#69
“You haven’t forgotten that I’m a member of the student council, have you?”
“I know. Who wouldn’t know that?”
“Do you know that Clum is a prohibited item? It’s not allowed to be brought into the school.”
“So you know this is Clum. And I’m hearing for the first time today that it’s a prohibited item.”
I couldn’t believe it wasn’t allowed. I had even placed my hand on a large Clum in Yaksi’s room, so how could it be prohibited? What was that I saw back then? Moreover, Ramtel had seriously researched Clum. If it was dangerous enough to be a prohibited item, Clum research wouldn’t be conducted at the school.
When I looked at him skeptically, Rikin sighed and crouched down in front of the Clum.
“Why would I lie to you? Students don’t have the ability to handle this properly. You’re not supposed to own it or bring it in.”
I recalled Ramtel, who had actively told me where to obtain Clum. It was surprising that someone who knew the school rules much better than I did had given specific explanations about where and how to get it. Was the hierarchy of social status more important to him than the school’s rules? The more I learned, the more he seemed to be a teacher whose ideology didn’t match with this school.
“You’ll let this slide, won’t you?”
“Me?”
With a short laugh, Rikin lightly touched one of the Clums with his finger. A small stone that didn’t even look like Clum due to the mixed impurities rolled around following his finger.
“Yes. And please help me.”
The moment he heard my words, Rikin’s gaze shifted from the Clum to me. It seemed he hadn’t expected me to ask for help. In fact, I hadn’t expected myself to say this either.
“I want to run a few tests. It’s very important to me.”
My relationship with Rikin was strangely complicated. After moving away from Persis’s side, Rikin and I played games weekly and had various conversations. Sometimes we talked about recent political situations, and other times we exchanged trivial jokes.
The time spent with him wasn’t always comfortable and enjoyable. There were many times when it was annoying, and I felt bad when he shared news about Persis. However, since he was the only one who could provide me with news about Persis, I ultimately listened to what he had to say.
That’s how I became closer to Rikin. He was one of the few people I could call a friend. As things had gone awry, I had abandoned the idea of not interfering with the original story, so there was no need to distance myself from him or grow apart.
For Rikin, Persis was the top priority. As someone who wanted to become a knight, Persis was the person he needed to serve, so it was unavoidable. However, even if I discovered through this Clum that my body was different from ordinary people, Rikin wouldn’t immediately relay that information to Persis. If I personally asked him, the period of keeping the secret would surely be extended.
Rikin was the only person I could ask for help.
“Please help me.”
“…I never said I would overlook this situation, you know?”
“But you will, won’t you?”
“Ana, aren’t you trusting me too much? I could report this to the school right now.”
“Since you won’t tell anyway, stop testing me.”
My mouth was starting to hurt. Rikin looked at me with his mouth open and a dazed expression, but I was certain he wouldn’t refuse my proposal. And indeed, Rikin shook his head repeatedly, then stood up and gave the answer I had expected.
“You’re really something. Fine. What is it? How can I help you?”
As soon as I heard that, I pointed to the Clum that Rikin had been rolling with his finger.
“That one seems defective.”
I should have paid for it properly. When it was offered for free, I should have been suspicious and asked if there was any pure Clum without impurities. Who would have known it wouldn’t even work properly? Or I should have at least asked the owner about how to operate this Clum. It was my mistake to just take the Clum and leave the store because the owner seemed too annoyed.
I couldn’t believe the Clum wouldn’t budge even when I put magic power into it.
“What are you talking about? Defective? There’s no such thing as a defective Clum.”
“You seem to know a lot.”
“I do know well. My mother is the leading researcher on Clum. The protective magic that allows the use of Clum even in the presence of demons was created by my mother.”
This is another thing I’m hearing for the first time. In the original work, when following Rikin’s route, his main narrative involved Rikin’s loyalty to Persis and the conflict between Rikin and his father.
Rikin, raised under a strict father, was proud of his family but struggled with the constraints that bound him. As a result, in the original work, there was a lot of talk about his father, but not much about his mother.
This was good news for me. I had been thinking I might need to rely on Ramtel again, but it turned out there was someone knowledgeable about Clum right around me. If I had heard earlier that Rikin’s mother was a Clum researcher, I wouldn’t have needed to ask Ramtel for help… I felt a bit regretful.
“What’s the problem?”
“I tried putting magic power into it, but it doesn’t move at all.”
“Maybe you didn’t put in enough?”
Compared to when Yaksi asked me to do it, I certainly put in a very small amount. I decided to check again and brought my finger to the Clum.
Then, the magic power inside my body flowed into the Clum. I could see the red magic power gradually pooling inside the Clum. It was exactly the same format as what I had done in Yaksi’s room. After a moment, the magic power smoothly disappeared inside the Clum.
It seemed the Clum I brought wasn’t defective after all. Now I decided to try experimenting in a different way. Since Rikin knew more about Clum than I did, he might also know how to cast magic on the Clum itself. I looked at Rikin with anticipation.
Rikin, with a very serious face, fixed his gaze on the Clum I had just touched, then turned his head toward me.
“Ana, what did you just do?”
His question was completely unexpected.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m asking because I don’t know. What is it? What just happened?”
Rikin sat down next to me in earnest and examined the Clum more closely. But the light that had vanished hopelessly wouldn’t reappear just by looking.
“Why are you asking?”
“Try it once more.”
I did as Rikin asked and pushed magic power into the Clum once more. The Clum, which just glowed slightly and then stopped, looked quite unimpressive. It probably meant my ability was at this level. Even after seeing me put magic power into the Clum one more time, Rikin didn’t change his expression. There seemed to be something else that didn’t sit right with him.
“Can you do it one more time?”
In the end, I had to put magic power into the Clum several times. Despite this, the question remained unresolved, and Rikin, with a worried face, asked me to do it one more time. Continually putting magic power into the Clum without knowing the reason for the repetition was becoming tiresome.
“Can’t you tell me what’s strange about it now?”
“Rather than telling you directly, it would be better to show you.”
Rikin picked up the Clum I had been putting magic power into and put in his own magic power. Then, a light incomparably brighter than when I did it was created inside the Clum and then disappeared. It was truly a light of a different dimension from mine.
“What do you think?”
I don’t know what he’s asking. Should I say it’s amazing that you have stronger power than me and it shines brightly? It’s a fact I already know, but facing it directly makes me a bit irritated, so I don’t think I can say it with my own mouth…
“You didn’t see it properly.”
“I saw it well. I saw your magic power shining very brightly.”
“See? You didn’t see it properly.”
And did you explain it properly? I was about to glare at him and confront him, but realizing that I was the one receiving help, I decided to be patient just for today.
Rikin poured magic power into the Clum once more to show me what I had missed. I stared intently at the brightly glowing Clum, but I couldn’t notice any difference from before. It seemed like a difference that couldn’t be detected without a proper explanation.
Rikin seemed to realize this too, and finally, holding the Clum, he explained the difference.
“The way it disappears is different.”
“Pardon?”
“My magic power disappears like a light going out. But when you did it, it wasn’t like that.”
I tried to recall what happened when I did it, but I couldn’t tell what was different. I tried to discover the difference by looking at it more closely once again. But no matter how intently I stared, nothing changed.
No matter how I looked at it, it was difficult to notice what Rikin was talking about, so I put in magic power several more times. After putting in so much magic power that my head started to feel numb, I finally understood what Rikin meant.
My magic power, pushed into the Clum, disappeared as if it was melting and being swallowed. It was a very subtle difference, but I could tell what Rikin meant when he said it was different.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
