[Episode 18]
I looked down at the sleeve that had been caught. Evan, noticing my gaze, hurriedly removed his hand.
“From now on, if we happen to run into each other by chance… would it be all right to at least exchange greetings?”
I looked at that strange face for a moment, then opened my mouth.
“As I told you then, please speak casually.”
“But….”
“And please don’t call me noona, either.”
I rolled my eyes and looked up at Evan. Having let go of my sleeve, he didn’t come any closer.
“If you do that for me… I don’t think it would be strange for academy classmates to exchange greetings.”
At those words, a slight smile formed on Evan’s face, which had been somewhat sulky with the corners of his eyes red.
From that smile, I found myself guessing once again that Dietrich must have been quite a good person. Because otherwise, there would be no reason for him to doggedly follow someone who had scammed his own family, nor to smile so brightly. Yuri too, and Evan too.
It seemed that the Dietrich I didn’t know had sown seeds of goodwill here and there.
And the more that was the case, the more curious I became. Why hadn’t this warm-hearted person been warm to himself?
Why had Dietrich chosen death?
A crack, precarious enough to threaten my peaceful daily life, was forming. It wasn’t a major problem, but it was as irksome as trying to study while sitting at a table whose legs didn’t match and wobbled, or as when a hair got caught on a button and had to be forcibly pulled out.
Busy as he must have been with both public and private affairs, Cedric, whom I ran into occasionally whenever I walked through the academy, looked at me almost as if I were disgusting.
‘What’s with him?’
Still, I considered it a relief that he didn’t approach me to pick a fight like before. As always, I ignored Cedric’s blazing eyes. At least it was fortunate that Roxelane was busy running around with the Crown Prince on student council business, so I didn’t run into her.
Cedric wasn’t the only thorn in my side. Students who normally wouldn’t say a word to me had, upon hearing rumors that I had joined the student council, begun coming around me and stealing glances. However, what had changed from before was that some among them approached me more aggressively, exchanged a few friendly words, and then returned with strangely satisfied expressions after confirming that there was absolutely nothing special about Dietrich’s circumstances.
Similar things were happening inside the student council as well.
“My uncle gave it to me as a gift. It’s been passed down through the family for generations; my ancestor had the medal received from the Eppelot War remade into a tie pin.”
“The Eppelot War was almost two hundred years ago? Wow….”
Aiden’s surroundings grew noisy, and soon the male students who were about to receive knighthoods were eyeing the tie pin made from the remade medal.
“My uncle distinguished himself in the Demon War fifteen years ago and received a new medal, so he gave this one to me.”
Aiden said that, puffing out his shoulders. And that remark piqued my interest. The Demon War fifteen years ago.
‘If it’s the Demon War from fifteen years ago, is that the one? The war where Count Degof was granted his title?’
To think a name I knew would come up here. It was newly fascinating. It must have been quite a large war. I was thinking about how enormous an achievement was needed for someone with nothing to receive a title in a status-based system, when Aiden called out to me loudly.
“Degof, what about you?”
Called out of nowhere, I looked at Aiden silently with an expression that said, ‘What do you want?’ Aiden smirked and continued.
“I heard your father also participated in the Demon War. Didn’t you inherit anything from your war hero father?”
Everyone’s gazes turned this way. I stopped my hand, which had been chewing on the end of a pen while writing in the ledger, and thought for a moment. No, he’s not even my father….
“…Persistence?”
“Pfft.”
A short scoff burst from somewhere. The noisy student council room suddenly fell silent. Irene glanced at me, frowned, and spoke.
“Douglas. Stop chatting and focus on your work.”
At those words, people awakened from the silence with creaking sounds. Aiden briefly hardened his expression before soon shrugging his shoulders. His narrowed eyes looked full of a sense of victory.
“Ah… right. Not everyone has such a family tradition. I lacked consideration, Degof.”
‘What the hell…’
I roughly glossed over Aiden’s words. Did he bring that tie pin just to say that? To boast about his family history? I had to suppress the urge to unconsciously raise my thumb at the astounding build-up that evoked admiration.
But separate from the tremendous build-up, that great family history was about as moving to me as the history of the Andong Kim clan. No offense to the Andong Kim family, but honestly, that’s just how it is. Unless you’re the person involved, who really wants to know the details of whether someone else’s family has been around for five hundred or a thousand years?
However, that seemed to be the quality of a noble. Having to remember even the family circumstances of distant in-laws. As always, my way of thinking was far too plebeian to become a noble.
New scorns that I had never experienced before were steadily accumulating inside me. In my original life, I had simply been someone without money; here, I had become someone without money and without status. I was being doubly despised.
To think I was living in a world with such abundant material for looking down on others. The lives of these nobles must be enjoyable with so much content overflowing.
I listlessly turned the page of the account book again.
When I was walking this tightrope between the peace and cracks of daily life, Irene came to find me with a slightly flushed face. Though expressionless, unlike her usual stiff and rigid self, her face was somewhat relaxed. I could tell from that expression.
‘The embezzlement issue has been wrapped up nicely.’
It was probably because Irene and I had worked hard grasping the documents, while Roxelane and the Crown Prince had worked hard to catch the culprit. Of course, it seemed Roxelane and the Crown Prince had caught love along with the culprit.
“There’s a small party in the student council room this evening to celebrate things being wrapped up nicely. If you have time, will you come?”
It was the moment I was about to say I obviously didn’t have time.
“It’s nothing grand. You don’t need to feel burdened. I stopped by because I really wanted you to come.”
For your information, I’m opening it with my own money, so don’t worry about the membership fee. Adding this coolly, Irene turned her back and disappeared like the wind before I could even express my refusal. She seemed to be trying to cut off any excuse for me to decline. Having frequently crossed paths with me for short periods due to student council work, Irene had already roughly figured out what kind of personality I had.
‘Shouldn’t you… at least give me time to answer?’
Since I was invited to a party anyway, I trudged back to the dormitory with the mindset of going to eat something delicious.
***
Even though I had finished all my class assignments, there was still some time before the party. Though Irene had told me to come without burden, today was a special day, so I thought I could afford to put in a little effort.
Since the ball, I had been living as if I had returned to being a natural person in Heilem. Spending several days in the library until late at night while juggling classes and investigations, I hadn’t had time to care about my appearance.
‘A student council party. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t even go to other people’s birthday parties if there are more than four people.’
With a short sigh, I needlessly rummaged through the things I had brought from Heilem. Then I carefully took out a box containing accessories from Heilem.
I had no intention of wearing fancy ornaments. The accessories made by the old artisan of Heilem focused more on a classic and neat beauty rather than ornate craftsmanship. Also, since it wasn’t a grand party, I couldn’t wear a fancy necklace or earrings like at the ball.
As my hand circled the accessory box a few times, I picked up a pin. It was a hairpin with small dark blue gems embedded in a row. I quietly ran my hand over it.
It was an elderly artisan from Heilem who had remade the original gemstone into this pin. He was a skilled craftsman who had made jewelry several times through Count Degof even when the Duchess of Erexion, Roxelane’s mother, was alive.
He had come to me a few days before I left for the academy. Among the various pieces of jewelry he had handed over with wrinkled hands, he asked if he could directly insert this hairpin into my hair. When I nodded, he said that this gem was actually a precious stone that had been presented to the ducal house.
‘Of course. Because that gem was taken from a young child’s dress that Dietrich brought when he was expelled from the ducal house.’
Feeling anew that Dietrich had also been a person of the ducal house, I thought of the gem as it had been when ripped from Dietrich’s dress. It was a dark blue gem that didn’t seem to have any special characteristics. As if reading these thoughts of mine, he continued his explanation with a smile.
“In dark places or indoors, people think it is an ordinary and common ore, but when you step outside under the full sunlight, it sparkles with a clearer blue than any other gem.”
He added that anyone would inevitably give their heart to that light.
“‘You look just like a young lady, don’t you?’”
Take care at the academy and gain many good experiences. Saying that, he had patted my hand.
After combing my hair well, I inserted the hairpin diagonally. The calm blue suited Dietrich’s hair, which rippled like a dark night.
***
In the student council room, so many unfamiliar faces had gathered that I wondered if such people had even been in the student council. Because the embezzlement case had been conducted in extreme secrecy to prevent leaks, there were people I hadn’t run into here and there, and it seemed some student council members had each brought a friend.
I was drinking the prepared beverages and talking with Irene.
“Hello….”
With an unusually tearful expression, Roxelane opened the door to the student council room and entered. Today, she was alone, without the Crown Prince or other people from House Erexion. At Roxelane’s unusual expression, people soon approached her and asked after her with worried faces.
Though Roxelane tried hard to smile at people’s concerns, it didn’t seem to go well.
“I lost one of my mother’s keepsakes. I searched the entire dormitory, but it didn’t turn up….”
Roxelane, having spoken that far, couldn’t finish her words because her throat seemed choked. It seemed the Crown Prince or people from House Erexion had been too busy looking for her lost item to come.
“What kind of item is it? If you tell us what it looks like, we’ll look for it too.”
One of the students in the student council room spoke to Roxelane as if soothing her. One of her mother’s keepsakes—at that, I also approached to hear what Roxelane had lost. Roxelane, noticing me approaching, lightly greeted me with her eyes and continued speaking in a voice that seemed to be holding back tears.
“It’s a hairpin crafted in a slightly old-fashioned way that you can’t see in the capital these days, with blue… gems lined up in a row, like the one Dietrich is wearing now.”
Roxelane stopped speaking mid-sentence and stared at my hairpin.
“A dark blue… gem attached to it.”