“Now then, I’ll head to Class D for now. Perhaps the faculty room first? Seems like a treat for the eyes. This academy is paradise!” She had shown no shame whatsoever about being in Class D, which should have been disgraceful for a lady, nor about skipping the entrance ceremony. With a light step and cheerful voice, she walked off in the opposite direction. For a moment, I thought our eyes met...but it must have been my imagination.
Unable to forgive myself for equating the one and only beautiful princess with this lady, and simultaneously overwhelmed by an immense sense of futility, I silently watched her gorgeous, extravagant back disappear.
The reason I’d ordered her brought to the church under the pretext of saving her from abuse had nothing to do with any pity I held for her upbringing or the way she appeared more vibrant in my world. It was purely for the sake of her appearance and eye color—not some perverted aberration. My goal was the pieces of Princess Beljeanne, the woman I’d waited decades and sold my soul to a demon for.
As I thought about it, a surge of excitement welled up inside me at the thought of possessing the princess’s pieces...
The lady’s chillingly perverted, dangerous face and the words she’d murmured back then, which I’d deliberately avoided recalling until now, flashed through my mind. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she had casually placed some pointless yet inexorable curse upon me. I didn’t know what kind of curse it was.
“Ahem. It seems rather pitiful to keep her waiting alone for so long,” I muttered somewhat absentmindedly to no one in particular. Then I teleported down to the underground chamber where Lady Robur waited.
This was the place where I’d secretly studied and experimented with forbidden arts. A teleportation array had been set up here, connecting directly from the greenhouse hidden within that garden. It existed solely for my own convenience.
Between my duties as pope and studying forbidden arts, this greenhouse also served to collect and cultivate rare, hard-to-obtain, and supposedly extinct plants that the princess had once shown interest in. The prevalence of poisonous or ominous-looking plants was purely coincidental. Of course, these beautiful flowers and plants were tended by priests dedicated to the princess, their true mistress. All for the time when I reclaimed the princess. I worried she might return with a heart full of despair, so I hoped these plants might offer her some solace.
For these reasons, I’d concealed the greenhouse itself with an illusion spell. Should anyone stumble in, I had set a trap: If anyone but me used magic to attack the greenhouse, it would become a cage, surrounding and nullifying the attack within an empty space.
However, this time there had been a malfunction, and Lady Robur had been transferred underground. The magic set up to detect intruders underground had alerted me immediately. I suspected it was the prince’s fault—he’d caused the malfunction by forcibly interfering with the greenhouse’s magic.
For me, who sought the princess’s indigo eyes, this fortunate malfunction made me hope heaven was about to finally return the princess to me.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. How long had it been? How long since my emotions had been this stirred, since they had trembled with such joy?
I touched the small magic circle drawn on the rock at eye level and opened the large, heavy door.
“Now, now, who might you be?” the girl asked.
Inside the room, brightly lit by magic, she sat on my bed, looking at me with those familiar indigo eyes. A bag lay carelessly at her feet—had it come here with her? And from it, she seemed to have taken an erotic woodblock print...? It resembled the illustrations in that novel one of the priests had had the other day...
“You are Lady Laviange Robur, correct?”
She tilted her head stiffly, as if she was wondering why I was asking. “You are correct.”
Why was she so calm? Shouldn’t she have been the one panicking?
Snapping back to reality, I frowned at the erotic painting the princess held. “How utterly...shameless,” I spat. I hoped she wasn’t about to start commenting on it in red pen.
“Oh dear. It’s a kind of pure literature, born of instinct and for instinct,” she explained calmly. It only made me more irritated. How scandalous for a girl of her age! She was far too corrupted.
Because I had been born with this face and the magic of enchantment, I’d always been subjected to vulgar stares from both men and women. Many of them had attempted to touch me, regardless of my disgust.
Lady Robur didn’t look at me that way at all, but perhaps because I saw parts of myself in her noble, solitary demeanor, I felt intense anger and disappointment. That the two grandchildren of one of the Four Ducal Houses, saved by the princess and indebted to her above all else, should be such lowly creatures...
My anger boiled, but I forced myself to calm down. It wasn’t entirely a bad thing that the slight guilt I’d felt about extracting parts from the young lady had dissipated.
“My apologies,” I said with a gentle smile, regaining my composure. “By the way, my lady, do you know why you were transferred here?”
Lady Robur returned a cool smile and tucked the erotic painting into her bag. “No, not at all.”
“I see. I’ll open the door leading farther in. Would you care to accompany me? There’s just something I need your help with—no need for caution. Once that’s taken care of, I’ll send you straight back to the mansion.” I extended my hand to the young lady, showering her with the power of enchantment mixed with magic.
“Very well.” As expected, the incompetent girl took my hand without a hint of caution and stood up.
Standing beside her now, I was surprised at how petite and slender she was. She had seemed much larger when we faced each other. “At a time like this...”
An indescribable discomfort welled up inside me. Why did she feel like the princess even in such trivial matters?
From a young age, the princess had been denied proper meals and subjected to violence by those royals. Her magic and honor had been exploited for years, and she’d been worked to the bone. That was why she’d been small and frail, like a starved commoner. Yet at first glance, the princess’s build had seemed age appropriate, even tall. This was because the sheer presence of such a powerful individual, even while that immense magic was concealed, had subconsciously misled others.
I doubted that to be the case here, however. I touched the lady’s hand and channeled my own magic into it.
“Hmph...” I couldn’t help but smile wryly. Indeed, this lady possessed only average—no, below-average magic. What had I been expecting?
That was when it happened: The delicate hand that had merely been resting there a moment ago suddenly tightened slightly.
“My lady? Ah, did that offend you? I was just chuckling to myself a little...”
“You...”
“Yes?” I was taken aback by the indigo eyes staring intently at my face, as if she’d been startled by something. Was the charm not working? Even though we’d been face-to-face since I stepped into the chamber, it felt like we were locking eyes for the very first time.
“Oh, I see. Ha ha ha, I’ve been misunderstanding things, haven’t I? But that’s all right.” Her expression shifted completely—a soft, somehow reassuring smile that looked right at home on the face of a girl her age and made my heart skip a beat. Was it those indigo blue eyes that made it seem that way?
It was exactly the way the princess had occasionally looked at Sharona, who’d only ever needed protecting. Without thinking, I placed my free hand on the lady’s cheek and stared intently. Her indigo eyes gazed back softly.
“Such a lovely atmosphere.” After a moment, a voice, well-mannered yet distant, interrupted us. “Did I interrupt something?”
“What brings you here? It’s unusual for you to come here directly.” I didn’t know why I did it, but I tugged the lady’s hand I’d been holding and hid it behind my back.
“Hmm... Did you grow attached in such a short time?” the woman said from under the hood of her robe, pulled low over her eyes. “You were the one who chose her, though, weren’t you?”
I felt inwardly unsettled by Jabi’s words, but I forced a smile. “Yes. But regarding that matter, and your coming here... I don’t think it needed to be now.”
“Oh dear. I even gave you a peach-colored ring made from a piece of my best friend to help you, yet you’re so ungrateful. Did you come early just because you acquired my next body? After all, you found a piece you could accept, didn’t you? Tell me, Lady Laviange Robur, do you know what will happen to you now?”
“My lady.” Before the princess could utter a word, I drew her attention to myself. “There is something I wish to show you.”
Resolved not to give up on Lady Robur, I peered into her indigo eyes. As I spoke, I heightened my magic, determined to charm her this time... But...
“Indeed! Will you show me?” It wasn’t her usual ladylike smile—were her eyes sparkling with curiosity? “What’s the matter? Let’s infiltrate! Heh heh heh, I sense something that’s been stuck at the entrance to the mystery genre is about to start moving!”
Why was the lady so excited, practically pulling my hand and leading the way?
“Eh?” said Jabi. “Business as usual in this situation? Isn’t she a bit too thick-skinned?”
What did she say? Could this really be normal for Lady Robur? Wait, maybe I hadn’t charmed her after all... Ah, we’d just hit the entrance to the back room.
“Come on, come on,” Lady Robur said. “Hurry up. I’m not interested in you over there.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Jabi. “Wait, shouldn’t you be a little more interested in me too...”
“Now, now. If you think you’ll always be the center of attention, you’re sorely mistaken. You wouldn’t want to be lumped in the same category as that self-obsessed manic pixie dream girl, your so-called best friend, would you?”
“Ah—yes, well, that...”
What exactly was a manic pixie dream girl?