Chapter 104
I checked my room again just in case.
The first thing that came to mind was that the bun‑haired girl had hidden the necklace in my room and then accused me — “She stole it!” — to frame me.
There wasn’t much to search, so it didn’t take long. I hardly had any belongings besides a hairband. If a necklace had been in my room it would have stood out right away.
I stepped back into the corridor and glared at the back of the bun‑haired girl’s head. As I expected, the matron and the bun‑haired girl left without finding anything.
“Oh dear. Miss Pruling, what shall we do?” the matron said.
“It’s nothing. Thank you for your help. I’ll check the classroom tomorrow,” Pruling replied.
A look crossed the matron’s face for a moment — as if to say, You didn’t even check the classroom and now you made me rummage through things in the middle of the night? — before she left.
The bun‑haired girl returned to her room primly, avoiding eye contact with the other students.
Of course, the bun‑haired girl “happened” to find the necklace the next day.
Her expression when she told the matron, “I’m so sorry. I’ll be more careful with my things from now on!” was so shamelessly fake.
<Ah, the plot’s predictable.>
…No luck.
All I got was a preview of that smug bun‑haired girl’s expression ten seconds earlier. My patience prickled for no reason.
Ah, Jushin! Can’t my ability get upgraded just a little?
Still, my instincts kept shouting that the bun‑haired girl was suspicious.
She’s probably on edge now, trying not to get caught out.
Maybe I should poke somewhere else.
The school was buzzing with choir practice, festival preparations, and plans for the break.
So it wasn’t hard to make contact with a visitor who’d come to the cathedral.
I handed him a glass of plum juice — it was past its best but drinkable — and smiled.
“You’ve been coming around a lot lately. I didn’t expect you to be so devout, Marquis Godel,” I said.
“…The temple is a good place to meet pure people,” Godel answered with a frown that seemed to mean, You don’t count as one. Still, he accepted the plum juice I offered.
“What’s this for?” he asked.
“I bought it for a friend, but something came up. If you don’t mind, please have it,” I said.
“Really? Not an excuse to meet me?” he asked.
“…If I say ‘of course not’ you won’t believe me, will you?”
“Exactly.”
“How rude. Try opening your heart to the children a bit,” I said.
“That might be asking too much. You belong to the Schlaeger family, don’t you?” he replied, sounding like he was looking at a bug.
Even so, Marquis Godel didn’t avoid me. He must think I’m easy to deal with — good. Let him be careless.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked.
“Do I have to say it? You’ve been coming to the cathedral often; I wondered who you’re trying to meet. It seems like you come after our class ends.”
“In other words, you think I’m trying to make contact with one of the students?”
“Yes.”
“Haha! I don’t have enough time left for adults, let alone trying to approach students, especially girls. That’s an impertinent question.”
Look who’s talking, switching to casual speech first.
I planned to be ruder in response, so I tolerated it this once.
“If you were really trying to build connections, you’d be joining other people for dinner. You wouldn’t hang around at the time classes end.”
“…….”
“Well, I have a rough idea who you’re seeing. Shall I tell you, or would you like to say it yourself?”
Of course what I meant was the bun‑haired girl. If Marquis Godel was making contact with a student, the most likely choice was Miss Pruling, whom I’d seen at choir practice.
There’s no way he has a student list.
A teacher? They’d stand out to colleagues if their routine shifted even a little.
So what excuse will he make?
Marquis Godel opened his mouth.
“…Do you remember? The night I tried to save you.”
“Huh?”
“On the night of the banquet, remember I said, ‘While your father was looking for something, didn’t he use you as bait while keeping watch?’”
“Ahaha! Oh, I remember. It was so absurd I’d forgotten.”
I laughed right in front of him, but the marquis’s face stayed serious.
“I’ll ask again after six years. ‘While your father was searching for something, didn’t he ask you to be an accomplice?’”
“Isn’t that the same question as before?”
“It’s essentially different. Back then I thought your duke was threatening you. But now I wonder whether he was instead instilling in you a sense of fellowship.”
“…….”
“You’d have been excited to be made an accomplice of the duke. You’d feel like someone important.”
He looked down at me from the corner of his eye, the condescending gaze of someone trying to lecture a child.
“Adults never see children as equals.”
“…….”
“Even one’s own offspring are merely means to continue the family. As for a girl of common origin like you, there’s even less concern.”
“So what’s the conclusion?”
“The duke will discard you in the cruellest way. Before that happens, cooperate with me. I’ll repay you not with illusions like love or respect but with absolute proof: material wealth.”
…I’d heard something similar before. At the Flogel March festival, the mine overseer had said, “The duke will use you and kill you; better to be my spy.”
At that time I answered like this.
‘The duke is ill‑tempered and doesn’t love his children. But he’s not a human experimenter!’
My reply now had to be similar but a bit different.
“That’s true. The duke treats me like a child he must teach.”
“Ha — you’ve experienced that?”
“Yes. He keeps bringing strange childcare books saying you must raise children properly — and reads them.”
“…What?”
“So, I agree that the duke sees me as a child.”
I poured my plum juice into Godel’s drink as I laughed.
“He can’t abandon me. Because he is an adult who has much to learn from me.”
Not long ago the duke and I had sat together in the study, talking. We’d grown as family.
…Yes, it’s a relationship neither of us could change alone.
Marquis Godel looked stunned, then realized the plum juice was overflowing and sputtered.
“What — ah! It’s spilling! What are you doing?” he shouted.
“I thought it looked like too little for two people, so I shared some of mine,” I said.
“Two people?”
“Weren’t you going to meet that person?” I asked, pointing to someone loitering in a corner of the cathedral. She’d tried to hide but it was too late — the bun‑haired girl, who’d be visible even from a hundred meters away, was fluttering behind a pillar.
“You look like you’re looking this way, Lady Pruling,” I said.
Godel’s eyes flickered for a moment, as if my presumption had hit home.
“Damn it — what are you going to do about that outfit?” he blurted.
“It’ll get stained. I’ll contact my father right away and pay for it,” I said.
“Fine, fine! Remember this — next time I won’t forgive such rudeness, Lady Schlaeger!”
As if your forgiveness is anything to brag about.
Anyway, I sipped the rest of the juice and started walking toward the dormitory. The juice tasted bad, but the words I’d just said tasted sweet in my mouth.
‘He is an adult who also has a lot to learn from me.’
To be honest, I didn’t really understand much about “family”… but the duke didn’t either.
I still vividly remembered the touch of his hand the other day. We would, I was sure… be able to lean on each other going forward.
Everything felt fine as I walked back to the dormitory.
I didn’t hear the marquis’s purpose with my own ears, but I knew he had some relationship with the bun‑haired girl. I’d also foiled their meeting.
Feeling proud, I turned the knob of my dorm room door.
“…….”
A chill ran down the back of my neck. I couldn’t say exactly what felt wrong, but something definitely was.
The matron had searched and tidied the room earlier.
I’d locked the door properly too.
…and then I realized the problem.
My dreamcatcher. The one that should be hanging at the head of my bed had gone missing.
“Uh…?”
Why? I’d tied it on tight!
I reflexively peered under the bed. If the dreamcatcher had been there, the pink gem would have made it obvious.
I crawled around under the bed for a long while, unwilling to accept that it was gone. I groped blankets, flipped the mattress, and pushed the wardrobe aside before I finally had to admit it.
It was really gone.
I ran out of the room. The matron’s office was my destination.
“Matron! Matron!”
“Who is it… Miss Schlaeger? What’s the matter? You look pale,” she said.
“Something of mine is missing! It’s really important!”
“Calm down and tell me. What’s missing?”
“My dreamcatcher — it’s a cloth mobile the duke gave me as a present… There’s a pink gem in the center!”
“……Where have you searched?”
“My room— I turned it inside out! Something was off when I came in. Someone definitely came into my room!”
“Have you checked the classroom?”
“What? But it’s not something you’d take out with you!”
“Miss Pruling said she found something in the classroom,” the matron replied.
“…….”
My strength drained away.
The matron sighed as if fed up.
“We’ll have to announce that no one should carry valuables around,” she said.
“Matron, then I—”
“Check again tomorrow. Let me know if you can’t find it.”
“……All right.”
The matron clearly didn’t want to go around the dorm again — she’d already turned it upside down over the Pruling incident.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
My legs went weak. At the same time a burning heat of rage gathered at my fingertips.
The culprit was obvious. The problem was the evidence.
As soon as I returned to my room I examined the doorknob. On the inside of the lock there was a small metal plate shaped like an L — about the size of a fingernail.
Leaving the plate where it lay, I locked the door and twisted the handle in several directions. When I turned it in the opposite direction of the L‑shaped plate, there was a click and the door opened without a key.
“Damn it…”
I was certain the bun‑haired girl had installed that plate on the doorknob the night the matron came to search my room.
I carefully removed the plate. There were traces of fingerprints on it, but in this era saying “I’ll use fingerprints as evidence!” would only get you laughed at.
But you, you really touched something you should never have.
…Let me tell you how the Schlaeger Duke household operates.
