Serena’s swordsmanship was orthodox and elegant.
Each time she swung her blade, the sharp sound of wind carried all the way to the stands,
and Kyle, befitting the protagonist, received her offensive with fluid ease and showed off dazzling counterattacks.
The railings and decorations of the sparring arena that had been reinforced in advance during the preparation arc
remained firmly fixed in place, even amid the powerful sword pressure the two of them emitted.
There was no unfortunate incident like last time, with decorative parts falling down over someone’s head.
Amid the cheering crowd, I stared blankly at the scene.
Yes, this was the flow of the normal scenario I knew.
A page of the festival that was splendid, safe, and enjoyable for everyone.
A vain hope raised its head: if things ended just like this, the road home from work today might be lighter than expected.
But the moment the sparring match ended and the spectators surged toward the two leads with cheers,
an unnatural movement caught the corner of my eye.
It was behind the sparring arena, near an equipment storage box where the shadows lay thick.
Someone wearing a festival staff armband was loitering while checking their surroundings.
Taking advantage of the public’s attention being focused on Kyle and Serena,
he quietly swapped the box of magic lamps he had prepared in advance with the one inside the storage area.
At that moment, the fingertips of my left hand tingled faintly.
It was not a warning caused by a simple mechanical defect or aging.
The sensation I felt this time was far colder, closer to artificial malice.
A normal box bearing a completed inspection mark went out,
and in its place sat an old box labeled “Spare Decorative Lamps.”
I did not run over there myself.
Not only did I lack the strength, but my body was far too pathetic to confront him head-on.
Instead, I approached Dylan, who was dispersing the audience nearby, and threw out a very short remark.
“Dylan, those boxes over there.
I’m sure they already passed inspection earlier, so why are they being moved again?
They belong to your department, right?”
At first, Dylan turned to look at me with an expression that said, “What nonsense is it this time?”
But perhaps he soon recalled the accidents I had pointed out during the preparation period,
because his complexion changed in an instant.
He stared hard at the storage area where my gaze was fixed, then shouted at the club members beside him.
“Hey! Bring me the list of spare lamps for the sparring arena again!
Compare the inspection sheet with the box numbers! Right now!”
At Dylan’s sudden order, the person handling the box flinched.
He raised his head to check this way, and for the briefest instant, our eyes met.
A cold gaze.
He stared for a moment at the access badge attached to my collar,
then took his hand off the box and hid himself in the crowd.
It had happened in the blink of an eye.
Damp, cold sweat ran down my spine.
That person just now had clearly seemed to recognize me.
It was not the movement of someone who had simply made a worker’s mistake, but of someone who had recognized my existence as a variable and retreated.
Dylan opened one of the boxes with the club members and clicked his tongue.
“What the hell is this? The inspection stamp is subtly different.
Is it forged? Damn it, Yulian. If it weren’t for you, we might have hung this up as-is during the evening lighting ceremony.”
Fortunately, it did not escalate into a major accident.
The public sparring match ended in great success, and the spectators, knowing nothing, moved on to the next booths.
But the tingling in my fingertips did not fade easily.
Now, the danger was not limited to old objects creaking out of control.
There was someone deliberately breaking those objects and moving to put them back in place.
Pressing down on my increasingly complicated thoughts, I dragged my heavy steps toward the next inspection area, the Divine Studies Department booth.
The Divine Studies Department’s treatment booth was set a step away from the commotion of the square.
The white tent gleamed dazzlingly under the noon sunlight,
and beneath it lingered the faint scent of medicinal herbs and the warmth of divine power.
The laughter of children waiting for the blessing ceremony mingled with the low conversations of visitors waiting their turn,
making this place feel less like a festival and more like a peaceful rest area.
As soon as I stepped into the entrance of the tent, I let out a long breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
The excessive tension in my legs loosened, and the trembling in my fingertips eased a little.
The barrier stakes I had moved with all my might during the preparation period were firmly gripping the ground in their proper places.
Instead of recklessly pouring out mana as she had before,
Amelia calmly arranged the order while checking the patients’ conditions.
Rine, too, had escaped the compulsion to cover every injured person with divine power,
and was now recommending ointment and bandages first for minor abrasions.
Good.
This place was running perfectly even without me.
At last, the academy looked like an educational institution that was functioning properly.
I harbored the vain hope that I might be able to bury myself in a chair in the corner like this
and remain invisible until the festival ended.
But that peace did not last even five minutes.
“Yulian, so you were here.”
At Rine’s voice from behind me, I felt my stomach tighten.
When I turned around, her smile was radiant, but the gaze observing me beyond it was sharp.
She looked at me nearly collapsed back in my chair,
then held out a small glass bottle instead of suggesting treatment.
“Your complexion is really bad.”
I accepted the bottle and felt utterly at a loss.
Just then, a commotion arose near the entrance of the booth.
A noble sponsor’s family, dressed in splendid clothing and accompanied by attendants, appeared
and began pressuring Amelia while pushing aside the people waiting in line.
“Our child is dizzy because of the sunlight. Can’t you perform the blessing ceremony for us first?
Our family donates a considerable amount of money to the academy, you know.”
A flustered Amelia looked as if she did not know what to do and tried to glance at me.
But Rine stepped forward first.
As if proving the experience she had gained during the preparation period,
she blocked their path with an unshaken attitude.
“I’m sorry, but patients who need emergency treatment come first.
The blessing ceremony will proceed in the set order.
Please wait over there in the back for a moment.”
At her firm yet polite attitude, the noble family grumbled but stepped back.
Watching that scene, I was overcome with a strange feeling.
Even without me intervening, people were growing on their own and solving problems.
That was exactly what the core of this episode should have been.
A world that kept moving even without me.
But just as I was about to drink the supplement in relief,
I caught sight of an unfamiliar movement behind the tent outside the booth.
It was one of the attendants from the family that had just tried to force their way to the front.
Instead of following the family,
he had slipped quietly out of the line and was loitering near the storage box behind the tent.
He did not seem at all interested in the injured or the blessings.
Rather, he was examining the ground, meticulously looking over the barrier stakes and anchor points whose positions we had changed.
At first, I thought he was merely the attendant of a fussy noble checking the surroundings.
But the moment he took a small note from inside his sleeve and compared it to the situation on-site, goosebumps rose along my spine.
That man was neither a patient nor an ordinary visitor.
He was an intruder who had come to confirm and record the altered positions of the barriers.
I could not shout immediately, nor could I run over and grab him.
With my poor stamina, it was beyond me, and if I openly pointed him out, I would clearly be the one treated as suspicious instead.
I tightened my grip on the bottle of supplement.
My fingertips began to tremble.
I had to make people notice him right now.
I stopped myself from drinking the recovery tonic and deliberately let out a harsh cough.
At the same time, I loosened the hand holding the bottle and dropped it to the floor.
Crash!
A sharp shattering sound rang through the booth.
The attendant moving stealthily behind the tent reflexively turned his head.
Not missing that brief noise, Mia, who had been following a scent nearby, twitched her nose and looked in that direction.
Nadia’s gaze, which had been watching the situation from afar, also fixed on the attendant’s position.
Briana, who had been about to take out her terminal to update my accident record,
first noticed the attendant’s unnatural path and furrowed her brow.
Rine came over to my side with a startled expression.
Looking at the shards on the floor, she examined me with concern.
“Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you? Yulian, you didn’t drop it on purpose, did you?”
Wiping away cold sweat, I shook my head vigorously.
“Of course not! My hand just lost strength.”
After hearing my answer, Rine let out a small sigh of relief.
“That’s good. Then I’ll give you one more.
This time, make sure you hold on to it while you drink.”
She held out a new bottle with a smile.
I was grateful for her kindness,
but at the same time, I had to feel my stomach tighten as if her gaze toward me had deepened.
It might have been more comfortable if she had suspected me of being a troublemaker instead.
Clutching the newly received bottle tightly, I stared blankly at the attendant’s back as he was caught by Nadia in the distance and subjected to questioning.
The festival remained peaceful, but my workday was becoming more treacherous by the minute.
The path following Nadia’s footsteps away from the Divine Studies Department booth
was a process in which the noisy clamor of the square gradually transformed into elegant, restrained sound.
The dirt ground beneath my feet was, at some point, covered by a thick, soft carpet,
and the greasy smell of food drifting through the air had changed into the sharp scent of heavy perfume and expensive tobacco.
The uppermost layer of the Astra Academy festival,
the area known as the VIP seats, seemed to be surrounded by a vast barrier of their own.
“Yulian, your expression is far too stiff.
The people we’re about to meet are those who could alter your academic record with a single line in a document.
How about putting on a slightly more polite smile?”
Nadia spoke quietly without even turning around.
Behind her, I tried to force up the corners of my mouth, then gave up.
My stomach was already twisted as far as it could go.
If there was anything more frightening than an exploding magic circle or a wooden sword flying at me,
it was probably this suffocating noble etiquette, and the pressure that a single slip of the tongue might ruin my life.
“Nadia, I’m an on-site inspection assistant. I’m not in charge of etiquette.
Is there really a reason I have to come to a place like this?”
“Of course there is.
The safety of a festival comes not only from objects, but also from relationships between people.
And most of all, this area is where the eyes of a ‘special assistant’ like you are needed most.”
Nadia looked back at me and gave her characteristic calculated smile.
Her eyes were already recording every subtle movement of the attendants and nobles loitering around the VIP seats.
The moment I stepped into the VIP entrance, I felt as though I would be blinded by the sheen radiating from the splendid fabrics.
Coats embroidered with gold thread and buttons set with jewels flashed in the sunlight.
The visitors exchanged courteous yet cold political smiles,
and the students moving among them did so silently, as if they had become ghosts.
I felt like a foreign object thrown into that splendor.
My worn practice uniform and pale face were no different from a large stain spoiling the aesthetics of this space.
Every time I felt the arrogant gazes around me scanning me, cold sweat ran down my spine.
“Oh, if it isn’t the young lady of the Lowell Count’s family.
I heard you were busy preparing for the festival, yet you are personally guiding us. What an honor.”
A middle-aged noble approached Nadia and spoke to her.
Nadia greeted him with flawless noble etiquette, without even a hair’s breadth of error.
Beside her, I bowed my head while erasing my presence as much as possible.
Please, let no one speak to me.
Please, let me stand here like a folding screen and make it safely to the end of work.
But it seemed there was no Folding Screen Yulian in Nadia’s plan.
“We are the ones honored to meet you, my lord marquis, a patron of the academy.
The student here is Yulian Valter, the special assistant in charge of safety for this festival.
He has been working hard taking care of even the smallest details on-site.”
The moment Nadia introduced me, the marquis’s gaze fixed on me.
As that cold, sticky gaze swept over my entire body, it felt as if my stomach flipped over once.
I barely managed to squeeze out my voice and offer a greeting.
“……It is a pleasure to meet you, my lord marquis.”
The marquis barely acknowledged my greeting
before gesturing to the attendant standing beside him.
The attendant stepped forward with a splendid decorative box held in his arms.
“These are the items we have decided to donate to the academy this time.
They are rare processed mana stones, so handle them with care.”
Nadia’s gaze at the box sharpened for an instant.
Her eyes were not directed at the ornate patterns carved into the box’s exterior,
but at the small seal fastening the seam of the box.
I, too, felt a strange sense of dissonance, too faint to call danger detection.
That seal. I had seen it somewhere before.