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n

n

nThe next morning…

nThere were only three people that had gotten teleported to the mansion, including Ellen and Louis.

n“So, additionally, what we would need is Granite and Ellium… No, but where the hell are we supposed to store these things we need tons of? Do we have such a space? And even if we did, how are we going to transport that stuff?”

n“I discovered last time that there’s a large warehouse for clubs within Temple. We could rent a part of them—that’s what all the big clubs do. Of course, it wouldn’t cost us anything since the rental application has already been completed, you can think of there already being enough storage space.”

n“Really? Then what about the transportation of the materials?”

n“The warehouse staff will take care of that.”

n“Wow… Temple sure is great.”

n“Yeah, I honestly didn’t know that they would even support us in this regard.”

nLouis Ankton and I were talking about matters concerning the Magic Research Society. Other than being smart, that guy was also quite meticulous in his own way, wasn’t he?

nSince we had created a club and were running it, it seemed like we should find out in what ways Temple would support us and make use of it accordingly.

n“What a smart bastard. Well done, mom.”

n“…Erm, could you maybe not praise me in that way?”

nAfter Louis said so, as if seeming stunned, I twisted my lips slightly.

n“I was born with that mouth, so what do you want me to do about it?”

n“I think… I’m starting to understand what kind of guy you are now…”

nLouis seemed to take me as some kind of weird-tempered, dirty idiot, someone he didn’t need to be afraid of. That was probably why that guy’s true character, his sharp-tongued, rude character, surfaced quite often.

nLouis was helping me with the details of the club that I wouldn’t have cared about if I was on my own. I was good at getting things done, but I sure wasn’t good at fixing things up.

nHe was actually more like a vice-president than a secretary.

nIt was just a club with six members, but…

nNo, but our budget was more than five billion won, you know?

nThat was pretty amazing, wasn’t it?

nEllen started staring at me the moment I started talking to Louis about those matters since breakfast.

nShe didn’t say anything.

nHowever, she emitted a type of silent pressure.

nAlright… Alright, I got it already!

nI won’t talk about this here!

nNo, but it was Louis who started talking first…

nAnyway…

nIf the mafia members weren’t caught, the group mission would last until Friday evening.

nAfter that, we would rest in the mansion until Sunday and return to Temple.

nEllen had asked me to train with her for the remaining time, but we got our coats and went out of the mansion that day.

nThe mansion stood in a snowy forest. While it wasn’t a blizzard, there was still snow falling from the sky, and although the snow had been roughly cleared away near the mansion, there was still a lot of snow piled up around the edges.

nEllen squatted down and clumped some snow together into a snowball with her gloved hands.

nThen she rolled it around on the floor.

n“You do it, too.”

n“…Okay.”

nI didn’t think she would actually do it.

nNo, I thought she definitely wouldn’t do it.

nShe actually did something she usually wouldn’t. Ellen, wearing a thick coat, made a snowball and added more to it with her gloved hands.

nI didn’t know what to think of that.

nShe was so cute.

nAlthough she was supposed to be far from cute, she had been acting quite cute those days.

nThe strongest character in this world: “Let’s make a snowman.”

nIt was cute, so I thought it would be fine.

nSuddenly, both I and Ellen were rolling that snowball.

nIf someone saw me like that, it would seriously damage Reinhardt’s dignity.

nHowever, I thought that if I started to pay attention to such banal things, that would mean that things had already gone awry, so I just focused on making the snowball even more.

nThere was quite a bit of snow around, so Ellen and I were able to create quite a large snowball in no time.

n“Move.”

nEllen picked up another big snowball and put it on the snowball I was rolling around. Every time I saw that slender girl muster up so much strength, I slightly flinched. It was about time that I got used to it.

nShe said that we should make a snowman like it would take longer, but wasn’t that the end of it?

nWe finished it pretty quickly.

nHowever, that wasn’t the end for Ellen. She began to pat the snowballs with her long fingers.

n“…What are you doing?”

n“I’m making the snowman now.”

n“What more are you going to add? You already made a snowman.”

nYou’d have a snowman after stacking two snowballs. However, Ellen just tilted her head as she looked at me.

n“How is this a snowman?”

nJust what the hell is a snowman in this girl’s eyes?

nI was staring blankly at Ellen, who’d started sculpting the snowballs by patting them.

n“Come and get more snow.”

nEllen asked me to make more snowballs, not wanting me to just stand around either.

n* * *

nIf what I thought a snowman would be was a cabin, then Ellen thought of a snowman as a palace.

nI knew that one of her highest stats was dexterity, but seeing her use it to make a snowman made me feel really weird.

n“No, how could you make it look like a real person?”

n“This is a snowman.”

nThat wasn’t just a snowman, it was more like a snowhuman, right?

nSnowhuman? Was there even such a thing?

nAnyway, Ellen shaved off snow from the two snowballs by wildly patting them, shaping them into a human-like form.

nThe snowballs I had formed were used for additions.

nWatching Ellen use her talents for something completely useless made a weird, hard-to-describe feeling bubble up inside of me.

nAfter she was done, Ellen moved a bit further away from the snowman and nodded her head as if she was satisfied with what she saw.

nA snowhuman…

n“Perhaps… is that me?”

n“Yes.”

nBecause of the limitations of the material she’d used, the snowman wasn’t a perfect copy of me, but the face looked pretty similar to mine. I didn’t even know if I should use the word ‘wearing’, but it seemed as if it was wearing the same Royal Class uniform I wore.

nIt completely looked like me, standing with a slightly crooked posture, arms crossed, and a cocky expression on its face.

nShe’d even formed the shape of my hair and the wrinkles in the school uniform and pants.

nHowever, it was still snowing in the end. It would slowly accumulate on its head, gradually ruining its shape.

nEllen seemed to be so excited about all of it that she even brought a large umbrella from somewhere and fixed it in a way that it would cover the snowman.

nIn the end, contrary to what I first thought, we spent hours building this snowman outside. Ellen worked with her bare hands because she wouldn’t have been able to make such an elaborate snowman with her gloves on.

nSo her hands were completely red.

nHer face also seemed shriveled up from the cold.

n“Aren’t you cold?”

n“I’m not.”

n“Girl, your nose is leaking.”

n“…”

n* * *

n* * *

nEllen wildly covered her nose at my words and then glared at me.

n“It isn’t.”

nShe realized in just a moment that I’d lied about her nose dripping, which made her glare at me even harder.

n“Sure, it isn’t leaking, and you aren’t cold, whatever. Let’s just go inside first.”

nI grabbed Ellen’s hand; it felt almost as cold as ice.

n“If you get frostbite like this, we’ll have to chop your hands off.”

n“…”

nEllen didn’t refuse when I led her away.

nWas it because it was cold?

nIt seemed like she was trembling a bit.

n* * *

nBack at the mansion, Ellen drank some warm tea. Her face was flushed red as she sipped it. She was still watching the snowy landscape and the snowman standing there with an umbrella covering it visible through the window.

nThere were some people who came to look at the snowman Ellen had made, seeming curious.

n“Do you usually make snowmen like that?”

nIt seemed unbelievable that a girl like her would make a snowman, no, a snowhuman. It didn’t seem like her first time, either. She just kept still and looked out of the window.

n“Sometimes I did… with my brother.”

nAs expected, it was like that.

nShe never just made them on her own but had actually made them with her brother. I could imagine Ellen and her brother making a human out of snow on snowy days.

nEllen when she was still very young…

nI wondered what she looked like.

nI couldn’t quite imagine that. I mean, if you asked me, she was still very young even then.

nSo I just imagined Ellen but smaller.

nEllen Artorius, a younger version with a rounder face.

nI thought that would have been incredibly cute. Were there maybe pictures of that?

n“It’s been a long time since I last made one. “

nShe became sad whenever she thought of her brother. However, when she was with me, she would freely talk about him.

nShe built a snowman with me that day, something she’d done a long time ago with her brother. I’d also never thought that I would end up making a snowman at my age, so it felt pretty fresh.

nEllen said she liked snow.

nAt the same time, she hated rain because her brother left her on a rainy day.

nShe seemed to associate snow with positive memories of her brother.

n“I wonder what the others are doing.”

nI suddenly wondered how the group mission was progressing. I was curious how the plan of those incredibly intelligent guys was going.

nBecause those two weren’t on good terms, it could be that their opinions might conflict. Rather, there might be a possibility that they would try to work against each other.

n“How do you think the results of the mission will turn out?”

nI posed a question to Ellen, who was looking out of the window.

n“I hope it won’t end too quickly.”

nI asked her how it would end, but she gave me a completely irrelevant answer, and then she opened her eyes wide as if she had just realized what she had said.

nIt was like she didn’t expect to say those words even though she said them with her own mouth.

nEven if it ended early, we would still be able to stay there. We didn’t necessarily have to immediately return to Temple.

nAnd yet Ellen said that she didn’t want the mission to end early.

nJust what did she mean by that?

n* * *

nThat day, during dinner.

n“…Why are you here?”

n“Well… I was executed.”

nHarriet had been eliminated and summoned to the mansion.

nEllen was staring straight at her.

n* * *

nHarriet felt uneasy.

nIt wasn’t because of the atmosphere surrounding the ancient castle Epiax, which was eerie, gloomy, and cold.

nEven though she was in the middle of a mission, she wasn’t worried about getting a bad grade either.

nNor was she afraid of getting assassinated.

nThe day before, Ellen and Louis Ancton were assassinated. Reinhardt had been eliminated during the first trial due to a half-joking and half-ill-intentioned prank by their classmates.

nDuring the deserted island mission last time, she’d found out that those that dropped out or got eliminated had been relaxing in a resort outside of the mission area. It would probably be the same that time as well.

nOnly Reinhardt, Ellen, and Louis had been teleported to the outer areas as of then.

nThat…

nMade her feel anxious.

nShe had no reason to feel anxious about that, and yet she did. She was nervous and uneasy because she somehow felt like she had been deprived of something.

nAdelia, who was with her, was incredibly worried about her and tried to comfort her. She also knew that Ellen and Reinhardt were really close with each other.

nIt wasn’t like it was anything new that they were alone together. There was no reason for her to worry about that. It had always been like that up until then. Didn’t they even go on a long trip together not too long ago?

nBut…

nNo more…

nShe didn’t think that she could overlook it anymore.

nWhile it hadn’t been just a day or two that they had been alone together before, however, if one more day and then another gets added to that time, the relationship between them might become even closer than it already was.

nShe was scared of that.

nEllen was a good friend of hers.

nA very good friend.

nShe didn’t hate her, and she didn’t want to hate her. She had no reason to, either.

nHowever, she hated seeing her together with Reinhardt.

nShe didn’t like it, but every time Harriet caught herself thinking like that, she felt miserable for feeling that way about a dear friend of hers. That feeling was so close to impulse that she couldn’t control it.

nShe didn’t want to dislike her.

nHowever, just thinking about what those two might be doing made that ugly, unpleasant impulse dominate her emotions.

nIt was so obvious that they cared about each other. She couldn’t deny that fact, so she felt even more miserable and shabby trying to squeeze herself between them.

nShe wanted to spend just a bit more time with Reinhardt to the point that she’d forced him, who wasn’t even a wizard, to be part of the Magic Research Society and even made him the president.

nIt was just too…

nPathetic.

nJust how was she any different from a little kid throwing a tantrum?

nShe’d begged him to look at her and spend more time with her, and Reinhardt had listened.

nEllen had granted Reinhardt endless amounts of help. It was no exaggeration to say that Ellen had created the Reinhardt they knew.

nAll she could do was throw tantrums and receive help from Reinhardt, even though he had no reason to, while she couldn’t do a single thing for him.

nShe felt inferior.

nShe wanted to be someone of use to her precious someone, but it just wasn’t something she could achieve.

nShe couldn’t stop their relationship from deepening.

nSo Harriet couldn’t hide her anxiousness when Ellen and Reinhardt had both been teleported to the outer mission area.

nThey had already accumulated a lot of alone time with each other, so she was absolutely aware that she couldn’t stop it from happening.

nShe also knew that she had no right to stop them.

nIt was just a vague insecurity that gave Harriet some trouble.

nShe didn’t want to lose Ellen, but there were times when she thought that it would be for the better if she did.

nIf she hadn’t been friends with her. ..

nThen she could have nurtured her love for Reinhardt with a lighter heart.

nJust liking him wouldn’t have made her feel so incredibly guilty.

nHarriet held the greatest contempt for herself for thinking that way.

nThose days, she felt even more just what an ugly person she was.

nJust as Ellen was in pain…

nShe was in pain as well.

nSo she couldn’t concentrate on anything at the moment.

nIt was time for the next meeting.

nShe couldn’t even concentrate on discussing who the assassin could be. That, everything. just didn’t really matter.

nI want to drop out.

nI want to quickly leave as well.

nI want to be sent outside.

n—That was what Harriet wanted.

n“Harriet, why are you so nervous?”

nBertus looked at Harriet, who was unable to mask her anxiety, with a soft smile.

nIt was just a soft smile, nothing more, but anyone who saw it would immediately know the true meaning behind Bertus’s expression.

n“Right. You really do look anxious.”

nFor example, Charlotte de Gardias responded to his statement with a similar expression.

nThe look in those two’s eyes.

nIt was soft and yet seemed to carry some hidden subtlety.

n“My, aren’t you acting just like someone who has something to hide?”

nThose were the eyes of a predator having found its prey.

n“A-ah… Th-that’s. I-It’s-! Wh-what would I even have to hide!”

nHarriet de Saint-Owan tried to act for the first time in her life.

nShe tried to act flustered.

nIt was her chance.

n