I hadn’t been paying much attention to the issue of Leonie supervising me, since I figured I didn’t need someone to look after me. But it sounded like everyone was assuming she was responsible for the way I acted. I never imagined that Leonie would have to face consequences for my actions. And yeah, now I felt sorry that I had put her through that.
However—
“Hmm. But is what I’m doing really so wrong?”
“What…?”
As I tilted my head to one side in confusion, Nor looked back at me like she didn’t understand.
“I mean, I’m getting good results in class, aren’t I? I may be skipping lectures, sure, but no one else in our year can beat me in practical training.”
“That’s true, but your performance in the classroom is—”
“The thing people want most out of a hero is their ability to fight, right? No matter how well you mentally understand the ins and outs of being a hero, it’s all pointless if you can’t actually hold your own in battle, isn’t it?”
“That…may also be true, but…”
I mean, maybe there were still other qualities a hero should have or other things they should know, but I was pretty sure it was an undeniable fact that the ability to fight was most important. To put it differently, as long as a person could fight, then all that other stuff didn’t really matter. But maybe everyone else didn’t think of it that way.
Besides—
“Besides, do you think it’s okay for Leonie to keep going like this, Nor?”
“What do you mean?”
Nor seemed to need more of an explanation, so I did my best to rack my brain for a way to express how I was feeling.
“Truth is, Leonie and I are kind of fighting right now.”
“You and Leonie?”
“Yeah. I was thinking about it for a while just now, and Leonie’s, like, too restricted by the fact that she’s a hero’s daughter.”
“I suppose…that does describe Leonie, yes.”
Nor looked like she was getting what I was saying, like she had felt the same thing before.
“First off, I think she puts way too much faith in her Gear. I agree that it’s a useful tool, but just because it tells the wearer what their best course of action is, that doesn’t mean they can actually accomplish it.”
“In that case—”
“Plus, how do we really know what’s ‘best’ anyway?”
“Huh…?”
This time, Nor looked like she wasn’t following at all. So I did my best to try to explain.
“There’s never only one ‘best’ solution for any given situation, right? Like, if your opponent comes slashing at you with a sword during a battle, what’s ‘best’ will change depending on if you want to counterattack or if you want to subdue them.”
“W-well, they say Gear is supposed to intuit the wearer’s intentions.”
—That’s right. I am quite the capable woman, after all.
Oh, you’re a girl? …Wait, just be quiet for a minute, Proto!
I shushed Proto as she poked her head into the conversation and I continued by asking Nor a question.
“Intention, huh? Maybe that works when the wearer knows exactly what they want to do. But what if they’re not sure?”
“Oh…”
This time, Nor seemed to get what I was trying to say.
“Right? There are plenty of situations where it would be hard to make a decision. Actually, I think it’s much less common for a situation to have a simple answer. I can’t help but think using Gear all the time weakens your ability to make decisions. And why would that be a good thing if you want to become a hero?”
“That’s…”
Nor didn’t have an answer. Or rather, using Gear all the time was just so normal to her, it was as though she had never even considered there might be some kind of drawback to doing so, like I had.
“Everyone at this school trusts Gear way too much, especially Leonie. I mean, I can get why. Her mama invented it, right? So of course she would think highly of it. But too much of anything can be a bad thing.”
The same issue had come up during our mock battle with Ein. Leonie’s discomposure, a consequence of the lack of trust between us, had cost us the match. I didn’t have the slightest reservation with Leonie, but I couldn’t say she completely trusted me. To me, it was less that she simply didn’t trust me because I was a demon, and more that she was too attached to the idea of acting as a hero’s daughter should or too attached to following her Gear.
“…”
Seeming to have understood the crux of the problem, Nor closed her eyes and appeared to fall deep into thought.
It wasn’t only Leonie’s obsession with Gear. I think that attitude of hers—of never being discouraged in the face of adversity—was another thing that had come from her feelings of being tied by her obligations. I had never seen her whine or complain, and I was sure she took it as a given that she would continue to resist and fight against the unreasonable. All this was probably her way of acting like how she thought a hero’s daughter was supposed to—and this quality was one of her virtues. But again, it was possible to do too much of a good thing.
“But what does this all have to do with you skipping lectures? Aren’t they separate issues?” Nor asked.
“I think if I told her all this myself, she wouldn’t listen to me. Maybe she’d listen to you, since you’re her childhood friend. But I haven’t known her long enough yet. So while it may be a little drastic of me, I figured I’d give a live demonstration and let her see for herself.”
I’d show her what it was like to live life doing whatever you felt like.
“So that means you’re skipping lectures on purpose to prove a point?”
“I just wanna help Leonie have a bit more freedom.”
I wanted to free her from all the little shoulds and musts she had bound herself to all because of the guidance of her Gear or her sense of duty as a hero’s daughter. I wanted to help her see that she could follow her wants. Life was just plain boring if you only ever did what you should and never what you wanted, right? My only desire was to help this girl I had come to like so much to be happy.
“I wonder how I never realized it…even though I’ve been by her side all this time.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Nor. For better or for worse, you’re too close to her. You’re both descended from famous heroes, and you’re childhood friends, right? Your positions in life are similar, and so are all the things you take for granted.”
“In that sense, you’ve come from a totally different environment from us.”
“Yeah. Guess that’s why I could look at Leonie and tell that something was off.”
Of course, it went without saying that demon values weren’t all better or more correct than human values or anything.
—You sure have a lot of negative things to say about us.
I’m just generalizing. I’ve got a feeling you’re not one of the bad ones, Proto. Though, your personality could use some work.