He Might Be Sly but Kind (Prologue Complete)

An unfamiliar ceiling.

It felt hazy, as though my whole body were floating weightlessly in midair. I turned my head blankly. The window, shrouded in dusky darkness, was the first thing I saw. When I turned toward the opposite side, I saw a drab room that somehow felt familiar, unlike the ceiling, and…

“……What?”

Beside the bed, I saw the freshman leaning back in an old wooden chair and quietly turning the pages of a book.

Perhaps noticing that I had woken up, the freshman gently closed the book and turned his gaze toward me.

“Are you awake?”

It was an absurdly gentle voice. The only reason I didn't immediately call him a ‘psycho’ was that my entire body felt so heavy I could barely move my lips.

I squeezed my eyes shut and raised my left hand to press firmly between my brows.

When I turned back to him and finally managed to open my mouth, a hoarse voice tinged with a metallic rasp barely escaped my throat.

“What on earth happened?”

I couldn't make sense of the situation at all. I thought I had heard that bastard's voice right before I fainted, but….

“You don't have to worry too much. It's all over now.”

The freshman raised his voice as though reassuring me. Then he picked up the mug from the table, steam gently curling from it, and handed it to me. I could faintly feel its warmth at my fingertips.

“It's water boiled with ginger. It should help restore your mana.”

The pungent scent of ginger stung the tip of my nose.

“Answer my question first.”

Without even looking at the cup, I glared at the freshman coldly. The freshman stared at me for a moment, then obediently nodded and placed the mug back on the table.

“I settled things amicably with Secretary Erica.”

I already knew that. If my sister in that state had confronted him head-on, even the freshman couldn't have been sitting there so perfectly unharmed.

I twitched my eyebrows, telling him to continue. As though he had been waiting for it, the freshman obediently nodded and continued.

“I told her that if she wanted to bring charges against a Luminous student, she should file them formally through the class tribunal. I told her that it was an unequivocal school rule.”

“But… Secretary Erica must have brought up the winner's rights, didn't she? That the victor of a duel is given complete authority over every decision….”

“Of course she did. But I countered that argument by saying the ‘duel’ itself was invalid from the outset. As you know, Rene, duels between mages whose ranks differ by two or more tiers are considered invalid in principle unless a guarantor recognized by both sides observes the entire process from beginning to end.”

“……You actually knew that? That ancient law?”

A sigh escaped me on its own. What on earth didn't this guy know?

But more important than that was the fact that my sister was not generous enough to forgive the enemy who had reduced her little brother to that state merely because of some dusty old legal provision.

Although he hadn't said so outright, the freshman must have made some kind of discreet offer tempting enough to whet my sister's appetite. I glared at him with an expression gone cold.

“Tell me honestly. What do you want from me?”

As expected, I didn't feel very good about it. I had the unpleasant intuition that he had somehow gotten hold of one of my weaknesses.

Moreover, while talking with my sister, that bastard must have been told every detail of what had happened in this incident.

Though he didn't seem inclined to show it, he must also know that I had reported him.

“What could I possibly want? We're buddies….”

“Answer properly. Otherwise, I think I'm really going to lose my mind.”

I muttered weakly and roughly swept my tangled hair back. It was genuinely becoming too much to keep up with. My throbbing head felt as though it might explode at any moment. It was as if the entire world were staging some grand play around me.

“Honestly, you approached Rene intending to use her from the very beginning.”

“……What?”

“Don't play dumb. I remember everything perfectly.”

Even my meticulous sister had failed to find any evidence of wrongdoing, while the raven that couldn't lie had identified Rene herself as the culprit.

Perhaps the person in front of me really was unrelated to this incident.

“Why did you hide Rene under the bed?”

But even if everything related to my soul had nothing to do with that bastard, the fact remained that he had hidden the unconscious Rene beneath the bed.

Doing something like that and then calmly coming to find Rene as her ‘buddy’ only a few hours later was proof that he was already out of his mind. Everything he did—from pretending the entire incident had never happened onward—made no logical sense.

“You… remember all of that?”

“Yes. I remember everything perfectly.”

At this point, whatever happened, happened.

Once I had been branded an enemy of the Friesna family, my life was as good as over anyway. I glared weakly at him.

“So you're after Rene's special constitution, aren't you?”

What I realized while fighting my sister, a fifth-tier mage, was that Rene's constitution—or rather, her talent—was far more absurd than I had imagined.

A first-year who hadn't even been enrolled for a month had blocked a fifth-tier mage's full-power attacks three times. This wasn't some great mage's self-promotional feat from an epic poem.

Besides…

‘My mana has already returned to normal.’

Even though I had clearly felt my mana reservoir empty out, the mana circulating through my body now was scarcely any different from what it had been that morning.

Rene must already have expended a tremendous amount of mana transferring my soul the previous night. Taking that into account, her mana recovery speed was certainly several times faster than an average person's.

“…….”

The freshman stared at me, unable to bring himself to say anything. His face was filled with a bewilderment I had never seen before.

After a long silence, the freshman finally opened his mouth.

“This wasn't how it was supposed to go…”

A low mutter escaped between his lips. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant.

The freshman soon shook his head and gave an awkward smile.

“I only wanted to help you as your buddy.”

“You call locking a naked Rene under the bed helping?”

“It was because of the mana seizure. Her fever rose too high, so I had no choice but to take her clothes off.”

“Liar.”

“It's true. You know how hot your body gets when you have a mana seizure, Rene.”

“Ha….”

It was absurdly out of character for him. No matter how flustered he was, that excuse was far too pathetic to have come from him.

“Then I can go to Ms. Justina right now and honestly tell her everything that happened between you and me, can't I?”

“I don't mind. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Really? Then everything, including the fact that you used Mentis Nihil on me?”

“……What?”

The freshman froze solid.

“……Impossible.”

A dazed voice spilled from his lips. He bit down on his lower lip and pressed a hand to his forehead, looking somehow uneasy.

“How did you know…?”

I wanted to land another blow on him right then, but unfortunately, even I still didn't know why my memories had remained.

I merely kept my expression cold and continued speaking.

“You've been using Rene however you pleased, erasing her memories with Mentis Nihil whenever you needed to.”

It clearly wasn't his first or second time doing that.

Perhaps Rene's ‘mana seizures’ themselves were his scheme to conceal the memory loss caused by Mentis Nihil.

“I'm going to tell Ms. Justina everything. Every vile thing you've done from the day you became Rene's buddy until now.”

Of course, I had no way of knowing exactly what had happened between the two of them.

This was nothing more than a ‘reasonable supposition.’

“……”

But the freshman's face had already gone deathly pale. I saw him bite his lip hard.

Apparently, something really had happened.

“Rene, calm down for now. I'll explain everything.”

“There you go again.”

I snorted and shook my head.

“If you're planning to use Corpus Immotus again, you should give up now. I've already made thorough preparations against it.”

In fact, I hadn't. I didn't even know how.

But I clearly held the upper hand now. I needed to maintain it, even if only by bluffing.

“I won't use it. This time, I'm genuinely going to persuade you.”

“That's a relief. Then answer everything I ask honestly.”

I glared at him with an even sharper look.

“First, how much do you know about what happened to Evan Friesna?”

My first priority was figuring out how deeply he was connected to Rene and me.

As though he had been waiting for the question, the freshman opened his mouth.

“I don't know anything.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I only learned that he had collapsed when Secretary Erica told me today.”

“…….”

His gaze looked serious and unwavering. He didn't seem to be lying.

‘Then it really is true that Rene….’

Without realizing it, I brought my thumbnail to my lips. Then I moved on to the next question.

“Next question. Why didn't you come after me when you realized Rene had escaped from the bed yesterday?”

“I went straight to your room to clear up the misunderstanding after seeing how badly it had been wrecked. But you weren't there. I kept wandering the corridor and waiting for you after that, but you never returned before curfew.”

“Then why did you act as though nothing had happened the next day?”

“I thought that was how you wanted it, Rene. After all, it must have been something you didn't want to remember.”

Did he mean that he had been considerate of me in his own way?

‘He slips away like a loach….’

There wasn't really anything I could pick at. According to him, taking off her clothes had been purely for medical reasons, and even if that was true, he probably wouldn't have wanted to bring up something so embarrassing with someone of the opposite sex.

“Then why did you use Mentis Nihil on me that day?”

I shot back, raising my eyebrows.

The freshman answered as though he had been waiting for the question.

“I thought it was a new symptom of the mana seizure—the fragments of your memories that I'd been forced to erase until then must have been running wild.”

The corners of the freshman's eyes drooped.

“I'm sorry. I should have talked to you properly back then.”

Then the freshman bowed his head.

‘……Hmm.’

It looked somewhat flimsy, but it was difficult to refute outright. I slightly furrowed my brow and asked my next question.

“You found me precisely even while Secretary Erica's perception-dulling spell was active. How exactly did you do that?”

He had appeared at an incredibly precise moment. I hadn't even been able to send a distress signal after Egg had struck me.

For some reason, the freshman answered with a slightly more relaxed expression.

“Your roommate came looking for me.”

“……What?”

“She said Rene had been dragged to the herb garden by a frightening person. She asked me, just in case, to go see what was happening.”

“…….”

It was true that when Egg had told me to come to the herb garden, the underachiever had been right beside him….

“You should have reported that to a teacher first!”

“Why are you asking me about that? You should ask Ria.”

The freshman had finally regained his usual glib attitude.

“So… you're saying you came after hearing only what the underachiever—Ria—said, without even knowing what was happening to me?”

“That's right. I had no idea you were fighting Secretary Erica.”

“And then you charged in after seeing me about to be kidnapped?”

“Yeah. When I arrived, I saw someone with a truly intimidating face carrying Rene over his shoulder.”

“You must have seen the secretary's face, too. And you attacked anyway?”

“At the time… I was just so angry that I couldn't think straight.”

The freshman scratched the back of his head awkwardly. He smiled gently and added, “Anyway, I'm glad you're safe.”

“…….”

The freshman had suddenly started putting on a good-guy act.

He nodded as though telling me to ask anything else I wanted, but there was nothing more to question him about. After all, everything had happened within barely two days.

Besides, from what he had said, the freshman seemed unable even to imagine that Evan had entered Rene's body.

If so, pressing him any further in this situation wouldn't change anything. No matter how he had used Rene, it wasn't particularly relevant to the ‘me’ I was now.

‘Of course, the instant I return to my original body, I'll report every one of that bastard's misdeeds….’

For now, returning to my original body came first. That mattered more than taking meaningless revenge on that perverted bastard.

I should return to my room and start by making a plan for what to do next.

“Are you done with your questions?”

He asked cautiously. I stood up without answering. I felt slightly dizzy, but it wasn't unbearable. I walked straight past him toward the front door.

“You're going back to your room?”

“Yeah.”

The freshman didn't stop me. He simply rose quietly and trailed behind me.

Only after putting on my shoes and taking hold of the doorknob did I hear his voice again.

“Get plenty of rest today. Things are going to get pretty busy starting tomorrow.”

“……What do you mean, busy?”

I stopped and turned to look back at him.

As though he had been waiting for it, the freshman continued.

“The second ability assessment period starts tomorrow.”