“It is truly a shame that Sir Richard has already left.”
“How disappointing. This banquet is practically being held in Sir Richard’s honor.”
Listening to the complaints of the high-ranking nobles, tinged with disappointment, Richard’s aide Maurice broke into a cold sweat.
“His Excellency Richard wished to take some time to mourn the casualties and wounded of the war…….”
“Mourn…… If that is his wish, then of course we should respect it.”
Mourn, my ass.
Maurice rattled off the blatant lie while feeling repeated pangs of guilt.
How long would these polished excuses keep working on the nobles?
Still, he could hardly tell them that their fastidious commander-in-chief found gatherings like this unbearably troublesome.
Not when the man’s popularity was soaring so high it looked ready to ascend straight into heaven.
‘Nothing will happen, right?’
Remembering his inscrutable superior, who had vanished after leaving behind nothing but the words that he had run out of cigarettes, Maurice felt an inexplicable unease.
Richard had always been cold by nature and rarely revealed what he was thinking.
But after returning from the subjugation expedition, he had become even more detached and difficult to read.
The only time he showed anything resembling human warmth was when he was with the members of the Black Knight Order.
‘……I’m probably worrying for nothing.’
Even so, Maurice could not help worrying about the current situation.
Recently, Grand Duke Cronel seemed to be trying to favor his incompetent second son, born to his second wife, over his eldest son Richard.
Maurice’s family, however, had staked its future on the capable and powerful heir, Richard.
So Maurice wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, hoping that today, too, would pass without incident.
***
The moment Mona spotted Professor Thomas in a corner of the banquet hall, she gripped the thesis hidden beneath her skirt.
At the same time, she recalled the script she had prepared in advance.
It went like this.
[Professor, have you read my thesis?
I knew it! I thought you might not have, so I brought it with me.
I know you are busy, but five minutes is all it will take.
I formatted the paper according to regulations, and you only need to check the final page, where I marked the core hypothesis and conclusion.]
Of course, she had also prepared for the possibility that the professor would refuse to read her thesis.
[Professor. Did you know?
If there is no record of thesis supervision for an entire year, the Academy’s academic affairs office may investigate your teaching record.
So it would be in your best interest to spare just five minutes.
If even that much is too difficult, then please spare one second to sign this transfer-of-evaluation-authority form.]
She was feeling rather satisfied with what she considered a flawless script when her pupils shook.
“Uh……!?”
Where did he go?
While she had been hiding in a corner of the terrace and pulling the thesis out from under her skirt, the professor had vanished again without a trace.
‘Still, he can’t have gone far.’
Sure enough, Professor Thomas was crossing the gallery passage, laughing loudly with the group he belonged to.
‘But where is he going?’
Watching the professor head out through a rear door leading outside, Mona remembered what the mage had said earlier.
“Tsk. The victory celebration is clearly just an excuse. They will undoubtedly slip away to some social club afterward.”
Of all times, was he really heading to that social club now……?
What should I do?
Mona hesitated for a moment, then set her jaw and began following the professor.
Under Imperial law, the head of a family could force his daughter into marriage.
If she failed to earn her degree quickly enough, her father might try to marry her off to some random man by force.
This was no time to be picky.
‘If I’ve drawn the knife, I might as well slice the radish…….’
But even after leaving the banquet hall, Mona’s pursuit did not go smoothly.
“Ugh!”
“Watch it!”
The streets near the Imperial Palace were packed to bursting with people hoping to catch even a glimpse of the war hero’s coat.
Even so, Mona somehow managed to squeeze through the crowds without losing Professor Thomas and his group.
Before she knew it, she had left the busy central district behind and entered an unfamiliar area.
‘Cigarette smoke…….’
A harsh smell suddenly stung her nose.
Frowning, Mona headed into the alley the professor had entered.
“Hey!”
A large man abruptly stepped in front of her.
“You there, ugly girl with the glasses. You seriously think you can walk into our salon looking like that? There are limits to how badly you can ruin the atmosphere.”
“I only need to go in for a moment…….”
Mona replied anxiously while watching the professor’s group disappear into the dark salon, but the doorman shoved her shoulder.
“Hey! Don’t try sneaking in like a rat! If you want in that badly, at least take off those glasses and wear this.”
“Ah!”
The doorman snatched away her thick glasses, tossed them into a trash can, and handed her a white mask.
“Why did you……!”
Before she could even protest that he had thrown them away, the doorman hurried over to a group of men wearing ornate masks.
“Oh, welcome! This way, please. I’ll show you in, gentlemen.”
Mona stared blankly as the doorman hurried off with the guests.
In the end, she could not bring herself to retrieve her glasses from a trash can piled with vomit and empty bottles, so she put on the mask instead.
‘Damn it.’
Pressing her bangs down to hide her faded irises, Mona swallowed a curse.
She had been so focused on following the professor that she only now realized how strange the atmosphere of this place was.
As the sun went down, gaudy magical lights began switching on all around her, and people in revealing clothes started appearing here and there.
‘I thought a “social club” would be some refined gathering, but it’s actually a salon in an entertainment district.’
Mona had taken the words literally and imagined a place where people played cards and socialized.
Now she felt completely out of her depth.
She had come all this way, but should she give up and turn back……?
Regrettable as it was, finding the professor in a place like this was beyond her.
In the end, Mona trudged back the way she had come, feeling dejected.
‘……But is this really the way I came?’
Once darkness fell, the flashing magical lights transformed the surroundings so completely that she lost her sense of direction.
All she could see were suspicious stalls multiplying one after another.
The farther she walked, the stronger the bitter, acrid smoke and smell became. Coughing, Mona approached one of the stall merchants.
“Excuse me…….”
“Heh heh. Looking to buy tobacco too, miss?”
She had been about to ask where she could catch a carriage, but the merchant pulled out a box and shoved it in front of her before she could say anything.
“Take a look. I have every hot item on the market right now.”
The moment the merchant opened the box, a familiar herbal scent brushed her nose.
‘This…… smells like Almaris.’
Almaris was one of the ingredients Mona had worked with most often during her “research into befriending monsters,” so there was no way she could fail to recognize it.
But why put that flower in tobacco?
Like mandragora, Almaris was classified as a “plant-type monster.” It was not poisonous, but it subtly distorted the flow of mana around it.
That was why it was considered a dangerous material……
“Bah. If you’re not buying anything, get lost!”
When Mona remained silent with her lips pressed tight, the merchant snapped at her and resumed hawking his goods to another customer.
‘So this place sells illegally manufactured tobacco…….’
That meant Imperial enforcement rarely reached this area.
It might be even more dangerous than the entertainment-district salon.
‘Am I cursed today or something?’
Swallowing her tension, Mona moved through the alley as quickly as she could, almost fleeing.
Once she cautiously escaped the alley lined with tobacco sellers, the scenery changed in an instant.
The sharp smell of tar faded, replaced by an inexplicable chill that clung to her skin.
……What is this?
Mona’s eyes widened.
‘The mana flow in this space is strange.’
She had always been sensitive to mana, but the heightened perception caused by the side effects of her experiment allowed Mona to notice it immediately.
The mana in this area was circulating backward, ever so slightly.
Some people called that twisted energy “demonic energy.”
Her heart began pounding violently.
It was not quite fear.
Part of her was boiling with excitement.
Only monsters, creatures that refused to conform to the natural flow, could reverse the circulation of mana.
Why could she sense the presence of a monster in a place like this?
……What kind of monster could it be?
A mere slime could not cause this kind of mana distortion.
She was so curious that she could not make herself leave.
Mona knew better than anyone that curiosity killed the cat. The large scar on her shoulder from her failed experiment was proof enough.
Yet even after that failure, Mona was still a mad cat who had continued her “research into befriending monsters.”
‘But I didn’t die, did I?’
When it came to monsters, Mona tended to lose all reason. As though bewitched, she began walking toward the direction where the distortion in mana felt strongest.
Truthfully, she also had one thing she was relying on.
After all, she had a constitution that allowed her to get along with monsters, so somehow she would—
“Aaaaaagh!”
A harsh, piercing scream tore through her eardrums.
“Ghk……! H-heh…… Lord Richard, please…… please, spare m—!”
CRACK. GRIND.
The sounds of flesh being crushed and bones twisting passed through the darkness, and then a deathly silence settled over everything once more.
Lord…… Richard?
She froze in shock, feeling as though she had just heard a name she absolutely should not have.
Then, in the pitch-black darkness, Mona found herself staring directly into a pair of beastlike eyes gleaming a vivid blood-red.
Those were not the eyes of a human.
They were the eyes of a predator.