Ariel Dalton Wants to Graduate

“Hey, how long are you going to stay like that!”

It seemed like I had been lost in thought for too long.  I snapped back to reality at the sound of a loud voice, finding myself in a corridor leading to the Chamber of Secrets. Beside me, Pannington was trembling with a bright red face, his left hand still clasped in my right hand.

I was usually very ladylike, but when I had the chance to annoy someone, I became something else completely. At the Villard Manor, where the little devil of the Dalton Manor was taught social skills and mischievous nature, I learned that it was natural to be teased if you didn’t do the teasing first. I kindly let go of his left hand,  which had probably never touched a woman in its life, and carefully selected words that were humiliating but not insulting.

“I suppose this is what His Highness meant when he told me to be careful. He said there will be people who will try every trick just to hold hands.”

However, the perfect taunt I had crafted never left my lips. My lips, which had been twitching at the thought of watching Illestia’s spy get angry, were suddenly sealed shut.

Ah, Keran Illestia! Devil with the face of an angel!

***

“You’re looking pale.”

“I was overwhelmed by the way Holy Illestia treats people.”

“I’m sorry if he offended you, but he’s still young and not very good at controlling his emotions.”

“Young? He’s in fifth grade. How old was he when he started???”

“The first ‘James Pennington’ attended the entrance ceremony. This one is the third.”

Keran, who was laying out the runner on the long log table, smiled slightly when he saw me with my mouth open stupidly. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t be fooled, but now that I was staring into those gleaming eyes, I felt disoriented.

“Please, Ariel, don’t let him win.”

“Hmm… Why are you hurting yourself?”

“It’s just something I need to do.”

With a hearty slap to my own cheek, I snatched the table runner tangled in Keran’s arm. He had an astonishing lack of skill in handling the rectangular fabric. ‘No matter what I do, it looks wrong.’ Keran massaged the back of his neck awkwardly.

“It’s because you laid it wrong. This part is supposed to represent a pegasus, but when you flip it over, it looks like a bald guy with his crotch completely open.”

“I never thought of it as that, but now, that’s all I can see. Thank you for letting me know.”

“Don’t worry. Just do this and, voila!”

“I’ve done something terribly wrong…”

Keran muttered seriously. He seemed to have a great realization. I playfully ran my fingers over the Pegasus, who had finally regained his glory, and made it fly among the star-like embroidered emblems of the Milua ethnic group.

The Pegasus Tapestry was one of the most expensive items traded by the Dalton merchant guild. The same was true for the log table and bench chairs that supported it. There was a definite sense that the space had been touched by my hand. My hand, and by the money provided by the imperial family of Illestia.

You’ve really sold it all so diligently. I’m proud of you, Ariel Dalton.

“So, shall we talk about business now? How about today?”

Once the tablerunner problem, which seemed like it would last forever, was resolved, Keran got straight to the point. This was bad. I have no idea what he was talking about. A shiver ran down my spine.

“Don’t you know why I called you in?”

“Did I say so?”

“It’s just that it looks like that.”

Whether it’s Keran here or Keran there, the ability to see through other people is similar. It occurred to me that the instructor for the fortune-telling class should have been Illestia’s Little Sun, not Miss Proctor.

Suddenly, the <patch notes> placed on the table caught my eye. It was definitely a thing of the past, seeing as it was not as old as in the world of Rosemary Blossom. Why on earth have I lost my memories of Florence Belle? It’s not like it’s coming up sparsely like Keran, it’s like someone cut it out—all of it.

I picked up the book and flipped through it. There were traces of efforts made to decipher it. Neat handwriting. Keran Illestia’s. Come to think of it, there were traces of someone’s handwriting in the other <patch notes> before Keran discovered it. Could it have been him who ripped those pages out?

In any case, the mystery of the <Patch Notes> was no longer a high priority in my mind. According to Kyle, it was an internal record kept by the system. It was a maintenance log of sorts, with entries like, ‘Filled a hole in the gutter on the roof of the girls’ dormitory building.’ and he didn’t really think that there was some great secret mixed in there.

As for the torn pages, it could have been torn because of curiosity or because there was no correction fluid for a mistake. Well, we don’t know if the system makes mistakes too.

“You are ‘Ari’.”

Without warning, the heat reached my face. It was Keran’s finger, which was warmer than most due to his divine power. I found it ironic because I thought it was too warm for the student council president who was treated like a marble statue with a tin heart.

My head was raised. Amber eyes fell on me. The hair tickling my cheek was caught in his delicate fingers and tucked behind my ear. I brazenly retorted.

“Why do you think so? Am I prettier than usual?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

It’s not like he just suddenly wanted to call me by a nickname, Keran seemed to consider ‘Ari’ someone separate from ‘Ariel.’

It was around the end of June here when I first fell into Florence Belle’s world. Since we are currently on vacation, it can be assumed that at least a week or two, and at most a month, has passed. No matter how much of a slut Walsh was, there was no way he would have had an affair as soon as he returned to Illestia, so I leaned toward the latter possibility more.

Anyway, the point is that not a terribly long time has passed. So much so that I am still in a corner of his mind.

From Keran’s perspective, it would be quite an encounter. The person he knew suddenly changed, and he was told a strange—I’ll admit it— lie, an enchanted book, and a secret room appeared… ‘Ari’, who has taken over the body of ‘Ariel’, seems to know about her beloved Flora and the world that is friendly to her. It wasn’t an experience to be taken lightly.

I tried to play it off as a habit, but if you think about it, I already revealed the truth to him. There was no need or reason to hide it, so I straightened my back and answered confidently.

“Hello, Keran. We meet again.”

It was natural for Keran to quickly realize that I was ‘Ari’. He was the reason I ended up wasting my long-awaited vacation at Fitzsimmons in the first place.

“It seems like she doesn’t remember the time when it was you. Can you imagine the look on her face when I called her ‘Ari’?”Keran grumbled in an uncharacteristically whiny tone.“I seriously even have to look up recipes for magic potions that erase memories.”

He touched his reddened earlobe, and I was amused enough not to smile for the next three months.

‘Ariel’, whose only positive side was strength, accepted the fact that I was her parallel world self coolly. Maybe it was because Keran was the one who told her. Since she was me too, well, it must have been difficult to reject the extremely handsome Crown Prince of Illestia. I understand very well.

“Ariel regularly assured me that she was not ‘Ari’, under the condition that I cover all costs of improving the Chamber of Secrets.”

In other words, ‘Ariel’ was monitored by Keran Illestia every day for me, not knowing when I would appear again. Even during vacation. At Fitzsimmons, where there wasn’t an ant in sight. I feel sorry for myself. No matter how you do the math, it’s a loss, and I should have gotten more. I should have put diamonds in the chandeliers. I should have covered the walls and floors in gold.

“What in the world made you so eager to look for me?”

I asked out of courtesy, but I knew roughly what the answer would be. This was because I was the one who disappeared, leaving various question marks scattered in his head. Sure enough, Keran jerked his head and pointed at the <patch notes> on the table.

“And what would I receive in return?”

I giggled meaningfully.

Since our previous meeting, I have held in my hands almost everything that Keran was looking for—the identity of Florence Belle, the reason why the world is kind to her, etc. The person I am now is worth much more than the person I was back then, so I thought I could offer something more rewarding than the profit I made from selling a few pieces of furniture to ‘Ariel’, who was suffering from the noblest stalker on the continent.

“You’re greedy. It would be difficult to live a long life.”

I shrugged my shoulders. I had never lived past the age of twenty, so Keran’s words made a lot of sense.

“Alright. What do you want?”

At that moment, I was wondering what I should offer to ensure safety from the Illestia royal family while gaining a lot of benefits. Suddenly, my head felt like it was going to explode, and then my vision changed as if I had taken off colored glasses.

The grandeur created by Dalton Guild’s heir’s resourcefulness and Illestia’s heir to the throne’s money vanished in an instant and flew into the crevices of my consciousness. In its place, a ceiling appeared. A ceiling decorated with a familiar wooden lattice. It was the dormitory.

It wasn’t my room. The wooden lattice there had long since been broken by a pixie toy that shot up into the sky when you rubbed it between your palms and then would spin around as it fell.

I wanted to look around, but I couldn’t because my body felt as limp as wet cotton. Some parts of my vision were as dark as if covered with mold. My side hurt as if small gnomes were stabbing me with sharp spears. I felt a warm force squeezing through the pain that continued intermittently. Divine power.

A soft hand touched me. It was the hand of a man with strong joints. It was so well-groomed up to the tips of the nails that it gave off an elegant feeling.

As soon as it touched my forehead, I felt surprisingly calm. I felt like a mana jellyfish, floating aimlessly at the mercy of the current. My mind sank. Deeper and deeper…

“Ari!”

“Gasp!”

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