‘You said my hands were lewd, so why are you making a face like you’re about to cry looking at a torn letter? He loves me, not that girl!’
I couldn’t understand it. If Lionel loved him, he should look at everyone else like he was looking at a passing dog. Moreover, the Lionel up until now had faithfully done just that.
He did occasionally cling to Cain excessively like a child, but since both of them had such young mental ages, I let it slide thinking ‘that’s just how they are,’ but lately something was strange.
The way he looked at me had become somewhat more intense, but it oddly felt like he was drawing a line.
– Your hands are lewd.
‘That stupid Lionel Mellans.’
Cesare replied while looking at the back of his own hand.
“He said he doesn’t like Jaina Fellox. He tore it up saying ‘what’s a mere frontier count’s family?’ The Fellox Count family doesn’t even have their main house in the capital.”
Having casually made up a lie, Cesare felt his lips becoming oddly parched and gulped down the cold ginger ale.
“Wow. As expected of rich Lionel! Even a count’s family isn’t good enough for him?”
“Whoa. He really tore it up?!”
“Well, if it’s the Mellans Merchant Guild, even though they’re commoners, the Fellox Count family is a bit beneath them.”
The Mellans Merchant Guild was a fairly large massive merchant guild both inside and outside the Torusian Empire, but rather than directly doing business under the Mellans name, it was a parent company with numerous subsidiaries and affiliates.
So the Mellans Merchant Guild was a place where money rolled in even if you just sat still. Currently, Lionel’s grandfather and his uncle-in-law Count Cicero oversaw everything, but once Lionel became an adult, everything would come into his possession.
“Certainly, for someone like Lionel, it feels like he should marry a more impressive woman to match his level.”
At William’s words, Cesare subtly took the opportunity to probe.
“For example?”
“At least a ducal family like yours, Cesare…?”
The bear-like guy sure is quick-witted at times like this. At William’s answer, Cesare thought this and lifted the corners of his mouth slightly.
“What ducal family? Someone like him could even marry an imperial princess.”
Sharp. In an instant, Cesare’s eyes became fierce as he glared at Ban. Ban, suddenly hit with the killing intent, fumbled to correct his words.
“Uh… Oh. Right. Actually, a ducal family is better than the imperial family. Being an imperial son-in-law isn’t that great either.”
“Huh? What marriage? Phew. Rye is someone I’ll, huff, keep by my side for life. Hoo.”
Cain replied while doing sit-ups lying upside down on the sofa.
What is that protein-addicted bastard talking about? Cesare was flustered at the feeling of strength surging into his fists.
Without realizing it, he had gotten seriously invested in talk of Lionel’s marriage. Just then, William giggled and poked Cesare’s shoulder.
“Keep the Duchess of Yanox position open, Cesare. It seems Lionel dumped Fellox because he’s after your family. It’s the Yanox Ducal family that can make even birds fall from the sky.”
“William. Do you want to die at Cesare’s hands? Why are you acting up like that?”
Ban threw the mostly eaten chocolate box at William, embarrassing him. However, Cesare himself didn’t feel so bad about it and stood up from his seat with a smile.
“Right. Duchess of Yanox, it’s not even funny.”
The unpleasant feeling he’d felt earlier recalling Lionel’s tearful face had flown away like a lie at their stupid flattery.
“I’m leaving first.”
“Already?”
“I have something important tomorrow morning.”
“On a Saturday? As expected, Cesare is different from losers like us. Well, we should just be grateful that you hang out with us.”
William, Samuel, Ban, and most of the crowd they hung out with were second sons from noble families—idlers who didn’t live very diligently, or rather, didn’t need to live diligently.
“Still, I like you guys the best.”
Better than nobles and the imperial family who enjoy others’ pain and fill their bellies dirtily while pretending to be clean, you guys who are openly straightforward are much better, of course.
Cesare fastened his cape and left their brightly lit dormitory. Walking down the street lined with Grade 1 dormitory buildings, Cesare looked at Lionel’s dormitory.
The lights were on, but he must have drawn the curtains because he couldn’t see inside.
“See you tomorrow, puppy.”
What tasty thing should I give to make my puppy wag his tail, Cesare muttered with a gentle smile and left the place.
* * *
I’m scared.
I clutched the note I’d hidden between the bed frame tightly in my hand and hung my head. Cold sweat dripped down my cold palms.
The reason my palms were cold wasn’t just because I’d been diligently hand-washing at the sink until just moments ago.
‘Brainwashing magic is really, really amazing, too scary.’
My own vocabulary is pathetic for only being able to express how scary it is like this, but it really was.
For a moment, a feeling of not being myself.
Hissing voices kept floating around in my head, and a strange sensation like my body was filled with jelly or something.
And what was scariest of all was the torn paper scraps before my eyes when the magic ended, and my excited body.
‘What the hell happened?!’
Even when I clutched at my hair, only hazy afterimages came to mind and I couldn’t remember anything. What I did remember were Cesare’s dark red eyes and the expressions of the surrounding students looking at me in shock.
‘My character isn’t that shitty!’
By next week, I was obviously going to be rumored as a heinous bastard who received a love letter and tore it up behind her back.
Still, I should be grateful that because I came to my senses quickly, I’m not a heinous ‘perverted’ bastard who gets excited while tearing up love letters, but either way it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.
I’m afraid. For the first time, I thought Cesare was scary.
Until now, I’d thought in passing that I might end up at the guillotine, but directly experiencing danger was on a different dimension. Cesare is a psychopath who doesn’t discriminate between means and methods.
No matter how much I didn’t like him getting a homecoming partner first, how could he give a command to tear up the invitation directly?
‘I really need to run away.’
Brainwashing magic wasn’t magic that just anyone could use. It was magic that only the Yanox family with the blood of a special magician lineage could use, and most people didn’t even know such magic existed.
If it had been other guys, they would have taken the fall without knowing why, but I noticed it because I knew about that guy’s abilities.
‘That guy might make me write a will leaving all my fortune to the Yanox Ducal family and then make me die a mysterious death!’
But the fact that he used Addiction instead of doing that from the start definitely means there’s a limit to his magic right now. That’s why I tried so hard to listen well in mana operation classes to raise my anti-magic power.
However, compared to Cesare’s magic skills improving day by day, my mana operation skills kept… getting worse to the point where my operation textbook was plastered with drool marks.
‘All I do is doze off! And master the skill of sleeping with my eyes open! Lionel Mellans, well done, great job!’
Actually, I wasn’t good at much. I wasn’t good with a sword like Cain, nor was I good at magic like Cesare.
‘Even if magic is something you’re born with magical power for so I’ll accept it’s shit, why am I not good at even a single subject?!’
I was only forcibly taking a lot of magic-related classes to match schedules with Cesare, and all I was good at was… um.
Being Cesare’s doormat. Even then, a doormat that drops coins clinking when you shake it out.
Well, aside from that, about playing the mood-maker by imitating a small dog, and having grown up in a merchant guild since childhood so being good at talking and having the temperament of a merchant and a gambler, but those weren’t very useful against Cesare.
I even had to eat breakfast alone with Cesare tomorrow morning. It’s nice but I’m scared. No, it’s really nice but I’m too scared.
‘What the hell am I supposed to do? Huh? What am I supposed to do?!’
In my head, I grabbed mini-Cesare’s neck and shook him while crying buckets. Then suddenly I remembered that every time he used brainwashing magic, he made eye contact with me.
‘Wait. So the activation condition for brainwashing magic is that we have to make eye contact. Then doesn’t that mean I just have to not make eye contact?!’
“Right! There was that method!”
Having thought of a good idea, I quickly ran out of the dormitory. Following the path beautifully paved with gravel curbing, I barged into one dormitory and knocked frantically.
– Bang! Bang!
“Hey! Rossi! Rossi, you sleeping?! I saw the lights on outside! Come out!”
I heard rustling sounds from inside, then the bookworm Rossi wearing glasses looked at me with surprised eyes. We weren’t very close, but this guy was perfect.
“L-Lionel? Wh-why are you here in the middle of the night?”
“Give me your glasses!”
Thick-framed glasses that clearly had a high prescription. I’d tried them on once before and they were glasses so disorienting that I couldn’t focus at all and my head spun dizzily.
“Glasses?!”
“Give them!”
I pounced on Rossi unreasonably and snatched his glasses. Rossi struggled not to have them taken, but it was just Rossi after all.
“N-no! Those are my eyes!”
“Just for one day. Just tomorrow, no, I’ll use them only in the morning and return them right away.”
“I-I can’t see anything in front of me without those. I was reading right now…. I’ll report this to the student council, Lionel Mellans…!”
Having had his glasses stolen, Rossi was already waving his arms around crying. I quickly grabbed his shoulders.
“Wait, Rossi. Is reading books important to you or is your future important?”
“What are you talking about, Lioneel….”
“Ah, hurry up and choose! Books? Future?”
“The future… is more important, isn’t it?”
“Right. So you need to lend me your glasses. Because you can’t see ahead, but I can’t see my future.”
“Huh…?”
At his ‘what the hell is this guy’ expression, I quickly took out 100 torka from my pocket and pressed it into his hand.
“And this, have some juice with the kids tomorrow afternoon. I’ll give you another 100 torka when I return your glasses.”
As he felt the money, Rossi stared ahead with an even more dazed expression.
With 100 torka, you could buy 30 glasses of juice. Of course, I could bet even my wrist that bookworm Rossi didn’t have 30 or more friends.
“Oh my, good boy. Rossi. I’ll use them and return them quickly, okay? Hey! And I’ve been watching, you read too many books! That’s why your eyesight got this bad! You need to take breaks sometimes too, right? Hurry and sleep. Geez. Have you ever seen a friend who thinks of your health like this? Huh?”
“Y-you, you and I are, fr-friends….”
After being troubled, Rossi finally smiled bashfully. As expected, there’s no business in front of money.
“But my name isn’t Rossi….”
“See you tomorrow!”
Lionel obtained the item ‘Rossi’s High-Prescription Glasses’! Gained immunity to brainwashing magic! Imagining a status window popping up with a ‘beep,’ I whistled as I returned to the dormitory.
