“Lord Damian! You look truly magnificent today as well!!”
Vele’s daily routine began with offering a greeting calculated to curry favor with Damian.
“I see.”
‘……Tch. He is putting on airs again today.’
In truth, however, he only did so because Damian was a scion of House Duschfeld. Vele did not genuinely admire him.
‘Still, considering the future, it cannot hurt to start earning his favor now.’
Although its power was no longer what it once had been due to the rise of magic, House Duschfeld was the oldest and most storied noble house in the Kingdom of Lemang, and its influence still could not be ignored.
‘And yet, even though I am devoting myself to him so sincerely, his reaction is utterly lackluster. It might be a ducal house, but it is still a family in decline.’
When Vele first entered the academy, he heard that even the third son of House Duschfeld had enrolled in a Magic Academy. It made him keenly aware that the tide of the times was shifting toward magic.
Moreover, his father, Marquis Morris, had recognized the winds of change faster than anyone else and begun investing in magic. Thanks to the early education he had received from childhood, Vele was one of the rare first-years capable of casting Second-Tier Magic. Arrogant by nature, he was intoxicated by the fact that he was ahead of Damian despite Damian’s ducal blood.
‘In other words, I am even more talented than a son of the great House Duschfeld! As expected, this is the age when magic rules the world!!’
Therefore, Vele believed that Damian’s lukewarm response to his repeated displays of goodwill stemmed from jealousy of Vele’s superior magical ability. Even so, Vele was immensely proud of himself for graciously pretending not to notice.
For the time being, he believed that he still needed to remain in the good graces of Damian, who came from House Duschfeld.
“Lord Damian is as quiet as ever today. When Lord Vele looks after him so attentively, he ought to show Lord Vele a little more consideration.”
“Ha ha. I do not mind. That is simply Lord Damian’s natural disposition. Do not speak of him that way. The lowly commoners might misunderstand Lord Damian.”
“Ahh. As expected. It seems that Lord Vele is the only person here who truly cares for Lord Damian.”
A quick glance.
Vele played along with his naive follower’s words and cast a sidelong glance at Damian.
Damian, however, still showed no sign that he had heard them and did not spare Vele a single look.
‘Tch. Pretending not to hear me again. If he were not a son of the ducal House Duschfeld. Heh heh. Still, I know perfectly well what he is thinking, so he will have no choice but to reach out to me first before long. Let us see how long he can keep pretending to stand aloof all by himself.’
Despite Vele’s increasingly obvious overtures, Damian continued to show no interest in him.
Vele’s mood soured slightly, and he naturally turned to picking a fight with some nearby commoners who looked like easy targets.
“Hey, you. Come here.”
“Y-Yes? What is it……?”
“Haah. Must I really say it twice?”
“Ahem.”
“…….”
But Damian’s cough at that moment made the atmosphere awkward once more.
‘Tch.’
“……Never mind. Just go.”
“Y-Yes?”
“I said get lost.”
“……Yes.”
The commoner hurried away.
With his back still turned to Damian and displeasure written across his face, Vele let the commoner he had intended to use as today’s toy and an outlet for his anger escape.
‘That cough was deliberate, was it not? Even after all I have done for him, instead of showing me any consideration, he chooses moments like this to warn me off. Has he been corrupted from spending all his time with that common-born butler, despite being a duke’s son? ……Nothing about this pleases me.’
“Robert, too, seems to have been following a commoner named Jaes around and watching him lately. I cannot understand why Lord Damian seems so interested in commoners.”
“……Hm? What do you mean by that?”
One of Vele’s followers had astutely sensed his mood and begun currying favor beside him.
Vele pressed him to explain in greater detail.
“Did you not know? Lord Damian’s butler, Robert, has been watching a commoner named Jaes rather frequently of late. Even now, the man who ordinarily never leaves Lord Damian’s side is absent, is he not? He has probably gone to watch Jaes while he attends another class.”
“Jaes?”
“Yes. You know, the transfer student who arrived about a month ago.”
“Yes, I know who he is. What I am asking is why Robert would leave Lord Damian’s side merely to follow that fellow around.”
“Exactly. For him to go that far, Lord Damian must have ordered it, must he not? I found it strange as well, which is why I mentioned it.”
“Hmm…….”
As his follower had said, it struck Vele as exceedingly strange.
From Vele’s perspective, it was also strangely irritating.
It meant that Damian was directing toward a mere commoner the interest he had never shown even Vele, despite all the effort Vele had made so openly.
“Come to think of it, nearly a month has passed, yet I do not believe I have ever held a proper conversation with that commoner Jaes.”
“Shall we arrange an opportunity, then? At a time when Lord Damian and Robert are occupied elsewhere, of course.”
A sly grin.
“As expected, I like how quick you are.”
“Heh heh. You flatter me. Please wait just a little while.”
“Very well.”
Vele’s most recent impression of Jaes was of him making mistake after mistake during practical class, despite rarely doing so normally.
Vele had laughed at him inwardly and intended to mock him, but Jaes had managed to recover somewhat during the latter half of the lesson. Vele’s enthusiasm had cooled, so he had simply left him alone.
‘The fact that I have not bothered him even once over the past month must mean that he has done nothing to offend me, but this works out even better. Before it gets any later, I can use this opportunity to make him thoroughly understand the gulf between his station and Lord Vele’s.’
Vele had already begun to grow bored because he was running out of playthings, and now a perfectly suitable target had appeared.
Moreover, thinking that he might incidentally learn something new about Damian, Vele did not leave the matter solely to his follower. For once, he personally became involved and began watching for the right moment to pick a fight with Jaes.
“……Huh?”
However, it was only about two days later that he began to realize something was wrong.
Although he was not Damian, the son of a duke, Vele was still the eldest son of a marquis.
Therefore, at least among the first-years, there was no one whose opinion he needed to fear.
Thanks to his family’s swift investment in magic, there were even Mages teaching at the academy who owed his family a great debt.
Thus, once Vele set his mind to it, playing with a single commoner named Jaes ought not to have been difficult, just as it had never been difficult before.
……At least, it should have been that way.
‘Why is it so difficult to find an opening?’
School rules might have regarded them as equal classmates, preventing him from picking a fight too openly, but manufacturing a pretext should have been the easiest thing in the world for Vele.
Yet even though both Vele and his followers were watching for a chance to provoke Jaes, the fellow somehow slipped away like an eel every time.
‘What is going on?’
It was not as though Jaes openly did anything to offend him.
Whenever Vele tried to approach before or after class and engineer some reason for them to become entangled, Jaes was receiving instructions from the instructor or engaged in a question-and-answer session, making him difficult to touch. Whenever Vele sought opportunities at other times, the circumstances turned unfavorable with uncanny timing, or Damian or Robert happened to be watching in plain sight. Again and again, he missed his chance.
“What an absurdly lucky fellow. He does not seem aware of anything himself, yet circumstances that make it difficult to touch him keep arising at precisely the right moment.”
His follower grumbled in disbelief.
‘……Can all of this really be a coincidence?’
Vele could not entirely dismiss the question, but even to him, Jaes looked completely oblivious.
That only irritated Vele further.
“Such luck cannot last forever. Since he has inconvenienced me for the past few days, I shall have to give him an especially thorough lesson.”
“Hmm. Then how about this? We can use someone around him to draw him into our path naturally.”
“Someone around him? From what we have seen over the past few days, he seems like a gloomy loner with no friends, just as one would expect from a commoner.”
“That is true, but he appears relatively close to another commoner named Ian, who shares his room in the dormitory.”
“Ian……? Ah! You mean that tedious fellow with green hair and enormous spectacles. It has been so long since I stopped paying attention to him because he was no fun to torment. ……Hmm. Is that so?”
A wicked grin.
A sinister smile spread across Vele’s face at his follower’s words, and the rest of his followers began chuckling darkly along with him.
It did not take long for them to put their plan into action.
* * *
“Um…… Jaes. I-I’m sorry, but could you h-help me for a moment?”
“Hm? At this hour? What is it, Ian?”
“Ah. I-It’s nothing important. S-Some belongings just arrived, but there’s a lot of them, so I-I was hoping you could help me.”
‘……Hmm?’
It was late enough that no one would have found it strange for them to be asleep already.
Jaes narrowed his eyes at Ian’s sudden request in their room.
“You want me to help carry your things? Is that really the reason?”
Ian flinched.
“Y-Yeah?”
‘Haah.’
When Ian stammered even worse than usual at his question, Jaes sighed inwardly.
‘He is far too obvious. So something did happen after all. It is probably the work of that fellow Vele and his gang, is it not? I wanted to avoid them somehow, but it looks like that is no longer possible.’
The signs had been obvious from the moment Jaes returned to the room after class. Ian had seemed even more hesitant and conscious of Jaes’s reactions than usual, so Jaes had already suspected that something was wrong.
Ian’s reaction moments ago finally confirmed it.
‘From what I have seen over the past month, Ian hates burdening other people to an extreme degree. He would never ask me for help this late at night merely to move a little luggage. As a commoner, Ian would have no reason to receive so much baggage that he needed someone else’s help. And then there is that expression. In other words, someone put him up to luring me outside.’
Of course, Jaes knew that it had probably been closer to a threat than a request.
Jaes had not grown particularly close to anyone, but after sharing a room with Ian for the past month, he knew well enough that Ian was not the sort of child who would try to harm him.
Moreover, after the recent events, Jaes had already considered the possibility that something like this might happen.
“Ian, you really can’t lie. If I don’t go outside, they’ll make things even harder for you, won’t they?”
“Ah…….”
Ian’s eyes trembled violently as he failed to meet Jaes’s gaze after such a direct question.
Jaes paid it no mind and continued without hesitation.
“I’ll ask only one thing. Was it Damian or Vele who put you up to this… no, who threatened you?”
“……!!”
Only after hearing that question did Ian start in surprise and briefly meet Jaes’s eyes.
He then hurriedly looked away again and answered in a voice barely loud enough to hear.
“V-Vele…….”
“Haah. So it was him after all.”
“……? J-Jaes. Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry. I had already guessed what was happening. You don’t need to feel guilty.”
Leaving Ian staring blankly at his back with guilt written across his face,
STEP. STEP.
“Jaes…….”
Jaes left the room as though nothing were wrong.