight.”

“Okay!”

Monica recalled what she’d learned in ballroom dancing. Right, straighten my spine and relax. Thinking back on all her lessons one by one, she muttered, “Straightening your back, huh…”

“Yes?” prompted the prince.

“It’s useful for a lot of things, isn’t it?”

Felix gave a little smile. “You’re right,” he said. “Actually, I’m surprised you chose this as your elective. Was there a specific reason?”

Monica’s grades in ballroom dancing had been disastrous, so it must have seemed very strange that she’d chosen horseback riding.

In the Kingdom of Ridill, there were certain areas where women rode horses, but city dwellers rarely had the chance. This was especially the case for the daughters of nobles, and there were very few girls in the class.

Monica opened her mouth, then closed it again, trying to put together what she wanted to say. When Casey left the academy, Monica had been conflicted. In truth, it would have been possible for her to submit a request and change her electives right up until the start of classes. But ultimately, she didn’t fill one out, deciding to go through with horseback riding and chess as her two electives.

“I have a friend…who I want to tell one day…that I learned to ride horses.”

Saying this out loud seemed to give her a little burst of energy.

“Would that friend happen to be Lady Casey Grove?” Felix responded gently. “The one with us when we were carrying in the supplies? She did leave school very suddenly, didn’t she?”

Monica’s heart jumped for a moment. The incident when the lumber had fallen while they were carrying supplies had been Casey’s doing. On the surface, the matter had been settled as a simple accident, and Louis had retrieved the magic item she’d planted to assassinate the prince. Felix couldn’t have known anything.

But when he said Casey’s name, Monica couldn’t help feeling shaken. If anyone finds out Casey was after the prince’s life, she’ll be executed…

Perhaps her panic traveled through the reins, because the horse began to step a little more awkwardly.

Felix soothed the horse and said quietly, “You haven’t been yourself since that day.”

“Ah… I, ummm, is that…so?”

“It is. So I’m relieved to see you take on riding with a positive attitude.”

Positive attitude? she wondered. Those words don’t describe me at all.

Still, if Monica was looking ahead even a little right now…then it was because of all the kind people like Lana who had given her courage and spurred her onward. It was thanks to them that Monica could hold on to the hope of meeting Casey again one day. She imagined herself smiling and proudly telling her friend she’d learned how to ride. That would be her goal.

“It’s good to have goals,” remarked Felix. “I hope you can hold your head high and tell your friend about this one day.”

Although the prince teased her constantly, he never made fun of her. That made her happy, and Monica managed to awkwardly ask him a question, barely moving her lips.

“Yes. Um… Come to think of it…why did you, um, choose this class?”

The second prince was said to be a multitalented genius. She’d heard he was a very skilled rider, and yet he’d still taken this class as an elective. Was there a reason behind it?

“Actually,” replied Felix, sounding rather pleased, “this is the one class I always make sure to take every year.”

“Every year? Do you like riding?”

“Well, yes, but… Okay, I’ll make an exception and tell you why,” he said mischievously, giving the horse a light kick on its sides. In response, it veered off the basic practice course and headed for the woods—where the advanced course was located.

“S-sir? Uh, um, errr, where are we going?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he answered, his voice strangely spirited.

The woods behind the academy were filled with oak trees planted at even intervals, currently in hues of red and yellow. Since this area was designated as a horseback-riding course, it was maintained somewhat to make it easier for horses to traverse.

However, just as Monica began to think they were in for a nice, easy ride through the woods…the horse veered off the course and began proceeding through the trees.

“S-sir!” she wailed. “This isn’t good! We’ve gone off the path!”

“Mm-hmm,” replied Felix. “This is the way to our destination.”

“…Huh?”

As Monica tilted her head in confusion, Felix looked upward. He was wearing his usual gentle smile, but for some reason, the corners of his lips were turned up a little more than usual. He seemed almost excited.

“That’s right. Look up there.”

His upturned blue eyes shone in the sunlight filtering through the leaves. Monica followed his gaze and looked up as well.

The clear autumn sky seemed so far away, so high up. But then several figures cut through the scattered clouds—a flock of birds and a boy with dirty-blond hair. It was the ever-energetic Glenn Dudley.

“Gyaaahhh!” he yelled. “Stop, stop, quit it! Stop pecking me already!”

The flock of birds appeared to be chasing him. Monica looked back at Felix. “Um, errr…?”

The prince continued watching Glenn with vague amusement on his face as the boy flitted around in midair. As Monica wondered what to say, the prince broke the silence. “Oh. Looks like he’s going to fall.”

“What?!”

Her eyes went back up to the sky in a panic as Glenn, still being pecked, hurtled toward the ground…before catching himself just in time and coming to a stop in midair before gently floating the rest of the way down. There were several students near the spot where Glenn had landed.

“They’re having practical magecraft class over there,” explained Felix, pointing. “Although Dudley’s about the only one who can use flight magecraft.”

Following the line of his finger with her gaze, Monica understood. The other students were all practicing basic spells.

“Dudley’s incredibly talented,” he continued. “The formula for flight magecraft isn’t that complicated, but it requires precise mana control and an impeccable sense of balance, so even many high mages can’t use it.”

That was exactly the reason Monica couldn’t fly. As one of the Seven Sages, she had a perfect theoretical understanding of the flight magic formula, and she could control her mana properly as well. But sadly, her sense of balance ruined everything—she’d always slam right back down onto the ground—just the same as horseback riding.

But that aside, something about this situation struck Monica as odd. Was it her imagination, or did Felix seem awfully knowledgeable about magecraft? Everyone knows flight magecraft is difficult, she thought. It’s not strange he would, too. But…

As she was mulling this over, the horse began to clip-clop off in another direction. Where are we going now? she wondered, when suddenly she felt goose bumps rise up on her skin.

It was like they’d just passed through a thin, invisible film of some sort—the unique sensation you got when you crossed a barrier.

This isn’t just any defensive barrier, either… Wait!

A rush of cold air brushed across her cheek as she brought her head up in surprise. The gust was blowing out from deeper in the woods, chilly as a winter wind. She peered in the direction of the wind and saw two figures in a clearing.

Both were Serendia Academy students, and both were rapidly chanting. One of them was a blond young man. The second, facing him, wore his silvery hair tied back behind his neck—it was the student council’s vice president, Cyril Ashley.

The blond one finished his chant, then held his fingers up toward Cyril. From those fingers leaped a fireball big enough to just barely put your arms around.

Cyril finished his chant at the same time; his spell produced a wall of ice in front of him that blocked the fireball. The flames dissipated, throwing out puffs of steam, but most of the ice remained un-melted.

“That’s…,” murmured Monica.

Felix leaned in toward her and whispered, “And this is where they hold advanced practical magecraft classes. They’re engaged in something called a magic battle—mock combat using only magic, carried out inside a special barrier.”

Magic battles were something Monica was extremely familiar with. After all, they were first developed and used at the greatest mage-training institution in the kingdom—her alma mater, Minerva’s.

As a general rule, in a magic battle, you were permitted to use only attacks imbued with magic, via magecraft or magic items. Inside the barrier, you wouldn’t be hurt even if an attack struck you; instead, it would drain an equivalent amount of mana. The higher the attack spell’s power, the more you lost. Ultimately, the last competitor with mana remaining won the battle.

Back at Minerva’s, there had supposedly been a student who used magecraft alongside physical attacks during these magic battles. That student had employed magecraft to dazzle, then punched and kicked their opponent. This outrageous fighting style had caused a lot of trouble for Minerva’s teachers. In the end, they’d upgraded the barrier to prevent physical attacks from dealing damage.

Thinking about magic battles really takes me back, thought Monica. I had to take part during the qualifiers for the Seven Sages, too…

Inside the barrier, you would never be injured by a spell, no matter how strong it was—but you would feel the pain and impact. Monica hated painful, scary things, so she hadn’t exactly been excited to join in. She’d had to participate several times as a student at Minerva’s, but all she could remember was being terrified and trying to run away until it was over.

As she gazed toward the competitors, a far-off look in her eyes, Cyril finished locking down his opponent’s offensive spells.

“He’s up against the president of the magic-battle club,” remarked Felix. “He’s really something.”

“Lord Cyril is quite strong,” she agreed.

“Right? He’s the only one who can use quick-chanting at the academy… Mm, I think he might be the strongest student here.”

As she listened to the prince speak, Monica lazily tracked Cyril with her eyes.

It had been around a week since the failed assassination attempt on Felix. The magic item used—Spiralflame—had been retrieved and the culprit, Casey, was forced to leave school under the pretext of a family matter. Everything had been handled behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, however, one part had made the record—the incident of the lumber falling as they brought in supplies, which Casey had orchestrated in order to create an alibi. She’d sliced the rope bundling the wood together. But Cyril, who had been there at the time, blamed himself—he believed he hadn’t properly checked everything.

Felix never criticized Cyril for it, but Cyril did enough of that by himself. Monica, who had been present at the time, knew he wasn’t at fault, but she couldn’t insist on it. If they realized the lumber falling had been Casey’s doing, the entire assassination plot would unfold like a daisy chain.

Monica hung her head as she remembered the previous week’s events. The day it happened, not only had she been unable to tell the truth, she’d been overwhelmed by guilt and broke down bawling in the student council room.

Neither Cyril nor Neil, who had been there at the time, mentioned it the next day. She was thankful but also felt guilty about it.

I wonder if there’s something I can do for Lord Cyril…, she mused. He was always helping her out—teaching her how to do her job, doing it for her when she was incapacitated, giving her hot chocolate. And it wasn’t just him, either. Her classmate Lana, Neil from the student council, and her coconspirator Isabelle… They had all been helping her in various ways ever since she’d arrived here.

What could she give back to all those kind people?

Lana had already said she wasn’t helping in order to receive something in return—that she didn’t need a reason to be kind to her friends. Would Monica ever be strong enough to say something like that to another person?

I…hope so.

Felix tapped her on the shoulder, interrupting her private thoughts.

“This has been a nice little walk, but let’s return to the other course now,” he said, turning the horse back the way they’d come. She glanced back at the prince and noticed he seemed in especially good cheer.

“Did you choose horseback-riding class as a way to, um, secretly watch practical magecraft classes?” she asked.

“All part of my studies,” he answered. “By understanding what can be achieved with magecraft, I can more quickly make decisions in emergencies.”

“I, um…I see…?”

He said it was for his studies, but Monica got the feeling that wasn’t the only reason. After all, his eyes had been positively glowing as he watched Glenn and Cyril. But he said he couldn’t use magecraft, so—

“Lady Norton, posture, posture!”

“R-right!”

Her back must have hunched over again while she was thinking. She hurriedly straightened it out.

There were so many things she needed to think about, but she found it difficult to collect her thoughts while getting used to the unfamiliar feeling of sitting on a horse. She consciously fixed her posture, deciding to simply focus on riding for now.