Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Five: Lesson of First Encounters
“Hello! You’re someone I haven’t seen before, aren’t you? I’m—”
“Hah?”
“Eeep.”
The girl fixed him with a fierce glare, and Michael’s eyes went watery. Mark, who had been watching from the side, hurried to step between them.
Everyone had noticed the unfamiliar girl sitting in on the morning lesson. Since Harald hadn’t said anything about her presence, it was clear she had permission to be there—but he hadn’t introduced her either, and everyone was curious.
She had looked like just an ordinary cute girl while the lesson was going on. But Michael, who had been the first to approach her, had been magnificently rebuffed.
“Michael was only trying to say hello. That kind of attitude isn’t really okay, is it?”
“Annoying.”
The girl cut down Mark’s carefully measured, gentle rebuke in a single stroke.
“I’m only here to learn to read and write. Don’t talk to me.”
With that, she turned away. She was a girl with vivid red hair and red eyes. Her features were pretty, but her upturned eyes carried sharpness to them, and the sullen twist of her mouth inspired a reflexive unease.
But she was still smaller than Mark. Steeling himself, Mark issued a warning:
“Are you from outside? You might not know, but Michael is a noble. His sister has high magical power too. You should drop that attitude.”
“Like I’m scared of a noble.”
The girl laughed off Mark’s well-meaning words with contempt.
“I’m not scared of anything.”
She laughed, those burning red eyes alight. It looked almost as if she was mocking Mark for being afraid, and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“So why did you come to learn to read and write?”
Michael, undeterred, asked again in Mark’s place as he stood at a loss for words.
“Noisy.”
“Hehe, people say that a lot.”
“Huh? Why are you acting shy about it?”
The girl’s expression turned slightly unsettled, but remarkably, Michael no longer flinched at it.
“Teacher Harald’s lessons aren’t open to just anyone, are they? Are you connected to the Ehlertt’s household? Or do you know Lady Karen?”
“What reason do I have to tell you?”
“Awww. But I really wanna knooow!”
Michael kept talking, laughing, going teary-eyed, squirming—a one-man performance. Mark had already been thoroughly defeated, but Michael had an extraordinary resilience.
“I don’t have magical power, but I’m a noble, so I’ve learned to read and write—maybe there’s something I can help you with!”
“…For real?”
Being born a noble apparently meant being raised with some degree of care, even without magical power. He had a beautiful, devoted sister watching over him. On top of that, he had even managed to catch the attention of the red-haired girl.
Mark felt envious, but he lowered his head because he did not want anyone to realize it.
The red-haired girl hesitated, then opened her mouth:
“…Do you know how to write a letter? A proper one.”
“What kind of letter do you want to write? A seasonal greeting? A letter of condolence? Or a letter of thanks?”
“A thank-you… I want to say thank you. To a high-ranking adventurer.”
The girl mumbled it out. The clumsy way she was trying to hide her embarrassment was almost endearing. But pointing that out would obviously invite terrible consequences. Mark pressed his lips together to keep himself from saying anything foolish.
“Oh, you’re being all shy, that’s so cu—guugh.”
Michael said an unnecessary thing and took a palm strike to the chin, tumbling backward. From the second roll onward, it looked like he was rolling on purpose, but Mark helped Michael back to his feet anyway.
“You’re gross, so forget it. Go away.”
When the girl snapped it out like that, there was something about it that made Mark feel he had no choice but to comply. His own spirit was already quite crushed. And yet Michael was writhing around, going "Noooooo" without a shred of repentance.
The last thing Mark wanted to do was envy that, and so he found he stopped envying Michael at all.
His first meeting with Michael had been something like this too—Michael stood out from the others, and Mark had somehow ended up looking out for him, and before he knew it, they had grown close. He’d been quite surprised when he later found out Michael was a noble.
“Hey, what’s that?”
One moment she was trying to find out about letter-writing, then ordering people away, and now asking questions—Mark was quietly irritated by the imperious girl, but he looked where she was looking out the window, and his eyes went wide.
“Lena!?”
“Isn’t that kid trying to sneak out of the annex? You all need permission to leave from here, right? I can come and go as I please, though.”
Outside the window, Lena was unmistakably trying not to be seen. She had ducked her small body headfirst into a hedge and then disappeared entirely from view. Mark half-rose from his chair.
“She wouldn’t be trying to go back to Viscount Bell’s territory… would she…?”
“Go back? You don’t have anywhere to go back to, do you?”
Mark knew better than anyone what it meant to have nowhere to go back to. Everyone here knew it. Even so, wasn’t it a matter of basic decency not to say it out loud?
Mark turned to say something to the girl about her unpleasant way of putting things—and froze.
He found himself looking into the girl’s eyes, which were gleaming like a cat that had spotted its prey. Those red eyes were frightening, and yet the lips that had been twisted in a sulk just moments ago had spread into a wide, blooming smile—and that smiling face was, strangely, quite beautiful.
Beautiful, but a frightening smile. It gave the distinct impression that he was about to be toyed with and torn to shreds for her amusement.
Mark stood frozen like a mouse under a cat’s gaze, and at that moment, Michael bolted out of the room. For some reason, the girl charged after him, and Mark ended up following along behind the two of them.
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