“Come to think of it, what did you do with that grimoire?”
“Hm?”
As I followed Isil toward the dining area, Hwaryeong, who had been walking beside me, suddenly turned and asked.
“After all that commotion, surely you did not leave it without taking any measures?”
“Oh, that. It was too heavy to carry around, so I left it on the desk in my room.”
“What? Is that truly all right?”
“Well.”
I shrugged in response to Hwaryeong, whose golden irises had widened as she stared at me in disbelief.
“Professor Ran looked it over and said there didn’t seem to be any particular problem, so I figured it would be fine to leave it alone.”
“...I worry you may be far too carefree. What will you do if you get sucked into that grimoire again?”
“...”
At Hwaryeong’s question, I noticed Isil’s ears, ahead of us, twitch lightly.
Even while guiding the way, she seemed to be paying quite a bit of attention to our conversation.
I glanced for a moment at the back of Isil’s head as she focused on my voice, then turned away and said,
“This is just my guess, but I think the grimoire is in a resting state right now.”
“Resting?”
“Yeah. I played a little prank on the demon sealed inside the grimoire.”
Since it was obvious they would keep looking at me with worried eyes if I didn’t explain the circumstances properly, I told them everything I had done without hiding anything.
“The space inside the grimoire was a place where things you imagined became real. For example, if I imagined a soft pillow I could lay my head on, it would appear in my hand.”
“Oh? That truly is a dreamlike space. A place where imagined objects take form.”
“Mm, how should I put it? It felt like having a lucid dream that was far too realistic. The surroundings rippled like a dream, but the five senses of my body were no different from reality.”
“I see.”
Thinking back on it now, if someone other than me had fallen into that demon’s space, I think the game would have been over the moment they said aloud that the demon was acting as Hwaryeong.
Since it was a demon imitating Hwaryeong to extract information, the moment the one being deceived realized it was a trick, it would likely have used its authority without delay and tried to steal their body.
“The demon sealed in the grimoire turned into black fog and shouted this: ‘Your flesh is not yours, and your soul is not yours either.’ I’m guessing it was some kind of spell meant to take over my body.”
“...It lacks a sense of reality because the person involved is speaking so calmly, but that is an exceedingly dreadful spell. Truly the words of a demon.”
“Yeah, it really is the kind of spell a demon would use.”
“Is it?”
Hwaryeong and Isil nodded at my explanation, seeming to accept it as words befitting a demon.
As for me, when I heard that spell, I’d wondered whose my mind would be if neither my body nor my soul belonged to me.
Apparently, my reaction wasn’t exactly a normal one.
How curious.
“Anyway, while shouting that, the black fog tried to seep into my body, but it had no effect. It just blocked my vision and made a lot of noise.”
You could compare it to the sound of fog sprouting feet and crawling across the floor.
That light, rustling sound had been an unpleasant noise that stirred up ominous imaginings.
“...You took a demon’s authority with your body, and it had no effect?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I say? At first, I thought it was just putting on a bluff.”
But after seeing the demon panic afterward, I realized that the demon’s authority really hadn’t worked.
And that my situation wasn’t an ordinary one either.
“After that, since the demon had no means to attack me, it tried to stall for time. Apparently, if the connection between mind and body is severed, you die naturally.”
“...And then?”
“And then, while I was thinking about what to do next, I tried lying down on the floor to think, but the floor was way too hard. So I thought it’d be nice to have a pillow, and wouldn’t you know it, a soft pillow appeared in my hand exactly as I imagined.”
“...”
For no reason, I felt the sensation from that time in my lower back and lightly tapped the area around my spine with my hand as I continued.
And for some reason, I could feel the two of them staring at me with exasperated expressions after hearing my words.
“? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You were on the verge of death, and yet you thought you wanted to lie down?”
“No, I’d been standing the whole time, so I thought I’d rest while figuring out how to get out of that situation.”
“Mm. How alien.”
Step.
Hwaryeong, who had been walking just fine, suddenly tossed out those words and stopped.
“Jin Prah.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you not feel any sense of reality?”
Sense of reality?
“No, of course I felt a sense of reality. I told you earlier, didn’t I? Even though the scenery around me rippled like a dream, the five senses of my body were realistic.”
“That is not what I mean.”
Shake, shake.
Hwaryeong shook her head a couple of times and then stared straight at me.
“You act as though the situations you experience are not reality, but some mere play. Come to think of it, you were like that when you met the ghost Jude after our first meeting as well. When you met the ghost Jude, I thought you simply had little fear because you had received systematic training like me, but now I see that was not how you were judging the situation.”
“...”
“Jin Prah, you seem to be living with the attitude of someone who has given up, as if it would be fine no matter what happened.”
I was living as if I had given up, as if it didn’t matter what happened to me?
Step.
At Hwaryeong’s words, which sounded like a judgment, I stopped walking and looked up at her.
Meeting the gaze of someone slightly taller than me made me shrink back a little, but my mouth began moving on its own.
“You do know we haven’t even known each other for three days yet, right?”
“I know very well.”
“And yet you suddenly condemn my attitude like that. From the listener’s perspective, it’s bewildering. Do you know me that well?”
Fidget, fidget.
Since we had suddenly stopped and were facing each other, Isil, who had been walking ahead, looked at me and Hwaryeong with an anxious expression.
I could feel the air between her and me sinking heavily.
“You can’t make such a firm declaration about my attitude toward life. Because our relationship isn’t that deep yet, is it? It looks to me like you’re trying to define me based on nothing but speculation.”
“No. I know your attitude well, Jin Prah. You are living life like someone who has given up. Like ashes after the flame has gone out.”
Silence.
After Hwaryeong’s decisive voice, a brief silence passed between us.
But soon after, I heard the sound of someone letting out a scoff, as if they found it absurd.
Ah.
That sound was coming from my mouth.
“Heh. That’s a truly arrogant thing to say. What, do you have mind-reading powers like the protagonist of some famous novel? Enough to know the inner thoughts of someone you haven’t even known for long?”
“I merely have experience commanding many people due to my position. Therefore, I do not have mind-reading, but I do have an eye for people.”
Point.
Hwaryeong pointed at me with her finger and said,
“Jin Prah, why are you trying to live your life with that attitude? Does even this situation feel to you like nothing more than a well-crafted play?”
“No. I’m trying to live my life faithfully.”
“Do not lie. If that were true, then why have you been looking down at others with those eyes all this time?”
“Those eyes?”
“The eyes of an outsider who thinks, ‘I am different from them.’”
I froze.
At Hwaryeong’s word “outsider,” my mouth, which had been about to answer something, abruptly stopped.
At my sudden reaction, Hwaryeong nodded deeply, as if she had expected as much, and said,
“You felt a greater sense of alienation toward the humans around you than even I, a beastfolk, did. I thought that reaction of yours was simply because you were a noble who was not from the capital, but it seems I was wrong.”
“...”
“You treat me and Isil more comfortably than you do the ordinary human students around you. It is a strange thing, Jin Prah. You are a human, and a noble who belongs to the upper class of the Empire, so why do you treat nobles and human students like yourself more awkwardly than you treat us?”
“...Why?”
“Yes. The way you treat us is as though you are a beastfolk meeting one of your own in a foreign land and expressing joy. At first, I thought you had been captivated by my or Isil’s appearance, but there is no lust in your eyes. Nor is there any pity. That is why I am saying I am curious.”
It wasn’t that he had been entranced by their outstanding appearances, nor was he trying to look after outsiders because he felt sorry for them.
Jin Prah truly regarded Hwaryeong, who was not human, and Isil, who had been raised by the Witch of the Black Forest, as his own kind.
Jin Prah, who was an imperial citizen and, moreover, had been born into an upper-class count’s family.
Wasn’t that strange?
“I want to know the reason for that attitude of yours, Jin Prah.”
Hwaryeong’s eyes as she looked at me sparkled with a complex hue.
“You do not intend to keep your mouth shut like a coward, do you? Answer my question at once.”
Ting!
At her disgustingly arrogant words, I finally heard the sound of the thread of reason inside me snapping.