[Episode 15]
I won’t interfere with the original story’s flow, and I won’t get tangled up in troublesome matters. This was a rule I had set purely to protect my safety and return to reality unharmed.
But if it was about Dietrich, things were a little different.
Dietrich was the one who had summoned me to this strange world. Somehow, in order to find Dietrich’s soul again—which had escaped this world and gone who knew where—it seemed I needed to find clues about that strange death.
I carefully opened the entrance to the clock tower. The door opened with a creak.
By the time I had climbed about halfway, I was growing exhausted from the clock tower’s insane staircase. As if to prove that it was one of the tallest buildings in the Academy, the steps continued endlessly.
‘Should I go… on all fours?’
Maybe if I used both my hands and feet, I could go even faster. It was a law of nature that the more legs one had, the faster one was. Just as dogs were faster than humans, and centipedes faster than dogs…. I was so tired that I was losing my reason to the point of considering abandoning my dignity as a human being.
“Hah, hah.”
Trying to ascend the endless stairs with my uncooperative legs left me even more out of breath. Even so, I eventually reached the top of the clock tower, continuously coaxing myself along the way.
The roof of the clock tower, which was built like a terrace, offered a panoramic view of the Academy. The scenery of the Academy and the capital, Kalos, as seen from the heights blended together beautifully. A refreshing breeze cooled my sweat-soaked forehead.
“Wow….”
For a moment, I forgot my original purpose and looked around like a tourist. Then, I suddenly looked down below the clock tower. At the dizzyingly distant ground, my hand gripping the railing grew damp with tension.
It was from a height like this that Dietrich had fallen.
Even now, the ground looked so far away; the night Dietrich fell must have felt like plummeting into darkness where the floor couldn’t be seen at all. As I gazed downward with a heavy heart, a sudden bout of dizziness made me sway. In that moment, someone wrapped their arms around my waist.
“……!”
“You should be careful.”
I turned my head, following that soft voice. Soon, my eyes met a pair of dark brown ones.
“Or were you planning to jump on purpose?”
Finally, he had appeared before my eyes.
There was no way I couldn’t know. The gentle voice that put people at ease, the dark brown hair, and the calm eyes of the same tone. In the original story, only one person had been described this way.
Hayden Saturn, one of the male protagonists of the original story, who—despite his neat appearance—was so promiscuous that he might grind his hips to dust.
Every time a description of Hayden appeared in the original novel, he boasted of his sexual conquests without regard for day or night, or location, to the extent that I would think anew, *Was I really such a conservative person?*
The Academy was no exception. Every time Roxanne ran into Hayden, there were mentions of him being far too close with some student with a new face for them to be mere friends.
And in the original story, Hayden was one of the figures who oddly hovered around Roxanne.
*Well, of course, Dietrich had hovered around her too.*
Unlike Dietrich, he was a figure whose intentions were difficult to read. Even so, one thing was clear: his feelings toward Roxanne were a love-hate close to obsession. It was unique how interested he was in Roxanne, to a persistent degree, despite having barely run into her a few times.
I was still being held by the waist by Hayden. He seemed to think I had stiffened in bewilderment at a stranger’s appearance. His eyes curved into crescents.
“What brings you all the way to the clock tower?”
Students rarely came up here. Saying that, Hayden led me toward the interior of the clock tower, still holding my waist.
In a corner by the clock tower’s railing, I stood blocked by Hayden, the exit cut off. It was uncomfortable how he stood in my way like a wall.
“Just… something I wanted to check.”
As I said that, I pointlessly looked down at the toe of my shoe. This guy was as much of a nuisance to get involved with as Cedric. Intending to give a vague answer and shake him off, I offered a reply that made it awkward to continue. But unexpectedly, Hayden carelessly tossed out the very clue I had been looking for.
“Did you come to check the legend surrounding the clock tower? It’s impressive that a freshman already knows that story.”
He moved around me, placed his hands on the railing, and looked down. His fluffy hair swayed in the wind.
But a story surrounding the clock tower? That was the first I’d heard of it. Wait, and how did Hayden already know I was a freshman? Had he already finished background checks on everyone who had so much as bumped into Roxanne? I had all sorts of questions, but I opened my mouth to ask the one I was most curious about.
“The legend tied to the clock tower…?”
He seemed to realize that I didn’t know about it.
“Now that I look at it, I seem to have spoken needlessly.”
Hayden smiled affectionately as he said that. As if he had unintentionally roused a vain curiosity in a freshman. He then held out his hand and changed the subject.
“Hayden Saturn. I’m a second-year.”
I carefully took Hayden’s hand. I recalled the warm hand I had held with Klaus earlier. But his hand was cold. A slightly sweat-dampened hand stuck moistly to mine before letting go.
I wanted to hear more about the clock tower than introductions…. But just as I was about to open my mouth, thinking my introduction was overdue, funnily enough, Hayden brought up Dietrich’s name first.
“Dietrich Degoff. The second-ranked of this year’s freshmen.”
…Perhaps Dietrich’s personal information had already been completely dug up by everyone at the Academy. Mourning the loss of privacy that couldn’t be safe even after entering a novel, I quietly listened to what else Hayden had to say.
To look as harmless as possible to Hayden, I didn’t forget to look at him with an innocent expression of *How do you know my name?* He chuckled softly once more and patted my shoulder. I thought that despite his neat and clean impression, he was really a guy who touched people a lot.
“From the first time I heard it, I thought it was an interesting name. So… I suppose it stuck in my memory more.”
Hm… He’s lying through his teeth.
Hayden was spouting honeyed words. The reason he remembered my name was likely because I had been tangled up with Roxanne a few times. The entrance ball, the commotion in the cafeteria. Moreover, since there had been points of contact with Cedric, the little duke of Erexion, each time, it wasn’t strange that Hayden was paying more attention to Dietrich.
In the original story, there were descriptions of him getting slapped because he couldn’t remember the names of people inside and outside the Academy after talking and kissing them a few times. Yet the fact that he remembered Dietrich’s name meant he had some ulterior motive.
Anyway, I had a strong premonition that troublesome things would happen. Thinking so, I pretended my eyes were wavering as much as possible. I pointlessly swallowed once. He looked at me with that characteristic affectionate gaze, then disappeared down the stairs after a final farewell of “See you around.”
Dietrich at the clock tower, Hayden encountered there, and the unsettling legend of the clock tower that he had cut short. Until Hayden disappeared, I chewed over all that sequence of information again and again.
It seemed I needed to look up related information. I could ask Hayden, but… if possible, I didn’t want to get entangled with him, one of the original story’s main cast.
Far below the railing, I could see Hayden’s brown hair walking off toward the Academy. Thinking that if he had gone that far, I wouldn’t run into him again on the way down, I dusted off my bottom and stood up. Then I looked at the clock tower’s stairs. The landings stretched down dizzyingly.
‘Damn. When am I going to get back down this?’
This time, it really seemed I’d have to go down on all fours.
***
*Life has been strangely smooth lately.*
Chewing on the end of my pen, I looked back on my recent life.
Studies, and archery classes as well. Once I got somewhat used to them, I had settled onto a stable track. The Second Prince would occasionally pester me, but even he hadn’t been seen much lately.
“Senior, this… this part is a bit strange. Here, the purchase list for ancient texts to be placed in the old library.”
I had grown quite close to Irene. It started when I stuck to her, saying, “It’ll be faster if we do it together,” to finish work when it grew late at night while I was trying to send her home.
Things were also going well regarding the embezzlement. In the past, not knowing exactly where funds were leaking, Irene had pulled all-nighters going through all the account books; now, since I knew the full story of the embezzlement, there was no need for that. Investigating the records from the past to the present was quite a lot, but since the scope was limited, the work was drastically reduced, and with Irene, it wasn’t an impossible amount. Klaus would occasionally come by to fool around.
Watching Irene meticulously rummage through the documents, I subtly floated the idea that a student council officer should join us in the investigation.
“If possible… hm, someone in a position who would think the amount currently leaking is pocket change, so they wouldn’t really need to embezzle… that level of person.”
So that, true to the original story, it could serve as an opportunity for Roxanne and the Crown Prince to grow even closer.
My efforts weren’t in vain.
It was a night when Irene and I were working late, covered in dust from old account books. The two of them returned with flushed faces.
“As you said, we found someone connected to this matter in the old hall’s library. We’ll look into it a bit more. Additional personnel are, ahem, unnecessary.”
A strange crack appeared in the Crown Prince’s low voice. I looked at him and sipped my tea.
*Enjoy yourselves….*
Contrary to my worries, I felt everything was going too smoothly.
*Perhaps my existence doesn’t have that great an influence in this world after all.*