I stay quietly in my cottage until my magic returns. That increases my risk of seeing my father, but there is something I want to focus on.
When I tell Henri I won’t be going to school for a while, he immediately understands.
“You know, Alicia, Henri really is soft on you,” Gill says.
“And he’s the only one,” I reply.
“Fair point.” Gill smirks slightly at my answer.
He is holed up in the cottage with me. I requested that he keep me company.
“So when do you suppose this wild wolf appeared on campus?” I ask.
“According to Henri, it was about a year ago.”
One year ago… Why wasn’t it a bigger deal? A wild wolf suddenly appearing at the magic academy is inconceivable. Did His Majesty hear nothing about it?
“I guess the biggest mystery is, why did this wolf appear at the magic academy—right?” Gill asks.
I ponder this for a moment. “It certainly is possible that somebody summoned it there intentionally.”
“But a wild wolf?”
“What I meant was, somebody only made it appear to be wild.”
Gill puts a hand to his chin, frowns deeply, and stares off into the distance.
If somebody sicced a wild wolf on the magic academy, then we have a big problem on our hands.
Oh—but wait just a minute. Where would they have even gotten a wolf from?
“Durkis doesn’t have any wolves, right? Which would have to mean…they brought the wolf in from another nation,” I theorize.
Gill opens the desk drawer and pulls out a map.
Another nation… Wolves… Yes, I think I’ve heard this word somewhere… What was it again…?
I am so close to connecting the pieces.
Liz shivered in fear and protected the magic academy students…?!
““Laval,”” Gill and I say at the same time. The game revealed nothing about wolves in Laval when I played it. But it was knowledge that I gained from reading books in this world.
“Laval has wolves. I read it in a book somewhere,” Gill says, pointing at Laval on the map.
That’s my Gill. While I was combing through otome game events for clues, he did the actual work.
The otome game event in question existed to raise the likability score of the heroine—that would be Liz.
If I recall correctly, I selected “Don’t help” when I played the event… A part of me wanted to help, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to risk my life to save people who hated me. And because of that, I became the least-liked heroine in the history of the game. Peak villainess behavior!
“Alicia? Are you listening to me?”
Gill leaning in and looking into my eyes zaps me out of my thoughts.
“Listen to what?”
Gill scowls a little in annoyance and says, “I repeat, if that wolf is still at large, we should be able to tell immediately if it’s from Laval.”
I pause for a moment in thought, then say, “That’s right, Laval’s wolves have big tails, and many of them have red fur.”
“Also, they’ve got thin iron collars around their necks,” Gill adds, in a voice deeper than usual.
Come to think of it, in the game, this event existed only to increase the heroine’s likability score. It left out the details of where the wolf even came from. Funny, seeing as how a wolf suddenly appearing at a school is really far-fetched.
“Those collars have the name of the wolf’s master etched into them,” Gill says, his eyes sparkling a little as he looks right at me.
We don’t know if our wolf still has its collar on. But we do know that wolves do not live in Durkis. We can’t conclude with certainty that the wolf who attacked the school came from Laval, but we decide to hedge our bets on the high possibility that it did.
“Gill! Wake up!” I shake Gill awake on the sofa.
Gill’s eyes squint open. “What…?” he asks hoarsely. He has an incredibly grumpy crease between his eyes…perhaps he has low blood pressure.
“Just look.”
I correct my posture and snap my fingers. The next moment, the map flies from the table toward me. I gently catch it and smile at Gill. He stares blankly at the map.
No reaction? Come on, give me something.
“……What am I missing?”
“I’m using magic!”
Gill’s eyes open wide. He’s finally awake.
“Oh, good…” He sighs in relief, finally grasping the situation.
“Alicia Williams has made a full recovery today.”
I smile at Gill, and he smiles proudly back at me.
“So why are you still sneaking out of the house and avoiding Arnold?” Gill asks quietly as I am about to step through the gate to the magic academy.
The sunlight bounces off the stained glass and blinds me. Why is that stained glass even there? There are so many other places where money could have been better spent.
“Alicia, are you listening to me?”
“Yes, yes, I’m listening. But the sunlight is just so bright…”
“Don’t dodge the subject.” Gill stares at me, a hint of anger in his eyes.
“It’s just…when I listed my priorities, I discovered that seeing my father was toward the bottom. Earlier, seeing my father was the most important thing, but a lot has changed during the past couple weeks.”
Losing my position as Liz’s monitor is out of the question, but there are things I have to take care of first. I have to take care of Uncle Will, the Wolf Event, and… Anyway, my father comes after that.
“Well, I can’t say I don’t see your point,” Gill concedes.
“Right?”
I beam radiantly, happy that I gained Gill’s approval, as we head toward the school building.
“Hey, Gill, wanna make a bet with me?” I suggest.
“What?!” Gill looks at me like I’m a cryptid. And I understand. It is unsettling to have somebody suddenly propose a bet. But I can’t help it; the idea just struck me out of nowhere.
“I bet somebody is going to say to me, ‘I thought you were never coming back.’”
I give him my best baddie smirk, but Gill just laughs.
“I think somebody’ll say, ‘Shame you didn’t die.’”
“Oooh, that’s quite a brutal insult.”
“They may look pretty on the outside, but their souls are hideous.”
“I can’t deny that.”
“But society places more trust in people who look nice on the outside.”
“Well, I say, aren’t people who are both the best of all? Like Liz.”
Gill falls silent. As a villainess, I value what is on the outside, but Liz values what is on the inside. Though I suppose at the moment, I am hideous to look at. I hope people cut me some slack, since aside from the eye patch, I try to maintain an immaculate appearance.
A young, rich villainess ought to have a mess where her heart would be. Only the heroine needs to have a beautiful heart. I mean, if everyone were pretty on the inside, we’d just have another hierarchy of prettiness on our hands…
“I think you beat Liz Cather, Alicia.”
Gill whispers something then, but I am too absorbed in my own thoughts to catch what he says.
“Gill? Did you say something?”
“Forget it,” Gill says, beaming broadly at me. I feel like I haven’t seen him smile like that in a long time.
“Say, if I win the bet, will you give me your bracelet?” he asks.
My bracelet? Why does he want such a thing? Gill isn’t interested in jewelry.
“Sure, I don’t mind… So if I win, you have to teach me something I don’t know.”
Gill’s eyes open wide. “Is that all?”
“Don’t scoff. Knowledge is the greatest treasure of all.”
“Aha.”
Gill smiles. He’s been smiling a lot today. And his smile is infectious.