Chapter 56
“There’s someone I’ve been wanting to introduce to you for a while.”
“Introduce······?”
“Who is it?”
I turned my head toward the bedroom.
The room where we had been playing a lively board game moments ago.
“Your Highness, would you come out?”
I called to the girl who must have been listening to our conversation from behind the thin door.
My tone was gentle, as if to say it was safe for her to come out.
“······Victor.”
Creak—.
Before long, the closed door opened.
Only her voice came through, without her stepping out.
“Are you really sure this is all right···?”
“Your Highness has been watching them all this time, too. We can trust these two completely.”
“Even so···.”
“I’m sure they’ll become good connections for you, too.”
“······.”
A brief silence lingered.
Afterward, Carmilla cautiously poked her head through the gap in the open door.
Silver hair like moonlight. The red eyes set within it brought magnolia blossoms to mind.
Her worried eyes blinked as she looked this way.
“······.”
“Come over here.”
Though she had been frozen in hesitation, Her Highness scampered over as soon as I called her.
She stood behind the sofa, as though hiding behind me.
The two girls across from us stared with their eyes wide open.
Someone had emerged from a room they had thought contained only the three of us.
“Who···?”
I introduced her casually.
“She is the person I serve.”
“Consider it an honor. Ordinarily, I would never deign to associate with lowly humans···.”
“Her Highness says she’s pleased to meet you, too. She’s shy around strangers, so she isn’t very good with words.”
“Vic, Victor! How insolent!”
Thump, thump—.
Soft fists struck my shoulder in protest.
Regardless, the two girls across from me were studying Carmilla.
“The person Sir Victor serves···?”
“Oh? You’re···?”
Lanne was filled with question marks.
Alice, on the other hand, seemed to recognize Carmilla.
That made sense, since Alice had encountered Carmilla during the practical training.
“You’re the person who helped me alongside Lord Victor back then···.”
“Hmph··· So you do recognize me.”
Only then did Carmilla introduce herself.
“My name is Carmilla Blandir. I am a pure-blood vampire, heir to the Blandir dynasty, and Victor’s master.”
“A-a vampire? A pure-blood one, at that···?”
Perhaps because it felt like such a distant subject.
The two girls were momentarily flustered.
After all, vampires and humans had not interacted for a very long time.
All they knew was that a nonaggression treaty between the two sides was vaguely in progress.
‘To people who have never even encountered one in their lives, they must feel like something out of a distant myth.’
They probably didn’t even know that a New Kingdom had been established and that the harmony between the two sides had broken down.
Perhaps only the imperial family and the highest-ranking nobles knew about it.
The Empire would probably be preparing for war by now, too.
‘Today, I’ll set aside the heavy topics and just let them get acquainted as lightly as possible···.’
I explained my relationship with Carmilla in roundabout terms.
I left out the heavy subjects of war and rebellion.
For now, I wanted them to grow closer to one another.
‘It’s about time I started putting together the protagonist’s party.’
I continued speaking.
“She is a vampire··· and a member of the royal family at that. I’m serving as her aide for the time being.”
“An aide? Does Sir Victor have ties to the vampire dynasty as well?”
“That was a long time ago.”
“To have ties enough to serve a princess of another nation··· What sort of past could you possibly have···?”
“Her Highness is currently hiding herself due to unavoidable circumstances. Please keep everything concerning Her Highness strictly confidential. I introduced her because I judged that I could trust you two.”
“O-of course! It is quite shocking, but···.”
“Yes···! I-I will, too···.”
Trust.
The two nodded as though responding to that word.
Lanne and Alice shifted their attention to the silver-haired girl.
“I’ve heard a lot about vampires, but this is my first time seeing one in person.”
“Same here! And a royal, no less··· Though, if it’s Sir Victor, I suppose I can believe it.”
They exchanged a few more words.
“Hmph. That’s enough pretending to be friendly.”
Then, all of a sudden, Carmilla puffed out her cheeks.
She seemed displeased by something.
The girl tightly grabbed my arm from behind the sofa.
Perhaps too embarrassed to embrace me, she timidly held on to just one of my arms.
Despite her prickly expression, her pale earlobes were flushed red-hot.
“Keep ten paces away from Victor.”
“Your Highness?”
“Victor is my trusted retainer. So he is practically mine.”
Pouting lips.
Perhaps it was because we had been talking while leaving her out too much.
Those few pointed words were enough for me to realize she was sulking.
“I won’t hand him over to other women.”
“Y-yes···?”
Alice’s pupils trembled, seemingly flustered by the contact.
Carmilla spoke to the two of them, especially shooting Alice a sidelong glance.
“It means don’t go wagging your tails at him.”
“······Your Highness.”
A bombshell of a declaration.
I could only let out a deep sigh.
Regardless, the hand continued fidgeting around my arm, as though she had done nothing wrong.
“Victor is the bad one.”
It seemed they would need some more time to adjust to one another.
***
After that, a week passed.
My academy life had already lasted over a month.
I carried on with an ordinary life in which nothing much changed.
Attending lectures, putting the E Class Shuttles through their paces, and lazing around with Her Highness···.
-I’ve heard they’ve been plotting something since your speech.
-The Class B top student has been contacting several associate professors at the academy, while Class B students have been spreading nasty rumors about Sir Victor···.
Just as Lanne had told me before, the academy’s atmosphere was taking a troubling turn.
Perhaps it was because I had rammed into them like an eight-ton truck last time.
The Class B bunch seemed to have been rattled quite badly.
-I don’t know the details, but it looked like they were preparing something.
Even so, nothing major had erupted yet.
More precisely, it seemed they were biding their time to make something big happen.
‘It seems the time is drawing near···.’
Even with an invisible executioner’s platform approaching, what I felt wasn’t a sense of crisis, but excitement.
Everything was spinning around in the palm of my hand.
All I had to do was wait for it to bear fruit.
That was how I spent each day.
“Hm?”
At last, the big thing arrived.
“Good heavens, what in the world is going on?”
This was the scene that greeted me when I entered the classroom.
The atmosphere was markedly different from usual.
The E Class students, including the Shuttles, sat with their mouths tightly shut.
Some of them had bruises on their cheeks or eyelids, as though they had been beaten.
“Huh···.”
The air had frozen cold.
And among those students stood several outsiders.
“What brings students from Class B to our classroom?”
It was the B Class bunch.
It seemed only the stronger ones had gathered.
The second- and third-ranked students, along with everyone else in the top ten.
“Oh, you finally showed up?”
The leader of those punks.
Bright yellow hair and copper-colored, tanned skin.
“I thought my neck was gonna snap waiting for you, you fucking bastard.”
The Class B top student, Kaitlyn Letus.
She was sitting on my desk, waiting for me.
Her distinctive eyes crackled with electricity, the sound of static filling the air.
“I got bored waiting··· so I taught a few of the punks who were acting up a lesson.”
A sneer.
“That okay?”
I remained standing at the classroom entrance.
The Shuttles met my gaze and bit down hard on their lips.
Their battered faces were filled with resentment.
“B-Boss···.”
“We’re sorry, we···!”
They didn’t seem to have been beaten too badly.
It was more like she had simply toyed with them for a while.
At the very least, though, their pride had been thoroughly ground underfoot.
“That’s an unusual way to welcome someone.”
“I couldn’t find you even after waiting, so I thought you might’ve run away.”
Kaitlyn stood, kicking my desk aside.
Her attitude and even her gait were both remarkably rough.
The girl sauntered right up in front of me.
Beyond her yellow eyes, she saw my reflection in a white clown mask.
“They say the protagonist always makes a late entrance, right?”
“Hah··· You can still run your mouth, huh?”
“It’s the only thing this body has going for it.”
“Since I’ve been letting you off easy, you must think I’m a fucking joke.”
“You don’t look like a dick to me··· Unless you’re actually a man? Some kind of blond, tanned femboy?”
“What the fuck are you talking about, you asshole?”
Clutch—.
A hand clamped around my collar.
Stinging static ran through the fabric of my clothes.
“How about getting a grip on the situation?”
“I’ve never been accused of being unable to read a room.”
“Then you’re doing this on purpose?”
“Oh my, you figured it out already? You’re rather slow on the uptake.”
“What the fuck is wrong with this bastard?”
Snap—.
Kaitlyn furrowed her brow and released me.
“Hey, trash.”
The B Class students sauntered over to her side.
They surrounded me, releasing killing intent as though to pressure me.
“You have no idea how much trouble I went to just to deal with you personally.”
Thump—.
A light fist struck me in the chest.
The corners of Kaitlyn’s mouth twisted into a mocking grin.
“I challenge you to a ranking duel, you son of a bitch. Two days from now, at the public training arena, in front of every first-year watching.”
Her bright yellow pupils were filled with ridicule.
“How about getting humiliated in front of everyone?”
“······.”
A ranking duel meant that three or more professors had authorized one under the current circumstances.
Therefore, I had no way to refuse the challenge.
I had fallen right into their trap.
Was this what they had been preparing over the past week?
I assumed a serious air and slowly stroked the edge of my mask.
“What? Scared? Want to crawl over here and beg?”
“······.”
They kept provoking me, but I held it in.
Otherwise, I felt they might notice the expression beneath my mask.
I let out a deep breath.
Then I gave her my answer to the challenge.
“Well···.”
The corners of my mask’s mouth split all the way to its ears.
I had tried to hide it as much as possible, but it seemed it had all leaked out in the end.
“Want to put a bet on it? A duel by itself sounds boring.”
“What? A bet?”
Kaitlyn frowned as though asking what kind of nonsense I was spouting.
But I was already wearing a broad grin.
Suppressing the laughter about to burst out, I spoke.
“The loser becomes the winner’s lackey from now on.”
“What?”
“You do whatever I want.”
There it was.
My dopamine.