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The day was very cloudy. I opened the door to the magic tool production lab, imagining many of the students and their friends scurrying around in the rain on Finnigan Street.
Illestia was sitting with his back against the window sill. He was looking outside, then stood up when I gave him a gesture of acknowledgement. It was the first time I had seen Ilestia not in his uniform. He was wearing a sweater that I would only wear in the ugliest sweater competition, but he managed to overcome it with his face.
“Illestia, that sweater is so funny. Where did you get it?”
“My mother made it.”
“It’s so perfect that it makes me laugh. The Great Emperor has an excellent aesthetic sense.”
For Illestia, mother meant Kaitlyn the Great, the emperor of the Holy Illestia Empire. I gasped, feeling the sweat seeping down my back.
“Thank you. I will tell my mother.”
“No, you don’t have to.”
Even in the Viscounty on the outskirts of Milua, rumors spread that Kaitlyn the Great, with her tremendous charisma and ruthless divine power, was ruling Illestia with an iron fist. I wondered what would happen if I died during the graduation banquet, but I did not feel like experimenting.
Anyway, it seems Kaitlyn the Great also knits her son’s sweaters. I imagine a scene of her knitting ugly sweaters while watching the execution of her political opponents. It felt very powerful just from the thought of it.
“By the way, where is <patch notes>?”
I hoped Illestia would stop thinking about how I almost insulted Kaitlyn the Great and her sweater, so I turned my back. When I looked around roughly, there was no book or anything like it. The magic tool production lab, where Illestia and I were currently at, was full of tools for engraving magic circuits and magic tools that graduates probably made, but that was all.
Instead of answering my question, Illestia nodded and moved on. It seemed to mean ‘follow me’.
He led me to a corner of the magic tool production lab. There was green moss on the densely built walls made of long stones put on top of each other. I touched it, wondering if it was a secret safe with an unknown device, but only a feeling of discomfort remained at my fingertips.
Illestia laughed a little when he saw that I was disgusted with the moss on my fingernails, then held out his hand. He looked like he was about to escort his partner, who had just gotten off the carriage, to the banquet hall.
“You want me to hold it?”
“You have to hold it.”
Since he spoke very firmly, I had no choice but to hold his hand. Perhaps because of the divine power, his hand was much warmer than mine.
Illestia fixed the awkward hand that I had placed on his and laced our fingers together. His long fingers squeezed tightly between mine. This was a bit embarrassing, but Illestia looked so fine, so I pretended like it was nothing. I bluffed that I do something like hold hands with a man every day, and the abominable Keran Illestia said he was not like that. I just uselessly made myself look like a debauchee.
The hand interlaced with Illestias’ became increasingly warm. It seemed that he was using divine power. When he touched the wall with his other hand, it began to vibrate slightly, then a section of the stone wall turned into a fine dust of light and collapsed, revealing an arch!
In front of us was a seemingly endless dark passage. I think I knew why he asked me to hold his hand. If I fell alone in a place like this, I would be lost for the rest of my life.
“How did you know about this? Since when?”
I could barely see the sculpted profile of Illestia walking at a slow pace to keep up with mine.
“I also found out recently. I heard it from a graduate.”
“I don’t know who it is, but they must have been a troublemaker.”
Fitzsimmons Academy had many secrets, as its history was long, but most were difficult to find for students who only went back and forth between classrooms and dormitories. Kyle and I, known troublemakers, went to almost every corner of the academy. All we found was that if we went into the third barrel from the left among the barrels placed in the cafeteria and said, “Everyone likes chocolate”, we could go to a room made of chocolate. Everything, including the walls and floor, was made of chocolate (because of that room, I suffered from a toothache in the second grade).
“Haha, I’ll tell her that too.”
“The Great Emperor seemed very lively during her school days.”
Damn it, Kaitlyn the Great! Why are you making it so hard for me to live?
The secret passage of Kaitlyn the Great was not as long as I thought. It was only a while before Illestia and I reached a cozy decorated room. Flames were burning in the chandelier and fireplace, and there were no windows except for a small vent, but it did not feel very stuffy. A table runner embroidered with luxurious patterns lay on a moderately sized log table. There was a classic feel on the well-furnished bench chair.
Overall, I liked it. I made a fuss about Kaitlyn the Great’s truly impeccable interior sense. Illestia listened to my 50 rhetorics with a smile and confessed that this room had already been completed when the great emperor discovered it.
“I wish you had told me something as important as that from the beginning.”
“Sorry, you are just so funny… ”
When I put on a straight face, Illestia laughed out loud, which was rare. I realized we were still holding hands when his smile touched the back of my hand, which he had unconsciously brought to his lips.
The heat in my hands seemed to rise to my cheeks, so I quickly released my hand. Illestia glanced down at his empty hand but said nothing.
“I don’t know what the spell was, but I could not read it in ‘reading places’ like libraries and classrooms. This room was out of magic, so I think it will work.”
“So that’s why you’re in the swordsmanship training ground at that time.”
Opening the <Patch Note> in the middle of the table, Illestia nodded. Without even knowing that fact, I treated him like a lunatic. Bad Ariel Dalton.
We sat face to face with <Patch Notes> in between us. There were a lot more memo pads than I had seen before. Next to it was a notebook where a supposed table was drawn, and Illestia explained to me which letters in the unknown language were consonants and vowels.
To me, a gorilla holding bananas in both hands in Bree’s eyes, they looked more like pictures than words. One of them was cute, like a person wearing a nice hat, and when I told him that, Illestia let out a shallow sigh.
“I think it’s a number from here to here. It was written at the top of every page, so I think it’s the date.”
“Is it a diary?”
“It could be.”
If, as he said, the numbers at the top of each page were dates, then the numbers on the next page would be greater than on the previous page. Based on this, it was my job to figure out which correspond to the number in ours.
Fortunately, analyzing <Patch Notes> was less tedious than taking Professor Houston’s magic science class. As I was turning over the pages, scrawling numbers and picturesque characters, I noticed something odd.
“Illestia, I think one page is missing here?”
It was torn so meticulously that it was not obvious at first glance.He suddenly became serious when I held the part in his direction.
“You’re right. Someone must have ripped it off.”
“Has anyone touched <Patch Notes> before us?”
At my words, Illestia held his chin in distress. The pen, caught between his index and middle fingers, tapped on his sharp jawline. He looked as if he knew something, but could not say it hastily because it was too ambiguous.
I thought about asking him, but I think he would not tell me. Instead, I immersed myself in <Patch Notes> that someone ripped up. Who the hell tore it, and why? Whatever written there must have been very important. It would be nice if we could find it.
***
When I returned, holding Illestia’s hand again, the magic tool production lab was full of the glow of the setting sun. It must have rained for a while. The wind that came in through the half-open window and blew the curtains smelled of dampness.
“I heard you haven’t found a partner for the banquet at the beginning of the month.”
On the way down the spiral staircase of the annex building, Illestia spoke up suddenly.
“If you’re trying to make fun of me, can’t you just do the first verse? Kyle Villard already did up to 32 verses.”
I was somewhat determined to attend the beginning of the month banquet without a partner. I was complacent in finding a partner when the banquet was only a week away.
Ramos, who accepted the bet, was actually weird. Usually, finding a partner at this time was literally picking stars out of the sky. Being alone with the banquet just around the corner means you have no intention of attending at all, have a reason to attend alone, or have defects in personality or social skills.
The odious Kyle Villard has formed a network of people wide enough that he could easily find a familiar face anywhere in the academy, but he did not even think of helping his poor childhood friend. If I don’t have any choice, he should at least lend Layla to me.
To be honest, it seemed like it would be pretty cool to ride a griffon to the banquet hall. However, if Professor Monahan misunderstood that he and I had similar sexual preferences, it would be a big problem, so I did not dare do it.
“You seem really close with Kyle.”
“We’re like family.”
I deliberately emphasized ‘family’.
“If you can go to a bath together, I guess you really are family.”
Illestia, who only listened to what he wanted to hear, meticulously filtered out the sarcastic remarks from my twisted words and answered with useless fascination. I couldn’t help but marvel at how far the rumors circulated, which must have come from Briana Mosley.
“Anyway, I’m not kidding. I think I can help.”
“You? Aren’t you supposed to escort Madame Bartlett?”
As the student council president, Illestia had to accompany Madame Bartlett, the head of the academy, to every banquet. She had always been impatient to show off the fact that she was standing side by side with the good-looking, outstanding, and virtuous crown prince of Illestia, so it was impossible for her to suddenly give up her partner.
“I am.”
“Then?”
When I asked, puzzled, Illestia told me in the tone of a child who came up with a very ingenious prank that I would find out soon.
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