episode_0021

After receiving the diagnosis at the hospital, my academy classes usually went like this.

I attended classes that had become meaningless to me.

At some point, I began to be treated as invisible by other students and the professor.

Of course, being treated as invisible was a relatively fortunate treatment.

If I made any mistake, the immediate response from other students was their murmurs of disapproval.

Still, indifference is better than contempt.

There’s nothing as painful as indiscriminate contemptuous glances.

Anyway, this time alone, unnoticed by anyone else, is my own time during academy classes.

Perhaps this is the only meaning allowed to me in academy classes.

Just quietly.

Like water flowing quietly along the road, time just flows as it does.

The classes I once diligently attended no longer needed to be attended, and the human relationships I once worked hard to improve no longer held meaning for me.

Extinguishing a dying fire.

There was no need to foolishly put logs on a dying fire that would go out no matter what I did.

That would be a waste.

Truly a meaningless waste.

That’s why, I found this situation rather comfortable.

Because it’s peaceful.

If no one pays attention to me, and I don’t pay attention to anyone, there can be no greater peace than this.

It was only difficult because I hadn’t realized this fact in the past.

Trying to change my image.

It was only difficult because of my desire to somehow change my image and fit in with others.

It’s easier to give up.

I don’t know who came up with that saying, but it was a clear answer that made my head nod involuntarily, at least until the last class.

“Am I seeing this right?”

“Why is Princess Labilaa sitting next to that loser? Was there no other seat available?”

“But she’s always been sitting alone in that seat next to the loser.”

Yes, until ‘the last class.’

Until today, when out of the blue, Labilaa sat next to me, drawing everyone’s attention before the class began.

“······Sigh.”

Suppressing the sigh that was trying to escape my lips, I approached Labilaa, who was still calmly focused on the class, and spoke.

“······Your Highness.”

“Why are you calling me, Lian Treiss? It’s clearly class time, so casual chatter is definitely off-limits.”

Labilaa cut off my sentence with a shield of “it’s class time” as soon as she heard me. I didn’t really want to know, but it felt like my words were being blocked.

It feels like having my mouth shut. It was truly a strange experience. How could words vanish in an instant? If that’s a talent, it’s quite a talent – the ability to silence someone in an instant.

As I gazed at her with a speechless expression, Labilaa, as if it were a joke, slightly lifted the corners of her mouth and continued.

“However, since you’ve made the effort to call me, I’ll answer just this once.”

“······Yes. Thank you.”

“Alright. What do you want to ask me?”

“Don’t you feel anything, Your Highness?”

I asked Labilaa with an incredulous expression. Can’t you feel it? The gazes are so palpable that it’s almost uncomfortable. It’s not a lie; it truly was uncomfortable. With a bit of exaggeration, it felt like everyone in the classroom, except for the professor, was looking in our direction.

Surely, someone once said that humans are adaptable creatures. They said that if you keep receiving others’ gazes, you eventually get used to it. I’m sure I heard something like that somewhere. But judging by the discomfort I’m feeling now, it doesn’t seem entirely true.

“······Is my face making you uncomfortable?”

“What’s uncomfortable about it? Did my skin turn blue from the cold or something?”

Because of this, Labilaa, sitting as composed as ever and casually throwing jokes, seemed even more intriguing. Is she truly human? Even if she looks perfectly fine listening to the lecture while enduring these intense gazes, is that really the behavior of a human?

And it’s as if she read my thoughts.

Labilaa quietly opened her expressionless mouth.

“You seem to find me fascinating.”

“···.”

“Perhaps it’s natural. No matter how much you’ve lived hearing the world’s evaluation of you as a good-for-nothing, it must have been difficult to get used to the indiscriminate gaze of people.”

“If you felt bad, I apologize now.”

“No, there’s no need for you to apologize. That’s a typical human reaction.”

Shaking her head slightly, Labilaa denied my words and was now looking straight at me.

“Rather, I now feel that you are acting like a human.”

“A human?”

“Yes. Although I haven’t fully grasped who Lian Trice is, from my perspective so far, I didn’t think you were acting like a human.”

Not acting like a human.

To someone, it could sound very offensive.

No, it wasn’t necessary to go that far.

If an ordinary person had heard it, it would have been a statement that they would naturally refute right away.

Even if the other party was Labilaa.

Even if the other party was the imperial princess.

Human dignity is much more important than one might think.

Especially in this academy, where status is relatively less important than outside.

If it were an ordinary person, for the sake of their own dignity, they would have at least negated Labilaa’s words.

“You’re not going to refute it?”

“Do I really need to refute it?”

This is assuming the listener was an ordinary person.

‘······Dignity.’

Dignity.

It was a word that was truly distant and far from me.

– I’m sorry.

– ···.

– Please, please beg like this. Won’t you forgive the naive me from the past?

To take responsibility for someone else’s mistake means letting go of your own pride.

A long time, a year.

In other words, it was enough time for a human to completely abandon their dignity.

The situation reversed, and now Labilaa was looking at me with an expression of fascination.

“Showing the eyes of an ordinary person for a moment. You’ve returned to your original eyes.”

“······Is that so?”

“Yeah. That’s also the thing I dislike the most in the world.”

Labilaa stared straight into my eyes.

As if she wanted to etch the very thing she disliked the most once again into her memory.

“I still don’t know what kind of life you’ve lived. It’s not right to judge someone’s life based solely on hearsay and rumors.”

“···.”

“But, I can be certain about one thing. Your current appearance bears a striking resemblance to my past self.”

“······That’s true.”

How glorious.

I couldn’t bring myself to agree with Labilaa’s words in the end.

The reason was simple.

As someone who had read the original work, I couldn’t possibly echo Labilaa’s statement.

Labilaa von Felias’s past.

More precisely, the lonely past of a young princess who had lost her only supporter.

Perhaps it was the author’s dark taste.

The pasts of the characters in the novel “Sword of the Academy” were all far from ordinary.

The protagonist himself had lost his entire family to monsters and spent his childhood in an orphanage.

All the heroines who took a liking to such a protagonist had pasts that were quite distant from a normal life.

Among them, the heroine with the most unblemished past was Aria Trice, who had a brother like Lian, a rascal.

‘······This is simply because the furthest past hasn’t been revealed.’

Considering that this case was simply due to the fact that the past hadn’t been revealed much, the setting of the original work was even more gloomy than imagined.

Upon hearing the sentence that had been coming along nicely but then abruptly cut off, Labilaa smirked and smiled wryly.

“This is the first time for a situation like this. Even when a princess herself says that her past is similar, maintaining composure is rare.”

“···.”

Suddenly changing her demeanor, she spoke with a chilling expression.

“How dare an ordinary noble like you meddle in the affairs of the royal family, especially those related to a princess like me.”

“······Ah.”

“Isn’t that so? At least, that’s how I see it.”

I made a mistake.

The thought that came to mind as soon as I saw Labilaa’s chilly expression.

I shouldn’t have nodded there.

It seemed as if she should have slightly smiled and brushed it off or made a grimace, but it had to be Labilaa of all people. Labilaa, who had spent her childhood in a place where one would die if they lacked sensitivity. At that moment, she began to fall into self-blame for making such a huge mistake.

“······Of course, this is also a joke.”

“···.”

Labilaa’s cold expression seemed to loosen as if to say, “When did that happen?”

“You already told me directly last time. You just want to live comfortably. Perhaps you didn’t even think twice about it just now.”

“···.”

“I have no particular reason for sitting next to you today. I simply kept the promise we made on the weekend.”

“······The weekend?”

“I definitely sent it, didn’t I? We agreed to meet at the academy on Monday.”

After hearing this, a sudden message came to mind:

– You’ve had a tough day today too.

– Well then, let’s meet at the academy on Monday.

The contents of the message that Labilaa sent me after the request was over.

“······Could it be that message?”

“It’s only now coming back to you, huh? I simply kept the promise I made to you.”

Labilaa confidently spoke as if she had done nothing wrong.

‘······Was that really a promise?’

As someone who had naturally thought it was just a courtesy message, I was simply bewildered.

It was real.

This is an unexpected turn of events.

“To think that you dismissed my sincerity as a mere courtesy message. This is truly a heartbreaking matter.”

“······I haven’t said anything yet.”

“There’s no need to wait. I can tell just by looking at your expression.”

“···.”

“Ah, forget it. Stop blaming yourself. This happened because I trusted someone I shouldn’t have.”

Is it because of my mood?

Why does this tone sound so familiar yet unpleasant?

As I pondered Labilaa’s words, reminiscent of someone with gray hair, she proposed to me as if she had been waiting for this moment.

“Instead, how about telling me now why you want to live comfortably?”

“···.”

“Surely you won’t reject me for the mistake you just made. I don’t want to believe that you’re such an impolite person.”

Finally, as if seizing the opportunity to hear the truth from me, Labilaa smirked wickedly.

Unfortunately,

“······What is politeness?”

“···.”

“As a dull person, I really don’t know what that is.”

At this moment, I was someone who could easily discard politeness for my own sake.