Chapter 58
Before we knew it, final exams were over, and the sweltering summer had arrived, with sweat streaming down our backs even when we merely sat still.
“Soooo hot….”
When I turned my head slightly toward the feeble voice, I saw Lia sprawled across her desk, limp and moaning like ice cream melting on its surface.
“It’s not that bad.”
“It is that bad…! Aren’t you hot too, Rene?”
“Not really. I can manage with just a light cooling barrier around me.”
“That’s only possible because you’re you, Rene! If I had mana to spare like you, of course I’d live like that too!!”
Lia flapped both hands like a child throwing a tantrum.
Well, being able to maintain a cooling barrier around the clock was entirely thanks to Rene’s constitution.
“That’s why you should have properly learned how to use magic power efficiently. Even Kairos could probably hold out for about twenty hours or so, you know?”
“That’s an unfair comparison… I’m just an utterly ordinary girl, like anyone else….”
Lia slammed her head down onto the desk in despair.
Only after quite some time did she suddenly lift her head again.
“So what are you going to do during summer vacation, Rene?”
It was a very Lia-like, abrupt change of subject.
I murmured, “Hmm…” and leaned deeply back against my chair, quietly looking up at the classroom ceiling.
“Who knows.”
My highest priority, naturally, was to go to the capital to meet Asta.
Ever since that day in Burgundy, all investigations into Rene’s true identity and the soul-transfer magic had effectively ground to a complete halt.
“I haven’t made any concrete plans yet.”
But Rene, a first-year academy student without any connections, couldn’t easily obtain a travel permit to the capital.
Since Asta was involved, I couldn’t ask Ellie for help either, so I planned to spend this summer vacation looking for a way to obtain a permit to the capital on my own.
“Really? That’s surprising.”
“What is?”
“I thought you’d obviously go back to your hometown.”
Rene’s hometown, huh.
Well, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t considered it at all.
There would surely be many traces left by the real Rene in her hometown, and with some luck, I might even gain an unexpected clue from them.
“It’s just that my parents are busy around this time too.”
But in Rene’s body, I still wasn’t confident that I could play the part of a perfect daughter when meeting Rene’s real parents.
From another perspective, Rene’s parents had also lost their beloved daughter from one day to the next.
If the two of them noticed that their daughter was acting strangely and began taking some kind of active steps, things would surely become extremely complicated.
“What about you, Lia? What are you doing during vacation?”
“Me? I’m obviously going home! I’ve made plans to go on vacation with my family.”
“Wow, you go on summer vacations as a family too?”
“Yeah, we have a small summer villa on the West Sea.”
Every now and then, Lia would casually reveal just how incredibly wealthy she was.
“A villa… Must be nice.”
Of course, the Prizna family had several villas for summer vacations as well. There was the seaside villa in Schleswig, where Big Sister Erica and I used to spend a few days together every summer, just the two of us.
‘……Come to think of it, how has my sister been lately?’
The summer trips between us siblings, which had continued without missing a single year for the past decade, would almost certainly come to an end this year.
When I unconsciously lowered my head, Lia tilted hers and asked,
“Are you doing that because you want to come with me?”
“As if. It’s a trip with your family.”
“I don’t mind. It’d be more fun if you came along.”
Lia shrugged with a broad smile, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I waved my hands as if that were absurd.
“Anyway, I wish they’d just hold the end-of-term ceremony already. They’re barely going to hold classes, so I don’t know why they’re keeping us at school and dragging out the time like this.”
This had been my fundamental question ever since I entered the first year as Evan. Would it really have hurt to start vacation immediately after the final exams?
“You even complain about things like that?”
“The thing I hate most is wasting time in such an inefficient way. Honestly, adults don’t know how to value children’s precious time.”
I let out a deep sigh and stretched.
As I turned my head to the side without thinking, I saw Kairos sitting quietly at a desk by the classroom window, reading a thick book.
“That guy’s really relentless.”
“Who?”
“Kairos. Can he really read with all this noise?”
We were just a bunch of little kids left in the classroom without a teacher.
Naturally, all the students had gathered in small groups, noisily chatting or playing simple card games to kill time. All except him.
“No wonder Kairos is the top student in the entire school. I hear he even took the fourth-year final exams this year.”
“……Hmph. What a show-off.”
He really acted like he was the only one who was any good.
Of course, I had been studying the fourth-year curriculum ahead of time in preparation for when I returned to being Evan, but I naturally hadn’t reached the level where I could take the exams yet.
After glaring sharply at Kairos for a moment, I turned my attention back to Lia.
“Anyway, we probably won’t get to see much of each other during vacation, huh?”
“Mm-hmm. You’ll miss me a lot too, won’t you, Rene?”
“Of course I’ll miss you. So be careful and take your time.”
“……You don’t really sound like you’ll miss me.”
Lia stuck out her lower lip and grumbled petulantly.
To be honest, I was, of course, much more comfortable with Lia being away from the dormitory during vacation.
Even though we had somehow shared a room for the past three months, I was, after all, a man who was more comfortable alone.
Anyway, I was about to reassure her that wasn’t the case when I happened to see Ellie approaching behind Lia.
“Ellie? What’s up?”
Pleased to see her, I greeted her first.
Ellie gave me a small smile, then looked straight at Lia.
“I’m sorry, but could I borrow Rene for a moment?”
“Huh? Rene?”
Lia looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“Huh? Me?”
I tilted my head in confusion as well.
Ellie smiled sweetly and nodded.
“Yes, there’s something I need to tell you right away.”
She looked as if she had something unusually important to discuss.
※※
“You’re going to let me meet Big Sister Erica in person?”
“Yes. Of course, it won’t be just the two of you.”
Ellie continued with a bright smile.
“I heard the Ministry of Magic is inviting a few talented students to hold a small workshop. And Big Sister Erica is in charge of the workshop’s practical arrangements.”
“There was a workshop like that? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s the first time the workshop has been held. It hasn’t been officially announced to the other students yet.”
“But if you know about it, Ellie… I suppose the children of famous noble families were given advance notice.”
“Yes. The children of the Seven Great Families help promote the workshop simply by participating.”
It wasn’t particularly strange. Back when I was Evan, I was always asked to make appearances at competitions and the like as well.
“Hmm, but can someone like Rene even apply for something like that?”
“I told you, didn’t I? It’s a workshop for talented students. With your level of skill, you’d get in easily.”
“But there’s the matter of money too….”
“Don’t worry about that. I can pay the participation fee for you, whatever the amount.”
I wasn’t exactly comfortable being indebted to Ellie, though.
“All right, I understand. I’ll think it over.”
“What do you mean, think it over?”
“Even so, this is awfully sudden. A workshop like that won’t be over in a day or two.”
“It’s a four-day, three-night event.”
“See? How could I decide about something like that right away?”
“You’ll get to meet Big Sister Erica in person, you know?”
“What good would that do? She won’t even recognize me anyway.”
Of course I wanted to see her. She was my sister, after all.
But when I thought about it more rationally, aside from giving me the chance to see my sister’s face, even if only from a distance, it wouldn’t really help me in any way.
This summer vacation was my chance to focus entirely on finding a way to return to being Evan.
I had to use my time as efficiently as possible.
“This hesitation of yours is… unlike you, Oppa.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? How am I unlike myself?”
“I was just saying.”
Ellie pouted, looking disappointed.
Had she been looking forward to going to the workshop with me, after all?
“If we have time later, let’s go visit a valley or something.”
I smiled lightly as I patted Ellie on the head.
Ellie looked up at me quietly, then let out a small sigh and reluctantly nodded.
“All right. Then I suppose we’ll have to cancel the train tickets for now.”
“You’d already booked the train tickets?”
“Yes. I assumed you’d definitely go.”
“Um… there won’t be a penalty or anything, will there?”
“There would obviously be a cancellation fee, wouldn’t there? It’s a luxury train to the capital.”
“Huh?”
She had definitely just said….
“Is the workshop being held in the capital?”
My voice rose slightly despite myself.
Ellie raised her eyebrows as if wondering what had gotten into me, then quietly nodded.
“Yes, of course. The Ministry of Magic is hosting it itself.”
Ellie said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“And it’s a four-day, three-night schedule?”
Three nights meant I would have three chances to sneak out of our accommodations and freely explore the capital.
Besides, if I used the plausible excuse that it was an official Ministry of Magic event, I could surely stay in the capital for a few more days after the workshop ended under the pretext of taking care of some personal business.
‘Such luck for me, too…!’
Apparently, the goddess of fortune hadn’t completely abandoned this poor soul after all.