Incompetent but Special Because You Are (2)
I shouted with everything I had, but the elf showed no sign of stopping.
Of course she didn't. This was a creature who would do almost anything if it gave her an excuse to be humiliated. Even when I yelled at her, she merely trembled and stared back at me as though she couldn't understand what she had done wrong.
“M-Master, I… I was only…”
Stop making excuses! Just put the journal down!
But I couldn't afford to provoke her. As long as she held the only record of my research hostage above a burning candle, the advantage was entirely hers.
I drew a deep breath and tried again, this time keeping my voice level.
“Blow out the candle and put the journal aside. Right now.”
“I want to, Master. But yesterday I drew so many pictures that my hands have gone weak…”
Then how did those weak hands lift my journal over the candle in the first place?!
The words almost escaped me. I swallowed them.
If I raised my voice, she might claim to be startled and let go. The pages would fall into the flame, and everything I had worked on would burn.
Think. I have to think.
I stared at the journal and the wavering candlelight below it, desperately searching for a way to get my property out of her hands.
What if I told her it was only a copy?
Perhaps she'd lose interest if she believed I had the original somewhere else. But what if that merely encouraged her to burn the one she held? The actual original would be destroyed, and my brilliant lie would have helped her do it.
What if I made myself even angrier?
She wanted to be scolded, not necessarily to destroy anything. If I convinced her I was already furious, perhaps that would satisfy her.
No. That was just as dangerous. She might decide that setting the journal alight would make me angrier still.
Then… kindness?
What if I behaved generously, as though I had no objection to her burning it? The sudden change might catch her off guard. If she hesitated for even a moment, I could rush forward and take it away.
It was only a candle, after all. A thick research journal wouldn't turn to ash in an instant. I needed only enough time to reach her.
That has to be the best option.
Whatever happened afterward, rescuing the journal came first.
“Well done.”
I changed my expression and smiled at her with all the warmth I could muster.
The elf blinked.
“Master…?”
“I said you did well. I was planning to take that old thing out and burn it myself, but you found it first. How thoughtful of you.”
“…What?”
She looked genuinely bewildered. My sudden change of attitude seemed to have left her at a loss.
Good. Keep looking confused.
Smiling pleasantly, I edged closer.
“Even a filthy sow like you deserves praise now and then. Come here. Since you've spared me the trouble, I'll pat your head.”
“Wh-what are you…?”
The elf recoiled and raised an arm.
Now!
I sprang forward. She took a startled step back.
“You impudent wretch!”
I snatched the journal from her hands, pushed her aside, and retreated before she could do anything else.
She looked at me with an unreadable expression. I didn't care. I was already opening the book, checking the first pages and then the last.
No scorch marks. No damage at all.
“Haah…”
Relief left me weak in the knees. As it settled, though, something else began to rise in its place.
Anger.
You don't think about me at all, do you?
This journal was more precious to me than she could ever know.
Father had still been alive when I began writing it. I'd filled its pages while struggling through my research, and again and again he had examined my work and left his own comments alongside it.
It wasn't merely a record of my studies.
It was one of the few things I still had that held memories of Father in his own hand.
And the elf had nearly burned it for her amusement. Whether I lost those memories seemed not to matter to her in the slightest.
I really do hate you.
I could endure what she had done to my relationship with Ashley. I could even endure the endless demand that I insult and degrade her. But watching her toy with an irreplaceable keepsake of my father, without a moment's hesitation, filled me with a disgust I couldn't suppress.
“M-Master…”
After all that, she was still looking up at me as if she were the one to be pitied.
“I'm sorry. I made a mistake…”
My teeth clenched.
Before I knew what I was doing, my hand moved.
Smack!
The blow turned her face aside.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Before she could even turn back toward me, I pointed at the door.
“I don't want to look at you! Get out!”
She didn't obey immediately.
After standing there for a moment, she lifted her face and looked at me at an angle. Her red eyes, clear as polished gemstones, held my own. Her lips parted, then closed again.
At last she lowered her head.
“I'm sorry, Master…”
Her voice was faint. She turned and walked out.
I listened to her footsteps fade along the corridor.
“Damn it.”
I set the journal down on my desk and pressed a hand to my forehead. Now that she was gone, my anger was already draining away.
“What the hell am I doing…?”
That slap hadn't been part of my usual act. It hadn't been a performance meant to give her the punishment she wanted.
I had been genuinely angry. I had hit her before thinking and shouted words I should never have said.
It had driven her from the office, just as I needed. So why did I feel so miserable?
I should go and apologize.
The impulse came and went.
If I did, she'd probably interpret the apology as another part of her humiliating game. Or perhaps kindness after a blow would make her furious. With the elf, I never knew which response would put my life in danger.
No. Better to leave it.
I had bought myself time, and she had received the scolding she seemed to want. By that logic, we had both gained something.
I let out a long breath, sat down, and opened my journal again.
There was no time to brood over what had happened.
Three days remained. If I wanted to meet the expectations of His Excellency the Count and Princess Benelia, I had to organize my notes and produce a report fit to show the imperial family.
Somehow, I have to do it.
Three days passed.
For those three days, Theorad barely left his office. A man who ordinarily kept himself fastidiously clean neglected to wash or change his clothes and had all his meals brought to his desk.
The elf was not pleased.
And he calls himself my toy.
The last time Theorad had truly lost his temper, she'd been driven out of the office almost as though she were fleeing.
As though a toy has the right to run away.
She was not inclined to swallow her irritation. If he continued hiding in his office today, she intended to provoke some response from him.
She opened the office door and peered inside.
“Master, I broke three of those plates you treasure, so…”
The words went unanswered.
Theorad was asleep, his face resting on the desk, utterly oblivious to the offence she'd come to announce.
“….”
She frowned, shut the door behind her, and crossed the black carpet embroidered with the cardinal birds of House Deharem.
She stopped beside him and looked down.
On the ring finger of his left hand, which lay near his face, a diamond ring caught the light.
An ornament?
She remembered what he'd said when she questioned him about it before. She'd considered breaking his fingers then, too. In the end, she'd refrained. There was still a chance it wasn't an engagement ring.
But lately he had been growing more defiant by the day.
She considered breaking his arm, just to remind him of his place.
Not yet.
He was still an entertaining toy. She didn't want to ruin him in a moment of irritation.
After studying his sleeping face for a while, she fashioned herself a chair with magic and sat down.
Dark shadows hung beneath his eyes. Apparently he'd hardly slept while working on whatever occupied his desk.
Research, was it?
A research journal. She remembered how furious he had become when she threatened to burn it.
What's so important about it?
Curiosity stirred. With a little telekinesis, she gently drew a large sheet of magic paper out from beneath Theorad and unfolded it in the air.
A magic circle covered the surface. Scribbled notes in Theorad's handwriting filled the gaps around it.
He calls this a magic circle?
It was so awkwardly constructed that looking at it was almost painful.
There were 378 circuits. A disturbing number failed to connect properly, leaving portions of the design unable to perform their intended functions. Many of the magical symbols that should have acted as catalysts looked impressive but lacked substance.
And of seventeen crucial patterns, three interfered with one another and caused further errors.
Incompetent.
Yet there was something else written into this wretched design.
Effort.
Even after failure upon failure, Theorad had never simply abandoned the problem. Every correction and overwritten note showed him searching for another solution, then another, as though he could force his limited ability to reach the idea he carried inside him.
On a whim, the elf closed her eyes.
She imagined what the world might become if the spell worked—the world Theorad had wanted to create.
Rain fell on fields parched by drought. Farmers lifted their faces and praised the God of Light as the water soaked into the earth.
Thirsty children rose and ran about again. A young woman who had worried over where tomorrow's drinking water would come from took up her water jar with a smile.
Villages that had been dying slowly came back to life. A desperate wanderer who had considered taking their own life for want of water found a reason to keep living.
The anger of common people toward nobles who hoarded water began to fade. Merchants who had profited from thirst by demanding outrageous prices had reason to worry.
Flowers opened in a world that had begun to wither.
If such magic spread throughout the empire, countless conflicts might disappear before they ever began.
You…
The elf opened her eyes and looked down at the sleeping man.
Something like an old memory passed through her gaze.
You're still pathetically kind.
In a world where everyone used everyone else to satisfy their own greed, a weak creature like him was bound to be broken sooner or later.
She turned back to the floating paper and began correcting the errors, one after another.
Work that might have taken Theorad ten years to complete could be finished before morning in her hands.
If he used the completed spell as an excuse to avoid her, that would be troublesome. But he had already been allowed too much defiance lately.
This is the last time I'll overlook it, Theorad.
That was all.
She was only repairing a toy.