Still held by Isil, I was led to a side door at the back of the auditorium.
When we stood before the side door, tucked away in a spot someone unfamiliar with this place would pass by without noticing, Isil let go of my hand and spoke to me.
“If you go out this door and keep going straight down the hallway, they said there’s a professors’ lounge. Hwalyeong should be waiting in the hallway.”
“The lounge?”
“Yeah.”
At my question, Isil gave a faint nod and carefully opened the side door.
Then, through the door that opened smoothly without a sound, I saw, just as Isil had said, a long corridor—and Hwalyeong, who had been standing quietly near its entrance, waiting. Our eyes met.
Looking at my face as I emerged from the side door, Hwalyeong smiled in satisfaction and said,
“Hm, just as expected, you brought him in properly. Isil.”
“Yeah, it was just like you said, Hwalyeong.”
Seeing the two of them talk so casually with me between them, as though they were old friends, I couldn’t help but look at Hwalyeong with a sour expression and ask,
“You two seem closer than you were before the entrance ceremony?”
“Well, are we not representative students of the same faculty? Since building connections in advance has made us useful to each other.”
“What? You’ve already started forming factions?”
“...Where on earth did you learn such a vulgar phrase as ‘forming factions’? I am merely sorting jade from among stones.”
If that wasn’t forming factions, then what was it?
She was just dressing up the idea of choosing who to associate with.
As I thought that and shot Hwalyeong a sullen look, she tapped her tail against the floor a couple of times and changed the subject.
“In any case, we do not have time to stand here and chatter. The professors told us to go ahead and wait.”
“Ah, in that lounge?”
“Yes. Follow me. I received a rough explanation of how to get there.”
Whoosh.
With a natural motion, Hwalyeong turned and began walking down the corridor.
We followed after her, side by side.
Step, step.
“Ah, now that I think about it, there’s something I’m curious about.”
“What is it?”
As I stared at the back of Hwalyeong’s head in silence, something occurred to me, and when I asked her, she answered without looking back.
“What exactly did you hear from the president? All of you looked surprised by what he said.”
“Ah... that is nothing.”
“...Yeah.”
“Huh?”
What was with that uneasy reaction?
Just as I thought that and opened my mouth to ask again why they wouldn’t tell me, a wooden door bearing a nameplate that read “Professors’ Lounge” greeted us with terrible timing.
“Now then, we have arrived. The professor said we did not need to wait and could go in first.”
Sssssk.
When Hwalyeong opened the door, the faint sound of friction between wood and floor arose, and the interior of the professors’ lounge came into view.
In size, it was roughly about the size of one large room in the old castle where I had lived.
The first thing that caught my eye was that, compared to the size of the door, the space was quite wide.
“There is a round table over there.”
In the direction Hwalyeong pointed, just as she said, a huge round table large enough for ten people to sit around was placed in the middle of the room.
Strangely, it was not made of wood, but a gray table that looked as though it had been carved from stone or marble, smooth and cool in its aura.
“...Should we sit here for now? It feels like there’ll still be quite a bit of time before the professors arrive.”
“Hm, let us.”
I pulled back one of the many chairs placed around the table and sat down.
“Oh, this chair is really comfortable. It looked like a hard wooden chair, so I wasn’t expecting much.”
“...It’s really soft, even though there’s no cushion.”
“How curious.”
After we spent a few minutes being surprised by the feel of the chairs we had sat in,
an awkward silence naturally settled between us.
I looked at Isil, who was silently staring down, and Hwalyeong, who had simply closed her eyes and begun meditating, then knocked on the table twice with my hand and spoke.
Tap, tap.
“Hey, are you two really going to just sit quietly without saying anything until the professors come?”
“Mm, I was briefly reviewing part of my training. In such a quiet space, I have a habit of meditating without thinking.”
“...I don’t know what I should say.”
Come to think of it, neither of them were good conversation partners, were they?
I’d forgotten because I’d spent a little while talking with Rin Edinburgh, who was fun to verbally spar with.
To begin with, these two were loners who never would have gotten involved with each other if I hadn’t spoken to them first.
Isil was too timid to approach anyone first, and Hwalyeong probably had no one approach her because of that dangerous air unique to her.
Their atmospheres were complete opposites, but the result was the same, so I felt they were strangely alike, as if they were mirror images.
“Instead of that, how about we talk about each other?”
“...About each other?”
“Yeah. You know it hasn’t even been a day since we met, right? The only thing we know about each other is our names. Why don’t we take this opportunity to introduce ourselves?”
“Hm, have I not already stated my family and my position within it? Beyond that, there is nothing for me to introduce.”
“Come on, not that stiff kind of introduction. Um... even something a little trivial is fine.”
“Something trivial?”
I smiled at Hwalyeong, who tilted her head at my explanation, and Isil, whose expression said she had no idea what I meant.
“Yeah. For example, among the seasons, I like spring the most. Spring feels warm and cozy, so it’s nice for taking naps outside.”
“Hm, is that how it should be done? I like autumn the most. Autumn is the harvest season, when one reaps the results of a year’s worth of effort. I like seeing the grains the farmers have cultivated all year hanging heavy on the stalks.”
“Yeah, that’s the idea. We say what we like and what we dislike while we have the chance. That way, we’ll make fewer mistakes with each other.”
“...I see. It feels unfamiliar to speak like this for the first time, but it is not unpleasant.”
Hwalyeong seemed to like the method I had suggested, and while swaying her tail, she turned her head to the side.
“Isil, which season do you like the most?”
“...I like winter.”
“Winter? Why is that? Do you like snow?”
“No. Because winter is quiet.”
Isil murmured softly with an expressionless face.
“...When winter comes, noisy things become quiet. It’s the one season when my ears hurt the least. I like winter because it’s quiet.”
“Noisy things? Did you live somewhere with many animals nearby?”
“...Something like that. Though now it’s become a place I can never return to.”
“Mm, that was a slip of the tongue. I apologize.”
“...Huh?”
Isil turned to look at Hwalyeong, puzzled by her sudden words.
At that, Hwalyeong nodded as if she understood Isil’s reaction.
“Among us beastfolk as well, there are many whose hometowns have been destroyed. War is common, and in many cases, it is due to natural disasters such as droughts or floods. Many such people have gathered in our Hwa family as well, so, Isil, I can understand your pain, if only indirectly.”
“...”
“Hm, the atmosphere is becoming strange. Jin, do you have another topic?”
I had been watching Isil’s face carefully, feeling puzzled by her reaction, but at Hwalyeong’s question, I turned my gaze away from Isil and said,
“Something else? How about favorite foods? I saw in the newspaper that the beastfolk have all kinds of foods that don’t exist in the Empire.”
“Gastronomy is the greatest joy for us beastfolk. There are flavors ranging from a tingling spiciness that feels as though it will burn your mouth, to soups made from rich broth boiled with poultry for an entire day. If we speak on the subject of food, even three days and nights would not suffice.”
Hwalyeong then began rattling off the foods she often ate.
There were foods like steamed buns stuffed full of minced meat, soups eaten together with spicy seasonings added, and many fascinating dishes I had never heard of even in my previous life.
For instance, there were candies so sweet that the moment you ate them, every hair on your body stood on end, and cold teas that let you taste eighteen flavors at once.
Of course, there were also bizarre dishes that made me wonder whether humans were even supposed to eat them.
“And in fact, there is a rumor that steamed dishes made with giant centipede are exceptionally deli—”
“Hold on.”
“Mm?”
“Sorry to cut you off, but the professors are here.”
The moment my finger pointed toward the lounge door, as if timed perfectly, the door opened and the professors came pouring in.
“Oh my, you have only known each other for a day, yet you seem quite close already.”
“He possesses the sociability to get along with various students regardless of faculty, the eldest son of Count Prah’s family.”
“It seems I was biased from the start for no reason. Though being late to the entrance ceremony is still quite a problem.”
“It is truly fortunate that you are on good terms.”
“Still, it seems you are not problematic enough to run away midway. There is no need to assert dominance from the very beginning for nothing.”
The five professors who entered the lounge approached us, each leaving their own impressions after seeing us seated at the table.