LDTOTSDML Chapter 6

In House Tonide, where it was taken as given that anyone born into the family carried mana from birth, and that a child would learn magic before they learned to read—

Arphina was the one child who had betrayed every expectation.

Her father regarded such a daughter with displeasure, her mother was forever pained by a daughter with no talent, and the younger sister, born a year after her, always looked at her with pity.

A child who could do nothing.

No talent, no ability, a child who would never accomplish a single thing.

Such were the modifiers that always followed Arphina around within the family. And because of that, it was a sin for her to show interest or curiosity in anything.

When she didn't have the one magical talent that mattered in the first place, what use was there in being good at anything else?

"……What a stupid thing to say. Don't you think?"

Then, one day.

A woman she'd never once met before appeared in front of Arphina.

"There's one of you wherever you go. Idiots who can't even recognize their own child's talent. This is exactly why the gods are useless—things like that ought to be driven extinct, not left running around."

Arphina, hearing a stranger openly insult her family, was, at the time, only eleven years old.

"I guarantee you—once you make something of yourself, they'll come crawling back saying 'she really is our daughter' after all. Cut them loose in advance and treat them like strangers."

But she had already worked out early on exactly who this person, speaking to her so casually, was.

Her beautiful black hair and black eyes were common knowledge in this country, well known for what they meant.

She stood at the very top of the food chain.

"……Why is the Duchess here?"

"See that? Told you you're clever."

The Duchess, who had appeared out of nowhere, looked around with real interest at the farm-tool shed in the back yard where young Arphina had been hiding to play alone.

At the time, Arphina was, in earnest, being excluded and left out of the family's events.

Every time that happened, the child would hide away and play in her own secret base set up in the old back-yard shed.

"The rumors didn't do your talent justice at all."

"D-Duchess. This—from my parents, please keep it."

"Of course it's a secret. Who would I even go bragging to about it?"

"……"

"You keep it quiet too, in return. Nobody knows I'm here."

"Wh—why?"

"A revolutionary always moves in secret, you know. Ah, does 'revolutionary' sound a little scary? Well, my old man had "dynastic revolution" stuck in his mouth morning to night since I was in diapers, so……"

The Duchess, cheerfully rambling on to herself about something entirely incomprehensible, suddenly leaned her face in close and asked Arphina—

"What's your name?"

"……You already know me, don't you? That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"Well. And here I thought you were just a timid little bunny."

Even faced with young Arphina's frightened defiance, the Duchess looked at her with something like real approval.

That kind of look was new to her too, and Arphina found the strange emotion sprouting ticklishly in her chest to be deeply unfamiliar.

So she put a hand to her chest—and just then—

"Would you like to work with me?"

"……What?"

"Work with me. With me. I'll pay you well."

"I—I'm only eleven years old……"

"Then I'll have to rephrase. Would you like to accept my sponsorship?"

The Duchess pulled something out of her pocket. A piece of paper, considerably worn and creased from being folded and unfolded so many times.

"I'm looking for someone who can make something like this."

"What is this?"

"A treasure that will bring you and me both wealth and fame."

"……"

"I have unusually inventive ideas—like I've seen a whole other world. But unfortunately, I don't have the hands to build any of it."

While looking, she'd heard something, she said.

"That some defective reject, born into a family of mages, has gone and lost her head over some idiot game—taking clocks apart and putting them back together."

"……"

"But 'defective,' my foot."

The Duchess set her hand on Arphina's head and grinned.

"There's a genuinely brilliant genius right here. And cute on top of it."

"……Duchess."

"Hm?"

"Really……"

In young Arphina's eyes, she was.

"Do you really pay a lot?"

The Duchess was.

"Enough that I could go far, far away from here?"

"…….."

"Enough that I'd never have to come back here again? Enough that they'd regret ever calling me a failure? Enough that I'd never have to see my family again, and be fine with it?"

"Of course."

From that moment on, she had been her one and only salvation.

"If you work for me, I'll do everything I can for you too."

Since getting decisively rejected at the second confession, Del hadn't come to see Arphina again.

Since the subject of the rumor had gone quiet, the rumor naturally died down as well.

The number of students showing up at Arphina's classroom just to look at her dropped noticeably, and the Technical Department building reclaimed its peace once more.

"Damn it, why isn't he coming……"

"Junior! Why do you not grace us with thy presence?"

The Technical Department students, who had thrown themselves fully into pledging to protect Arphina, found themselves the awkward ones instead.

"So does that mean we don't get to see that face again?"

"That was a face worth paying money to see……"

"Guess we have to go seek him out now?"

On top of that, since Del's looks had been so exceptionally handsome, some students genuinely mourned the possibility that they'd never see that lovely face again.

Sonia was one of them.

"He really was handsome, though……"

The moment the thought slipped out unintentionally, Sonia, startled, quickly checked on Arphina beside her.

"……"

Fortunately, Arphina paid no great mind to Sonia's muttering to herself. She looked exactly the same as always, as if the confession incident had never even happened.

As always, she sat in her window seat, absorbed in reading.

"……Arphina."

Sonia called out to her carefully.

"You really don't feel any regret at all?"

"No."

Along with the indifferent answer, Arphina flipped past the page she'd finished reading with a flick.

"Right, well."

Sonia nodded too, as if resigning herself to it.

"You're the one it's about, and you're saying you don't want it. What good would it do anyway—a wild apricot, through and through—sweet-looking skin is all."

"This is only natural."

Arphina closed the book she'd been reading.

"It's strange enough, to begin with, that someone would come to me twice saying he likes me."

"He might just like you that much, though……"

"There's definitely some reason for it."

It was a rare, decisive way for her to cut the conversation short.

"There's no way he'd like me without a reason."

"Um……"

Sonia, about to argue that that wasn't necessarily true, just closed her mouth instead.

Right then, the professor for their class walked in, and the two of them let the conversation end there.

Arphina tied her long, curly hair back with a cord. She casually pushed back the strands that had slipped loose by her ears with a finger.

'But Arphina.'

Sonia, having glanced at Arphina for a moment before turning her eyes to the blackboard, murmured to herself.

I don't think that handsome junior's going to give up easily.

Sonia had definitely seen it.

'I like you, senior!'

The stubborn, unshakable persistence hidden behind Del's eyes as he confessed to Arphina.

'……No.'

And the flicker of hesitation, wavering for just an instant, in Arphina's eyes as she rejected him.

Of the buildings that made up the dormitories where Academy students lived, it was positioned deepest within the main campus.

Here too, the dormitory buildings were separated by department, and various convenience facilities had been set up for the students living away from home.

Among these, the most popular spot was the garden set up in front of each dormitory.

There, students soaked up the sunlight and relaxed, chattered away with friends, and sometimes carried on budding little romances.

But Del—

"……Why does the world get to be so bright and radiant while I'm left behind like this?"

"That's because you're standing in the shady, out-of-the-way corner."

—stood in a dim, out-of-the-way patch of shade behind the Political Department dorm, gazing at that dazzling garden with pure, envious longing, as if it had nothing at all to do with him.

And the innocent young lord was right there beside him. He'd been dragged along.

Crouched down on the ground, Del stared blankly at the bright, cheerful south garden and muttered to himself.

"Isn't it strange?"

"You've always been strange. Are you only just now figuring that out?"

"I got rejected, so why is the world still so beautiful and dazzling? Is it because senior's still alive? I guess senior really was the light of the world after all!"

"……I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that last part."

But that wasn't as easy as it sounded, and the young lord's brow creased with the headache rising in him.

Regardless of how much mental anguish he'd been through, his brow already carried an elegant furrow, even though he was still only fifteen.

Which meant this kind of exasperating nonsense wasn't a once-or-twice occurrence.

"……So, what are you going to do?"

Wanting to escape this situation as quickly as possible, the young lord asked.

"You got rejected, so isn't it over? Shouldn't you put your title back on now and go back to being yourself?"

"What are you talking about?"

The thoroughly deflated Del looked stunned.

"There's no such word as 'give up' in our family's lexicon!"

"There's no such word in yours specifically."

The young lord drew the line.

"In the letter the Duchess sent yesterday, it said she's finally given up on teaching Delia the violin."

Apparently the girl kept using the bow and strings to shoot arrows instead, and the Duchess had thrown in the towel.

"Our little silver candy's doing just fine without her big brother around……"

In the middle of it, Del grew a little wistful over news of his beloved little sister.

But the boy still hadn't given up.

"I need to come up with a different approach."

"Isn't it a little pathetic, doing that even after getting rejected?"

"Even if it's pathetic, I don't care—not as long as I get my hands on senior in the end."

"Don't you have any pride?"

"What place does pride have before love!"

Del scrunched up his face as if he'd just heard something utterly nonsensical.

The young lord glared at Del with an expression that said I'm the one who wants to make that face right now. No matter how harsh or brutal the look aimed at him, Del had no intention of giving up.

There truly was no such word as "give up" in the boy's dictionary.

"My lord, listen good!"

"If you're going to call me 'my lord,' at least use formal speech while you're at it."

"My lord, listen carefully, if you please."

Del said, switching to formal speech.

"Do you know how our father managed to marry our mother? It was precisely because of his never-give-up spirit!"

"That's not it. The Duchess got pregnant and that's why they got married."

The love story of the current Duke Consort and Duchess had been fairly famous among the previous generation.

The former duke had been famously doting toward his daughters, and had particularly cherished his eldest, dragging his feet on her marriage and quietly opposing it for a long while, or so the story went.

But in the end, the former duke had had no choice but to allow the marriage.

Because the eldest daughter had gotten pregnant before the wedding.

"The world calls that a fruit of love!"

The direct product of that shotgun wedding declared, proudly.