“Hey! You really do know me, don’t you! Please, just admit it!”
“Indeed. You’re the one who was late, aren’t you?”
“Nooooo…!”
“Now, perhaps you could step away from Blanc?”
Cheln felt an overwhelming sense of injustice.
The injustice was so profound that tears threatened to spill from her eyes.
“H-hic…”
No, in fact, the tears were already streaming down her face.
Cheln, who had always aspired to emulate the pure and upright Holy Knights, was so overcome with sorrow by the utterly unjust accusation of tardiness that she ultimately burst into tears.
“H-hic… sob…”
“Hold on, are you actually crying?”
“N-no, I’m not crying! Wh-why would I… h-hic… why would I cry… sob…!”
“Oh, oh dear…”
Noir, who had been holding Cheln and attempting to separate her from Blanc, found herself utterly flustered by Cheln’s sudden outburst of tears.
Where had the fierce determination she’d shown just moments ago, clinging to Blanc, vanished to? And why, precisely, was she now weeping so uncontrollably?
‘Could she truly know Blanc? Yet Blanc claims not to recognize her… Wait, don’t tell me!’
Cheln’s rather inexplicable behavior suddenly brought to Noir’s mind an incident from three years prior.
–“Then what were you doing before you became a Pilgrim (TL Note: ‘Yeoro,’ a term that refers to a member of a specific organization or a journey/path)?”
–“I have no memory of anything before I became a Pilgrim.”
This was on the day Blanc first awakened at the Leonhart mansion.
It was during the interrogation conducted by Lucius and Makel, under the condition that Noir be present as an observer.
At that time, Blanc had stated that she possessed no memories from before she became a Pilgrim.
And now, this young girl was weeping sorrowfully, heartbroken that Blanc did not remember her.
Could this possibly mean…!
In an instant, hundreds of scenes flashed through Noir’s mind.
She envisioned two individuals, always as close as family.
Their bond deepening, slowly transcending mere friendship and blossoming into affection.
Then, one day, before the girl’s very eyes, her dearest friend is snatched away by masked assailants…!
‘Could this be an old acquaintance of Blanc’s?’
‘Finally, someone who knows Blanc’s past has emerged!’
‘Blanc, this is truly a blessing!’
As Noir, having finally stumbled upon a crucial clue to Blanc’s past, swiftly turned her gaze toward Blanc, countless other scenes abruptly flashed through her mind.
–“Young lady, it seems this is farewell.”
–“Blanc…?”
–“Now that you are aware of my past, I shall take my leave from Leonhart with this person.”
–“Blanc! Wait, just wait…! No… This can’t be… No, Blanc…! Blaaaaaanc…!”
‘No!’
‘Blanc is going to leave me…!’
‘No, this simply cannot happen…!’
‘I must uncover Blanc’s past.’
‘But I also don’t want Blanc to abandon me.’
‘What on earth am I supposed to do?’
Just as Noir teetered on the brink of panic.
“I! I today…! Sob… Y-you, because of you, I got hit by a carriage…! I-I was late…! Wooooh…”
“Hm?”
The rather pitiful and pathetic sound of Cheln’s wailing finally jolted Noir from her delusions, allowing her to regain her senses.
‘Of course.’
‘After all, the sudden emergence of a childhood friend character at this point would be far too out of the blue.’
Noir felt a pang of disappointment at having missed an opportunity to uncover Blanc’s past, yet simultaneously experienced a profound sense of relief that Blanc had not been snatched away by this unexpected newcomer.
****
“Hmm, so you’re saying you were hit by a speeding truck… no, a carriage, this morning?”
“Yeah…”
“And that the cause of this was somehow me?”
“N-no… that’s not it… Strictly speaking, I was the one who rushed out recklessly…”
After a considerable effort to soothe Cheln, who had erupted into tears, we were finally able to listen to her account.
Cheln explained that she had impulsively intervened that morning, believing I was about to be struck by a carriage, only to be sent flying a considerable distance herself.
As I had no recollection of such an event, I could offer no comment. However, since the young lady herself had witnessed something being struck by a carriage and sent flying, Cheln’s story gained a measure of credibility.
“It’s just… I just felt so wronged… I had my own circumstances, you see… but they just glared, laughed, and scolded me for being late…”
‘Hmm, is that truly the case?’
Only now did I truly grasp why the protagonist of the original work had remained unseen.
‘Cheln was the protagonist all along!’
This revelation was quite shocking.
In the original work, the protagonist’s depiction was limited solely to dialogue choices, a design choice meant to facilitate player immersion. Thus, my ignorance of the protagonist’s physical appearance was entirely understandable.
‘But I had always imagined the protagonist to be a kind and composed individual!’
‘I never would have dreamed they’d be such a crybaby!’
‘And to think, not a man, but a woman!’
‘I had always assumed Destiny was a game where one forged friendships with male characters and cultivated a harem with female characters. Could it have been the exact opposite?’
“Whaaaah…!”
Incidentally, witnessing this girl burst into tears before me stirred a long-dormant memory, one I had relegated to a distant frame within my mind.
–“Hey… sob… Can’t I… can’t I like you?”
‘I apologize, my friend.’
‘I had distinctly resolved to forget your confession, yet seeing her weep in such a pathetic manner inadvertently brings to mind your own utterly pathetic declaration.’
‘That confession, where a fully grown girl wept as she asked, “Can’t I like you?”, is something I doubt I will ever forget.’
It was a memory both bittersweet and profoundly nostalgic.
****
Not long after successfully soothing Cheln, the students destined for the Owl Class, familiar from the original narrative, began to gather one by one.
Unlike the three of us—who had known each other for ages—and Cheln, who, despite a shocking initial exchange, had somehow managed to open up, the six students who subsequently arrived were meeting for the very first time, and thus radiated a palpable tension and wariness.
“…”
An uncomfortable silence pervaded the classroom, yet no one seemed inclined to break it.
After all, this was merely their initial encounter, and since they would be seeing each other regularly, there was no compelling reason to force conversation at this moment.
–*Creak*
“Ah, everyone’s gathered, I see?”
Only once the ten desks were fully occupied and ten minutes had elapsed did a man finally enter the classroom, shattering the uneasy silence.
He possessed relatively long gray hair for a man, and eyes of a profound black—a rarity in a world often teeming with colorful irises.
The long, flowing robes he wore instantly proclaimed him a mage.
“Blanc, is that individual perhaps…?”
“Yes. That is precisely the person the young lady is thinking of.”
He was a Grand Mage, a figure utterly unknown to none who studied magic.
He was one of only five individuals to bear the esteemed title of Sage.
Sage Willi R. Garcia.
No one in this class—indeed, no one in this entire academy—could possibly be ignorant of his name.
He was, perhaps, such a colossal figure that one would struggle to find anyone across the entirety of Lysium (TL Note: A fictional place name) who did not know him.
Although I, through my knowledge of the original work, was already aware that he would be the homeroom teacher for this class, for the other students, this must have been the utterly unimaginable appearance of a truly monumental figure.
Even the young lady, who typically maintained a facade of haughtiness before others, now stood agape and utterly speechless at the Sage’s sudden entrance, did she not?
Given that it was merely the young lady, her reaction was comparatively mild; the expressions and responses of the other students were far more spectacular to behold.
Nevertheless, not every student was flustered by his appearance.
Only a single individual.
Among all the students, excluding myself, only one maintained an unwavering composure.
It was a girl with hair the color of a beautiful, starlit purple sky.
Only she held a perfectly impassive expression, her gaze fixed steadily upon Willi.
‘Lia Marks.’
Sage Willi’s direct disciple and one of the Owl Class’s five-star characters.
Furthermore, she was a character who held crucial plot points within the original narrative.
In essence, this girl, having accompanied Willi to the academy, was the sole individual who remained utterly serene.
“Alright, alright, I suppose you all roughly know my name, but I’ll introduce myself nonetheless, understood? Willi R. Garcia. Any further questions? No? None? Then just come up one by one from the front, introduce yourselves, and take your seats.”
At the mention of questions, Pel’s hand had already begun to rise, yet Willi simply brushed it aside with a dismissive gesture.
He immediately pointed to the boy with dull blonde hair, Desang, who was seated in the very front row.
It was likely not out of any particular dislike for Pel that he disregarded her question.
He probably simply found it bothersome that someone had actually taken his polite inquiry seriously enough to pose a question.
Not only mages, but all those who had ascended to a certain level of mastery tended to possess formidable egos.
Naturally, Willi, being one of the continent’s most distinguished mages, was also a character defined by his exceptionally strong personality.
It was no mere coincidence that as rarity tiers ascended, the cast of characters grew increasingly eccentric.
Perhaps the reason the Pilgrims (TL Note: ‘Yeoro,’ a term that refers to a member of a specific organization or a journey/path) were particularly rife with deranged psychopaths was precisely because each individual’s ego was overwhelmingly powerful.
Unsurprisingly, their ranks would naturally commence from a base of 4-stars.
It was utterly inevitable that I, a mere ordinary human, could not possibly endure within that den of psychopaths and was compelled to flee.
Just because it was a village of the one-eyed, it hardly meant that I, a two-eyed individual, should sacrifice an eye to become like them, did it?
‘At the very least, those who can survive, must.’
Although I worried for our junior maid U, whom I had left behind with the Pilgrims, I was confident she would manage to survive within that old castle on her own.
The only lingering regret was that I had ultimately failed to implement the maid uniform standardization plan I had intended to push for the Pilgrims—an organization that, aside from their matching white masks, lacked a strong sense of unified identity.
My plan had been to dress the Pilgrim members in maid uniforms under the guise of standardization, then train them one-on-one to become professional maids, believing that these villains would eventually reform and transform into a nationwide charity organization.
U had even told me the plan sounded wonderful, but unfortunately, I had left the Pilgrims before I could even fully flesh it out.
Since it was only a general direction without much detailed content, I had cleanly abandoned it. Still, I occasionally regretted not being able to complete the Pilgrim maidification plan before I left.
Of course, I couldn’t be certain that if the Pilgrim maidification plan had succeeded, I would now be serving the Leonhart family. So, it was merely a feeling of regret, not something I truly lamented.
Besides, while Eight, being a pervert, might have worn a maid uniform, Dante, being a ‘Fun Cool Sexy’ (TL Note: A Korean slang term, ‘peonkulsekchung,’ referring to someone who tries too hard to appear cool, fun, and sexy, often in an awkward or cringeworthy way) type, would likely never have donned one.
The possibility of it happening wasn’t zero, but it was extremely low.
This is precisely why I detest that fool, Dante.
