Interlude: Operative Sister Reporting

After she left, my brother scratched his head for a moment, but then also turned back and returned to our classroom.

“She’s planning something, Gran.” I spoke the moment he passed by the door. “Maybe she’ll hire some dangerous mercenary to fight you…”

Your Highness said she would make bringing any outsiders as hard as possible for Roselia, but there’s always the chance she has a way. It was also possible she would find a way to bribe some veteran from the upper years. Just saying that sort of thing never happened was too dangerous when a real villain is in play.

Someone who can look at a newcomer and decide to turn their lives into hell can’t be underestimated. If we weren’t lucky that we both got scouted to the Glass Castle in the same year, I can’t even imagine what would’ve happened.

“You worry too much.” Gran patted my head while we headed to our seats. “I think she’s just putting a front. Those eyes look more tired than hostile by now… Maybe we went too far.”

“Being this soft is why you keep falling for tricks, Gran.” I gave him a stern look, but my silly brother just laughed it off. The bell also rang right after that, so I couldn’t say more. But during the boring class, I decided to get the proof myself, as usual.

No one will see me if I’m careful anyway.

*****

“You’ll have it the h-hard way then.” I glared at the scum pretending to be important and started to throw all I could at them. “Fine by me!”

Things were getting out of hand.

My plan was just to follow Roselia around and figure her plan out. Back at her classroom, she sighed a lot, looked at some papers, and then got up. When she did, I hid close to the front door and waited for her to head to the restaurants, but she went in the opposite direction.

For some reason, Roselia turned to the training grounds and continued walking. I followed, and eventually, we ended at one of the island’s dating spots. One of the less popular ones, but it didn’t make her being there less weird.

And then she started to work on alchemy, for an even harder to grasp reason.

Even Princess Felicia can’t deal with that subject yet, and she almost mastered all second year subjects. I’m sure Roselia wasn’t smart enough to figure it out by herself. Unless… Did she find a teacher somewhere? What she wanted to do with it then? Something to win the fight… Poison?! Or maybe worse…

It didn’t seem to be working well as I observed, but she made several items there. Then, when she got up, I hurried to leave the area and report, only to end up finding more scum in need of punishment.

Which is when we arrive at the present.

“I do like the hard way the most, mutt. We’ll have a lot of fun here…” The leader of the nobles spoke while I clicked my tongue.

Instead of helping me, the coward being bullied fled and, somehow, these trash were managing to block my spells. They were simple stuff, I don’t train a lot of attack spells, but even so… I would end up having to rely on my brother again like this. Or worse, lose without anyone finding out.

There had to be some way out of-

“Can all of you shut the hells up?!” A surprising voice called out in an overbearing voice, and then, Roselia herself, made all of us stop the fight for a moment. “You four are messing up with my leisure walk.”

For just a moment, the figure of the red haired noble in a gaudy dress almost felt a bit gallant, but the thought alone made my head freeze. Even as she spoke about incredibly dangerous items and proved my theories from before, I couldn’t react right away.

Every time we fought Roselia back, she always relied on henchmen. Even the threat of fighting her directly usually meant she would give an excuse and find a way to flee. Either that, or instead cut ties with the cause of the problem and pretend to be innocent. No matter what, she would never fight directly. I’m quite sure she wasn’t even able to cast any spells that weren’t related to her looks or family.

Still, in front of me, Roselia was calmly picking a fight without any backup and driving them out without moving from where she appeared. It was suspicious. Almost too suspicious.

Then, as the useless nobles left, she just stood there. Just staring at me for some good seconds before finally saying anything.

“Well… Are you hurt?”

“No.” I answered curtly while still trying to understand what was her goal here.

“That’s good. Yeah…” She answered in a very awkward tone I never saw a noble use before, and then continued to wait while looking around. I waited to see what she wanted to say, but even after a minute, there was only silence. So, eventually, I decided to be direct instead.

“Why?”

“Why? Why…?” Roselia muttered an answer and apparently stopped to think about her own reasons, reaching another odd answer. “Because I don’t like noisy people?”

“I see…” I pretended to understand and she nodded as if that was a proper answer, letting the silence reign again.

Could this be a setup? Maybe it was all part of her plan. I heard that Roselia tried to negotiate instead of fighting the duel, so maybe she wanted to ingratiate herself to get another shot at it. She couldn’t get her way through judgement, so she would try to settle it in the background. That could be it.

“Anyway!” Roselia drew me outside of my theories in another awkward exclamation and then staggered her way away. “I’m going to class. Practicals will start soon.”

But as she left, an annoying feeling got in the back of my head. My parents didn’t teach me to be a disrespectful brat, even if some people don’t deserve respect, so, against my wishes, I opened my mouth again as Roselia left.

“For this one time, and JUST this one time…” I forced myself to speak, even if it was making me feel gross. “Thank you for the help.”

I could swear Roselia perked up after hearing me, but she was moving across the forest, so I couldn’t be sure. Something really weird was happening here…

*****

Something was wrong.

In one week, everything I had observed out of Roselia was being proven wrong.

Even when she was cut off from help and surrounded, her actions were consistent with everything else. Combative, cowardly, heavy-handed, overconfident and predictable. A very basic noble scum like most of the others. But that wasn’t the case anymore.

That day on the grove was already unusual, but that was only the tip. Every day after that, she religiously did the exact same things. Went to class by foot, worked on some papers on her table, got up for lunch and went to the grove, worked on alchemy, returned to the training grounds, trained some odd spell, and then went back to her room.

I think there are people who can be this controlled and disciplined, but that’s not normal. It’s not normal for someone to suddenly become like this. A sudden change that makes all we knew about her unreliable right before sending Gran to fight her. But no one else seems to be worrying about this.

Unpredictable information is too dangerous.

“...and that’s why no one can complain if I sneak inside the noble’s dormitory to investigate, right?” I whispered to myself while picking the lock of Roselia’s room. I came prepared to work through security, but her room was only protected by a simple mechanical lock. The door didn’t even have any enchantments activated.

It felt a little like a trap, but I left insurance. Gran is having a nice date in the garden nearby, so he can come by real quick if anything goes wrong.

With a nod and a last click, I took a look around and then hurried inside the room.

“What the he-” I exclaimed with my mouth agape at the image, but a sound down the corridor made me hurry to go silent and close the door. I hid nearby and started to cast a few spells, but the steps just passed by and left.

I still waited for a few more seconds, just to be safe, but after that was done, I went back to staring at the room.

This place confirmed that something wrong was happening with Roselia. Other than a small space surrounding the tea table and the bed, the whole room was covered in paper. Torn books with missing pages thrown into a pile close to the mostly empty bookshelves, ravaged cabinets, and odd trinkets spread all around. Even the seemingly high-class drawer was turned into a mess with clothes and empty boxes piled by its side.

In all this, the papers were still the worst. Some had strings of disconnected words and nonsense sentences being repeated multiple times and some had a list of ramblings, but these were close to normal. The weirdest of them simply had a mix of weird symbols and random letters that I couldn’t even read. And that’s IF they could be read.

A room in a state that no sane person would use.

The biggest proof of it: a massive drawing on the wall opposite to the bed. A message in colorful letters, maybe made with makeup. Some odd text that made me almost sure Roselia had a mental breakdown.

If you forget, look at your bag.

If you don’t know the bag, look at the bookshelf.

If you can’t read it, beg the princess.

If nothing works, hide and be good.

No matter what, don’t leave the school.

“What does all that-” I ended up uttering in surprise at everything that I was seeing and how none of it helped with the situation, but I could hear steps again. And, this time, from the hour and weight, I could swear they were the owner of the room, so I rushed to the window.

It opened easily and I hurried outside, but for a moment only, I could see something written under the shelves of the bookshelf. A single message that would confuse me as much as the sight of my ‘thank you’ gift sitting neatly by the message’s side.