漫画大王

Chapter 78

With no idea how to soothe a crying child, I took a piece of candy from the ready-to-eat food storage area in the cafeteria and handed it to her.

She squawked that she wouldn’t eat it, but when I unwrapped it and brought it toward her mouth, she reluctantly ate it.

I’d rate her adorableness at ten points out of ten...

Watching her nibble on the candy while crying was truly an endearing sight.

“Hey, I was just joking. Are you seriously going to cry like a three-year-old kid? Come on, surely you didn’t think I actually was going to do that.”

As soon as she stopped crying, munching on the candy while wiping her eyes, I couldn’t help but start teasing her again. At that, she glared daggers at me.

“Of course you really meant it! I know for a fact you weren’t joking! You might not do it to other kids, but you would do it to me!”

‘Hmm, you do have a point.’

She was right. I wasn’t interested in doing anything to the other students, but if Harriet took a leave of absence and came back the next year, It was highly probable that I would actually go out of my way to bother her even more than I was now.

I guess she really was smarter than me after all. She had correctly anticipated my behavioral patterns that even I wasn’t aware of.

She seemed to be expecting some kind of romantic confession when I told her not to take a leave, but there she was now, suddenly looking at me as if I were her sworn enemy.

Harriet made me realize that if I ever got the chance to have a daughter when I was alive, I would have teased my daughter the same way I did her. The little girl would cry, saying “You’re the worst, dad!”, but that would only make me want to tease her even more. I would have been a master at parenting.

Harriet was certain that if she took a leave of absence, she would be subjected to a hellish life with Reinhart as her senior in the Temple.

“Well... Honestly, now that you’ve mentioned it, I can’t deny that you’re wrong... But anyway, if you don’t want to take leave, then don’t. What’s stopping you?”

“What good would it do if I told you?” Harriet said with an annoyed grunt as she turned her head away, as if I would not be able to do anything even if she told me.

‘I don’t care if you ignore my words, scorn me, or tease me for being a beggar. You’ve already fallen into my hands the moment you accepted this one-on-one chat.’

“What do you mean, what good would it do? Maybe I have some clever solution that you don’t know about.”

To be honest, I didn’t have any clever solutions, but I thought that I might come up with something if we talked it over. And if there was truly no way she could remain at the Temple, I could use the ‘Revise’ function to change the situation so that the Duke of Saint-Ouen could be persuaded that Harriet did not need to take a leave of absence, though I wasn’t sure how many points that would take.

Harriet stared at me intently, as if she was trying to figure something out. The look in her eyes was definitely not one of trust; it seemed like she was desperately grasping at straws.

“You’d be happy if I took leave, though, right? You’d get to bully me next year.”

Harriet seemed to have jumped to an entirely wrong conclusion. Perhaps she wondered why I wasn’t dancing with joy at the thought of being able to torment her, but was trying to find a way for her not to take a leave of absence instead.

“Oh, come on, I told you. It was just a joke. I don’t want you to take leave.”

‘I can’t tell you the complicated reason behind it, but it’s the truth.’

“Why... don’t you like it?”

‘Oh my god. God, why do you keep making me say things to this kid that make it sound like I’m hitting on her?’

I guess the god in this world was technically me... the god of stupidity.

“You know, it’s just fun to be around you.”

That was true. It was very entertaining.

Harriet scowled as if she was an idiot for expecting anything different to come out of me.

“Ugh! So you do want me to say so you can keep bullying me!”

“It doesn’t matter how we get there as long as we get to the result, does it? You don’t want to go on a leave of absence, and I don’t want you to either, so why not work together to achieve that goal?!”

I saw this as mutually beneficial, and thought that we could help each other. Harriet gave me a poisonous glare.

I really couldn’t tell if she liked me or hated me, given her ambivalent attitude. Right then, her expression of loathing seemed genuine. But then again, it’s impossible to like every single part of a person.

In a way, it was kind of like cheonggukjang. The smell of it made one go “Uck!” but then, all of a sudden, the craving would come, and one would find oneself saying, “Hmm, it’s been a while since I had it... maybe I didn’t hate it so much after all?”

Anyway, Harriet was fuming from the tip of her toes to the crown of her head at the moment, but eventually, believing that things would be worse if she took a leave of absence, she opened her mouth to speak.

“My father... he keeps telling me to go on leave.”

The answer I had anticipated finally came out.

***

Harriet began to explain her situation in a calm voice.

When news of the terrorist attack in the imperial capital had spread, the Duke of Saint-Ouen was not in his duchy but at the capital. Given that the imperial celebrations had just begun, most of the influential nobles would have been in the capital.

This meant that Harriet hadn’t returned to the duchy of Saint-Ouen, but stayed in the capital instead. If that were the case, she should have returned to the Temple, but she did not.

“Since the incident happened in the capital, my father said the Temple could also be in danger. So, I stayed with him...”

After the terror attack, the festival was canceled, and all official events were called off as well. The Duke of Saint-Ouen had probably kept Harriet under his protection in the capital, or in his nearby ducal residence. Since the capital’s security had been compromised, it would have been natural for him to want to keep his daughter under his own protection.

Magic was highly-developed in the Duchy of Saint-Ouen, and the Saint-Ouen family were all magicians that stretched back generations. As part of this lineage, I created Harriet de Saint-Ouen as a character with exceptional magical talent.

She was born with an incredible talent for all kinds of magic, including summoning, destruction, enchantment, magical crafting, psychic magic, alchemy, and even dark magic, among others. Harriet possessed a mind-boggling talent that enabled her to understand and acquire any magic that existed and be outstandingly proficient at it.

The Saint-Ouen family had a deeply entrenched magical lineage, and the Duke himself was a great mage of tremendous power who participated in the Great War as well.

At that moment, the Duke of Saint-Ouen was among the most powerful mages in the entire empire.

Given that the Duke cherished his daughter more than anything, and with the capital considered a dangerous place to be, he could no longer allow his daughter to continue to attend classes at the Temple. His preference was probably for her to attend a magical school within the duchy, or teach her himself, even if the quality of education would not be quite at the Temple’s level.

Honestly, someone like Harriet probably didn’t even need to come to the Temple in the first place.

“So, I had to find a way to somehow return to the Temple...”

It seemed that despite her father’s attempts to keep her from the Temple, Harriet had made a fuss, crying and creating drama, which persuaded her father to let her return, at least for the moment.

But since taking a leave of absence had become a possibility, her father had probably told her that she could re-enroll in the Temple after taking a break for a year.

The Duke’s reasoning was sound. A year would be sufficient time for the perpetrator to be caught and for the capital to stabilize. In the end, it was Harriet who seemed childish for throwing a tantrum about not wanting to take this leave of absence.

However, the important thing was that I knew for a fact that there wouldn’t be any more demon-related terrorist attacks. Of course, although I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure about what would happen in the future, I could guarantee that Harriet herself would not become involved in any future attacks related to the Demon Realm.

‘Then again, she’s already rather tangled up in demon-related school harassment, I suppose...’

Anyway, at this point in time, I was the only one who knew that the Duke’s worries were unfounded.

“Try crying and making a scene, saying that you absolutely can’t take leave.”

“I already d-...!”

She was about to say she’d already done so, but she suddenly froze, covering her mouth in shock. She was afraid to admit that she had whined and cried to her parents, thinking I might tease her about it.

“Hey, it’s not embarrassing for a kid to cry and throw a tantrum. It happens.”

‘It would definitely be embarrassing if I did it, but it’s not if you do.’

Harriet’s expression grew uncertain, and, with her face turning red, she lowered her head.

“It didn’t work.”

Her crying and tantrums had been ineffective. From the Duke of Saint-Ouen’s perspective, his daughter’s life was at stake, and he could not overlook this just because she threw a tantrum. He wasn’t going to give in so easily.

“Hmm... what can be done?”

No line of reasoning came to mind to persuade the Duke that he had to leave his daughter at the Temple. Harriet glared at me with suspicion.

“So, what? You don’t have any clever ideas either,” she said in response to my vague comment.

“Well, I said we should think about it together. I never said I had a solution.”

“Hmph!”

“You never know if you have poop inside you unless you strain real hard first. That’s what I’m saying. We should strain together and push for something!”

“Eeeeew! That’s so gross! I feel like throwing up!”

“Hey, don’t act like you’ve never pooped in your life!”

“Ugh! Eww! Eeeew!”

Harriet covered her ears and shrieked as if she couldn’t believe what she had heard. It seemed the more she talked with me, the worse she felt, without even coming close to finding an answer.

Offering the argument that taking a leave of absence would delay her progress was meaningless. She was special in many ways and could receive private instruction from the numerous mages in the duchy if needed.

A childish reason would be not wanting to be separated from her friends, but the Duke would likely rebut that with the fact that she could just meet them again after a year.

There wasn’t a compelling reason for Harriet to continue to stay at the Temple.

A compelling reason...

I guess it didn’t require a good reason for a student to not take a break from school, but right now, I had to find something.

I knew that the interior of the Temple was completely safe, but there was no way the Duke of Saint-Ouen would believe that...

‘Wait a minute. If the imperial prince and princess are still attending the Temple without any issues, what is the Duke of Saint-Ouen so worried about? Who is he to be making a fuss when the imperial family is staying quiet about this?’

Ah, this was it.

Maybe I could use this as a starting point.

“The imperial prince and princess are still attending the Temple just fine, aren’t they?”

It seemed like neither had any intention of taking a leave. Given that both the Temple and the imperial palace were in the same capital city of Gradium, taking a leave of absence wouldn’t really make sense for them anyway.

“... Yeah.”

“If you suddenly decide to take a leave of absence under these circumstances, do you think the imperial siblings might start thinking poorly of the Saint-Ouen family?”

“What? What...? What are you talking about?”

Harriet’s face turned pale when I suddenly brought up the imperial prince and princess.

“Think about it. Despite this incident occurring within the capital, both the precious royal children are still attending the Temple. However, you, despite being from a ducal family, refuse to stay at the Temple because the capital is ‘dangerous’. In other words, it might seem like the ducal family is dismissing the Temple’s security. Moreover, it could even be perceived as disrespectful to the prince and princess, who are still attending without a problem, right?”

“H-huh...?”

You could make up a billion reasons, since it all depended on how you phrased things. I was pretty sure that the prince and princess would not care whether Harriet took a leave or not, but it was a potential issue that could arise, if one really wanted to make a problem out of it.

Besides, the current time was a very sensitive one.

The entire Royal Class was on edge, keeping an eye on the prince’s and princess’s moods. The atmosphere within the palace was likely to be just as tense, if not more so.

At this delicate time, jumping at the offer to take a leave of absence was basically equivalent to declaring that the Temple was a dangerous place to be.

And this wasn’t just any student, but one who shared a class with the imperial prince.

Depending on how one interpreted things, one could make a probable deduction that Vertus was already quite upset. If the already-infuriated prince noticed the departure of the ducal daughter of Saint-Ouen from the Temple, citing a dangerous environment as the reason, it would be like throwing a stone at thin ice.

“Moreover, you and Vertus are in the same class. You might offend the prince and the empire at a time when imperial authority is at its most powerful since its founding. Falling out of favor with either one of the royals could grow to become a huge headache later on. And keep in mind that you might potentially offend both of them.”

It was totally possible that she could easily fall out of favor with both the prince and the princess.

Harriet had turned deathly pale, and was trembling. As strongly as she held onto her pride and sense of nobility, she also had a tendency to crumble in the face of those of higher status.

“Th-then... What should I do? Isn’t this really bad?”

‘... Whoa, why is she overreacting like this all of a sudden?’

“... Hey, Thick-Skull. I’m telling you to use this argument to persuade your father to let you stay, not to get persuaded by it yourself.”

“Oh... What?”

Harriet seemed too shocked to even respond to being called by that nickname.

It was a very hypothetical situation, and it was more likely not to be a problem. What I wanted to tell Harriet was to convince her father that it would be risky to trigger sensitive individuals during this sensitive period, and therefore, taking a leave of absence would be unwise.

Yet here she was, trembling as if she was actually in such a situation already.

“Do you really think the prince and princess would start hating you just because you went on leave?”

The Duchy of Saint-Ouen—and the Duke himself—was powerful and well-respected. Even if the prince and princess might dislike her a little for this, the Saint-Ouen family was significant enough that they would be just fine.

Frankly, aside from the prince and princess, the only ones at the Temple with status that could compete with Harriet’s were the ducal daughter of Granz, A-3 Riana de Granz, and the member of the Kernstadt royalty, A-6 Heinrich.

“It’s just a hypothetical argument. The probability that it’s going to happen is very low, but you can still use this reasoning to convince your father that it’s the right thing to do. If the Temple was actually a dangerous place, the imperial prince and princess would be the first ones to leave, don’t you agree?”

“Ah, okay...”

Harriet nodded as if she understood what I was getting at. Whether it would work or not, it was worth a try.

“Right. So, there are two main points I need you to remember. The first is that this period is a very sensitive one, and taking a leave of absence might make a bad impression on the prince and princess. The second is that, if the prince and princess are attending the Temple without any issues, it’s because they are confident in the Temple’s security, which has been significantly strengthened compared to before, which means it’s even safer now. Got it?”

“Yeah... okay.”

Harriet nodded along, stunned by my rapid-fire speech. Whether it was effective or not, it was a plan worth trying. And besides, Harriet was the ducal daughter, so even if this argument didn’t work, she always had a say, and she could try a different approach later on if a better idea came up.

Mentioning that Vertus himself had advised against Harriet taking a leave of absence might actually be quite effective.

If Vertus were to express that he wished Harriet not to go on leave, it would greatly amplify the effectiveness of this reasoning. It didn’t need to be a direct comment from him—just a subtle “Wouldn’t it be better if you kept attending the Temple?” would be sufficient.

Even if the message was fairly obscure, a listener could draw plenty of conclusions from it, regardless if Vertus’s reason for making such a comment was something as simple as not wanting a classmate to be held back a year.

‘Should I ask Vertus to have a word with Harriet about not taking leave? He’d probably do it, but I’m quite reluctant to owe him anything, regardless of what it is. I’ll think about that later.’

Anyway, after listening to all I had to say, Harriet was staring at me blankly.

“How... how did you think of that?”

After serious consideration, she found my reasoning surprisingly plausible, and was astonished that I could come up with it.

“It all comes from experience.”

“Experience?”

She looked even more perplexed, not comprehending what I was talking about. Harriet and I continued to discuss more specifics about what arguments could be reasonable.

“Don’t take it too seriously, just make it up as you go along... Why don’t you just write a script if you’re going to be so tedious about it?” I said.

“I’m nervous, okay?! What if I forget?!”

“Look at you, worried about forgetting such a simple argument! And yet you’re a magic major?”

“Don’t call me Thick-Skull!”

“What? I never called you Thick-Skull just now. Wow, you must really be one.”

“You implied it, even if you didn’t say it, you idiot!”

We bickered back and forth in the dining hall, deeper into the night.

“...”

“Oh, hey. Good to see you here!”

“Huh?”

In the late hours of the night, one would always see Ellen Artorius appear at the dining hall.