episode_0209

“Have you said everything?! You, you countryside girl!!!”

“Eek?! Ah, Agnes!”

“Wait, Agnes! What are you doing?!”

The disguised quarrel operation to show others that Agnes and I had a falling out was successfully concluded thanks to her acting skills.

Agnes rushed towards me with a genuinely angry voice, making it seem like she was truly upset, and the situation was perfectly resolved with the appearance of Gyeomjo Seygikwat and Edan, who were waiting outside the square and pretending to mediate between Agnes and me.

Agnes, who put her soul into her acting, was shouting at me with a face flushed with excitement.

“Let go! Let go of this!! That girl, Lillis! That, that girl!!”

“Calm down, Agnes! Why are friends acting like this?!”

“She’s not even a friend!! Friends don’t say such things to each other!! You, you always had those thoughts in your mind, right?! Flat chest, no curves, cold heart?! You wicked girl!!”

I momentarily forgot what I was supposed to say, just staring at her in awe of the effort she put into her performance.

It was the first time I realized that she had such talent for acting, making Agnes seem so different from what I had known.

“Her acting skills are impressive, but I never knew she would put so much effort into it.”

When we had practiced the argument beforehand, it felt awkward and forced, but I never imagined she would deliver such a realistic performance.

Anyone who saw her in that state would think she was genuinely angry and pouring out her rage, without a doubt.

Seeing Gyeomjo Seygikwat and Edan rushing in to intervene, it seemed like they too were caught up in Agnes’s performance.

I was deeply moved by Agnes’s dedication to the plan, as I never expected her to work so hard for me.

“Agnes, what if you really get angry? We agreed to just pretend to fight.”

“But she… Lillis, she…”

Gyeomjo Seygikwat pulled Agnes away and spoke to her in a low voice. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were probably going over the plan again.

Edan, who had rushed towards me as soon as Agnes and I started the argument, whispered cautiously as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

“Are you okay, Lillis? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, Edan. We were just acting out a fight, it wasn’t real.”

“…Really? It wasn’t a real fight?”

“It wasn’t, why would we fight? It was all part of the plan Agnes and I came up with from the beginning. You heard the explanation at the mansion, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes. But it felt like something we didn’t discuss beforehand…”

That’s just how acting works. If a better adlib comes up on the spot, it’s natural to go with that route.

Edan looked at Agnes with a worried expression, but he was probably worrying needlessly.

Even Agnes wouldn’t actually get angry over a slight mention of a physical flaw. It was her who brought up that characteristic, not me.

By the way, Agnes was truly a master of acting, able to even make Ethan, who already knew our plan, doubt himself. She was so good that she even shed tears, as if she was determined to deceive everyone. She was awkward during practice, but she was strong in real situations.

“Bad… bad girl… sniff, sob….”

Agnes cried as if she was determined to deceive everyone, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was necessary for me to go this far.

Of course, I still felt grateful to Agnes for her passionate acting, and everyone here would undoubtedly think that a irreparable discord had arisen between me and Agnes.

It was enough to deceive MacHeart’s eyes. It was enough to speculate that the connection between me and Agnes had been completely severed and that she would definitely come after me next time.

Then, when Ethan, Agnes, and unexpectedly, Serista and Kettmyojoshegiwat, all confronted the guy together, blocking him and engaging in a full-fledged battle, it was the undercover severance operation.

I barely managed to contain the almost rising feeling of triumph at having perfectly buttoned the first button. I refrained from laughing for fear that the plan might be disrupted later.

Since it was the end of the semester and all magic department classes were over, there was no need to be under Agnes’ protection until next semester. The only remaining event was the evaluation battle a week later.

Thinking it was a perfect operation timing-wise, I was about to congratulate myself when Agnes, in tears, shouted at me for the last time.

“You, you, just wait!! I won’t let you off the hook!! You, you will definitely kneel and apologize to me!!!”

As Agnes left, perfectly portraying the defeated with a heart-wrenching performance, the attention of those around us completely shifted to me and her, and the slightly precarious undercover severance operation was perfectly concluded as she ran towards the magic department dormitory.

…At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

***

And, a week later.

Back in reality, I was quietly lost in thought in the waiting room for the evaluation battle.

I still couldn’t fully understand why I, the top student in the magic department, had to face the final evaluation battle against Agnes.

‘What could be the reason Agnes is insisting on facing me in the evaluation battle to conclude this semester.’

The incident in front of the student union building a week ago was enough to show the discord between me and her.

But continuing the act in the evaluation battle here seemed odd no matter how much I thought about it.

Maybe that act Agnes and I put on that day left a deep impression on her. Otherwise, it made no sense for her to choose me as her opponent in the evaluation battle.

Perhaps, I was being too narrow-minded.

It did seem a bit strange no matter how I looked at it. The anger Agnes showed me then was so realistic that it couldn’t be called acting.

If the anger Agnes showed that day was genuine, and if I think about the meaning behind her last words, “I won’t let you off the hook,” it wasn’t that difficult to understand the message she was trying to convey.

‘…Agnes’ act, it hasn’t ended since that day.’

I almost fell for it myself.

Agnes had already predicted how she would act when she was genuinely angry at me from the beginning. One of them would be using me as a test subject for all sorts of magic by dragging me into the final evaluation match.

It was strange that she, who had been yelling and getting angry so loudly, did not call me to the battlefield where she would have the upper hand in the fight.

If she was going to act, she should do it decisively. If she wanted me to truly believe that she was angry, she needed to show her typical behavior when she was angry until the end.

In other words, Agnes was looking down on me from a much higher position than I had realized. She was preparing for a flawless act that MacHeart would never suspect of being abnormal.

“I fell for it.”

I never thought she would lead me into such a natural situation without even telling me in advance.

At first, I thought I would correct Agnes’s awkward acting, but in reality, I was the one following Agnes’s acting.

Now that I finally realized it, I was somewhat relieved. I had been worried that Agnes was genuinely angry with me and was planning to cut ties with me.

“Let the Magic Department 2nd-year 1st-semester final evaluation match begin! The first match is between the top student of Luminaire Academy’s Magic Department 2nd-year, Agnes Elizabeth…”

As I heard the voice calling Agnes and me from outside the waiting room to the evaluation arena, I took lighter steps towards the evaluation arena.

Our act of cutting ties was heading towards its final stages.

***

As I walked towards the evaluation arena, I naturally noticed Agnes walking towards the center of the arena from the opposite waiting room.

A solemn look in her eyes as if she had resolved something. As someone who had seen her eyes become significantly sharper recently, it was a rare expression for me to see.

It was a similar expression to the one Agnes had when she called me a crazy person on the first day of Spirit Studies class. In a way, it felt even more resolute than back then.

Seeing that she had brought along the lesser flame spirit Inferno that I had given her just before the end of the Spirit Studies class, she had clearly come fully prepared.

“Hey, you! Big Chest!”

“Me?”

“You made our Agnes cry! Even if you’re Agnes’s friend, I won’t let you off this time!!”

“…”

I never thought she would appear with an act of anger even towards her own spirit.

I quietly admired Agnes’s thorough preparedness in my mind, but immediately, a provocation towards me came from the owner of that spirit.

“…Lilith.”

“Yes, Agnes.”

“…I won’t let you off this time.”

“What do you mean by not letting me off, Agnes?”

“I will show you the clear difference in our abilities in front of everyone and make you sincerely kneel and apologize to me.”

It was a subtly cute provocation for a statement made in front of the evaluation match opponent.

Of course, even though this evaluation match was not part of the plan, I had no intention of just obediently succumbing to Agnes’s magic. If I were too obvious about it, not only would my 1st-semester evaluation grades fall outside the top 10, but there was also a possibility that MacHeart, who might be watching this match from somewhere, would start to doubt.

Although it was an unplanned match, now that it had come to this, I was determined to have a proper and thorough battle.

“I hope you achieve your dream, Agnes.”

“…”

-Clang.

Agnes, gripping her staff even tighter, stepped back to the boundary of the arena, and I also prepared for the evaluation match, keeping my distance from her.

To deceive Maekhart, they began the temporary suspension of their friendship, and this was the final stage of their plan.