Chapter 94 – A Sensitive Day

Yesterday morning. When I woke up, there was a neatly arranged stack of papers on my desk.

On top of those papers was a note with a brief message. It stated that how I used this information was entirely up to me.

However, the moment Stella read the note, it burst into pitch-black flames and vanished without a trace.
And within those flames, I could sense magi.

After quickly dispersing the faint traces of magi lingering in the room, Stella read through the documents beneath the note.

That section contained… well, a very urgent situation was described in detail, but the conclusion was simple.

If I told Eliarnes about this now, she would certainly be unable to make rational judgments.
So I would need to organize everything as clearly as possible, omit the unbelievable parts, and supplement the missing pieces with the most plausible assumptions before explaining it to her.

And that’s what I did.
I stayed up all night sorting through the information and piecing together the puzzle until a somewhat complete picture emerged.

Now I needed to tell Eliarnes about it.
With that thought in mind, I called for her.

But before I could explain, she caught me.

***

That was Stella’s explanation of the situation.

What followed were Stella’s own deductions and four or five potential solutions for resolving this crisis.

As I listened to her reasoning and proposed solutions, I realized that the source of Stella’s information and the information Ophelia had brought were one and the same.

And… I knew Stella was innocent.

Her deductions and solutions were incredibly foolish, clumsy, and somewhat lacking—typical Stella—but her expression was more serious than I’d ever seen before.

Her explanation had lasted over six hours.
I wasn’t sure if she truly did it all for my sake, but she had clearly put in considerable effort in her own way.

So I… started with an apology.

“…I’m sorry for misunderstanding you.”

Stella’s eyes widened in surprise.

“…What? What the hell? What’s wrong with you?”

“Why are you making a fuss when I apologize?”

“This isn’t the right time for an apology! If it were you, you’d be interrogating me rudely, asking annoying questions, being irritatingly persistent… That’s how you should be acting! This is strange…?”

“Are you doing this on purpose today?”

“You really are… not well.”

I wanted to argue further but instead closed my mouth and sank deeper into the chair.

As Stella pointed out, I wasn’t in good condition.
Sara, Yurasia, and even my mother… none of them suffered this severely, but for some reason, mine was particularly bad.

And the… amount was also greater for me.
From what I observed, my mother, Sara, and Yurasia changed about every 3 or 4 hours.
For me, it was every 2 hours… and on the second day, when it was heaviest, I had to change every hour.

That said, it wasn’t exactly painful.
Well, it was painful, but not enough to make me writhe in agony.
Just annoying enough to be irritating.

However, the real problem lay elsewhere.
Perhaps my mood? Emotions? I wasn’t sure, but something psychological became unnecessarily soft.

As a result, my body grew sluggish, my senses dulled, and… I don’t know. I just felt weaker overall.

So right now, I was in an extremely… fragile state.
At times like these, my mother or Sara would always stroke my stomach to comfort me.

…Not that I missed it or anything.
It just came to mind, that’s all.
Seriously. I mean, am I at an age where I’d get homesick just because I’m away from home? Please.

“Shit.”

“Why do you curse when someone’s worried about you?!”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

I popped a lemon candy—one I’d bought for Stella—into my mouth and burrowed deeper into the plush chair.
I wondered if Stella always sat in this chair.
Sitting here quietly, I could catch faint traces of her scent.

“So… what do you plan to do now?”

“About what?”

“‘About what?’ What do you mean? Shibria knows about this, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t you… take some kind of action?”

I silently observed Stella, who spoke with genuine concern.

“W-what…! Why are you staring at me like that! Is it because I’m butting into your family matters? Hah… that’s not it, okay?! I’m just… just, well, simply… concerned that, you know, something might happen to you!”

“Why would my wellbeing matter to you? What do you lose if something happens to me? Would it cost you something?”

“L-lose something? Lose… I would lose something! I… I wouldn’t get to eat macarons anymore!”

Her ridiculous excuse made me chuckle.

“Oh? Are you worried I might die?”

“N-no, I’m not! Why would I worry about you? Ha, I’m just concerned about the macarons, okay?!”

“Is that so? Then you’ve just been seeing me as a source of money? And here I thought I genuinely meant something to you.”

“…Huh? G-genuinely? What?”

Stella stared blankly, looking dumbfounded.
She opened and closed her mouth, seemingly searching for something to say.

Of course, I didn’t give her the chance.

“I’ve been bringing you meals and loads of snacks because I was worried about you, but you? You just see me as a cash cow. Well, what can I do? That’s my karma, I suppose.”

“N-no… that’s not what I—”

“Forget it. You’re just going to make excuses anyway.”

Stella looked at me with a flushed face.

“That’s not true! It really isn’t! I was just, you know, joking! Why aren’t you playing along with jokes today—no, wait… I’m sorry. The joke went too far…”

I glanced at Stella briefly before lowering my gaze again. Then I let out a gentle, wistful sigh.

Stella violently flinched in response.

“…Eliarnes?”

I didn’t answer, just flicked my eyes toward her.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she trembled pitifully—quite a sight to behold.

She fidgeted nervously with her fingers, clearly panicking. What should I do? How should I handle this? She’s unwell and I might have been too harsh? I’ve gone mad, absolutely mad. Why did I say that?

Having spent the entire day talking with Silina, seeing such a fresh and candid reaction was incredibly refreshing.

As expected, nothing lifts my mood better than Stella.

“I-I was joking! I was… yeah! I was worried about you, that’s why I… ugh! If you weren’t here, the academy would be boring—no, I mean lonely! That’s why! That’s why I was concerned! The macarons aren’t important!”

She looked ready to drop to her knees and beg for forgiveness.
I didn’t bother suppressing my laughter and nodded.

“I suppose you wouldn’t have any friends if I weren’t around.”

Stella bristled at that comment but bit her lips and clenched her fists.

“If you’re just going to talk nonsense, at least answer my question. So, what are you going to do? Leave things as they are?”

I already had a plan in place.
I wasn’t entirely sure how it would unfold, but given Silina’s confidence, I doubted it would be a complete disaster even if things went wrong.

The only question was whether I should share this with Stella.

“Hey.”

“What?”

Should I ask her?
Would it be better to wait until my mind was more stable?
Would she even answer if I asked now?

I wasn’t sure.
I didn’t even know why I was bothering with such an unsuitable dilemma.

“Let me ask you one thing.”

Originally, I had wanted to wait until Stella was ready to tell me everything of her own accord.
I thought that would build a stronger foundation of trust between us.

But now…
Why did I suddenly feel this urge to ask?
Was it because Yurasia wasn’t here, and I wanted someone I could trust? Was I lonely? Me?

I’ve never been someone who easily feels lonely.
Not in my past life, and not now.

“Do you have some grudge against Eustetia?”

But I couldn’t stop the words from coming out.
This is why I hate these sensitive days. Damn it.

“…What? Where is this coming from?”

“I’m certain I didn’t know you before. I was confined to my home before coming to the academy. But you seemed to recognize me. I could tell from the way you glared at me during the entrance exam. It felt like you had a grudge—not against me personally, but against Eustetia, my family.”

Stella’s mouth hung open in shock.
Her eyes darted around as if searching for a response.
It seemed I had hit the mark.

“And from your explanation just now, you know quite a lot about Eustetia. Things that aren’t common knowledge. While I don’t want to undermine what you’ve shared out of concern for me, this is something I need to understand.”

As I said, Stella knew surprisingly much about Eustetia.

She knew about how my father had massacred some branch family members and the entire Elder Council. She understood the differences between the Knights and the Nameless, and knew about the Nameless’ reputation and notoriety.
And she had some awareness, albeit limited, of the current political situation in the Eustetia Duchy.

“What happened between you and Eustetia?”

I had suspected something before, but now it was confirmed.
Stella had some history with Eustetia.
And judging by how thoroughly she had investigated, it wasn’t something trivial.

Was it something my father had done?
Or the branch families? The Nameless? The Knights?

I couldn’t tell. Which is why I needed to know.

“Even you can tell I’m not in my right state of mind now. I’m currently… quite fragile. So if you’re going to talk, now is the best time.”

Her deep blue eyes trembled violently.

“If you tell me your secret, I’ll trust you. I’ll trust you and stop testing or probing you. I promise.”

“…And if I don’t?”

“We continue as we have been. I won’t distance myself just because you won’t talk. I couldn’t anyway—you owe me too much.”

“D-debt? You… you were serious about that?”

“Heh, look at this girl. Did you think I wouldn’t collect all that money? No, wait—there’s your life debt too. Did you think I’d just let that slide?”

I had made it clear back then.
If she couldn’t repay with money, she’d have to pay with her body.

Since then, I’d bought her countless meals, desserts, macarons, artifacts, clothes, even spare academy uniforms—the amount had grown considerably by now.

Therefore…

“You can’t escape from me. If you try to run, I’ll break your limbs. Understand?”

“Y-you’re insane… you scammer! I… I never asked for any of that money!!”

“Yet you happily accepted everything until now, and you’re claiming you never asked for it? Too late. Besides, money aside, you do owe me your life. You know that.”

“Ugh…!”

With a crimson face, Stella fumbled for words before letting out a heavy sigh.

“…You want to know what happened between me and Eustetia?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“…What kind of answer is that?”

“I don’t understand my own thoughts either. They keep going in strange directions, and I can’t keep up.”

Stella frowned at me before sighing again and asking in an extremely cautious voice:

“If I tell you… will you cancel my debt?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“…You cold-hearted witch.”

“If I find your story worthwhile, I might consider reducing it somewhat.”

“I’m not telling you because of the debt!”

“I might have believed that if you hadn’t mentioned it.”

“I’m serious!!”

Thud! Stella slammed her fist on the table and stared directly at me.

“Eliarnes.”

“What.”

“Will you… really believe what I say?”

What did she mean by that?
Various thoughts raced through my mind.

What should I do?
I had already given my answer to that question.
My response wouldn’t change.

“If you tell me everything, I will believe you. That was my promise.”

“…Really?”

“Yes.”

“I could be manipulating you, you know.”

“No. The Stella I know isn’t clever enough to construct such elaborate lies.”

“…I really hate you.”

“I hate you too.”

Stella twisted a strand of hair around her finger before grasping the end tightly and finally speaking.

“…It’s about my mother.”

With that single word—mother—the puzzle pieces in my mind began to align.

Eustetia.
Stella Verheigen’s mother.
A problem that arose between them.

This was going to be… complicated.

Just as that thought crossed my mind—

Ding! My device chimed.

[Pina]

“What now.”

“Hey, why are you suddenly checking your Terminal in the middle of our—”

“Wait a moment. Let me just check this.”

There wasn’t much to the message.
Actually, there was nothing at all.
Just a single photo.

A familiar image.
One familiar not just to me, but to every student at the academy.

A wall made of glowing blue mineral.
Mysterious, indecipherable patterns carved into its surface.
And at the center of that wall stood a massive gate.

The main entrance to the academy.

A photo of the main gate taken from inside the academy grounds.

However, it was severely shaken and taken at an odd angle.

Did she send it by mistake?

That’s what I thought as I was about to set my Terminal down. But at that moment, I noticed something at the edge of the photo.

Light. A faint glow.
At a glance, it could be mistaken for sunlight.

The light of Sparkle.

I spotted Sparkle’s light captured in the photo.

But hadn’t Sparkle said she couldn’t leave for a while?

I tapped on Pina’s profile.
The green status light was on.

I called her.

Thirty seconds. One minute. One minute thirty seconds.

No answer. I tried again.
Still no response.

“Hey, what are you doing, suddenly interrupting our conversation?”

Stella pouted and grumbled.
Outside the window, the peaceful chatter of students could be heard. The sunset was warm, and the spring breeze was pleasantly cool.

A comfortable, peaceful scene.

But within that tranquility, I detected something foul.

The stench of a reptile.