Ariel stared at me intently while sitting on my lap.
How should I put it? The atmosphere felt strangely intimate. It was something Yuna did all the time without a second thought, yet with Ariel, it felt completely different.
Maybe it was because Yuna and I were always together in the first place……
“It’s such a shame. I already miss the days when we could walk around together without worrying about other people watching.”
“Ariel……”
Back when I was still a strategist for the Order, meeting with her could happen naturally. But now that I had stepped down from the position, I had no idea when we would be able to walk side by side again.
“And it’s not like you can visit the estate often either, Johan.”
Ariel looked straight up at me as she voiced her disappointment. All I could do was smile bitterly at the sight.
“So, Johan.”
But she wasn’t merely cute.
It was that dangerous feeling I occasionally sensed from her.
“Why don’t we keep it a secret from everyone else and meet only between ourselves……?”
“Huh?”
Were rabbits actually carnivores?
A chill ran down my spine. It felt like being hunted by a predator.
“That sounds fine, doesn’t it?”
The distance between us was suffocatingly close.
It felt as though one wrong step would lead me down a road I could never return from.
This carried a completely different weight from when it was Yuna.
Yuna’s teasing always felt playful and familiar, but Ariel’s temptation felt like I was genuinely moments away from being devoured.
“I’m not sure exactly what you mean by ‘fine’, but this is rather excessive intimacy for two people who haven’t even held their engagement ceremony yet.”
“……!”
Just as I swallowed nervously and worried about the future awaiting me, a detached voice split the space between us.
The fact that someone had interrupted us was shocking enough, but what truly sent chills down my spine was that they had managed to bypass both mine and Ariel’s senses.
Within this estate, there was only one person capable of that.
“F-Father-in-law.”
“……Father.”
I had just encountered one of the situations I least wanted to face in this world.
The atmosphere was as awkward and suffocating as standing before the Emperor himself.
And through it all, Ariel remained seated on my lap without moving away.
Her nerves of steel terrified me. She was really maintaining this posture even now?
“Hmm.”
Tronios Ether simply watched us with indifferent eyes.
For some reason, caught in the silent battle of wills between Ariel and Tronios, I could barely breathe.
Why was I here?
Couldn’t someone just let me leave?
“Will you stay for dinner?”
“……Me?”
In this atmosphere? I’d rather he just ordered me to die.
More than anything, I desperately wanted to escape this suffocating place.
“Uh, it’s fine. I should get going.”
“You’re really leaving?”
Whining softly, Ariel wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
I nearly stopped breathing.
Please don’t do this in front of my future father-in-law.
I really don’t want things to be awkward every holiday for the rest of my life!
“We’ll see each other again next time.”
“Y-Yes, Father-in-law.”
***
It felt like I had gone back and forth between heaven and hell in the span of a few minutes.
My back was drenched in sweat. Even when facing Faust head-on, I had never felt fear like this……
I guess realistic threats are far more terrifying than abstract ones you can’t fully picture.
What exactly did I even do today?
First the Misfits and the World Tree, then meeting with Cattleya, and after that, a date with Ariel.
In one sense, it had been a fulfilling day.
In another sense, it had been an absolute headache.
More than anything, that ending was so shocking that I felt completely drained.
“Anyway, I guess what I need to do next is settled?”
It had been such an overwhelming day that I nearly forgot, but thankfully I still remembered what I had to deal with first.
“……”
For now, I should just go back. Go back and let my exhausted body rest.
Had I ever longed for my dormitory bed this much before?
Dragging my tired body along, I opened the dorm room door.
“That perfume smell is pretty strong.”
“…….”
And there I arrived at a brand-new hell.
The moment I saw Yuna sitting on my bed with a bright smile on her face, my mind went blank.
“So whose perfume are you wearing today, Johan?”
“Uh…… It’s probably Ariel’s.”
My brain spun faster than it ever had before.
No lies. No excuses. In this moment, honesty alone would be the light to guide me through this darkness.
And technically, there wasn’t even anything wrong.
My relationship with Ariel was already publicly acknowledged, wasn’t it?
And unlike before, Yuna had agreed to be understanding, so there was nothing to hide.
“So what did you two do?”
“……”
No, actually, I wasn’t confident enough to be that honest.
“You can’t say it?”
“Yuna, it’s not like we did anything suspicious. I mean, you know?”
“I don’t know.”
Was she seriously making me say it out loud?
***
The next day.
Even after sleeping through the entire night, I still felt exhausted.
I’d spent the whole time trying to calm Yuna down while she sulked and complained.
My head was spinning.
Well, that was that.
“Was that girl always this popular?”
I was waiting for a chance to talk to Oracle in the classroom.
But she was surrounded by so many people that it was hard to even approach her.
Now that she had taken off the hood she always wore so tightly it was suffocating, she had basically become the celebrity of our class.
And what about me?
“Hey.”
“Oh, hey.”
End of today’s conversation.
Nothing but a stiff exchange of greetings.
Aren’t these bastards being a little too much? Do they seriously not want to get close to me?
“Well, Johan, you’re not exactly a sociable person. And honestly, you’re not the type people naturally want to get close to either.”
Like a true assassin, Yuna stabbed right into my side with that comment.
“The way you normally talk doesn’t help either.”
“Yuna, whose side are you even on? At the very least, you should be on my side.”
“See? That. Stuff like that. That’s exactly why people keep their distance from you. What you just said was a perfect example, Johan.”
“……”
I hadn’t meant it as an example.
Was I really that hard to get along with? I always thought the world revolved around me……
How exactly had I ended up like this?
“You also tend to blame other people.”
“This is all the Misfits’ fault. I got contaminated by their weird influence.”
“Yeah, exactly that.”
“……”
“And you sulk really easily too.”
Yuna rested her chin on my desk and smiled brightly at me.
At this point, it honestly felt like she knew me a little too well.
Maybe Yuna was actually the Oracle.
“……Maybe it’s because my girlfriend is too possessive.”
I tried offering a weak counterattack.
“That’s true too. Puhihihi. Which is why I’m sitting here right now making sure you don’t go looking at other girls.”
I gave an inch and got a mile in return.
***
In the end, I never managed to find the right timing, even after classes ended.
Was Oracle really this much of a social butterfly? Just taking off her hood turned her into the center of attention?
Damn it. Maybe I should’ve started wearing a hood all the time too and built up some mysterious aura.
“It feels weird to just walk up and talk to her.”
“You probably have to worry about what I’ll think too, right?”
“That too.”
Officially, I already had a girlfriend who was Yuna. So suddenly approaching Oracle would definitely look strange.
Of course, there was nothing weird about greeting a friend. The problem was that Oracle and I weren’t exactly friends.
Even when we met before, it was always in secret, so approaching her openly in a public place like this felt difficult.
And more than anything……
“I kind of feel guilty too.”
The sight of Oracle surrounded by friends looked genuinely happy.
It was like a perfect scene of youth straight out of a movie or drama.
Watching her like that made me feel strangely guilty. Not that I had actually done anything wrong.
“What exactly are you feeling guilty about?”
“Damn it, you scared me. At least make some noise when you walk around.”
“Has my lack of presence only become a problem today? More importantly, why are you so startled? Were you talking behind my back?”
“What should we do, Johan? You got caught.”
“I knew it.”
“I wasn’t talking about you. Yuna, stop making things more complicated for no reason.”
“Puhihihi.”
This girl was always looking for chances to cut me off from other people.
Her possessiveness was genuinely terrifying.
“Anyway, why were you staring at me so much earlier? It was getting noticeable.”
“What, you knew?”
“Well, you were spending the whole day staring at me suspiciously. Even if I wanted to ignore it, my friends kept warning me to be careful because some weird guy named Johan was secretly watching me.”
“……”
What happened to my image?
I thought I’d gotten closer with my classmates by now, so this was pretty disappointing.
“Whatever. Anyway, this works out. Let me ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“I heard rumors that the reason I stepped down from my strategist position was because of you.”
“Shouldn’t you say it was thanks to me?”
Oracle looked at me like I was the strange one.
What was this? Did she seriously think she had helped me?
“You were constantly talking about how badly you wanted to quit that job.”
“Well, yeah, but……”
I really had said that.
“So I spoke up so you could leave the position. What do you think?”
Looking at Oracle’s proud expression, it was obvious she didn’t have any malicious intentions.
What was this? Hadn’t she trapped me somehow?
Did she genuinely believe this would help me?
For now, I figured I should explain the current situation and see how she reacted.
“……The Emperor figured out the World Tree exists.”
“Is that so?”
“You don’t seem very surprised.”
“Because it isn’t surprising. You don’t need to worry. The Emperor won’t deliberately target the World Tree.”
“He already has a history of doing exactly that, though.”
“The situation is different from back then. The biggest reason he tried to burn down the World Tree at the time was because of the elves.”
“Even so, it’s hard to ignore the nature of the World Tree.”
The World Tree attracts demons.
Because it can erase the sense of deficiency engraved into the souls of demons.
That was exactly why so many dangerous things had entered this world, causing endless trouble time and time again.
“The current World Tree doesn’t have that kind of power. It would need several more centuries before it could gain such an ability.”
“What if he decides to eliminate the sprouts before that happens?”
“He can’t uproot every sprout. The Emperor knows that better than anyone. His goal isn’t to eliminate every sprout but to build walls strong enough to endure any situation.”
“……”
Damn, her logic was flawless.
Honestly, she wasn’t wrong.
The Emperor wasn’t foolish enough to believe he could uproot every sprout. Even if seeds of danger eventually took root later on, Abraham’s goal was to strengthen the Empire so thoroughly that it could deal with them swiftly and efficiently.
“Johan Damus, there’s no need for you to worry. Stepping down from your strategist position at this point was the best choice.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because once you step onto the stage, there’s no stepping back down.”
That was something Emperor Abraham had once said through Lanius.
Hearing the same words again meant Oracle knew something too.
“……What exactly is happening right now?”
“You already know. It’s nothing worth being surprised over, is it? You attended that meeting as well.”
“……”
“You simply got out at the right time. That’s all you need to think of it as. Or would you rather join that bloodbath?”
No, I wouldn’t.
The Emperor intended to gather all kinds of criminals together and wipe them out in one sweep.
He was trying to heal the Empire by cutting away the rotten parts that had festered for years.
He even planned to lump together and eliminate those who had manipulated the law while hiding in gray areas, so what would pour down wouldn’t be a bloodbath but a waterfall made of blood.
The process would be horrific.
“So, Johan Damus, there’s no need for you to worry. You just need to keep turning your eyes away from complicated problems like you always do.”
“Then what about you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
The Oracle replied with a bright smile.
“I stepped away long ago. That’s why I’m enjoying life like this now.”
That smile at least was genuine.
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