chapter 21
21 – Suspicion (3)
Academy main building.
The control room on the top floor.
As several professors watched the freshmen’s team training that was about to begin, there was a girl who did not fit into the solemn atmosphere.
“Hmm.”
With her body tucked into a chair that was too large for her size, she was in the middle of staring at the huge screen with her head tilted crookedly.
The girl stretches her hand to her side, her gaze not detaching from the foreground of the forest that fills her screen.
It was to get one of the cookies spilling on the plate.
The first thing she picks up is the chocolate chip cookie she can get her hands on, and puts it into her tiny mouth.
Wagjak!
“Yes.”
The girl’s expression melted for a moment.
Such a languid expression quickly dissipated, and the other professors didn’t notice her like that, but one was an exception.
“…… Do you like it?”
Her girl, opposite her, the purple woman who was looking at the screen spoke to her. The girl nodded her head indifferently.
“It’s sweet. It’s my taste.”
“I see… ….”
“Would Helena have one too?”
The girl handed one of her cookies to the woman, Helena.
He seemed to mean to give it a try, but Helena politely refused him.
“No, I’m fine. As you know, I don’t like sweet snacks.”
“Really? Too bad.”
The girl also didn’t mind and took the cookie she held out to my mouth again. She was in the mood to guess that Helena would refuse.
A moment of silence fell between the two of them.
“… ….”
Helena looked at Tsumei.
Was she trying to figure out what she was thinking?
Helena’s gaze, which seemed to be mixed with a little bit of dissatisfaction, was quite tenaciously examining her Tsumei.
Enough to end her brief silence and make Tsumei shake her head away.
“…… Why are you looking at me like that? Did you put anything on my face?”
Tsumei asked in a rather astringent voice.
Helena immediately shook her head.
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then why? He’s poised to pierce me with his eyes.”
Tsumei asked back.
From her point of view, she had traveled all the way to this place by mobilizing refreshments to look at something of interest she had discovered after a long time, so the attitude of her subordinates looking at herself with her incomprehensible gaze was It’s bound to be annoying.
“…… You’re not asking because you really don’t know, are you?”
But on the other hand, Helena also had a lot to say towards Tsumei.
For the first time, her brows, which had always maintained a cold expression, frowned.
“The fourth special admission student, current class A student named ‘Dante’. I haven’t heard an explanation yet.”
“…… Ah.”
Tsumei averted her eyes at Helena’s barbed words that stabbed her sharply.
“Big, big.”
Because she knew that too.
As for her Dante case, she found that her own explanation was too weak.
Tsumei hesitated for a moment and did not open his mouth.
She seemed to be looking for something to say, but in other words, it was like preparing her own excuse.
“The dean.”
Helena’s voice sank even colder.
“Please tell me soon. So, why was that silver-haired student included as a special admissions student? For what purpose? No, on what grounds before that?”
Tsumei’s eyes began to shake slowly.
It was because even she had nothing to say about this.
Literally arbitrary. It was a decision made without consultation, and it was an impromptu request.
At the time of the entrance ceremony, she said that she was able to pass it safely, but she said that it was not unusual for Helena to get angry because she was in trouble.
“Ah~ That’s why… ….”
Unable to withstand Helena’s pressure to say something, Chimei munched her lips with difficulty, but in the end she couldn’t come up with a sentence.
Even in her midst, the willingness to reach out her hand toward her cookie was certainly unusual.
In the end, Helena exploded.
Thump!
“Dean!”
As Helena screamed at her as she slammed the armrest of her chair hard, Tsumei shook her body inappropriately and shrank.
“Oh, no… ….”
Quickly returning her hand to pick up her cookie, she began to speak her gibberish.
“You mean? I really don’t understand, but I made him a special admission student for a reason, too, right?”
Helena looked at her in disbelief at all, and Tsumei quickly added an explanation, saying, “Ahh!”
“He has a lot to hide, and he has the ability to break my disconnected space. That, but it doesn’t seem like he entered the academy with malice…….”
…… There were too many comments to say simply ‘adding’, but Helena didn’t listen to every single one of them anyway.
It was best to naturally filter out nonsense about what he was doing was cute or that it stimulated his desire for protection.
Helena’s expression was complicatedly and subtly distorted.
For a moment, she had an irreverent (?) Thought, “Will even a dragon with a blessed body ever come to senility?”
She
She, of course, she didn’t show that way outwardly. She knew that her superiors were subtly the bearers of her vulnerable nature.
‘I want to retire.’
However, she could only recall the feel of the resignation letter she always carried in her arms.
Helena’s eyes went cold when she saw Chimei, who was still talking about anything.
It was then.
“…… Ah, really!”
Perhaps she couldn’t stand the silent pressure from Helena, Tsumei screamed with a teary expression.
“Prove it, just prove it!”
Helena’s head tilted subtly.
“What…… You mean?”
“That Dante is a talented kid.”
“… ….”
Helena was silent.
Wanting to bring up some nonsense this time, she looked at Tsumei sadly.
The fourth exception, Dante.
It was already confirmed that the boy was incompetent and unable to handle a handful of mana.
In this world where everything is made of mana, a boy who can’t handle mana at all.
How could he possibly have such a ‘ability’?
What, is it okay to do a triple somersault in the air?
“Whoa… ….”
As Helena let out a sigh, the look in her eyes changed quite vaguely.
Of course, those purple eyes were looking at Tsumei from beginning to end.
“…… Ha, really!”
Of course, it was an unfair look from Tsumei.
She’s telling the truth, but you don’t believe her at all, so it must be frustrating.
Tapping her tiny chest, she stretched out her hand and pointed at her screen.
“Look at that, Helena. There will be a funny scene soon.”
“…… A funny scene, you say?”
Helena turned her head in dubious doubt.
Anyway, I was looking at the screen as directed by my superior.
The sight that came into sight was nothing else.
“That… ….”
The group exhibition started before I knew it.
On one side of the battlefield in the forest, divided into blue and red teams and colliding with each other, two students stood facing each other.
One of them, needless to say, was Dante.
“…… I understand your words.”
Helena nodded her head slightly and glanced at her Tsumei.
“You seem to believe that the boy will show his true abilities soon, right?”
“Is that so? No, I know you don’t like it, but if you openly look at me with distrust like that, I get hurt too.”
Chimei complained of her upset, but Helena didn’t care.
I just stared at the screen with a feeling of just in case.
“Okay. By the way, as the dean said, even if that boy has exceptional abilities…….”
After a pause, she crossed her legs slightly as if to observe.
“From my point of view, I don’t think even the ending can be perfect.”
“…… Joy.”
Tsumei turned her head away as she didn’t want to hear it, but she wasn’t entirely sure either.
After glancing at Tsumei for a moment, Helena clicked her chin and continued her words.
“That’s true, the other person is ‘she’.”
Looking at the screen.
At the same time, it was a girl with ivory hair who was confronting Dante one-on-one on the screen.
“Beatrice Lewis. Even excluding her abilities as a saint, she is strong. At least, she won’t be beaten by a boy who can’t handle even a handful of mana.”
Helena said that while examining Tsumei’s expression.
I wondered if I would be able to see my superior, who was keeping her mouth shut with an unusually hard expression on her face.
“Helena.”
But.
“First of all, you need to know that one thing.”
Unexpectedly, Tsumei did not undergo any significant change in expression.
Just calmly.
As if speaking only the truth as it is, he only spat out a calm voice.
“That pretty-looking kid.”
“…… Are you a student of Beatrice?”
“Yes, Beatrice. An apostle of God, a saint of the current generation……. That kid is strong, I know. Along with the granddaughter of the Sword Saint, he was the most powerful candidate. However.”
In addition, Tsumei quietly lit up the clear wall.
The moment Helena involuntarily flinched at her body, she continued her words.
“As Beatrice now, no matter what I do, I can’t destroy my disconnected space. Even if——”
──Even if he were to truly bring out the authority he had received from the gods to the limit.
“… ….”
Helena was silent.
Not because she was at a loss for words to answer, but because she was simply crushed by Tsumei’s momentum.
It was right after that that Tsumei burst out laughing.
“Well, let’s see.”
The slightly frozen atmosphere quickly melts away.
Tsumei looked at the screen again and muttered in her small voice.
“…… In that fight, what Dante will show.”