Chapter 12
"Hey, Monica. Good work. Were you able to make contact with the prince?"
By the time Monica returned to the attic room in her dormitory, the sun had completely set, and the black cat Nero slipped in through the attic window.
As soon as she returned to the attic room, Monica flopped face-down onto the bed. She now slowly sat up and weakly shook her head.
At this point, Monica couldn't make contact with the prince, let alone manage even ordinary interaction with her classmates. How was she supposed to approach the prince in this situation?
When Monica began tearfully voicing her complaints, Nero spoke proudly while swishing his tail from side to side.
"I went and gathered information! Praise me!"
"...Yeah. Thank you."
"Prepare to be amazed. The Second Prince is the student council president. In other words, if you become a student council member, you can get close to him naturally."
Nero's opinion had indeed hit the mark.
The Second Prince and Monica were in different grades, so approaching him normally would be extremely difficult. But if she became a fellow student council member, she could get close to him naturally... but—
"...Noooooo."
To become a student council member, excellent grades were an absolute requirement. On top of that, connections to current student council members were apparently necessary as well.
"But Monica, you're one of the Seven Sages, right? You're a genius, right? So if you get really, really good grades on the next test, you'll surely be able to become a student council member..."
Monica silently shook her head and laid her textbooks out on the desk.
The overwhelming majority of the textbooks were about history and languages. That was only natural, given the knowledge expected of noble children.
Monica's field of study, meanwhile, had been magic in all its forms. She was well versed in magical history, basic magic, magical formulae, and laws related to magic, but in every other subject besides arithmetic, she was below average.
"You went to a school called Minerva, right? Didn't you study languages there?"
"...At Minerva, I specialized in... ancient magical script and Spirit Language..."
If the nobles of this country wrote letters in ancient magical script and conversed with spirits, Monica's knowledge would have been extremely useful. Of course, however, neither was knowledge expected of noble children.
"...What am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"
Monica sat on the bed, hugged Nero to her chest, and let her complaints spill out.
Monica was nowhere near ready to guard the Second Prince. Just managing not to flunk out of this academy was all she could do.
No—even before she got to that...
"...Two people were kind to me today."
Monica glanced at the ribbon and the package of nuts lying on her desk.
Lana had acted high-handedly, but she was the first person in that class to speak to Monica.
The young man she had met in the old garden had prioritized picking up Monica's nuts over the documents.
"I really wanted to say, 'Thank you,' properly, but..."
Monica felt pathetic. She could point out numerical errors, yet she couldn't even say a simple thank you.
As Monica lowered her head dejectedly, Nero looked up at her.
"You managed to say 'thank you' to me normally. You just said it a moment ago. I heard you."
"Th-that was because Nero isn't human..."
Nero frowned just like a human, but then his face took on a thoughtful look, as if he had suddenly thought of something. He swished his tail and climbed down from Monica's lap.
"All right, then. I'll help you practice overcoming your shyness around people."
"Nero? D-don't tell me..."
"That's exactly what I mean."
Nero hopped onto the chair and swished his tail once. In an instant, his form warped, and the black cat became a mass of black shadow. Before long, the shadow expanded into the silhouette of a human being.
Within the time it took her to blink twice, color spread across the shadow. As though ink were being washed away, smooth, flesh-colored skin emerged from beneath it.
"There. How's that?"
Sitting in the chair was no longer a black cat, but a young man in his twenties with black hair and golden eyes. He was wearing a somewhat old-fashioned robe.
Naturally, he wasn't human. Nero had taken on a human form.
Monica knew that Nero could take human form, and she had even seen him do it before... but faced with the reality of an adult man standing before her, her body stiffened of its own accord.
"Eek... n-no..."
Monica's eyes, which normally gazed vaguely downward, flew open as wide as they could, and her slender body began to tremble violently.
Monica curled up on the bed and covered her head with her hands as though shielding herself.
"No... I don't want that... Nero, please... turn back into a cat..."
Monica looked on the verge of tears, but Nero puffed out his cheeks sulkily. In that pose, he looked strangely childish for someone in the form of an adult man.
"No way! You can at least manage to talk to Ruru Runtatta, even if you stammer quite a bit!"
Apparently, Nero had no intention of learning Lewis Miller's name.
For the moment, Monica corrected Nero's mangling of Lewis's name and protested:
"Lewis-san pinches my cheeks if I don't answer properly! And when it gets really bad, he slaps me across both cheeks!!"
"Whoa... Seriously? What a terrible guy. Well, I won't slap you around! See? I'm kind, aren't I?"
Lewis was just more extreme than most. Being treated that way was normal.
But Nero merely snorted smugly and pressed closer to Monica.
"Come on, thank me~ Worship me~ Say thank you~"
As Nero kept advancing, Monica leaned backward and opened and closed her mouth helplessly.
"Eek... th... tha... th-thank... th..."
After barely managing to get out two syllables, Monica's mouth began mumbling meaningless sounds; all she could do after that was pant raggedly. From the outside, she looked like someone who was feeling ill.
Nero pursed his lips like a sulking child.
"Oh, I see. Monica isn't grateful to me, even though I infiltrated the academy and gathered information for her. Oh, I'm so shocked. So huuurttt."
"N-no, that's not it. Sor..."
"I'd rather hear 'thank you' than 'sorry.' Come on, come on—properly praise your familiar, Master."
With that, Nero swung his legs back and forth carelessly while sitting on the chair.
Monica squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her fists on her lap, and forced the words out.
"Th-thank you for everything, Nero!"
"Oh, nice! That's the spirit, that's the spirit. All right, next: Nero-sama is the greatest!"
"Nero-sama is the greatest!"
"Nero-sama is wonderful!"
"Nero-sama is wonderful!"
Nero scratched his cheek as he watched Monica repeat the words with her eyes spinning.
"...Somehow, I feel like a villain brainwashing an innocent person."
"Nero, that's mean..."
"What d'you mean, meow?! I'm doing this for your sake, so... huh?"
Nero's golden eyes swiveled toward the window, then he opened it and leaned out.
Monica hurriedly tugged at the hem of Nero's robe.
"N-Nero! B-be careful! You'll fall...!"
"Hey, Monica, look. There's someone suspicious at the boys' dormitory."
"...Huh?"
Monica leaned out of the window alongside Nero and looked toward the adjacent boys' dormitory.
The attic window was high and offered a good view, but moonlight alone was far too unreliable for seeing clearly.
Without chanting, Monica activated magic for long-distance vision and night vision. This wasn't magic that enhanced her eyesight; it projected a distant scene as an image in her mind.
(...There's someone in the boys' dormitory courtyard...)
An image of the boys' dormitory appeared in Monica's mind. By concentrating further, she could see someone emerging from a first-floor window.
The figure wore a hooded cloak drawn over their head, hiding their face. Black hair could be seen flickering through a gap in the hood.
The figure was tall and slender, and beneath the cloak was a splendid frock coat.
The figure nimbly emerged from the first-floor window into the garden, then disappeared among the trees.
"They're out of sight now. Can't your magic do something?"
"...Long-distance vision isn't x-ray vision. If they've hidden behind an obstacle, I can't track them any farther... but..."
Monica rested a finger against her chin and narrowed her eyes.
Right now, numbers were racing through Monica's mind at dizzying speed.
Those numbers revealed one fact to Monica.
"...I've met that person."