Case 2 - The Struggle of the Icy Scion and Butcher's Son - The Meat Thief and the Lost Girl-
Cyril Ashley, vice president of the student council, had a condition known as mana hyper-absorption.
Humans all possessed a vessel for storing up mana, and when it was full, they wouldn’t absorb any more. In Cyril’s case, though, he would keep absorbing the mana past that limit and end up contracting mana poisoning.
For this reason, he always wore a magical broach wherever he went that would convert any excess mana in his body into cold air and expel it.
Though his condition made things difficult, he wasn’t spreading chills at all hours of the day. While it depended partly on his physical condition and emotional fluctuations, he could generally eliminate the need to expel mana by expending some, thus ceasing the spread of cold air, too.
The break for cleaning up after the festival was over, and it was the second day of normal classes. There had been no student council work the day before, so Cyril had been able to focus on practicing magecraft after school.
Perhaps because he’d consumed a good deal of mana, he wasn’t letting off much cold air that day. This improved his mood somewhat.
It wasn’t like he emanated chills because he wanted to. In fact, he was privately worried that the people around him would suffer more because of it as winter set in.
Oh, I know, he thought. Before I go to the student council room, I’ll make some tea for the prince.
Instead of heading straight to his council duties after class, he took a detour to a smaller room on the same floor to prepare some tea and snacks. The room was equipped with the latest in magical heating technology; you could now boil water without the need for flames.
At Serendia Academy, tea prep and other such daily tasks were jobs for servants. The more well-off students brought people from home and had them live in the servants’ quarters located next to the dormitories.
These servants would enter the dormitories or the school itself as needed to take care of their masters or prepare tea. It cost a lot to use the servants’ quarters, so even having such people was a status symbol at school.
As the noble son of Marquess Highown, Cyril had been assigned a servant by his adopted father—but he didn’t often ask for help. Cyril was a former commoner; he could take care of himself, and he wasn’t very enthusiastic about hosting tea parties. At most, he’d have the servant deliver letters to his mother and adoptive father or request minor things be brought to him.
Cyril liked preparing drinks, so unless he was attending a party, he always made his own tea.
I’m not giving off too much cold air today, so I should be able to relax and simply focus on brewing.
When he was producing chilled air, he needed to be careful about several things, such as staying far enough away from the work area to avoid cooling off the tea or the cups.
He put some water in the kettle, then placed it atop the metal plate next to the counter. The silver plate was rectangular and about twice as wide as the bottom of the kettle. A magical formula was engraved in it in a circle around the center, with a layer of special paint used for magic items.
The front right corner of the plate had a red jewel set into it. If you fed the jewel a little bit of mana, it would heat up whatever was on the plate. It was a brand-new piece of technology—a magic burner.
You couldn’t adjust the heat yet, and the flames were too weak to use for cooking, so most kitchens didn’t have one. But for someone like Cyril, who couldn’t use fire-aspected magecraft, it was a very handy tool to have around.
Whenever he got to use top-of-the-line tech like this, it reminded him of how amazing Serendia Academy was.
Even the school’s water supply was incredible. A former member of Ridill’s Seven Sages, the Aquamancy Mage, had made great strides in the field of waterworks, placing the kingdom ahead of its peers. Every home had running water these days, though few had it for the second floor and above, even among nobles.
But Serendia Academy had water supplied to pretty much every floor. I suppose that’s to be expected of a school attended by royalty…
And Cyril was permitted to personally prepare tea for one of their glorious number: Felix Arc Ridill. Could there be any greater honor?
As he was proudly picking out tea leaves, he heard a quiet voice from behind him. “U-ummm, Lord Cyril…”
He turned around to see his junior, Monica Norton, fiddling with her fingers at the door. “Accountant Norton,” he said. “What’s the matter?”
“I, ummm… I’ll help you!”
Cyril was making tea because he wanted to, so she needn’t bother. But being the serious girl she was, she probably felt bad letting an upperclassman prepare it. And he did think it was a good sign that Monica, who was so socially awkward, had volunteered to help.
“All right,” he said. “Could you put the cups on that tray?”
“Yes!”
Seeming somehow relieved, Monica walked over to the cupboard…but she couldn’t reach the cups.
“Aw…,” she moaned sadly, one hand outstretched. Even among other girls in the advanced course, Monica was pretty short.
Privately annoyed at himself for assigning her the wrong task, he gave her a different instruction. “I’ll get the cups. You pour water into them to warm them up.”
“…R-right.”
“The metal plate is hot, so don’t touch it,” he added, turning the little dial next to the gem. That would cut off the mana and stop it from heating up any further, but it would take a while for the plate to cool down. He’d touched it once by accident the first time he’d used the device and been burned.
“Lord Cyril,” said Monica, “is this a magic item?”
“Yes. When you channel mana into this gem here, it heats up whatever’s on top.”
“They don’t have one of these in the, um, the preparation room on the first floor…”
Cyril was reminded that the girls here had tea party class. Monica had probably used the room to prepare tea as well.
“Magic items are valuable. We don’t have that many. This is the only room with a magic burner.”
“Oh…”
Monica moved the kettle a little and stared at the pattern engraved on the plate. She was usually so nervous, but when it came to equations or a chessboard, she went totally blank, as if her emotions had disappeared. And here she was, doing it again right in front of him as she observed the kettle.
“A miniature magic item that can be used continuously, made by the Luxure Workshop in Ambard…,” murmured Monica. “Wow, this must be really expensive…”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” replied Cyril.
Monica began flailing around in a panic. “Ummm, a long time ago, I, well, I saw one, just for a moment.”
Cyril had heard that Monica Norton was taken in by the countess of Kerbeck and now served as an attendant to Isabelle Norton, the current count’s daughter. He wasn’t surprised she’d seen a magic item or two in Count Kerbeck’s estate. The Kerbecks were one of the most influential noble families in the kingdom, so there was nothing strange about them having an expensive magic item.
As he thought about this, he laid out the cups. Just then, Elliott Howard, one of the student council’s secretaries, poked his head in from the hallway.
“Oh, there you are. Hey, Cyril!” he called. “You should get to the kitchen. It’s kind of urgent.”
“Did something happen?” Cyril asked. He was often called upon in situations that required ice magecraft—like fires. He privately tensed.
But Elliott didn’t seem very nervous. He answered smoothly, “There’s a student who caused some trouble. I think you know him.” Then, as if just remembering something, he looked at Monica. “Oh, and you might want to go with him, Lady Norton.”
“Is it someone…that I know, too?”
Elliott nodded and told them the student’s name.
“I’m telling you! I’m innocent!”
There, in the kitchen, surrounded by clearly troubled cooks, second-year transfer student Glenn Dudley was making a fuss—a loud one. Though Cyril was in a different grade than him, he’d ended up teaching the boy how to dance while helping Monica for her class. Ever since, they’d been running into each other with uncanny frequency.
After arriving at the kitchen with Monica, Cyril excused himself and took a look around. “I’m on the student council,” he told the staff. “I hear Glenn Dudley is causing some kind of trouble?”
Glenn’s worried expression immediately brightened. “Vice President! Monica!” he shouted, waving at them.
Monica, having hidden herself behind Cyril, peeked out and nervously said, “Um, Glenn, what…what happened?”
“Well, everyone’s saying I sneaked into the kitchen to steal a snack,” he explained sulkily. He brushed back his dirty-blond hair and glanced around at all the cooks encircling him.
None of them appeared openly hostile. If anything, they just seemed upset. The most senior among them, a big man who served as head chef, looked at Glenn with worry. “We want to believe you,” he said. “But the situation being what it is, well…”
The son of a butcher, Glenn was in the kitchen fairly often. Apparently, he’d been receiving extra food and helping them develop new meat-based recipes. He and the staff were on such good terms that Glenn’s family had even provided meat for the festival.
That might not be proper behavior for a Serendia student, but perhaps because of Glenn’s friendly attitude, those working in the kitchen were quite fond of him. That was why, now that he was suspected of food snatching, the chefs weren’t sure what to believe.
Cyril nodded, then asked the head chef, “Could you tell me the details?”
“Yes, sir. It happened yesterday morning. One of our cooks was preparing some bone-in meat over there.” He pointed to an oven and workstation near the back of the kitchen.
Next to the oven was a brick wall to keep the heat away from the counter, making the area impossible to see from most of the other workstations.
“He removed the cooked meat from the oven to let it cool,” the chef continued. “They were bone-in pieces, about the size of my fist—twenty of them, I’d say… And in the fifteen minutes they were sitting there, all of them were eaten. Only the bones were left.”
Cyril listened to this, his arms folded over his chest. Then he exhaled through his nose. “An impossible crime. Nobody could eat twenty pieces of chicken straight out of the oven in just fifteen minutes.”
“What? I could do that easy,” insisted Glenn. “You mean you can’t, VP?”
Cyril fell silent. His tongue burned easily, and he was generally a light eater. If they were pieces of bone-in meat the size of an adult’s fist, he was sure just two of them would have filled him up.
He cleared his throat, then pressed a little further. “How did you decide this student was the prime suspect?”
“Well, if someone other than a cook had come through the door, it would have been noticed. But over by that oven, there’s a high window.”
As the man said, there was indeed a small window high up on the wall near the oven. It was even higher than Cyril was tall, in fact. The kitchen was on the first floor, but if you wanted to get in from the window in question, you’d need a step stool.
“…I see. Flight magecraft,” Cyril mused.
Flight magecraft was extremely hard to use; even most high mages couldn’t do it. Nor could Cyril. In fact, the only one at the academy who could was Glenn Dudley, a mage’s apprentice. Though Cyril hadn’t seen it personally, it was well-known that Glenn had used the skill in front of a big audience during the school festival play.
He drummed his arm with his fingertips, summarizing his thoughts. “It’s highly likely the culprit used flight magecraft to get in through the window. And the only one at the school who could do such a thing is Glenn. He also loves to eat meat and has a huge appetite. And so he checks all the boxes… I see.”
But without any clear proof, it was too soon to accuse him. In Cyril’s opinion, they needed to investigate the matter a little more thoroughly.
“You said the crime was carried out before noon. Do you remember what time it was, exactly?”
“Oh, well…,” said the chef. “It was right during elective classes.”
“Then if Glenn was in class, he has an alibi.”
Cyril had been in advanced practical magecraft at that time the previous day. Glenn would have been in his own elective—the lower level of practical magecraft. If they checked with his teacher and found out where he was, they could prove Glenn didn’t do it.
Cyril sighed in relief. It looked like he’d be able to prove his underclassman’s innocence, after all.
But then Glenn made an uncomfortable face. “Actually… I’d left a smoker I made on the other side of that window, and…”
Cyril wanted to yell Why would you bring that to school?! but managed to hold himself back—he had a sinking feeling that what the boy said next would only make him want to yell even more.
And he was exactly right.
“I was smoking a ham yesterday,” explained Glenn, “and I started to worry it wasn’t ventilated well enough, so I kind of hopped over here with flight magecraft during my elective…”
“So you sneaked out of class to check on the smoker outside this window?” said Cyril.
Cringing, Glenn nodded. His big body suddenly seemed very small.
“What did you go and do that for?!” Cyril yelled. “Of course they all think you stole the meat!”
“H-how was I supposed to know there was a crime going on…?”
“If you were serious about your classes, this wouldn’t have happened! I hope this makes you rethink some of your decisions!”
Cyril’s mana hyper-absorption syndrome tended to worsen the higher his emotions ran. Now was one of those times. A chilly air began to drift around them as if to mark the vice president’s anger.
A few nearby rubbed their arms, and Monica sneezed.
Whether because of the scolding or the cold, Glenn sniffled, tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry I skipped out on class, I am! But I really didn’t take any food! Honest!”
Cyril’s brow creased deeply as he paused to think. Glenn was a headache-inducing problem child to be sure, but though he was always running in the hallway, wearing his uniform improperly, and cutting class, Cyril knew he wasn’t a bad person.
Most importantly, he was a terrible liar. If he’d really grabbed that meat, he would have been acting far more suspiciously.
“…Can you swear that you didn’t steal the food?” Cyril asked him.
“Yes, I swear! I swear to God I never took any food!” cried Glenn.
“Would you swear it before the prince himself?”
“Of course!”
“That’s enough, then.”
The cooks nearby looked on, murmuring “Are you sure?” but Cyril didn’t hear them. Instead, he leaned backward, puffed out his chest, and declared, “If you can swear with all your heart in front of the prince, then I will do my utmost to prove your innocence!”
In his moment of despair, suspected of a crime by the kitchen staff he’d gotten to know so well, Glenn was reminded of his master Louis Miller’s words.
“Listen to me, Glenn. You are young, and many difficulties still lie ahead of you. When you encounter one, remember what I am about to say.”
His master had placed a hand at his breast, and with the voice of a saint reciting scripture, said this:
“Most troubles can be solved through money or violence.”
“Is that what the Seven Sages are all about, then? Money and violence?” He’d asked in return, earning him a hard smack on the head. He still remembered the exchange clearly.
But now, as Glenn confronted this new difficulty, his upperclassman, Cyril Ashley, said:
“We’ll begin by reviewing the scene of the crime. The most important thing to do when confronting trouble like this is to simply work hard at solving it!”
Glenn felt his chest grow a little warmer. To his eyes, the student in front of him was a hundred times cooler than his master, who told him to solve problems with money and violence.
“VP, you’re so cool! I’ll join you!” he cried out, overcome with emotion.
Cyril widened his eyes slightly, then he sighed and grinned. “With me, then, Glenn Dudley!”
“Yes, sir!”
Already, his master’s dubious advice had disappeared from Glenn’s mind without a trace.
As they began to reinvestigate the scene of the crime, the Silent Witch, Monica Everett, was privately panicking.
Wait, wait, wait… No, it… I think I know who did it…
A big eater who could lick clean a plate of smoking-hot meat in a few minutes? Someone who could jump in from the window without using flight magecraft? Monica knew just the person—or rather, the cat.
Oh, please let this be another case of me overthinking things, she prayed.
Cyril was using a step stool to look at the window when he suddenly called out, “Footprints! They’re faint, but… They probably belong to a small animal.”
Nooooo! Monica went white in the face and started trembling.
Glenn and Cyril, not noticing her, looked around for any other prints.
“You mean a small, meat-eating animal got in?” asked Glenn.
“We can’t be certain, but it’s possible. Still…” Cyril climbed off the step stool, his face turning grim. “A carnivorous creature that can eat that much meat in such a short time? It may be dangerous. We’ll need to capture it to ensure the students’ safety.”
A pinched squeal escaped Monica’s throat.
Cyril glanced between her and Glenn. “For now, let’s head outside and look around. There may be other footprints. Accountant Norton, you go back to the student council room and—”
“No! I’ll…I’ll come, too!”
At this point, she only had one option: Follow Cyril and Glenn, and if she spotted any of Nero’s footprints, swiftly remove them using unchanted magecraft. She’d erase all the evidence.
Unfortunately, Cyril didn’t seem to think much of her coming along—probably because he believed the beast would present a danger to her.
She balled her hands into fists, then said as loudly as she could manage, “I’m part of the student council! Just like you!”
“…I see,” said Cyril at last, filled with emotion at his junior’s display of personal growth. Then he turned to head outside, the hem of his shirt fluttering gallantly. “Then let us be off, Accountant Norton, Glenn Dudley!”
“Yepphir!”
“Yes, sir!”
Monica and the others went out and looped around the school building. They came to the spot just outside the kitchen where the dine-and-dasher had gone in through the window. By the wall was a large metal box about as tall as Monica.
“What’s this…?” she asked, tilting her head in confusion at the unfamiliar item.
With pride in his voice, Glenn exclaimed, “It’s my homemade smoker! I put it together with scrap wood. I’m actually in the middle of making some improvements, and—”
“You do know that this is a school, for the sacred purpose of learning, right?” demanded Cyril in a low tone, glaring at him.
Monica began to feel cold air drift over from beside her. This was the chill that came three steps before an outburst. Frantic, she looked between the two boys.
Glenn opened the smoker’s lid. “Ahhh!” he cried. “The ham I hung here is gone!”
There was a hook dangling from the top of the tall smoker. Apparently, you were meant to hang meat from it.
Seeing the contraption empty, Cyril frowned. “The fire is out, too. Do you leave the ham in there after dousing the flames?”
“It depends on what kind of meat you’re cooking. But in general, letting it get some air and dry out makes it taste better than eating it right out of the smoker.”
According to Glenn, he’d doused the flames that morning and left the ham to air out. That meant it had disappeared sometime afterward.
Cyril bent down and inspected the ground. “Small prints next to the smoker, too… Looks like they lead into the woods. The animal must be hiding somewhere in there.”
Ahhhh… Monica didn’t know what to do. Where was Nero right now? If Cyril found him munching on the ham in the woods, it would be no laughing matter.
“Let’s follow and check for more traces,” said Cyril.
“Yes, sir!” replied Glenn.
Cyril headed for the trees with big strides, and Glenn followed suit. Monica trotted along after them, trying to think of how she’d cover up Nero’s tracks.
The woods around Serendia Academy were used for classes on horseback riding and practical magecraft, among other things. Excluding one dangerous area, students were generally allowed to come and go as they pleased. Not many did outside of class time, though. Pretty much the only people there after school hours belonged to the riding club or the magic-battle club.
As Monica and the others ventured into the woods, they spotted members of the latter practicing their offensive magecraft.
Magecraft was part of every noble’s general education. The academy had even more facilities for teaching it than Monica had originally thought. For example, some libraries didn’t have any grimoires or books on the subject, but Serendia Academy’s had quite a few.
Handling the barriers used for magic battles was difficult; maintaining them required at least two mages, plus a suitable area and magic items. You couldn’t stage battles like this just anywhere.
To be honest, Monica had never expected to see such activities at Serendia. When she had, she’d been privately surprised.
“Ashley!”
The boy leading the magic-battle club’s activities noticed them and called out. He was tall with yellowish-blond hair. His bright eyes were orange like the sky at sunset.
This was the magic-battle club’s president, Byron Garrett—who, when facing off against Cyril during class the previous day, had failed at quick-chanting and lost to him handily.
Byron trotted over to them, seeming somehow restless as he spoke to Cyril. “It’s not every day you show up at our club. I know—you want to have another round with me, right? Right? I know I’m right. I’ll make preparations for an official duel—”
“I’m on student council business,” Cyril interrupted. “That can wait.”
“Oh. Well, can’t argue with that. I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow and then submit paperwork for the duel.”
Byron backed down surprisingly easily. He was quick-tempered but earnest.
In Monica’s subjective opinion, the students at Serendia Academy were far better mannered than those at Minerva’s. Back there, my upperclassmen would drag me out to the magic battle arena whether I liked it or not… Monica grew dejected, reminded of days gone by.
Byron stroked his stern, sharp jaw and asked, “What is the student council doing in this neck of the woods?”
“We’re investigating a possibly dangerous carnivorous beast that may have fled here,” explained Cyril. “Any ideas?”
The tall boy frowned in thought but then shook his head. “No, not a one.”
“I see,” said Cyril. “If you spot any animals like that, let me know.”
“Will do.”
After this short exchange, Cyril moved on. Then, as they walked, he seemed to remember something and looked at Glenn. “You are a mage’s apprentice, yes, Glenn Dudley? Not interested in honing your combat skills in the magic-battle club?”
Cyril must have noticed Glenn’s interest in the club’s activities. The latter was still glancing back at Byron and the others even now, but at the vice president’s words, he faced forward and scratched his head uncomfortably. “Magic battles, huh…? Hmm. They don’t conjure up very good memories for me but…maybe one day.”
“I see. Well, I won’t insist.”
Glenn was the Barrier Mage Louis Miller’s pupil. Despite being the man’s colleague, Monica didn’t know what had brought about the arrangement.
Mister Louis doesn’t seem like the type of person to go out and find a pupil… I wonder if he had some special reason, thought Monica.
Meanwhile, Glenn slowed his pace somewhat. Normally, the young man had a long, energetic gait. Now, though, his stride had shortened so that even the petite Monica could catch up.
“Why are you studying magecraft, VP?” he asked.
“To help my father.”
The reply was immediate, and Cyril kept his eyes forward, not even turning around.
Glenn grinned wryly. The smile wasn’t typical of the endlessly cheery boy—it looked like he’d just swallowed something bitter. “Anyone who can answer that quickly is super cool in my book. I’m an apprentice, but I’m still not really sure why I’m doing it.”
Those words hit close to home for Monica. She was the same. She hadn’t had any clear goal in mind when she began studying magecraft. She just didn’t want to be a nuisance to her adoptive mother.
While Monica had turned out to have a natural aptitude, learned unchanted magecraft, and become one of the Seven Sages, she had accomplished all of it without any larger goals in mind. She’d continued to drift along life’s currents, and the next thing she knew, that was who she was. It wasn’t something she was very proud of.
As Monica thought, Cyril spoke again, still facing forward. “Even if you don’t have a goal right now, you might one day. And then all the skill and knowledge you’ve acquired will help. Glenn Dudley, you can use flight magecraft, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s no easy feat. It requires a lot of practice, and such practice comes with scrapes and bruises. You must have learned it through a lot of hard work. Why can’t you be proud of that?”
His words came as a tiny shock to Monica. She had no goal—she was simply being pulled along, always looking down. Would the day ever come when she could feel proud?
…I hope so, she thought, suddenly surprised at herself. Such an idea would never have occurred to her back when she’d spent the days holed up in her cabin. She was astonished at how much she’d changed.
It seemed Cyril’s comment had also affected Glenn. “…I get told a lot that I still have a long way to go,” he said.
“Then improve yourself until you can be proud of what you’ve accomplished,” Cyril replied.
It was very like Cyril to say that. Glenn’s eyebrows lowered into a gentle smile. “Heh-heh.” He widened his gait a little to catch up with Monica, then whispered in her ear, “Man, the VP is really cool, huh?”
Monica looked up and flashed him a small smile. “Yes,” she said with a nod.
As the two of them walked after Cyril, Monica watched him from behind. He was pretty slender for a man. Delicate, even.
How was it that he came across as so dependable?
A moment later, Cyril’s reassuring figure suddenly disappeared with a loud rustle.
“Gyah?!”
“Lord Cyril?!”
“VP! Noooo!”
It seemed he’d tripped and tumbled down the hill. It wasn’t a cliff, but it was still pretty steep.
Monica and Glenn looked down the hill and saw Cyril almost a story below, buried in dead leaves.
“Didn’t realize you were so accident-prone, VP…”
“I’m not! I didn’t trip on anything,” yelled Cyril, scattering dead leaves all over. “Something ran into my foot!”
At that point, his face twisted in pain. He tried to stand up, but he staggered and fell back to his knees. Clearly, something was wrong.
“Lord Cyril?!” Monica cried. “Are you hurt?!”
“Monica, let’s go check it out,” said Glenn. “It’s easy to slip, so hold on to me!”
Glenn chanted a flight spell, then picked up Monica under his arm and floated into the air.
The way he flew was so much more stable than her own sorry attempts. If Monica ever needed to carry someone under her arm like this, she’d definitely lose her balance and fall.
When the two of them landed next to Cyril, he frowned uncomfortably. “…Twisted my ankle a bit,” he said.
It was clearly more than a bit. From his multiple attempts to stand, it was obvious he was in pain.
Realizing that he was trying to play it off, Glenn turned around and squatted down. “I’ll carry you on my back. Hop aboard.”
“…Thanks. Sorry about this,” said Cyril, anguish written on his face.
Glenn grinned happily, showing the whites of his teeth. “Looks like my flight magecraft is helping out already. I’m feeling a bit more confident!”
“…I see…I see,” said Cyril. He looked slightly conflicted.
Then they heard a rustling from the nearby brush.
Glenn and Cyril glared in the direction of the sound, faces filled with tension—on guard for the savage thief who had devoured the bone-in meat and ham. Monica was on guard, too, readying herself to cast an unchanted spell at any moment.
The brush rocked to and fro again. But this time, something burst out of it, low to the ground. A small hand. A child’s hand.
The hand pushed away the brush, revealing a girl of about three or four, her blond hair in pigtails.
She placed both palms down on the ground and pushed herself out of the underbrush, before looking up and seeing the three of them. And then a film of tears formed in her big, round eyes.
“Ahhh, wahhh, waaahhh…”
Cyril and Monica cowered at the sudden cries of the girl on the ground.
“She’s, uh, c-crying…,” stammered Cyril.
“She is…,” agreed Monica.
Their voices were stiff as they simply described what they were seeing. They weren’t used to children of such a young age.
Cyril, still sitting on the ground, cautiously asked the girl, “What, um…? Wh-where did you come from? What’s your name?”
“Uggggh, waaahhhh…!” The girl started crying even louder. Her face was bright red, and the wails seemed to rip through her very throat.
Cyril was thrown into confusion. “D-did I do something?! Did I make her cry?!”
“VP, just calm down. I think she’s lost,” said Glenn, easily scooping up the girl in his arms and patting her on the back.
Her wails only got louder.
Cyril looked at him uneasily. “A-are you sure you should be picking her up like that? Now she’s crying even harder… Maybe she’s afraid of heights?”
“No, she’s crying because she’s relieved.”
Glenn was right. Though the girl was bawling at first, she quickly calmed down. Monica and Cyril looked up at Glenn with respect in their eyes.
“That’s amazing, Glenn…,” said Monica.
“You seem used to handling children,” agreed Cyril.
“I’ve got two little sisters,” explained Glenn, as if it was nothing special. “I’ve also babysat once or twice.” Then he spoke to the girl in a calm voice. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Ahhh… Eah, not here…”
“Eah?” repeated Glenn, crooking his head to the side.
But the girl kept on sniffling and repeating the word Eah.
“You’re looking for someone named Eah?” asked Glenn. “Hmm. I’m not sure I know anyone called that. Do you want to see Eah?”
The girl sobbed mournfully, simply repeating the word Eah.
“We can’t leave a lost child here,” said Cyril. “We should take her to the faculty room.”
He stood up, then immediately groaned and fell back to his knees.
“…We found this girl after going into the woods to locate the meat thief,” reported Cyril. “We wanted to bring her to the faculty room, but they’re in a meeting right now, so we decided to look after her here in the student council room until they’re done.”
“I see,” said Felix. He was sitting in the president’s seat, looking at the girl the others had found in the woods.
She neither cried nor yelled; she simply stayed put, gripping Monica’s skirt.
They estimated her age at around three or four. She was cute, with her bright-blond hair in pigtails. She also wore a coat, indicating that her family was relatively well-off.
She’d been bawling when she first emerged from the brush, but now she had clammed up. Despite Glenn’s and Cyril’s attempts to talk to her on the way here, she’d stayed quiet the whole time.
Incidentally, the reason she was holding on to Monica’s skirt wasn’t because she’d grown attached to her—the skirt was simply at the exact right height for her to grab onto.
She must be so scared with all these strangers around, Monica thought. I probably would have passed out already.
Aside from Felix, Elliott and Bridget were in the room as well. They’d stopped their work to observe the girl. Only Neil, the general affairs officer, was absent.
“Right, so…” Elliott rested his cheek on his hand, narrowing his droopy eyes in exasperation. “Why are you being carried around and not the girl?”
“…I was injured while investigating in the woods.”
“Really? And so you had an underclassman give you a piggyback ride. Said underclassman being the prime suspect in the meat theft, no less.”
Elliott was being openly malicious; Cyril and Glenn shot him sulky looks.
Rank was everything to Elliott, so he didn’t think very highly of commoners attending Serendia Academy. To him, Glenn—who never acted remotely like a noble—was a particular eyesore.
He scoffed and opened his mouth to speak. He was probably a moment away from saying something mean, but before that could happen, Felix interrupted.
“The faculty meeting should wrap up in thirty minutes or so. I think the student council is more than capable of showing our little guest hospitality until then.”
The prince’s calm deflection earned a snort from Elliott. “Babysitting isn’t our job,” he objected. “We should just call a servant.”
Cyril glared at him. While Elliott considered rank to be most important, in Cyril’s mind, the prince was paramount. Elliott had disagreed with Felix, so Cyril addressed him in a sharp tone. “The meeting will be over in thirty minutes. It’s not much time. We should be the ones to handle it.”
“Really?” said Elliott. “Then I hope you do a good job babysitting. Oh, but our great and powerful vice president is already getting a piggyback ride, isn’t he?”
Veins appeared on Cyril’s temples as chilly air began to waft around him. Glenn, who was still carrying him on his back, cried out. “VP! It’s cold! That’s really cold! You’re gonna freeze me!”
“S-sorry. You can let me down now.”
Cyril climbed off the boy’s back, then took a seat. They’d treated his injury already, but standing up was still causing him significant pain.
Next, he turned to the girl holding on to Monica’s skirt and said, “My name is Cyril Ashley. I’m the vice president of the student council here at Serendia Academy. Can you tell us your name?”
“……”
“Or how old you are?”
“……”
“Uh, or the name of your guardian?”
“……”
Cyril’s face grew more and more stiff while the girl’s expression became increasingly clouded.
Elliott sniffed in exasperation. “Now you’re just interrogating her.”
“What else would you have me say?!”
“I don’t know. Something a kid might like to hear?” Abruptly, as though he’d come up with an idea, Elliott looked at Monica with a mean-spirited grin. “Perhaps the little squirrel has babysitting experience.”
“Huh?!”
“You’re both children, after all. I, for one, think you’d get along great.” Elliott looked between the young girl and Monica, still grinning. He was teasing her for looking younger than her age.
“I… I’ll, um, be seventeen next month…,” she objected weakly as she thought about what he’d said. She didn’t have any babysitting experience. But she did want to help as a member of the student council.
Something a child would like to hear… Something fun… Fun… I know! “Old Man Sam’s Pigs”! Monica was sure that would be fun. So, balling her hands into fists, she began to speak rapidly.
“I can, um, explain the proof for the periodic nature of remainders in the numerical sequence used in ‘Old Man Sam’s Pigs’!”
A stunned silence filled the room.
Monica gave a proud harumph and declared, “I am positive she will enjoy it!”
Glenn had a big heart and almost never pointed out the faults of others, but this time he made an exception. “Monica, wouldn’t it be better to just sing the song normally?”
“Ooph, I’m… I’m not so…good at singing, so… If it’s just the numerical sequence, I can recite it forever… But singing in tune, I can’t really…do that…”
“This’ll never work,” mumbled Elliott, shaking his head.
Perhaps affected by the uneasy mood around her, the girl’s face clouded to the point where she was just barely holding back tears.
Elliott grimaced, then looked to Bridget for help. “You have a little sister, right?” At this point, anyone would do.
Bridget responded, never stopping her work, “Yes, one I only talk to a few times a year.”
It seemed they weren’t on good terms. Elliott put a hand to his forehead and looked at the ceiling. “God. Why did Officer Maywood have to be absent today of all days?”
Cyril, too, pressed his clasped hands to his forehead in an expression of anguish. “Ugh. Yes. If only he were here…”
Even Monica was thinking it. If Lord Maywood were here, he’d know what to do…!
It wasn’t as if Neil Clay Maywood had shown any skill at babysitting in the past. But anyone could see he had a gentle personality. As a member of the Lineage of the Mediators, he could surely mediate with children, too. He’d be able to do something about this—or so everyone believed. Such was their trust in him.
But right now Neil was absent. Currently, he was meeting with the club presidents, helping to tie up any loose ends from the festival. He wouldn’t be back for a while.
Glenn picked up the girl clinging to Monica’s skirt and tried to soothe her, but tears had already started to form in her round eyes. It was only a matter of time before she started crying again.
Everyone watched her like she was a bomb about to go off.
Then Felix got up and took out a handkerchief.
What is he doing with that? thought Monica.
At first, she thought it was for wiping the girl’s tears, but then he folded it up and made it into a ball. After a series of steps, he pulled out the edges, and suddenly the white handkerchief had become a rabbit hand puppet.
The prince went up to the girl in Glenn’s arms and immediately started using the puppet to talk. “Hello, little lady.”
“Eah!” The girl’s face lit up.
Felix smiled warmly, then brought out a cookie he’d been hiding behind his back. “Here’s a treat for you.”
“An-hyooh!” said the girl—it sounded like thank you—before putting the whole cookie in her mouth. As she munched on it, her eyes were glued to the rabbit puppet. Felix made it hop around, and the girl’s small hands followed it.
Cyril appeared deeply moved by the vivid display of skill. “That’s wonderful, sir…! Your kindness has touched even this little girl!”
“I think you were just doing a terrible job,” murmured Elliott.
Cyril glared at him, cold air spreading. “Some nerve coming from the one who did nothing at all.”
“I made the reasonable suggestion to call a servant, remember?”
Elliott shrugged as Cyril gnashed his teeth.
Neither of them made any attempt to hide their hostility, and Felix gently chided them both. “Children can sense when those around them are upset. Can’t you two get along?”
At the prince’s warning, Cyril immediately straightened up. He then looked Elliott dead in the eye with a serious expression and said, “Prince’s orders. I give you temporary permission to refer to me as a friend.”
“Why, you…”
Held in Glenn’s arms and pacified by Felix, the girl began to nod off after eating three cookies. Glenn sat on the couch with her and rubbed her back.
The girl pressed her cheek to his shoulder, her right hand reaching out for something. “Eah…”
As she groped, Felix put the rabbit puppet he’d made from his handkerchief into her hand. She then put its ear in her mouth and, appearing relieved, began to breathe softly.
“…Is she asleep? She’s asleep, right?” said Elliott quietly to Cyril.
“…Yeah. Looks like it,” Cyril replied to his temporary friend before they both put their heads down on their desks.
Despite the exhaustion on their faces, they hadn’t done much. It had been Glenn and Felix who had kept the girl happy until she went to sleep. Elliott and Cyril—and Monica, too—had merely watched with bated breath.
Bridget, however, had maintained her aloof attitude the whole time and continued drafting paperwork. Now finished, she picked up the pile of it and stood.
“The faculty meeting should be ending soon,” she said. “I need to submit these documents, so I’ll talk to one of the teachers about her.”
“Oh?” said Felix. “I was planning to go there myself.”
Bridget shook her head. “You have a meeting after this, don’t you? About the academy bazaar next week.”
“Ah yes. In that case, thank you,” he replied with a soft smile.
Bridget narrowed her amber eyes at the rabbit puppet in the girl’s hand. Since it was made from a handkerchief, it had started to come apart a little, but it still looked like a rabbit.
“You’re quite good at pacifying children,” she noted. “I must confess I had no idea.”
“Is it not the responsibility of royalty to care for the people?”
“…It is, indeed.”
That was all Bridget said before leaving the student council room behind.
Felix got his own papers together and stood up. “I do have a meeting now, so I’ll be heading out. Cyril, can you handle the rest?”
“Yes, sir! Of course!”
“Thank you,” said Felix. “After you find her guardian, get yourself to an infirmary and have your foot checked, all right?” His tone was gentle but uncompromising. Then he left the room.
The four remaining students—Monica, Glenn, Cyril, and Elliott—fell silent. A few minutes passed like that before Monica heard a quiet sound.
What’s that? It sounds like it’s coming from…around my feet, maybe…
It resembled the sounds Nero made when he walked on her bed—that of a small creature moving about atop fabric.
The others seemed to notice it, too; they all had their eyes on the floor. Cyril was the first one to realize what was making the sound.
“A rabbit?” he said.
Following his gaze, Monica saw a rabbit with white fur underneath the table. Not one made from a handkerchief, but an actual rabbit.
“Wait, what’s a rabbit doing in here?” asked Elliott, frowning suspiciously.
Everyone watched as the creature jumped out from beneath the table and rammed into Cyril’s left foot—the one he had sprained—as he sat in his chair.
“Guh!” he groaned. Perhaps out of consideration for the sleeping girl, he covered his mouth with his hand—though his face twisted in pain as he looked down at the animal. “That felt like… Wait, were you the one that struck me in the woods?”
Monica then remembered Cyril’s insistence after he’d fallen down the hill that something had hit him in the leg. It wasn’t strange for a rabbit to be wandering around the forest, but the student council room was on the fourth floor.
How in the world did it get in…?
The rabbit’s long ears twitched as it looked up at Cyril. Eventually, it deftly jumped right into his lap.
Cyril jolted. Was it Monica’s imagination, or were his lips—usually sharply pursed—now a bit more unsteady?
“What’s a rabbit doing up here?” he wondered aloud, swiftly removing his gloves and petting the rabbit’s back. Happiness was clear on his face as he stroked its fluffy fur.
Glenn adjusted the sleeping girl in his arms and grinned. “Capture it, VP. I’ll strangle it and dress it real nice!”
Cyril opened his eyes wide and stared at Glenn.
The butcher’s son began to eagerly explain. “When you wring a rabbit’s neck, you have to chill it right away. But we can just have you do that, VP! It’s perfect!”
With a face devoid of all expression, Cyril picked up the rabbit, then set it gently down on the floor. It quickly dashed away, escaping into the hallway through a small gap in the door.
“What did you let it go for?!” demanded Glenn.
“M-my hand slipped!” said Cyril, obviously lying.
Monica watched the two of them and hesitantly stammered, “Um, ummm, t-try to keep it down, or…”
The two of them suddenly stopped cold and looked at the girl. Thankfully, she was still asleep.
As the entire group breathed a sigh of relief, a short elderly man in a robe peeked around the door the rabbit had just left through. It was Professor Macragan, teacher of fundamental magecraft, his eyes and mouth eternally buried under his snow-white eyebrows, beard, and mustache.
“I’m sorry for barging in,” he said. “I heard from Miss Greyham that my granddaughter is here.”
Macragan didn’t have the best vision, and he used his staff to poke around as he approached the sofa. Once there, he took a close look at the face of the girl in Glenn’s arms.
“Ah yes, that’s Lucille, all right,” he said. “She’s been staying near the academy since yesterday. Visiting me, you see. She must have become separated from her parents. Were you all looking after her? Thank you kindly.”
Elliott, who had in no way contributed to the babysitting, immediately put on a face that made it look like he’d done it all. “Yes, Professor Macragan. I’m sure Miss Lucille’s parents must be worried. Are you able to contact them?”
“I am,” he responded. “Well, my son—he’s a mage, and he always keeps a mid-level spirit at her side. I can have the spirit send him a message. It shouldn’t take any time at all.”
Spirits were classified into high, mid, and low ranks. The mid-level category, however, spanned the widest range of abilities. While some mid-level spirits could understand human language, others couldn’t. As a whole, though, they were not all that intelligent, nor could they assume human form. Most of them took the shape of animals.
Oh, wait, thought Monica. Does that mean…?
Her prediction was confirmed a moment later by Macragan. “Its name is Istreah, an earth spirit. It normally takes the form of a rabbit.”
Everyone aside from the professor immediately looked at Cyril. The vice president’s face was pale, and his mouth hung open.
Macragan stroked his beard and continued. “But Istreah has a rowdy disposition. It isn’t that intelligent, so it’ll often play pranks as soon as you take your eyes off it. Despite looking like a rabbit, it is still a spirit, and rather strong, so it is difficult to handle. If you find it, please catch it for me.”
Cyril, who had let the spirit get away, rose from his chair with the miserable air of a man on his way to die.
“This is my responsibility. I’ll catch it…!” he said, starting off, dragging his left foot behind him.
Monica frantically grabbed his shirt. “Lord Cyril, y-you mustn’t stand up!”
“Don’t try to stop me, Accountant Norton. I…I let it escape not moments ago…” With an anguished expression, Cyril continued, still dragging his left foot.
Seeing this, Glenn laid Lucille down on the sofa and said, “I’ll go look for the spirit!”
Monica immediately raised a hand. “I’ll…I’ll go, too! You stay here and rest—p-please!”
Cyril fell silent in the face of his juniors’ insistence.
Eventually, he quietly muttered, “…Thank you.”
After exiting the student council room and heading into the hallway, Monica and Glenn decided to split up.
“I’ll go right,” said Glenn. “You go left! If you find it, just call for me, and I’ll fly right over!”
“Okay!” Monica nodded, then took off down the hall with thudding, awkward steps. Ordinarily, Cyril would scold her for running in the hallway, but this was an emergency.
Just as she was about to turn the corner, a black cat jumped down from a hallway window.
“Heya, Monica. Seems like you’ve got a lot going on today, eh?”
“Neeerooo…,” said Monica, squatting and glaring at him. “Was that bone-in meat tasty?”
“Yeah! Man, you really can’t get anything better than the stuff with the bones. Oh, but I left them like I was supposed to. Didn’t eat them. I’m so smart!”
“…Hmph.” Still squatting, Monica grabbed the cat’s front paws and forced them all the way up. His soft feline body stretched into the air.
“Hey! What the heck are you doing?!”
“Glenn and Lord Cyril got in a lot of trouble because you ate that meat without asking, Nero!”
It had been a lot of trouble. Glenn had been suspected of stealing, and Cyril had fallen down and sprained his ankle.
“And it wasn’t just the bone-in meat, either, was it? You ate Glenn’s ham, too.”
Nero, still stretched out, tilted his head a little, seeming confused. “Ham? What are you talking about?”
“The ham hanging in the smoker. You ate that, too, didn’t you?”
“Heh. I may be a big eater, but I only took the bone-in meat.”
“…Huh?”
Just then, Nero’s nose twitched, and he glanced at something behind Monica. “I smell ham from over there.”
She then heard a sound like something being dragged. In utter disbelief, she turned around. There it was. The rabbit—or rather, the spirit Istreah—was dragging the remains of the ham in its mouth.
Nero’s golden eyes grew large. “Hey, is that a spirit? Guess they eat meat, too, huh?”
“…I’ve heard earth spirits enjoy the fruit of the land as offerings, but…” Apparently, for some spirits, that extended beyond grains and vegetables and included meat.
Nero hissed to threaten it, but the rabbit ignored him and continued chowing down on the ham.
“Hmph,” said Nero. “Not a very smart spirit, if you ask me. Doesn’t even have much mana. That maid lady is way stronger.”
The maid lady—Ryn—was a high spirit. They were incomparably more powerful than mid-level spirits. But the latter still had a good amount of magical power. You couldn’t let your guard down around one.
“Nero, go outside,” said Monica. “I don’t want someone seeing you.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
“Okay.” She nodded, letting the cat back out the window.
The rabbit confidently continued ravaging the piece of ham as if to imply Monica presented no threat to it at all. Its round eyes were orange—a color never seen in wild rabbits. Though spirits could take on human and animal forms, they could never change their eye color.
If I want to catch it, my best bet is to block off its escape…
Without chanting, Monica cast a sealing barrier. Shining golden chains emerged all around the rabbit; each chain was a series of small magical formulae.
Seal!
The chains contracted, but just as they were about to wrap around the rabbit, it jumped out of the way. The spirit could jump far better than a normal rabbit; it leaped clear onto Monica’s head, where it started pulling on her hair with its front legs and front teeth.
“Ow, ow, ow! Waaahhh! No, stop!” she yelled.
“Monica, are you okay?!”
She heard footsteps running toward her—it was Glenn, who had heard her scream. He tried to grab the rabbit yanking her hair, but it used her head as a foothold to jump again. Then it bounced off Glenn’s nose with its hind legs and landed back down on the ground.
“Agh!” Glenn grunted, reeling backward.
The rabbit picked up the ham off the floor with its mouth, then turned away from the two of them and exhaled. While it couldn’t speak human language, judging by its behavior, it was clearly making fun of them. It seemed to think they couldn’t lay a finger on it. Full of confidence, it began running down the hallway, ham stuffed into its mouth.
“So that’s the meat thief! …Argh, now I’m mad! I’ll catch it and turn it into rabbit stew!”
“G-Glenn, it’s not a rabbit, it’s a spirit…”
He didn’t seem to hear her, though. Rubbing his kicked nose, he quick-chanted a spell.
Monica immediately cringed when she heard the incantation. It was an attack spell—one to make a fireball. Using fire magecraft indoors required very fine mana control. Glenn’s fireballs were powerful, but his formulae were unstable and dangerous. It would have been one thing if they were outdoors, but indoors, he was liable to cause a disaster.
“Glenn…!”
She wavered. Should she used unchanted magecraft to interfere with his spell or put up a defensive barrier around them?
Before she could act, however, Glenn stopped chanting. The fireball taking form in his hand dissipated with a whoosh of air.
“Crap,” he said, smacking his cheek. As Monica looked at him wide-eyed, he grinned in embarrassment. “Difficult situations call for plain old hard work, right?”
“…! Right!”
Monica and Glenn exchanged glances and laughed, imagining Cyril saying those words, arms folded in front of his chest.
“I can’t blow up the school,” said Glenn. “It’d cause trouble for the president and VP. Let’s go after it the old-fashioned way.” His face was full of enthusiasm as he rolled up his sleeves.
“Sure, but…” Monica fidgeted as she made a suggestion. “I have a plan to, um, lure Istreah to us instead.”
“Ham? In that case, I can go get some, and…”
Monica looked at him with a pained smile and shook her head. The spirit seemed to love ham, but there was something else spirits found even more attractive.
“I think the spirit got close to Lord Cyril…because he has a magic broach. Spirits really like clumped-up mana…”
Cyril’s mana hyper-absorption syndrome and the excess mana he emitted must have made him even more attractive. He’d probably seemed like an irresistible treat. Monica didn’t want to be the one to tell Cyril that, though—he’d looked so satisfied with the rabbit in his lap.
“Then should we borrow his broach?” asked Glenn.
“No, then we’d just be bothering him… But I know what we can use,” said Monica, looking toward the small room meant for brewing tea.
Istreah, the earth spirit turned bunny, was sitting in one corner of the hallway, having its fill of ham.
Spirits needed a supply of highly pure mana to remain active for long periods of time. While the world had been filled with it long ago, now there were only so many regions spirits could inhabit.
To broaden their area of activity, spirits began forming contracts with human mages, who would supply them with a stable source of pure mana. Istreah was one such example.
Unlike high spirits, however, Istreah—as a mid-level spirit—couldn’t stay apart from its contractor for very long.
Having been separated for a while now, it had already lost over half the mana composing its body.
It had recovered somewhat by ingesting meat—a fruit of the land—but a direct supply of mana would have been preferable.
In that sense, the silver-haired human it had seen in the forest was a convenient option. He was always exuding excess mana. He even wore a magic item, which was itself a mass of mana. Spirits were drawn to such items, and Istreah was no exception.
It had just decided to return to the mana-emitting human once it was done eating the ham, when something made its ears twitch.
A clump of mana was approaching—a magic item.
Istreah thought at first it was the human with the chill about him, but this mana was different—it was fire-aspected.
Raising its little head, Istreah heard the sound of footsteps—and saw a girl with braided light-brown hair slowly coming closer.
She gripped a small, silver plate in both hands, holding it out in front of her like a shield. A red gem was embedded in the plate—the source of the mana Istreah had sensed. The silver plate was a magic item.
“O-over…over here!”
The girl’s timid expression tensed as she thrust the magic plate toward the spirit.
Istreah respected its contracted human, but it was still an animal, its brain programmed to steal what it could. Its animal instincts were telling it one thing: that the human in front of it was not very powerful.
She’d used a sealing spell earlier, which meant she was a mage. But her physical abilities were extremely poor. In short, she was clumsy and slow.
Istreah hissed, then jumped for the magic plate. It wanted to steal the item away from the girl.
The girl, clearly faint of heart, let out a frightened squeal but didn’t let go of the plate.
“Now put your hands up, Monica!”
“Right!”
As Istreah clung to the silver plate, the girl lifted it into the air.
A boy with dirty-blond hair, hidden behind the girl, came running out. Apparently, the girl with the magic item had been a decoy.
The boy had his blazer off, and he unfolded it and wrapped it around Istreah.
“Got it! Monica, that was sure smart of you. Using a magic burner to draw the thing’s attention and all that.”
“Eh-heh… I, um, only recently learned how to use it.”
Istreah struggled inside the blazer, putting up one last vain show of resistance.
As an earth spirit, Istreah could control earth and sand to an extent.
Indoors, this ability was limited, but fortunately, a nearby window was open. It decided to call some sand inside to momentarily blind its captors.
But the sand was quickly caught by a strong gust of wind. And not just any wind. It was magecraft—extremely precise and powerful.
As Istreah peeked through a gap in the blazer, it noticed the girl with the light-brown hair was staring straight at it with no emotion on her face.
She put her index finger to her lips and said quietly, “None of that, now.”
Istreah understood instinctually that it was not the most powerful one in the room. That honor belonged to this human—the one who could use advanced magecraft without even chanting.
Cyril had his head down on his desk, cradling it with both hands. The color had drained from his face.
“Not only did I get hurt and force an underclassman to carry me, now I’m having two of them fix a mistake I made…”
He deeply regretted not realizing the rabbit was a spirit and letting it run away. And all because he’d trusted its warm fuzzy coat!
He would have loved to go running after it right this instant, but putting even a little weight on his twisted left ankle made it cry out in pain. Thanks to the emergency treatment he’d received, he could manage a slow walk, but running would be difficult.
As Cyril cursed his own helplessness, Elliott shot him a mean-spirited smirk. “At least you have underclassmen willing to clean up your messes, eh? I suppose fellow commoners have to look out for one another.”
That was a stab at all three of them—Glenn and Monica, who were obviously commoners, and Cyril, who used to be one. The personal dig angered him, but more than that, Elliott had just made fun of their underclassmen. Cyril’s expression turned serious.
“I won’t have you insulting my juniors,” he said.
“Insult? I’m just telling the truth.”
As the two of them glared at each other, they heard a drowsy voice murmuring from the sofa. Macragan’s granddaughter, Miss Lucille, had woken up.
Cyril and Elliott looked away from each other and reined in the hostile air that had begun to arise between them.
Lucille was sprawled on the sofa, looking sleepy. But when she noticed her grandfather, Mr. Macragan, sitting next to her, her face lit up. “Grappah!”
“That’s right, it’s Grandpa,” said the old man. “Did you come here by yourself, Lucille?”
Lucille held up the rabbit-shaped handkerchief in her hands. “Eah! Eah, too!”
“I see. Istreah was with you, too, hm?”
Finally, Cyril put two and two together. The Eah word the girl kept repeating referred to the rabbit—to Istreah. Toddlerspeak was so difficult to understand.
Macragan stopped playing with Lucille for a moment and looked up at Cyril. “On that note, what about the two who went searching for the spirit? Will they be all right?”
“They’re both my underclassmen,” Cyril replied. “I’m sure they will take responsibility and complete the task at hand.”
Though leaving the job to Monica and Glenn was risky, Cyril reminded himself that if he, their senior, didn’t believe in them, who would?
Macragan turned down his eyes, hidden behind his white eyebrows, and muttered. “…Are you sure about letting that Dudley boy loose?”
The phrasing of Macragan’s question frightened Cyril a little, and he frowned. It was as if the man was saying there was some major issue with letting Dudley do as he pleased.
“What do you mean, sir?” he asked. “His conduct leaves much to be desired, true, but…” He thought back to the boy’s behavior—running in the halls, not wearing his uniform properly, cutting classes, smoking meat when he wasn’t supposed to.
Macragan spoke again, his breathy voice emanating from beneath his beard. “Oh, so you trust him?”
“Yes,” answered Cyril immediately. “He is my underclassman, after all.”
The older man fell silent as though thinking about something. Then he began to stroke his beard. “Well, you see, at Minerva’s, he—”
“We’re back!”
The door to the council room burst open, and a boy’s loud voice completely cut off the rest of Macragan’s remark.
Glenn had opened the door, and Monica was next to him. The tall boy eagerly held up the blazer in his hands. A rabbit’s ears were poking out of the plump, balled-up fabric.
“VP, I caught the meat thief! I’ll strangle it, so please stand by to freeze it for me!”
“Do not strangle the spirit!” yelled Cyril immediately. “…Wait. Meat thief?”
“This little guy was the culprit! There were pieces of ham all over the hallway. It was really going to town!”
Cyril widened his eyes in surprise.
Macragan nodded to himself. “Istreah is a heavy eater. Perhaps it ate some food it wasn’t supposed to? I’m quite sorry.”
Cyril was shocked but didn’t let it show. You’re telling me that adorable, fluffy bunny was the meat thief all along?
But whatever the case, they’d finally put a cap on everything that had happened that day. They’d located the lost girl’s guardian, caught the runaway spirit, and learned the identity of the meat thief.
As their upperclassmen, Cyril knew he had to praise Glenn and Monica for a job well done. But just as he opened his mouth…
“Yikes!” Glenn cried out.
…the rabbit poked its head through a gap in Glenn’s blazer and bit him on the wrist. The blazer fell to the floor, and the creature escaped. After glancing around, it launched itself toward Monica for some reason, biting her on the hand.
“Gyah!” Monica yelped pathetically. “Ow! Ow, th-that hurts! Stop, please! Wh-why me…? Please…please don’t eat me!”
In desperate straits, the spirit had launched a last-ditch effort to do as much damage as it could to its most powerful enemy.
But to Cyril and the others, it appeared to be attacking the weakest among them. Eventually, Elliott said what they were all thinking.
“…The little squirrel is being eaten by a rabbit.”
Ten minutes later, the rabbit was recaptured. Monica and Glenn, both covered in tooth marks, were sent—along with Cyril—to the infirmary.
On one side was Monica, covered in bite marks, sobbing and whimpering. On the other was Glenn, his shoulder under Cyril’s; the silver-haired boy was still dragging his foot. All told, though, they’d made it out in one piece.
After watching them go, Macragan said to himself, “I’m glad to see they have good friends and upperclassmen.”
“Grappah?” His granddaughter looked up at him, Istreah in her arms.
“Oh, nothing,” he said with a smile, leading the girl by the hand. “As long as the youth are growing up nice and healthy, all is well.”
The following afternoon, during the midday break, Cyril took a stroll through Serendia Academy’s rear gardens. The previous day, they had tracked down the meat thief, sent the lost girl home, and captured the spirit.
What an awful day that was.
Cyril had disgraced himself in front of his underclassmen and forced them to clean up his own mess. On top of that, he’d be unable to run for a while thanks to his sprained ankle. Not one good thing had happened.
He’d been told to stay on the sidelines and observe during combat magecraft lessons for the time being, too. And Byron, who had made quite the fuss about dueling him, was extremely disappointed.
He really does seem to love magic battles. Cyril started to feel guilty about it as he continued his walk through the rear gardens, limping.
Occasionally, you could find small creatures back here, like cats. And out of sheer coincidence—that was most certainly all it was—he happened to have sneaked a few small pieces of dried fish into his pocket. Since it was there anyway, he figured that if he saw a cat, he could share some.
The previous day’s incident concerning the meat thief had genuinely frightened him. The thought that a vicious, starving carnivore might start attacking the cats in the rear gardens had worried him to death. But they’d caught said vicious carnivore—an earth spirit named Istreah—so he figured there was no longer any need for concern.
Coming to a stop, he scanned the gardens for a place with good sunlight. A certain black cat liked to lie about in the area, but Cyril didn’t see it today. Maybe it would come around if he took out the fish.
Just as his hand moved to his pocket, though, he heard an awfully loud voice from overhead say “Hey, Vice President!”
He looked up. Glenn was floating in the air using flight magecraft and waving at him. In his hand, he held a large plate.
The boy gently touched down in front of him, then held out the plate. On it was a pile of smoked, amber-colored chicken. It was practically glowing.
“I made this to thank you for yesterday. I hope you like it! Oh, this is the kind of smoked meat you only put in for a short time, and—”
“I don’t need any,” Cyril interrupted. “I already ate lunch.”
“But you’re so skinny, VP. You need some meat on your bones.”
Cyril frowned and glared at Glenn; that was something he was rather self-conscious about.
After seeing the fish in Cyril’s hand, though, Glenn’s face lit up like he’d just figured out something. “Hey, VP, is that fish for—?”
“N-no, it is not. It just…it just happened to be in my pocket. That’s all,” Cyril stammered.
“Hey, there’s no need to hide it.” Glenn nodded several times as if he now understood everything. “You really like fish, right?”
“……”
“Enough to go off alone and eat it in secret, huh?”
“Um. Right. Yes, that’s it.” Cyril nodded awkwardly, still holding the fish.
Glenn flashed him a toothy smile. “I’ll smoke some fish next. It’ll be great, promise!”
“Go to class!”
The icy scion’s angry voice rang out under the clear blue sky.
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