Chapter 61
At the Highorn Marquis's estate, Cyril had been compiling the results of his joint research with Raul Roseberg, the 〈Thorn Witch〉. Once their work reached a stopping point, he broached the subject over tea with a grave expression.
...I may be hated.
With his mouth stuffed full of a cookie, Raul asked, "By whom?"
Cyril knit his brows slightly and opened his mouth, looking bitter.
"Monica's..."
"Monica's?"
"Her cat."
Raul licked the cookie crumbs from his fingers with poor table manners and cocked his head.
"Did Monica have a cat?"
"A black cat. I see it from time to time."
Cyril had seen the cat several times when visiting Monica's house in Southdoll.
That black cat seemed especially attached to Isaac, and often frolicked around his feet whenever Isaac was preparing a meal.
Cyril secretly hoped the cat might come over and let him pet it a little, but whenever he approached, it immediately leaped onto the top of a cupboard or fled upstairs.
He knew why. Before Cyril had realized Monica's true identity, his tendency to absorb excessive amounts of magical power had caused his magic to run wild, and he had ended up fighting the disguised Monica. During that fight, he had seriously attacked the black cat after it stole his magical brooch.
He had been hotheaded at the time, but there was no way a cat would understand that. The cat was surely afraid of him.
...Last time, I secretly put some dried fish in my pocket, but the cat wouldn't come anywhere near me.
"Cyril, you make a weird face whenever I put vegetables in my pocket, but you put fish in yours?"
Cyril shot a sharp glare at Raul, who had pursed his lips.
Cyril only smuggled dried fish in his pocket when visiting Monica's house. He had no desire to be teased by a man who brought vegetables into the castle and even to parties.
In response to Cyril's rising irritation, a small amount of magical power tinged with cold seeped out.
Looking at the brooch at Cyril's collar, Raul murmured,
"Maybe animals dislike you because you're leaking magic. Animals are surprisingly sensitive to magical power."
"Damn, so it is this..."
Cyril gripped the brooch and hung his head.
Because Cyril's body absorbed magical power in excess, he regularly used this brooch-shaped magical tool to discharge the power accumulated inside him. As a result, the magical power around Cyril was slightly denser, and because the discharged power was converted into ice magic, his surroundings were a little chilly.
Come to think of it, Cyril had been fairly well-liked by animals as a child. They had only started avoiding him around the time he began studying magic.
"Should I cast some spells beforehand to reduce the magical power inside me before approaching? ...Or perhaps in summer it would come closer seeking the coolness? And then I could try a different kind of fish... Maybe I should casually ask Monica what that cat likes next time?"
Cyril, muttering to himself with the utmost seriousness, did not know
that Worgan's black dragon preferred meat to fish—and, for that matter, was hardy in the heat but weak in the cold.
As Cyril seriously considered how to befriend the cat, Raul finished his tea and murmured,
"Speaking of Monica, there's something I've been wondering about."
Raul, who was usually grinning cheerfully, now wore an unusually serious expression.
But Raul Roseberg was a man renowned for making utterly ridiculous suggestions while wearing an utterly serious expression.
Whatever he was wondering about, it was surely nothing important.
Thinking it was nothing serious, Cyril listened as Raul spoke in a low voice,
"Monica... at the party the other day... she was crying."
Cyril immediately turned serious.
"That was because you made her play the villainess, wasn't it?"
"No, no! Before that! Before Monica joined us, she was crying alone in the hallway."
"What?"
Monica was timid and fearful, and she often quickly dissolved into whimpering tears, so the fact that she was crying was not particularly unusual. But the fact that she had been crying alone caught his attention.
"After the trouble with Ray had settled down, I was planning to quietly ask her, 'What happened?' But Monica went straight home afterward, so I couldn't talk to her."
Cyril had some idea why Monica had gone home so quickly.
Remembering it, Cyril's face flushed bright red.
The incident after the 〈Abyssal Curse-Mage〉's rampage, when Monica's dress had come undone—Monica had probably hurried home because of that.
(Come to think of it, Monica had been about to say something to me then... Surely she wanted to consult me about something?)
After having a servant deliver Monica's dress, Cyril had searched for her, but the servant told him that Monica had changed her dress and left the party immediately.
That was why Cyril had not exchanged a word with Monica since then.
(That had nothing to do with Monica crying... probably. But if she had been troubled, and then that happened on top of it... perhaps it only made her feel worse...)
Monica's dress coming undone had been a complete accident, but if Cyril had stopped that ridiculous villainess plan in the first place, Monica would never have needed to wear such a flashy dress, one so prone to slipping off.
Thinking about it that way, Cyril couldn't help feeling that he bore some responsibility as well.
Of course, as a gentleman, Cyril had immediately looked away, so he had seen very little. Even so, the thought of Monica being terribly depressed after ending up dressed like that in front of a man stirred his guilt.
As Cyril held his head and recalled what had happened that day, Raul asked him with an unusually serious expression,
"Hey, do you have any idea why Monica was crying that day?"
"No! I most certainly did not see anything!!"
...Didn't see what?
Cyril ignored Raul's questioning voice and cleared his throat.
"In any case, she was definitely crying in the middle of the party?"
"Yeah. And if a friend was feeling down, you'd want to cheer her up, right? Can you think of any good ideas?"
"I don't think you should expect that sort of idea from me..."
Raul pressed the point as Cyril made a bitter face.
"For example, you have a younger sister, right? If your little sister was feeling down, what would you do to make her happy?"
"............"
Cyril's younger sister Claudia was not related to him by blood and was hardly a vivacious young lady even under normal circumstances. She was a beautiful woman who constantly gave off a gloomy air.
If Claudia sighed wistfully, what could he possibly do to make her happy?
If he asked Claudia what she wanted him to do, she would surely say something like this:
'...Oh, you're so kind, Big Brother............ Then, from the bottom of my heart, please don't do anything.'
Cyril folded his arms, furrowed his brow, and stared at Raul.
"Claudia and Monica are far too different for that to be useful. You have an older sister, don't you? What do you do when your sister is feeling down?"
"Huh? If Sis was feeling down? ...Hmm, she'd definitely take it out on me, so I'd make a run for it!"
"What kind of answer is that? It's completely useless."
"My sis is totally different from Monica, too. She usually cheers up after having a few drinks and going to sleep."
At this rate, they were getting nowhere.
The two of them set aside the subject of their respective sisters for the moment and focused on Monica instead.
If Monica had been crying, she surely had some kind of trouble weighing on her. In that case, the sensible thing would be to listen to her troubles first.
Once they heard her out, it might turn out to be nothing serious. If it was something one of them could do, they could help her.
"How about going to Monica's house around the next public holiday and listening to her troubles?"
"The next public holiday... Oh, right, the 'Ashelpike Festival'!"
Ashelpike was the name of an ice spirit in an old legend of the Ridill Kingdom.
The ice spirit Ashelpike loved making beautiful ice statues. But when spring came, all the beautiful ice statues melted away.
Grieving over this, Ashelpike began to sob, and the surrounding area was instantly covered in a blizzard. If things continued like that, spring would never arrive.
So the white dragon, Ashelpike's friend, disguised itself as a human, descended among the people, and searched for a present that would make Ashelpike happy.
What the white dragon found was a beautiful sugar sculpture, lovely and clear as ice.
The white dragon held out the beautiful candy to its friend Ashelpike and said,
──Pike, Pike, don't cry. I'll give you ice that won't melt.
Ashelpike was delighted by the beautiful candy, and the blizzard stopped at once along with the tears.
Thus, spring arrived safely that year as well.
...In keeping with this legend, people have a custom of exchanging candy with those close to them on the 'Ashelpike Festival.'
"That's right! Why don't we bring some pretty candy to Monica?"
"'Pike, Pike, don't cry. I'll give you ice that won't melt,' huh?"
When Cyril recited the line from the legend, Raul nodded with a broad smile and said, "That's it!"
"I might make rose-shaped candy... By the way, the legend calls candy 'ice that won't melt,' but candy melts when you put it in your mouth, doesn't it?"
"Ashelpike probably kept the candy on display without eating it."
"Wouldn't bugs swarm all over it?"
"Don't say something so prosaic."
As he played along with Raul's jokes, Cyril secretly decided to buy some candy for Monica as well.
What kind of candy did Monica like? If he was going to buy some, he wanted it to be a beautiful color.
──Thank you, Cyril-sama.
Imagining Monica lowering her brows meekly and thanking him with a bashful smile made the corners of Cyril's lips unconsciously lift a little.