Arc 10: The Empress’s Discerning Eye (1)

At a general hospital near Constel, Saibel and Elodie anxiously awaited the results of Frondier’s examination.

This was the same hospital where Saibel had been admitted. This time, their positions were reversed.

They had decided to say that Saibel had killed Serf. That was the truth, after all.

When they made that decision, Saibel had argued passionately, “But we know the truth. Without Frondier, I couldn’t have done anything. Frondier saved that child, and he saved us. People should recognize that!”

She was right.

But Elodie shook her head.

“Even if everyone knows Frondier did the right thing, there’s no guarantee they’ll think better of him.”

“Why...?”

“... That’s just how reputations work.”

Would Frondier become the hero who saved a child, or a murderer who had taken a life?

Elodie couldn’t be sure which way the scales would tip. But she judged the latter more likely, because of Serf’s popularity.

'Until this happened, Serf was well regarded throughout the empire. And Indus, the organization he belonged to, has a strong standing among commoners. Frondier, on the other hand, doesn’t just lack popularity—his reputation is terrible. And to make matters worse, he’s a noble...'

In the worst case, people might even believe Frondier had killed Serf and covered it up.

That was why the credit would go to Saibel instead of Frondier. Saibel was well liked at Constel, and she was a commoner, not a noble. With Elodie’s own testimony added to hers, there should be no room to pick holes in their account.

'Though honestly, it does make me a little angry that what Frondier did will go unrecognized.'

Frondier. You’d better get something in return to make up for it.

While Elodie was thinking this—

CREAK

The hospital room door they had been waiting outside opened, and the doctor emerged.

“D-Doctor! How is he? What’s his condition?”

Saibel hurried up to him and asked urgently. Seeing the worry in her eyes, Elodie smiled wryly.

'Lucky you, Frondier.'

The doctor gave Saibel a reassuring smile.

“Physically, he’s fine. We’ve successfully treated the wound in his side, and he lost less blood than I expected.”

Both girls relaxed at his explanation. But after seeming to consider something for a moment, the doctor looked at them.

“May I ask how you two are related to the patient?”

“Pardon? Oh, we’re his friends.”

“His guardian hasn’t come?”

They both nodded.

Elodie had, in fact, contacted Frondier’s older brother, Atzier.

After arriving at the hospital, she had deliberated over which member of his family to call: his father, Ampere; his brother, Atzier; or his mother, Malia, who was also Constel’s school physician.

Her reason for finally calling Atzier was simple. She didn’t know Malia’s number, and Ampere was too frightening. Atzier was frightening too, but at least she had spoken with him before.

When Elodie explained the situation, Atzier seemed to think for a moment before saying,

[“I’ll leave him in your care.”]

[“What?!”]

The question slipped out before she could stop herself, but his reply remained matter-of-fact.

[“If our family goes there, we risk needlessly fueling rumors. That wouldn’t be good for Frondier either.”]

Thinking it over, he was right. Every member of Frondier’s family was far too famous.

The doctor stroked his chin, looking troubled.

“Hmm, I see. There’s something I need to tell his guardian.”

“Is Frondier in danger?”

“No, nothing like that. But there is something I need to discuss.”

“Then please tell me. I’ll make sure the message reaches them,” Elodie said, while Saibel nodded vigorously beside her.

“... Hmm, very well. That should be all right. This way, then.”

The three of them moved to the doctor’s consulting room.

Saibel and Elodie sat down, tense. Despite his assurances, the doctor’s expression was quite serious.

He spoke again.

“Please don’t worry too much. There’s nothing wrong with the patient. But I do want to give you a warning.”

“A warning?”

At Elodie’s question, the doctor nodded and took out two images.

“First, we took an X-ray because of the deep wound in his side. As I mentioned, the treatment went well. Fortunately, the blade missed both bone and internal organs, so there should be no lasting effects. It should leave very little scarring, too.”

Elodie and Saibel relaxed a little at his explanation. The doctor brought out the next image.

“And this is a scan of his mana distribution.”

“Mana distribution?”

“Yes. As the name suggests, it shows how mana is distributed within the subject. We can check how much mana remains, where it’s concentrated, and so on.”

At that, Elodie and Saibel looked at the image, then tilted their heads in unison.

“Um, I’m not sure I understand. I can’t see any mana.”

The image showed nothing but a pure white human silhouette. They understood that this was Frondier, but how were they supposed to see his mana distribution?

“You’re seeing it correctly.”

“Pardon?”

“He collapsed from mana depletion. When he arrived at the hospital, he had no mana left at all.”

Their mouths fell open in surprise. So that was why there was only a silhouette in the image. He had been completely empty.

“Of course, passing out from mana depletion is quite common. As you’ve both probably experienced, people feel extreme fatigue when their mana runs low. And before his mana was depleted, the patient had pushed himself very hard and suffered blood loss.”

They nodded. As Constel students, they naturally knew what it felt like to run low on mana. They could readily understand passing out from depletion itself.

“Now, here’s the next image.”

The doctor took out another scan of his mana distribution. This one, however, was distinctly different.

“... Huh? There are blue areas. Quite a lot of them.”

“Yes. That’s mana. This image was taken an hour later.”

Saibel let out an impressed murmur. Could mana really recover this quickly even after being depleted?

'This quickly?'

Unlike Saibel, however, Elodie was a dedicated mage. To her, that speed seemed a little strange. So she asked cautiously,

“... Um, can someone recover their mana this quickly after depleting it?”

The doctor adjusted his glasses.

“That’s what I wanted to discuss.”

“What do you mean?”

“As you’ve noticed, Miss Elodie, the patient is recovering from mana depletion far too quickly.”

Listening, Saibel blinked.

“Is that a problem?”

Elodie had wanted to ask the same question. The speed struck her as strange, but she couldn’t see why it would be particularly bad.

The doctor explained.

“Rather than a problem... it’s as though his body has grown accustomed to it. To having its mana depleted.”

Both their expressions froze. Only then did they understand why he had wanted to tell a guardian.

“I don’t know what the patient has been doing. But complete mana depletion isn’t something that normally happens. He may frequently have found himself in extremely intense battles, or comparable situations. Does anything come to mind?”

They both shook their heads, looking dazed even as they did so.

People didn’t deliberately exhaust their mana.

Of course, depleting it didn’t place any particular strain on the body in itself. But using magic or skills ultimately meant being in combat. Exhausting your mana meant you had truly given that fight everything you had.

So being accustomed to mana depletion meant, in other words, repeatedly fighting desperate battles.

“... Doctor,” Elodie began. “If he’s accustomed to mana depletion, how often must it have happened?”

“Hmm, let’s see. With a recovery rate like this...”

The doctor adjusted his glasses and looked at the scan again.

“I’d say more than a hundred times.”

Elodie’s eyes trembled. She felt an emotion she couldn’t identify welling up inside her.

'And I... didn’t know?'

It was understandable for Saibel. But Elodie had known Frondier for a very long time. She had even once called him by a pet name so embarrassing that she couldn’t bear to say it now.

If he had depleted his mana more than a hundred times, then unless he had been doing it every single day, it must have started before he entered Constel. Long before.

Frondier had been suffering mana depletion since then?

'What the hell have I been looking at all this time...!'

At last, the rising emotion surged all the way to her head. It was an emotion she couldn’t bear to acknowledge.

But she had no choice. It was anger. Anger at herself.

“E-Elodie! Elodie!”

“... Huh?”

Only when Saibel called her name did Elodie manage to come back to her senses. The room’s temperature had risen considerably. She had almost activated her Divine Power.

“I-I’m sorry!”

Elodie hurriedly apologized to the doctor. He looked startled, but laughed it off.

In truth, Divine Power wouldn’t harm anyone if activated without killing intent. In Elodie’s case, it would merely make things hotter or colder, or stir up a breeze. Still, depending on the person, it could be taken as a threat.

The doctor spoke soothingly to them.

“As I said, there’s nothing physically wrong with the patient at present. But I must insist that he avoid overexerting himself, if he really is repeatedly putting himself in dangerous situations.”

“... Understood.”

They answered dejectedly and left the consulting room.

“...”

“...”

After hearing the doctor’s explanation, they sat side by side, utterly dispirited.

After thinking for a while, Elodie spoke cautiously.

“... Um, you know...”

“... Yeah.”

“They say Frondier sleeps through class every day. And tries to skip outdoor lessons.”

“... Yeah.”

“Could that be because...?”

Saibel was thinking the very same thing as Elodie.

Perhaps Frondier wasn’t lazy. Perhaps he simply had no choice.

Fighting until his mana ran dry, recovering, then fighting again, over and over. There was no way he could lead a normal school life in that condition.

Saibel lifted her head and murmured, almost with a sigh,

“When we went into the dungeon together, Frondier seemed good at handling traps.”

She recalled when she and Frondier had been left alone. Her poor opinion of him had clouded her judgment then, but he had protected her the whole time. He had disarmed numerous traps, and even when they triggered one, he had kept her safe.

What if he hadn’t simply studied traps? What if he had experienced them firsthand?

Frondier the Human Sloth. The lazy, incompetent boy at the very bottom of Constel.

The glimpse of truth behind that reputation tasted unbearably cold and bitter to them both.

* * *

“Hmm-hmm-hmm~ Hmm-hmm~”

Einen walked down the street with a spring in her step. A librarian, she enjoyed reading even on her days off, but today she was going out for the first time in a while.

She was even humming, quite unlike her usual self.

“That Frondier. He can be surprisingly useful sometimes.”

Einen lifted her Sagephone to check the message she had received once more. It read:

[Congratulations! You answered every question in ‘Essential Trivia for Adventurers’ correctly!]

[You have won Terst Department Store gift certificates!]

Amazingly, she had answered every question she’d worked on at the library correctly and won the gift certificates. Of course, much of the credit went to Frondier, who had solved the final question.

Perhaps she should buy him a meal sometime.

“Heeheehee.”

Einen giggled like a giddy child.

Prestigious as Constel was, it didn’t pay even its librarians all that handsomely. Her voracious reading habit always left her short of money, and living alone already meant food and other living expenses hit her hard.

At Constel, she went around calling herself a “homemaker,” since she felt awkward admitting she was single.

Even if you lived alone, you were still a homemaker. Of course you were.

“First~ I’ll buy some clothes~ Can’t forget cosmetics either~ Oh, should I get new shoes this time?”

She walked along, even putting a tune to her monologue. It was a telling sign that she was by no means young.

... And unbeknownst to Einen, a man was watching her.

“... Yes, the target has arrived.”

Hidden among the crowds, he quietly made contact. After confirming that Einen had entered the department store, he spoke again.

“Einen Flot has entered the department store, Your Majesty.”