Editor 143

Three Springs (2)

Sniffle.

“Are you feeling calmer now?”

Pout~.

Aser, who had carefully set down the bicycle and the two boxes of champagne tied to it, sat the first-year student on a nearby stump and patiently soothed her tears.

Perhaps feeling sorry to wipe her tears with his own dirty and crumpled muslin handkerchief, he even commandeered Cleio’s crisp handkerchief.

“You must’ve been startled by the bicycle suddenly coming at you. I’m really sorry.”

With a little girl crying, Cleio, who had no idea what to do, was much less helpful than Aser in this situation.

“Where were you headed? Want me to take you there?”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright by yourself? Hm?”

Though he tried to hide it with dust, the blonde swordsman with a fine build must surely be Prince Aser.

With the prince and the wizard senior she admired looking at her in such a mess, Lillian wanted to escape.

Without even knowing what she was saying, she frantically gestured at the two young men to go away.

“It’s fine, please go about your business. Thank you.”

“Or should I call Matron Ryuba…?”

“I said it’s fine! Go! I’ll just rest a bit and be on my way.”

Lillian shouted in a sulky tone. Embarrassment she couldn’t hide seeped into her voice.

Aser hovered around like a giant puppy wanting to lick a wounded child.

Faced with Aser’s repeated questions about her name, the underclassman just shook her head.

It seemed she really didn’t want to reveal who she was. More aware than Aser of embarrassment, Cleio pulled the prince away.

“Aser, that’s enough, let’s go. And if you feel any pain later, make sure to visit the infirmary. If you need treatment, contact third-year Cleio Aser.”

The underclassman just nodded slightly.

“See you again, then!”

Aser, hoisting the bicycle with two boxes of champagne, and Cleio, slowly pushing his own bicycle, started to walk out of the woods.

Lillian, who had kept her head bowed until their backs disappeared, let out a shaky breath.

“Ah, I was supposed to deliver the Dean’s letter….”

She just gripped the handkerchief left in her hand. Her head felt like her heart was pounding, and her heart felt feverish.

On the edge of the fine fabric handkerchief, the initials KA were elegantly embroidered.

“Really, the newspaper was all lies.”

Lillian Bennett, at seventeen, realized that not even a thousand lines of flowery prose could accurately describe that magic, or the person who created it.

.

.

.

“Was she a first-year? I hope she wasn’t too startled. It’d be better if she doesn’t mention seeing us. If Zebedee finds out, it’ll be a hassle.”

“I healed the wound perfectly and even cast [Mitigation] just in case. Let’s hope she didn’t recognize the liquor boxes.”

“Ugh, I heard if we break the alcohol ban one more time, we’ll be disciplined. We absolutely can’t get caught. I could deal with manual labor, but if I get punished with forced memorization of magic formulas again, I won’t survive.”

Every disciplinary incident Cleio and Aser had in the past two years was related to alcohol.

Last winter, after drinking and messing around with ether, they killed all the wisteria at the arch, and Zebedee imposed an academy-wide alcohol ban on the two of them.

Of course, neither had any intention of actually following that order.

“Who told you to run ahead without looking?”

“I was later than expected because I had to cut through the city. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to celebrate until tomorrow.”

The more he thought about it, the more outrageous it seemed. Even if he was treated coldly, he was a prince of the country, and yet he’d pretended to be a commoner in front of others.

“Celebrating my birthday is just an excuse, you just want to drink, don’t you?”

“Oh, Ray! Like you don’t want to drink? Hmm? It’s been a while since we had Liognes! For two months, you’re older than me—you can have the honors! First glass is yours!”

Today was Cleio’s birthday, May 1.

He’d never really celebrated it in his previous life, and even in this one, the unfamiliar date… Cleio just accepted it.

No one gets to choose their own birthday anyway.

“If the year’s changed, we’re both nineteen, what’s the point of counting birthdays.”

Aser put on a mock-serious face.

“It’s hard to believe someone as meticulous as you is so careless with age counting. Everyone ages at the new year?”

For once, Cleio flinched at Aser’s words.

He’d lived without kimchi, but this was the one Korean habit he couldn’t shake: counting kids a year older after the new year.

‘Chel’s birthday is January 1, so it’s easy for him, but this guy is always such a hassle.’

“It’s easier to remember if everyone ages together.”

“I’m probably the only one who’d let that kind of logic slide. Anyway, let’s hurry. The others might be waiting till their necks stretch out.”

Today, even Dione was joining to celebrate. That’s why Aser had hurried to fetch the champagne he’d left in the cellar of the Aser mansion.

Aser, Isiel, Chel, the twins, and Cleio had all only arrived in the capital last night, so preparations were delayed.

As they walked briskly, Aser asked casually,

“Oh right, Ray. Shall we go to the archbishop’s residence next week?”

“…Sure.”

“I’ll let them know. It’s been a while.”

After an audience in early spring last year, Archbishop Istoria’s condition gradually worsened, and she fell into another long sleep. The bishop’s residence was closed as well.

In principle, entry to the closed archbishop’s residence was forbidden, but Cleio was allowed to see the sleeping bishop once per season.

It was thanks to Aser, who, after spending last summer vacation buried in the Saint Partin Library with Isiel, had found a way.

There was a nearly obsolete rule that the archbishop must hear the confession of direct royal family members.

Since no royal had confessed since the reign of Queen Carmela, the upper echelons of the Rundaine diocese were confused, but in the end, they granted the Third Prince’s request.

It was entirely thanks to Aser’s skyrocketing reputation.

The secularized Albion church was more like a government-run moral guide and charity institution. In other words, it was greatly affected by the tides of human affairs.

After breaking the “Queen’s Garden” and “Amphitheater”—two “remembered worlds” in succession—Aser was no longer a bastard the church could ignore.

Cleio gladly accepted Aser’s kindness. There was no reason not to.

A relationship where only one side gives inevitably burdens the other with a sense of debt. Cleio didn’t want to entangle others with himself in that way.

Even though he had accepted a new name and birthday, his inner self was still layered with memories of the past.

Cleio’s habit of watching over the sleeping Regina Istoria was an act to remind himself of where he had come from.

If Regina Istoria’s birth record was correct, she was nearing 120 years old.

In a world where magic and divine power existed, people accepted her existence, but Cleio found Regina, who neither ate nor drank but always breathed the same and slept, to be wondrous and strange.

Perhaps even more so than magic itself.

A high priest at the archbishop’s residence confided that traces of divine power were sustaining her body.

The process for Aser to request confession was complex, but Cleio’s time watching over the sleeping Regina never exceeded five minutes.

The much taller Aser would accompany Cleio all the way to the bishop’s chamber and stand guard at the door during the audience.

The Angelium twins would tease, saying things like, “Ray’s got a huge crush on the archbishop,” but surely they didn’t actually believe it.

Aser seemed to think of the strange audience as a pointless act, waiting for a message from God after His agent had departed.

Instead of correcting Aser’s misunderstanding, Cleio, as always, simply allocated his silences judiciously.

Ever since breaking the amphitheater, Cleio had tried to act as truthfully as possible. He never knew when, where, or how the seams of the world might rip open and Aser be given new knowledge.

Aser’s guess wasn’t entirely wrong.

Clio was Cleio’s goddess, and the one who had given him the world.

.

.

.

The research fellows’ laboratory was in the style of Unica, a coastal nation on the continent of Meridies.

It was a very rare style in Albion; he’d heard that several deans ago, one fell in love with Unican scenery and built the building with his own money.

White columns with ornate decorations, paving stones set at the corners of the inner courtyard, arcades with walls and floors adorned with geometric mosaic tiles in navy, teal, and red, dark teak doors and shutters.

At a glance, it was a splendid building. When Cleio first moved in, the cleaning and repairs had been perfectly done.

The problem was insulation.

Cleio often inwardly fumed, “What kind of madman builds a building suited for a country with eternal summer in this perpetually damp town!” …But Dione and Chel, with their aesthetic sense, were quite fond of the lab.

Anyway, winter was gone, and now it was spring.

Behemoth, basking in the sun under the arcade, yawned. Then, with a pink tongue, he began to lick the inside of his hind leg.

Isiel, who’d been watching the cat’s glossy back, reflexively flinched his hand.

Swish.

Seated on a folding chair atop emerald tiles, Isiel, draped in white silk instead of a gown, had the blade of a silver-plated grooming scissor skim dangerously close to his tawny neck.

“Hold still, Isiel. If you move, you’ll get hurt.”

“Sorry.”

“Master Mot is just too tempting, isn’t he? Just a little more off the back and we’ll be done, so hold on a moment.”

“No, take your time until you’re satisfied.”

“Haha, thanks. Then today I’ll cut it a bit shorter.”

“It will be convenient if it shortens my prep time.”

“If prep time’s the problem, I can dry it for you every morning.”

“I’m grateful enough for your monthly trims, Chel. How could I impose on you every day?”

Isiel responded indifferently to Chel’s sweet words that came as naturally as breathing.

Since last year, when a mid-year dropout occurred, the two had become housemates. One year was plenty of time for even model student Isiel to get used to Chel’s manner of speaking.

After being groomed, Behemoth scratched under his chin with a hind paw and made a protest no one could hear.

“Waaaooow? (Chel, that’s as much as my talent goes, why blame me?)”

When the cat meowed, Dione moved.

She snapped shut the patent royalty paperwork she’d been reviewing. Working outdoors at a table beside the cat had been too ambitious a dream.

She stretched out both arms from her chair, and Behemoth, with a haughty air, plopped into her lap.

With the look of someone who owned the world, Dione patted the cat’s bottom.

“Oh, Mot, is Chel’s skill not enough for you? To a human’s eye, it’s excellent grooming, but to the great one, it must be something else?”

Chel, snipping away with practiced hands, evened out Isiel’s bob while not skipping a beat in the banter.

“Dione, even you have become a captive of that fat magical cat… I can’t help but feel jealous.”

“Magical cat? Mot’s so cute and lovable. Anyway, Chel, you have a surprising talent.”

“Hehe, a charming twist, right?”

“Certainly. Who taught such skills to the precious lady of the Tempête de Neige family?”

“That too was my grandmother’s teaching. How to cut, how to curl, how to style hair for spring balls, how to decorate hair for weddings—all of it.”

Dione opened her eyes wide.

‘Marie Tempête de Neige?’

She recalled from distant memory the old lady who looked like she’d never so much as touched a drop of water in her life. Along with her old-fashioned, aristocratic Karolingian accent, which is hardly heard these days.