Chapter 6

Yes.

She had been happy, truly.

Because it was Sebastian who had caught her when she fell on the day of the entrance ceremony.

Because he had a face she had not grown tired of, even after loving it for five years.

Because whenever she looked at him, with whatever feelings she looked, he always had a face that made her feel warm enough to think she had done well to come up to the royal castle.

Thanks to that, she had found the strength to endure her Academy life while hiding her status, so there was nothing for Lottie to feel toward Sebastian but gratitude.

Had she not made truly good memories yesterday too.

‘How pathetic.’

After all, she was the one who had been rejected.

‘…No, that’s not it. It’s Seb who should be pitied.’

Yes, it was Seb’s loss to let her go. Judging by the way he had been particularly close with female students from distinguished families, if he had known who she really was, he might have been following behind her instead of Lady Magnusson.

As for anything she might regret, it was only that she would probably never again sleep with a man whose looks fit her tastes as perfectly as Sebastian’s. Would there ever be another that size… She had no way of knowing.

‘Would the elders be appalled if I said I  wanted to add that to the list of qualifications for a husband candidate?’

It seemed like quite an important matter for someone like her, who had a duty to produce many heirs.

Well, anyway.

‘Thank you.’

With that final farewell in her heart, Lottie quietly moved her stockinged feet and slipped out of Sebastian’s room.

***

When Lottie returned to her own room, she washed herself first. She locked the shower room she shared with her roommates, then carefully scrubbed clean the body mottled with marks, repeating to herself that it was Sebastian who should be regretting the choice he had made. She even cleaned inside herself, where it still felt as though it remained slightly open, wiping away every final trace. This really was the last of her lingering attachment, so she would not wallow anymore.

“Mmh, Lottie, when did you get back?”

At the rustling sound of Lottie coming out of the shower room and pulling out her trunk from beneath the bed, her roommate Joanna rubbed her sleepy eyes and acknowledged her. Lottie’s dormitory room, assigned through the written exam track, was a room for four, so she had three roommates, but because of the occasion, no one reproached Lottie for having spent the night elsewhere.

“You still hadn’t come back by the time I went to sleep yesterday. Where did you stay?”

“I ended up staying out while having fun.”

All of her roommates, just like the fountain on campus, already knew perfectly well about her one-sided love, but there was no need to let slip that it had, even if only briefly, been fulfilled physically.

“Are you leaving already?”

“Yes. Was your train in the evening?”

“Yeah, there are only two trains a day going to Nokita. Are you taking a hired carriage? Or is someone coming to pick you up?”

“They said a carriage is coming.”

Replying lightly to Joanna, who did not know exactly where Lottie’s home was, Lottie began putting away the last of her things into the trunk spread open wide.

There was not much luggage. Like her roommates, she had lived using only a single wardrobe and shelf provided in the four-person room. She had an allowance several times larger than theirs, but there was nothing in particular she needed to buy, so she had left it all untouched in her account. Some of it, however, had become gifts she had offered Sebastian under various excuses, as well as the many ornaments and the dress used for that one single day yesterday.

The most expensive among them had been the amulet from Tabi Workshop, the magical tool shop. The very amulet she had desperately rubbed yesterday while pleading with Sebastian to give her one last memory.

‘…It really did work.’

Lottie smiled faintly and picked up the amulet she had removed while washing. Since its function, ‘to move the other person’s heart,’ did not show visibly to the eye, Tabi Workshop had deliberately set a high price on it so only those who truly wanted it would buy it. In exchange, they had apparently enchanted a real gemstone into it so that, at the very least, it would be worth the price aesthetically. Thanks to that, it had not looked the slightest bit out of place with Lottie’s dress yesterday.

Well, there was no longer any need for her to rely on mysterious power in order to wish for something. Lottie put the amulet into the box bearing Tabi Workshop’s logo and shut it with a click. The place the box went was not the trunk, but the innermost corner of the personal shelf she had been using.

She did not know whether its effect would continue, but Lottie wanted to wish good fortune to the written-exam-track female student who would use this room after her.

Even if it no longer worked, at the very least, it was still pretty.

‘Whoever she is, I hope she lives a life less sad and happier than she expected.’

With that, every trace of the five years Lottie had spent here was neatly put in order. Even after packing up everything except the bedding for the bunk bed, all that remained were merely three trunks.

As of yesterday, she had sorted out her heart too.

Her body, too, was all cleaned up.

‘Now, it really is time to go back.’

Wanting to take in the view outside one last time, Lottie opened the window wide.

The early autumn sunlight, rushing toward noon, was pouring over the path leading to the academic building. The voices of those leaving the dormitory or following along to see them off rang brightly and noisily.

They say a carriage from Heartfield Mansion is here!

I guess its heir was at the Academy!

Is it a graduate? Why did no one know?

Let’s go see!

Listening to the students’ chatter and peals of laughter over the rumor like pleasant music, Lottie slowly closed her eyes.

‘This kind of bustling atmosphere will probably end today too……’

Just as the early autumn breeze brushed coolly over Lottie’s face.

“Lottie, you’re leaving already?”

Another roommate, Marian, came in. She seemed to have spent the whole night in another room, as she still had a robe draped over her one-piece sleepwear.

“Yes, I was waiting so I could say goodbye before I left once you came back.”

“Aww, I came quickly because I remembered you said you were leaving early. Want me to help with your luggage?”

“It’s alright. Someone is coming.”

“They said they’re coming with a carriage.”

“Ooh, are Lottie’s family finally coming to the Academy!”

Joanna and Marian made a great fuss as they imagined Lottie’s family, who had never once come to visit during the past five years. Judging from what they had heard over time, she was not some lone orphan with no one in the world, and yet strangely, Lottie never spoke in detail about her family.

Even now, the moment family came up, her lips sealed shut. Come to think of it… had Lottie’s family come yesterday for the graduation ceremony?

“Anyway, that’s good. The front gate is like a marketplace right now, so it looked hard to carry luggage all the way to the station. You know Heartfield Mansion, right? They say its carriage is at the front gate. A six-horse carriage, no less!”

“Heartfield Mansion, that’s the Volfman Barony, right? Silver Wolf Trading Company?”

“Yeah, that one. They never revealed who the heir was no matter what, so I guess they must have been at the Academy.”

“No way! That’s amazing. If it had been the no-exam track, everyone would have known from the surname, so that means they were pretending to be a commoner? Who on earth is it?”

“Lottie, if your family is still a little while away, want to go see it for a moment?”

Having apparently heard all sorts of rumors on the way back, Marian quickly relayed everything happening outside, then turned toward their last roommate, who was still asleep.

“Hey, Lavender, wake up. Lottie’s about to leave. Since we’re going anyway, let’s follow her and go see the Heartfield Mansion carriage.”

“Mmh, Lottie’s leaving? Already? Why so early……”

Just as Lavender, roused by Marian’s pestering, mumbled drowsily in complaint.

Knock knock knock.

The sound of someone knocking came from the door.

“Hey.”

“I think they’ve arrived.”

“Aww, Lottie……”

“Head of House, this is Anna.”

At the voice that followed the knocking, the roommates all looked puzzled.

Head of House?

All of them had entered through the written exam track, in other words, they were commoners, so the title ‘Head of House’ had nothing to do with any of them. Had they found the wrong room? This whole building was the dormitory for written-exam-track female students, so had they perhaps come to the wrong building entirely?

While all three of Lottie’s roommates merely rolled their eyes back and forth in confusion.

“Uh, come in.”

Lottie answered readily.

Before her roommates could even fully process what reaction to have to that, the door, which had only been loosely shut, opened at once.

What entered was one short-haired woman with a neat impression, followed by two young men behind her. As could be guessed from the title ‘Head of House,’ all of them were dressed in the practical yet respectable manner of servants from a noble family.

The badges pinned to each of their collars with the same emblem gleamed in the sunlight pouring through the wide-open window.

As for that badge suggesting their affiliation, it was made of pure silver……

“If that’s a wolf crest… Volfman……?”

The moment Marian recognized the crest engraved on its surface and let the family name slip out like a hiccup.

“Lottie, you, so then, you’re the……?”

“Hey, what is going on here.”

The three roommates’ heads turned stiffly toward Lottie. Under the shower of stunned gazes, Lottie, having fully expected that reaction, only smiled softly.

As if to say, that’s how it turned out.