Chapter 21
“Ah! There she is.”
The underachiever came dashing over, her eyes sparkling. I followed behind her and approached Ellie, who was walking toward us in the distance.
“What have you been doing all this time? We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
The underachiever asked as she suddenly grabbed Ellie’s hand.
“Ah… I was meeting someone I know for a bit.”
“Someone you know? ……Ah! Is it that older guy you mentioned before, Ellie?”
“……”
Ellie clamped her mouth shut, apparently struck right on the mark.
“So who is this older guy, anyway?”
To be honest, I was a little curious about this ‘older guy’ too. Ellie was like a little sister to me, after all.
As though she’d heard my question, Ellie slowly raised her head and looked at me.
“Hm?”
But she gave no answer. She merely stared at me, and even her gaze seemed somehow different from usual.
“Ellie?”
Only after I tilted my head in puzzlement did she finally open her mouth.
“It’s nothing.”
Then Ellie abruptly turned her head away. She approached Julia, who had been waiting for us a short distance away.
‘……What was that?’
It was an incredibly strange reaction. Just who was this older guy?
As I stared blankly at her back, Ria snickered and lightly tapped my shoulder.
“Hehe, Miss Rene, you really are quite oblivious.”
“What’s with that tone?”
“Rene, can’t you tell just by looking? They’re ‘that kind of’ relationship.”
If they were ‘that kind of’ relationship… could she mean lovers?
“That’s impossible. There’s no way.”
I was so dumbfounded that I even let out a hollow laugh. I firmly shook my head.
“Ellie doesn’t know about things like that.”
“Ha, anyone listening would think you’d been close to Ellie since you were little.”
……I had been very close to her since childhood.
Anyway, Ellie being in a relationship was absurd. To begin with, there couldn’t possibly be a man bold enough to make a move on the young lady of House Clostermann.
I paid the underachiever no mind and approached the other two, at which point Julia spoke as though she’d been waiting for me.
“Ellie says the secretary will be coming back here in ten minutes.”
“Really? Then we can use the restroom before that.”
The underachiever had somehow ended up standing behind me and nodded.
“Let’s go!”
She tried to link arms with me again.
“I know, I know, so don’t cling to me.”
Well, I had been thinking it was about time I went to the restroom anyway.
Unlike when I was a man, I felt as though my bladder had somehow become a little smaller, too.
As I sighed and pulled away, Ellie approached us without a word. When the underachiever asked, “Are you going too, Ellie?” she quietly nodded.
“Then let’s go!”
And so the three of us filed out of the ballroom and along the corridor toward the restroom.
“Go in first.”
“Yes, sir!”
Even though it was my own house, this was the first time I’d entered the women’s restroom. The space itself was fairly large, but there was only one vacant stall.
After sending Ria in first, I looked around the restroom. Then I sidled up to Ellie and asked quietly.
“So who exactly is this older guy?”
Yes, I really was curious. Ellie wasn’t just like a little sister to me; she was like a daughter, too.
It seemed impossible, but if Ellie had been led astray by some shady guy, I intended to step in and punish him with an iron fist before even Uncle Ludwig did.
Ellie slowly raised her head and met my eyes after hearing my question.
“Why are you so curious?”
“Huh? It’s only natural that I’d be curious.”
“Why?”
“Uh… because we’re friends?”
Isn’t this the sort of question friends were allowed to ask?
When I merely blinked with a look that said it was obvious, Ellie raised one eyebrow with an oddly enigmatic expression.
“Then may I ask you one question in return?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Is there someone important to Miss Rene?”
“Someone important…?”
Why ask that all of a sudden? I couldn’t understand her question at all.
Still, since she had asked me a question, I thought for a moment before asking one in return.
“Family doesn’t count, right?”
“No.”
Excluding family, about three faces came to mind: Hans, Agnes, and Ellie, who stood before me.
But of course, I couldn’t honestly say their names. I simply nodded and answered.
“There is.”
“Then how would you feel if that important person suddenly disappeared right in front of you one day?”
“Uh… suddenly?”
Was this some kind of psychological test?
“I suppose… I’d be sad?”
“I see.”
Ellie nodded with a strange expression and firmly pressed her lips together.
“Why did you ask me that?”
Something about this was unsettling. It was completely unlike Ellie, in a way.
At that moment, the door to the second stall opened, and a tall, black-haired young lady stepped out. Ellie’s voice immediately followed:
“Go in first.”
“Ah, okay. I will.”
The atmosphere was strange, but I couldn’t keep standing there talking with Ellie forever.
I brushed back my bangs and entered the second stall. With a sigh, I lowered my underwear and plopped down on the toilet.
“……Huh?”
But… I saw something that shouldn’t have been there.
“Ellie?”
Right before my eyes—in other words, inside the same stall as me—stood Ellie.
Amid the clear rush of water that had begun without my realizing it, I merely blinked twice in a daze.
“What… are you doing?”
My brain had completely shut down. I was utterly incapable of making a rational judgment.
Ellie, who had been quietly looking down at me, took my hand and gave it a slight tug. Her small voice continued.
“Bellum Arcanum.”
‘A barrier spell?’
In an instant, the surrounding noise disappeared. In the silence, the only sound was Ellie’s faint breathing.
Ellie quietly looked down at my fingers and continued.
“I felt a strange sense of incongruity somehow.”
Her fingers gently caressed my thumb.
“Why does this person understand my feelings so well? Why does every little thing this person does catch my eye so much? ……Why is everything about this person so similar to the person I admired so deeply?”
Ellie gently stroked my thumbnail. When I looked at her again, her face wore a radiant smile. Her hand cautiously touched my thigh.
“……!”
“At first, I wondered if this was fate. Ah, so my prince on a white horse was actually a princess. So this must be the fate the goddess had chosen for me.”
Her hand, which had slowly been moving up my thigh… gently pulled away. It then rose straight up and softly cupped my cheek.
“But it wasn’t. Fate is called fate because it is meant for only ‘one person,’ after all.”
In a flash, Ellie’s face drew close. She moved toward me as though she meant to kiss me, then stopped with her face right in front of mine.
She examined my trembling face from every angle, then smiled sweetly and continued.
“So what on earth happened? …Big brother Evan.”
“……Ah.”
It truly felt as though my breath had been knocked out of me.
※※
“Y-you don’t know?”
Ellie had returned to her usual self as though nothing had happened. I sighed and wiped my hands with a handkerchief. After confirming that Ria still hadn’t come out, I continued.
“I really don’t know exactly what happened to me.”
“Th-then what does that mean…? Th-then you don’t know how to return to normal, either?”
“That’s right. If I knew, I would’ve gone back long ago.”
I led Ellie out into the corridor beyond the restroom. After confirming that no one was nearby, I brushed up my bangs and spoke.
“So, you said my original body is currently in A.C. status, right?”
“Yes… Stage Four, too.”
“……”
A.C., Arcanus Collapsus. Commonly known as the state in which ‘the flame of magic power has gone out.’
Simply put, it meant that the connection between the soul and the magic circuits had collapsed. Stage Four, the highest stage, signified a complete severance from the soul.
‘Well, my soul is here right now, so I suppose that makes sense.’
Even so, learning that my body was still alive was a major gain. I placed a hand on Ellie’s shoulder and leaned slightly closer.
“Eek….”
“Ellie, listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”
“Y-yes… yes!”
Ellie nodded hard. I continued right away.
“I was planning to confess everything to Father today. That I’m his son, Evan. I was going to ask him to find a way, no matter what.”
“Y-yes, yes! If it’s Uncle Ludwig, he’ll surely find a way….”
“But I don’t think we can do that. We’re changing plans.”
“……What?”
Ellie tilted her head as though she had no idea what I was suddenly talking about. I calmly explained.
“Look, Evan’s soul is inside this body—Rene’s body—right now. And Evan’s body has been left with nothing but an empty shell.”
“Th-that’s right.”
“Then where on earth did the soul of Rene, the original owner of this body, go?”
“……Ah?”
At first, I thought Rene might have taken over my body.
But if that wasn’t the case… there was only one possibility.
“That’s right. It means Rene’s soul is still hiding somewhere inside this body.”
I quietly placed a hand over my chest and tried to sense the magic.
But I still couldn’t sense anything resembling Rene’s own soul. It was as though she were asleep somewhere deep inside, or had completely hidden herself within my presence.
“If Father and the other esteemed archmages began a ritual to separate my soul under these circumstances, what do you think would happen? Would Rene inside this body really just sit back and watch?”
Father was the kind of person who would do anything to reclaim his only son. It was obvious he would even seek out the archmage Rinkel, who had vanished long ago, to recreate the soul-transfer magic.
“She wouldn’t just sit still… Rene must have stolen your soul for a reason, too.”
“Exactly. She’d definitely do something.”
I honestly didn’t know exactly what she would do.
But one thing was certain: a being capable of using at least Eighth-Tier magic would not meekly back down.
“So we’re putting off telling Father for now. First, we need to figure out Rene’s purpose—Rene, who’s inside this body.”
The fact that my soul was in Rene’s body also meant, conversely, that my soul was currently in Rene’s grasp.
For now, we couldn’t be too careful.
“Yes… That might be for the best.”
Ellie nodded with a slightly dejected expression.
“B-but, Big Brother.”
She opened her mouth again. Ellie cautiously looked up at me, then tightly clutched the hem of her dress and continued.
“We could… tell Sister Erica, couldn’t we?”
“My sister?”
“Yes. Sister Erica would make a more levelheaded judgment than Uncle Ludwig. She would surely help us uncover R-Rene’s true purpose, too.”
“……”
That… might be true. Besides, I was uneasy about what my sister might be planning to do to me right now.
“I-I’ll tell her with you.”
Ellie looked up at me with determined eyes, clenching her fists. I worried my lip for a moment, lost in thought.
“Ahh, that feels good~”
Just then, a lively voice rang out. I turned my head and saw Ria coming out of the restroom, casually wiping her wet hands on her dress.
“Why did you take so long? Let’s get going.”
I immediately stepped away from Ellie and turned around. As I started walking back toward the ballroom, I glanced at Ellie.
“Ellie.”
“Y-yes.”
“Let’s do that.”
Yes, if I could get my sister’s help, it would surely be a great source of strength.
“Hm? Do what?”
When the underachiever asked with a tilt of her head, I merely shrugged without a word.