"Seems fine. You're okay?"
After the dawn meeting, Leo said as he dumped the remaining tea.
At his words, Narke, who had stayed behind and was tilting his chair back to play, looked at me and Leo alternately and asked.
"Why? Something happen?"
"Lucas has a watcher."
At that, Narke's face turned quite serious. Narke set his chair down flat and raised his eyebrows.
"What, already? How did you find out?"
"He went to the post office and inquired that a letter from his brother seemed to have gone missing. What did they say?"
Leo asked, looking at me. I poured the last sip of cold tea into my mouth and answered.
"Everything else comes to me, doesn't it?"
"Where does this kind of cunning come from..."
Leo shook his head side to side and sat down, brewing fresh tea.
It's a method you can use without much thought, but from Leo's perspective, who only pursues the orthodox method, it's a roundabout question he'd never use in his lifetime, so that reaction is understandable. I just nodded.
Unlike Leo, Narke seemed to like this method and started chuckling.
"Haha! That's a really quick and easy way. So, did you find out who it is?"
"No, I have to check from now on. Even if I asked who it was, they wouldn't answer, so I didn't ask."
"Really? Want me to find out?"
"It's fine. To check that, you'd have to grab and check each person one by one."
A level 2 Insight ability isn't omnipotent.
Since it can only be used within the target's perception range, you can't grasp the details of events the target doesn't know, and the depth you can uncover is also limited. Moreover, since it's a magic applied individually, not an area-of-effect magic, to identify who the watcher is, you'd have to meet them face-to-face.
If it were an ability with no restrictions at all, I could ask, but since it consumes mental energy and causes headaches, that's difficult too.
Narke clicked his tongue and nodded slowly.
"Well, that's true. Too bad. Want me to warp Py inside the post office?"
"What would come out if you warp Py?"
Leo asked with a hollow laugh.
"He has high intelligence. He just can't read letters well."
"What?"
"He talks too. I'm telling you because it's you, Leo."
Leo couldn't close his mouth and then glanced at me with an awkward expression.
It's a face that says, 'He's crazy, what do I do?'
I was about to say that I'm that crazy person, but just smiled and answered Narke.
"I don't think Py would be able to pull out the ledger inside a drawer and find the appropriate page. And, thanks for the concern, but it's fine. I can find out."
"True, sending Py has many hurdles."
"..."
Leo made an indescribable expression at the continued talk of Py.
Narke, who had been deep in thought, clapped his hands.
"Ah! Why didn't you try mind control magic?"
"It's better not to use magic if possible. There are situations where you have to use it even if you don't want to, so until then, I try to minimize it."
"This must mean you have a way to find out without using magic now."
At Leo's laughter-laced words, I nodded.
"Exactly."
* * *
It's easy.
Just live righteously without getting caught.
Wake up in the morning, diligently go to the special class, attend lectures, have meals in my room, come out again to attend lectures, have meals in my room again, and not come out from inside.
'It's a bit concerning that both Leo and I are skipping the special class evening self-study...'
I decided to emphasize my poor health and only go to the mandatory one once a week.
Since Leo has been going to the training grounds regularly since becoming a second-year, even if there are times we're both absent, it won't raise much suspicion.
The organization meetings held every other day, I can just warp to as usual.
If I do only this, there's no way information will leak to that side.
However, there's a hidden snag here.
The people who talk to me are a bit of a problem.
I scribbled my thoughts in a notebook and let the potions class flow in one ear. The professor in a gown looked at the students and asked.
"Does any student know what connection the House of Wittelsbach had with medicine before the advent of magic? Except for Leonard, please."
The laughter of the students and Leo was heard. The professor paused for a long moment, then looked at me and said.
"Shall the only student who got a perfect score on the written exam answer? Lucas Ascanien."
I put down my pen, stood up from my seat, smiled, and answered simply.
"In the pre-magic era, there was no significant connection."
"Exactly. I brought this up because today's lesson is about the wound-healing potion developed by the House of Wittelsbach. It was the first magic potion developed after the advent of magic, and it changed the history of magical medicine and potionology..."
Situations like this very moment, where I have to open my mouth, are the problem.
It's the time when my changes can be most noticeably observed.
'The number of call-outs has increased since the midterms.'
It's not just the potions subject.
A similar phenomenon is occurring in all seven subjects where I got perfect scores.
Also, according to Leo, students have started trying to talk to me out of curiosity.
The student from Class 1 who greeted me in the special class yesterday must have been of that type. I don't know how many more such students will appear in the future. And the watcher will be observing me then too.
However, I can't perform the 'Luca act' from my first year every single moment because of one person reporting on me. That would be dragging my image down to the bottom again.
My brother has probably already confirmed my changes through yellow journalism or local newspapers anyway.
Grooming my appearance neatly, conversing normally with people, etc.
So there's no need to perform the first-year act, but it's also not desirable for stories about my changes to be constantly imprinted on my brother's mind.
'I should check today.'
I closed my notebook and focused on the lecture.
* * *
I collected the notebooks from the students and left the classroom. Even after midterms, their note-taking had to continue. After all, they had to maintain this level for finals too.
After having dinner in the dorm, I walked listlessly towards the library.
Occasionally, I stopped walking and turned my head this way and that to check my surroundings. Perhaps because it was only seven o'clock, there were many people on the path.
Students stared at me with puzzled eyes as I stopped abruptly and surveyed my surroundings, then disappeared.
After reading in the library for a long time, I hurriedly left the library an hour before midnight.
As expected, around this time, few people were visible. I looked around and walked quickly from the library's main entrance to the back entrance, then started running aimlessly towards the path leading to the 3rd Education Building behind it.
By the time my breath was reaching my chin, I briefly knelt, caught my breath, and then ran again with all my might.
I stopped for a moment and turned my head back.
There was no one on the path.
I checked my surroundings, noticed my shoelace had come undone after being stepped on by my other foot, and sat behind an alley to tie it. I untied the intact lace and retied it too. I needed to make time slowly.
Then, I got up, stepped on a small piece of stone rolling on the ground, and took steps one by one.
Perhaps because it was night, or because there were no people, even trivial sounds came loudly. It was perfect for announcing my location.
If I just turn one corner here, the park at the edge of the school appears. I widened my stride and turned direction at a fast pace. And, as soon as the park came into view, I swiftly turned my body towards the direction I came from.
Thud—!
"Argh!"
"Well... I'm surprised you got caught this easily. I almost feel sorry enough to cry. Honestly, I didn't think you'd be caught at this stage."
I pushed the one who had been following me against the wall and applied force to my hand.
The unfamiliar person shook their head with a panicked face.
"Wha, what...!"
"You came all this way, even using a sound-dampening magic."
"Let go!"
The guy twisted his arm. I pushed him against the wall once more and asked quietly.
"Who are you?"
"What, what do you mean who...?!"
"I said who. Who told you to move so stupidly?"
This guy isn't the one who received my brother's letter.
The one who received my brother's letter, in turn, ordered this student.
My brother isn't someone who works so sloppily.
Even though I arbitrarily used the term 'watcher,' there wouldn't be a single sentence in the mail my brother sent ordering surveillance of me. What if the recipient betrayed him? Why would he do such a bold thing?
In the letter the other recipient received, it would just be filled with warm words worrying about his younger brother, just like in my letter. Among them, there would be a story about how he's worried about his younger brother who forgets his health and focuses only on studying, so please occasionally relay news of my well-being.
Given that the younger brother is afraid of his brother, it wouldn't be strange to hear news of my well-being. My brother probably told the other person that point too. All the logic was justified.
If only the letter recipient hadn't arbitrarily deduced my brother's intention, his plan would have proceeded smoothly.
Unless you know each other inside out, arbitrarily digging into the other's unstated intentions and acting on them only creates discord. How, and with what confidence, do you judge the numerous possibilities and their relative importance?
The recipient misunderstood the intention.
He must have misunderstood the ordinary words, 'I'm worried, so please relay news of his well-being,' as a roundabout way of saying to surveil me, a Pleroma.
Of course, part of it is true.
But there's a reason he didn't explicitly mention surveillance. If you were going to recklessly try to dissect someone else's intentions, you should have considered that far.
'This time, my brother drew the short straw.'
Choosing the wrong person and letting everything be known like this.
'Shall I slowly think about what my brother wants?'
What my brother needs to know in this situation is this.
What is the reason for the change, not just in grades but in attitude?
Is it to live a self-directed life and try to change, or is there another reason?
He needs to know the exact reason.
If it's the first reason, then the 20-year system he built will someday become useless, so he must prepare immediately.
So, my brother has the first possibility in mind.
But if he openly attaches a watcher, in the first case, it only serves to convince me of my brother's malice.
In the end, that recipient chose the path of being clever yet stupid.
The student shook his head violently and shouted.
"Told me? No! No one ever told me anything...!"
"What do you mean no one."
A person my brother can trust, someone who knows both my brother and me well enough, or can know, to be entrusted with news of my well-being.
A student isn't very suitable for the intersection of the two. If one passes, they get blocked a bit in the other.
I stared straight into his eyes and said.
"It's a professor, isn't it. One of the Empire's 2nd Education Institute professors ordered you to watch me. Am I wrong?"
I smiled and applied force to the hand gripping his shoulder. His face turned pale.
—-----------
T/N:
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