After finishing all of our afternoon classes, we gathered in Anna’s room for a while before dinner.
Since one of the Empire’s most powerful ducal houses was personally targeting Anna, we needed to quietly come up with a plan.
“Excuse me.”
I said that as I entered, but Anna’s room was not entirely unfamiliar to me since I had already taken a slight(?) peek inside before.
Still, I had never actually entered the room back then, so I had no idea it smelled this nice.
“Tyr. Why doesn’t our room smell like this?”
“That is because of you, Young Master.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Wow, Young Master. Look at that outfit. It is really pretty.”
Could you at least put a little sincerity into changing the subject?
Tyr seemed to have changed a little since we entered Lion Heart.
I might have to straighten him out sometime soon.
Anyway, while I sat at the table looking around the room, Anna and Karen returned with tea.
She could have simply ordered Karen to prepare it, but Anna insisted that the host should personally brew tea for guests and stubbornly did it herself.
Watching her, I could not help thinking that she was far too unpretentious for the daughter of a baronial family.
Why the hell was House Ellimore going out of its way to torment such a nice girl?
Bunch of lunatics.
“Now tell me. What exactly did Sabel Ellimore say to you?”
Anna apparently had not calmed down yet.
She spent quite a while silently sipping her tea.
Only after finishing the entire cup did she finally speak.
“Gilbert, Sabel’s twin older brother, is the Student Council President of the Imperial Magic Academy. I do not know why, but he knows about me. I think it probably has something to do with what happened during our weekend outing.”
As expected.
That petty cowardly bastard.
I did not know exactly how he had figured it out, but apparently he had discovered that one of the girls they had targeted that day was Anna Camil.
Once he knew that much, finding out where she was staying would have been child’s play for the eldest son of a duke.
“Sabel said there was someone who had inflicted an unspeakable humiliation on Gilbert, and that I was the only person who knew who it was. The only person I could think of was... you, Ruben. But I could never tell her your name, so I said I did not know.”
“So that is why you kept avoiding me...?”
“If they found out that Ruben and I were close, they would definitely start suspecting you too....”
My God.
This was actually pretty damn touching.
Just how worried about me had this kid been to endure the pressure of a ducal house all by herself?
In my previous life, people had constantly stabbed me in the back and tried to assassinate me.
Receiving such pure goodwill and kindness in this life made something ache strangely in my chest.
“So how did Sabel react?”
“She keeps summoning me whenever she gets the chance and threatening me. I think Sabel wants Gilbert to acknowledge her abilities. So... she has been pressuring me pretty aggressively. Recently, she even threatened my entire family.”
And despite all that, she had not said a single word about me?
I found myself looking at Anna in a new light.
I had thought she was simply cheerful and kind.
I had not realized she had this much loyalty and determination.
Now I understood a little better why Karen completely lost her head whenever Anna was involved.
“Gilbert is the leading candidate to become the next Grand Duke. Sabel’s position within the family is comparatively weak, so she will not want to fall out of Gilbert’s favor. If we do not change the situation, Anna will continue to be harassed.”
Anna’s face darkened at my words.
It was disgusting, but that was reality.
A duke.
Once someone from a family that powerful targeted you, whether you were a baron or anything else hardly mattered.
Compared to them, you might as well have been a commoner.
That was the wall created by social status.
You could do nothing but endure it helplessly.
“Is there truly no way?”
Karen looked at me with the same worried expression as Anna.
What was I supposed to do when a demon looked at me with eyes full of that much expectation?
Haa.
Still, they had messed with my friend.
There was no way I could simply sit back and watch.
You filthy bastards from House Ellimore.
I will crush you even more spectacularly than I did in my previous life.
“Do not worry. I will handle it.”
***
That night.
Once again dressed in my black tailcoat and black mask, I climbed onto the rooftop of the cadet dormitory.
The place I intended to visit tonight was undoubtedly under extremely heavy surveillance, so I had been forced to prepare an enormous number of spells with Memorize.
“I really should not keep using magic like this.”
Admuasil had told me that I could use magic as long as my identity was not exposed, but I still wondered whether this was really fine.
The problem was that I was simply too talented a mage.
I could not pretend to be bad at something I was this good at.
If I continued relying on magic like this, the day would eventually come when someone discovered my true identity.
I needed to become stronger as a warrior before that happened.
“Ugh. A growing boy is supposed to get plenty of sleep.”
Standing alone on the rooftop in the cold predawn wind made me feel incredibly miserable.
Still, when I thought about everything Anna had done for me, I figured it was fine if I failed to grow a little taller for one night.
“Shall we go?”
I surrendered my body to the wind and flew from the rooftop.
I had already located Sabel’s room.
Since she was both the Student Council President and the daughter of a duke, her room was situated in one of the most difficult places to infiltrate.
Of course, that only mattered if you intended to infiltrate it physically.
“Etherealness.”
My body instantly turned completely ethereal.
Like a ghost, I passed straight through the dormitory walls and even through the bodies of cadets.
Etherealness had a fairly short duration.
I headed directly toward Sabel’s room before the spell could expire.
Her room was located at the very center of the dormitory’s middle floor and looked roughly five times larger than mine.
Our family probably paid plenty of money too.
Five times larger seemed a little excessive.
“Dispel.”
The moment I entered Sabel’s quarters, I released Etherealness and looked around.
The space was decorated in an elegant style and kept meticulously organized.
Perhaps because this area served as a shared sitting room for her attendants, no one was present.
Sabel was probably staying in the largest room within these quarters.
Remembering the layout I had briefly observed while ethereal, I found what should have been her bedroom.
Just as I carefully reached for the doorknob, I sensed an extremely faint trace of mana and stopped moving.
It was so faint that almost no one other than me would have noticed it.
“Detect Magic.”
Just as I expected, an alarm Magic Formation had been installed.
Putting a Magic Formation around a private bedroom?
She must have had money to burn.
Well, at least that confirmed this was Sabel’s room.
I slightly distorted the flow of mana and disrupted the formation before carefully opening the door.
“Haa... haa....”
A girl slept soundly on a large bed beside the window, breathing evenly.
She wore a simple slip, and while it covered her, her silhouette was still clearly visible beneath it.
Her emerald hair looked like seawater with coral reefs swaying beneath its surface.
That alone revealed her identity.
There was no mistaking the blood of House Ellimore.
Sabel Ellimore.
“Hoo....”
Now that I had confirmed this was Sabel Ellimore’s room, it was time to move on to the next part of my plan.
A high-level 9th-Circle spell.
I had not used this one in a long time, so I was slightly nervous.
If this spell went wrong, I might never be able to return to the current world.
“Dimension Transformation.”
Even though I had prepared the spell with Memorize, the calculations required were absurdly complicated.
As my brain began to feel as though it were melting, I temporarily separated the room containing Sabel and me from the current world.
From this moment onward, this room belonged to an entirely different dimension.
No one would be able to interfere while I spoke with Sabel.
“Ghk....”
Maybe I was rusty.
I felt blood trickling from my nose beneath the black mask.
No matter how much mana I drew from nature itself, the vessel wielding that power was still human.
If I pushed too hard, my body would always be the first thing to break down.
I needed to be careful for a while.
Anyway, now it was time to wake Sabel and talk.
“Ahem!”
I cleared my throat rather loudly.
Sabel showed absolutely no sign of waking.
They said beautiful people slept a lot.
Was she personally trying to prove the saying true?
Then another thought occurred to me.
It would be troublesome if she woke up and immediately attacked me.
This was a Warrior Academy, after all.
Considering that Sabel was the Student Council President, she was probably a fairly accomplished warrior.
Once that thought crossed my mind, I pulled a rope from inside my clothes and tossed it forward.
“Move! Rope! (Animate Rope)”
The rope infused with my magic began moving by itself and bound Sabel’s wrists and ankles.
Looking at this now....
This made me look like some kind of criminal.
“Mmm....”
Perhaps sensing that something was wrong, Sabel slowly opened her eyes.
Her eyes appeared between strands of emerald hair that flowed like a sea.
They were emeralds as well.
Those jewel-like eyes seemed to sparkle.
Even someone like me, who had endured countless hardships in my previous life, could almost have been drawn into those deep, captivating eyes.
“Ah, you are awake.”
“What... Who are you?!”
She seemed understandably startled when she realized that her hands and feet had been bound.
I could say with confidence that Sabel had never once in her life been restrained this helplessly by someone else.
“Me? Think of me as something like a ghost. A phantom. An illusion. Something that exists, yet cannot be reached.”
“You lunatic! Do you even know who I am to dare do this to me?!”
“Sabel Ellimore. Third daughter of House Ellimore.”
“Ha!”
Her expression clearly said, ‘And you are doing this even though you know that?’
What surprised me was how well she maintained her composure despite the sudden situation.
Considering this was probably the first time a duke’s daughter had ever been treated like this, she had considerable nerve.
Better than her brother, at least.
“If I scream right now, the guards stationed throughout this dormitory will immediately tear you limb from limb.”
Oh, really?
Then I should scream first.
“AAAAAAARGH! WAAAAAAAH! HAAAAAAAH!”
“W-What are you doing?!”
The moment I started screaming like a lunatic, her composure shattered.
I grinned before continuing.
The mask covered only the upper half of my face, so she could clearly tell I was smiling.
“You can scream as much as you like if you want. But this place is currently within the range of a Silence spell. You will only hurt your throat.”
“A Silence spell? Ha! Do you think you can fool this lady with such an obvious lie? A brat like you cast magic of that level?”
“Why? You do not believe me? That is fine. What I said is still true. Facts do not change simply because you refuse to believe them.”
I could hardly tell her that I had used high-level Dimensional Magic, so I substituted Silence instead.
Rather than immediately arguing, she began examining the situation.
Her glance toward the top of the door was probably to check what had happened to the alarm Magic Formation.
Her gaze toward the doorknob was likely because she was wondering why none of the guards had come running despite my screaming.
She would reach one of two conclusions.
Either a Silence spell really was preventing sound from leaving the room, or I had somehow dealt with all the guards without anyone noticing.
If it was the former, then perhaps I could be reasoned with.
If it was the latter, then I was extremely dangerous.
Either way, it established that I was no ordinary person.
And once someone reached that conclusion, their next words generally began the same way.
“What do you want?”
I knew it.
“Sabel Ellimore.”
I looked directly into her emerald eyes.
“I will make you the next Grand Duke.”