Silent Witch

The match between Serendia Academy and Minerva in the chess tournament resulted in a winner for Monica between the front players and a winner for Minerva between the middle players. With one win and one loss, the match between the two captains will settle the final winner.

Although the match between captains was about to end, Lana was more concerned about Monica than the chess match.

Not long after Barney Jones was defeated and ran out of the venue, Monica also left the venue. Probably chasing after him.

Lana was worried that Barney would lash out at Monica and say something awful to her again.

But since Cyril and Neil seemed to have gone to the waiting room to check on her, she thought it was unlikely, but some uneasiness still lingering in her mind.

After a while, Neil returned with a hurried pace. He didn't walk back to his seat but went over to Felix to inform him about something.

…he is not with Vice President Ashley?

The absence of Cyril and the sight of Neil's grim face made Lana even more anxious.

At that moment, the captains' match had come to an end. The winner was Elliot Howard. With two wins and one loss, the Serendia Academy side emerged as the winner.

There would be a short break after this, and then the matches between Temple and Minerva would take place, but…

Felix stood up and said, "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt when the match has just ended. Everyone, I have some information to announce" in a loud volume, where the usually gentle and kind smile was missing from his face.

"I've just received a report that an intruder had infiltrated into this school."

Lana was taken aback by the unexpected announcement. The surprise was shared by everyone in the venue. Followed by the anxious feeling crept up in their mind.

As if to calm the apprehension, Felix softened the tone of his voice slightly.

"Please rest assured. We've already detained the intruder and have the guards standing by outside this venue. However, just to be safe, I'd ordered the guards to make a sweep of the school, so I hope everyone could stay here for a while."

When Felix finished with his words, everyone was abuzz. Still, no one panicked, probably because they had been told that guards were standing outside.

Wait a minute. What about Monica? She's not in the venue right now!

Just as Lana was about to speak up, a figure quietly approached their seats. It was Neil.

"May I have a moment?" He beckoned to Lana, Claudia, and Glenn and whispered, "I've been told Miss Norton was at the scene when the intruder was subdued."

"Wha—!?"

Neil quickly covered Glenn's mouth when he was about to scream. These days, Neil seemed to be getting better and better at covering Glenn's mouth. He then added, "Shhhh," reminding him before continuing with his words.

"Fortunately, Miss Norton wasn't injured, but I imagine she's in shock, so… can you guys please stay by her side?"

"Where's Monica right now?"

Lana quickly inquired, and Neil replied in a whisper so that the others could not hear.

"She's in the infirmary."

Thus, at Neil's request, Lana, Claudia, and Glenn sneaked out of the venue and headed for the infirmary, escorted by guards.

"Monica, are you there?"

After knocking on the infirmary door, she peeked inside. Instead of the school nurse, she was confronted by the sight of Monica sat on a chair.

——In her underwear, where she was wearing nothing but a male coat.

Lana quickly elbowed Glenn, pushing him out of the infirmary, and slammed the door shut, leaving Claudia and herself alone inside. She could hear Glenn's scream, "That's mean!" from the hallway, but that was not important right now.

Monica didn't seem to feel anything in particular about being seen in her underwear by Glenn, as she only glanced up at Lana saying, "Ah, Lana" still sitting nonchalantly.

Lana approached Monica with large strides and asked in a quivering voice.

"…Monica, whose coat is that?"

"Oh, this? Lord Cyril lent it to me…"

Lana face-palmed with both hands and looked up at the ceiling.

"Vice President Ashley! I totally misjudged you! "

"Eh? L-Lana…?"

"What's more, how could he leave a girl dressed like this and go off somewhere? He's just horrible!"

Looking at how upset Lana was, Monica became flustered. While the calm Claudia, alone, looked at the wet uniform hanging in the corner of the room and seemingly had a general idea of what was happening.

"…I don't think that blockheaded man has the guts to leave a girl alone in this state."

"I mean! that's the only thing I can think of after looking at her appearances!"

As Lana yelled in bloodshot eyes, Claudia pointed to a uniform hanging in the corner of the room. She was surprised when saw it when Monica spoke in a whisper.

"Well, um… I got my uniform soaked and it was cold, so I took it off to dry it off. But I didn't know how to take off the corset by myself… so I was glad when I saw you coming here…"

"…………."

Lana was silent for a while, but then she turned her head and looked at Monica with serious eyes.

"…You're not injured, are you?"

"No."

"Does anything hurt?"

"Uh-uh."

After Monica gave several curt nods, Lana crouched down and let out a heavy sigh of relief.

＊ ＊ ＊

After Lana removed her corset, Monica took off her soaking wet underwear and changed into simple sleepwear in the infirmary.

In fact, she has been trembling in cold to had borrowed one of the thin blankets from the bed and wrap it over. Meanwhile, Claudia wordlessly offered her a tin mug which she had prepared to warm her body.

Monica gratefully accepted and sipped the contents of the cup, then stiffened, stuck her tongue out.

"T-This is so spicy…"

"…I mixed ginger, chili pepper, and citrus peel in it. It'll warm you up."

It was the kind mixture only focusing on how effective in warming the body while disregarding the taste itself, but as she sipped on it, her body began to warm up from the inside out.

Monica heaved out her breath, and Glenn, who had finally been allowed to enter the room, asked.

"So, what exactly happened? I heard from the student council president that there's an intruder."

Monica pondered over how much she should elaborate.

Apparently, word of the intruder had gotten out to the people in the venue. Even so, the extent of the information that Monica knew would sooner or later spread.

…I think I should keep the matter of the assassin being disguised as Minerva's teacher to myself.

Thanks to Barney's quick thinking, Monica's status in that situation was that of a "passing victim."

The assassin probably has no idea he was attacked by Monica's no-chant spell, so if Barney can get the word across, Monica can still continue to live in this school.

But, there was only one thing Monica didn't understand.

…Why did Barney cover up for me?

Looking at how much he had hated Monica. How he had ridiculed her for pretending to be a student, saying that was suited her very well. But in the end, he had made up a lie so as not to reveal Monica's true identity.

——You better be grateful to me for the rest of your life.

Ever since I met you, I've been so grateful to you, Barney. I guess I can't really understand him, Monica thought with a sigh as she explained the situation.

"…Well, after I chased after Barney… I mean, Minerva's captain, to the waiting room, I found him in combat with the assassin…"

"I see. So you got caught up in that battle, huh? Did your clothes get soaked because of water spells or something?"

"Yeah, it was some kind of spell to confine the enemy with water ball…"

As Monica explained how her uniform got soaked, Claudia stared at her with unreadable expressions.

"… Gotten involved in poison attempt at a tea party, caught up in the collapse of a piece of wood, and now encountering an assassin… what a fulfilling school life you have there. I think you should go to the church to see if you're cursed by something."

"Well…"

Aside from the poison attempt at the tea party, the latter two were related to Felix's assassination. As his bodyguard, it was only natural for her to be present at the scene of the crime, but to the outsider, it would appear as if she had exceptionally bad luck.

In fact, she felt a little… no, a lot… or maybe, extremely unlucky.

As Monica was once again contemplating her bad luck, Glenn muttered as he was swinging his legs around ungracefully on his chair.

"Now Monica had just won the matches, but the chess tournament will be suspended?"

Lana nodded at Glenn's comment.

"Surely, they will. Today's holiday, so the situation was not as bad as it seems, since not many students are coming to the school, but tomorrow will be much worse, I think."

"So the school festival will be suspended too after all?"

Lana's face darkened at Glenn's grumbling.

"The school festival is only four days away. If this kind of incident happened four days before the festival, the annulment of the festival would be certain…"

Lana, who was in charge of the costumes for the play in the school festival, seemed to be severely dejected. No wonder, everyone was looking forward to the festival. Glenn also looked disappointed and shrugged his shoulders, saying, "I guess it will".

However, Claudia unexpectedly denied their concerns.

"…the school festival will go on as planned."

She did not speak to encourage Lana and Glenn. She only assured them that the festival would be carried out in her usual gloomy face as if she was speaking of a depressing fact. But Glenn and Lana rebutted dubiously.

"Even when the second prince assassination attempt just happened?"

"I think they would cancel the festival for the sake of the prince's safety."

What the two of them said was an obvious fact. However, Claudia explained to them reluctantly, as though doing it was too much troublesome.

"… Duke Crockford will definitely enforce the school to continue the festival."

Duke Crockford—A great noble who was also Felix's maternal grandfather. He was the man who controlled Serendia Academy behind the scenes, and everyone knew that the school was under his control. But will Duke Crockford force the school festival to go on as planned, disregarding the safety of the second prince he has been protecting?

So Monica asked Claudia fearfully.

"Um, well… Duke Crockford is the backer of the Second Prince, isn't he? Then, shouldn't His Highness's safety be the top priority…"

"… Duke Crockford is not that kind of man."

Monica had never met Duke Crockford in person, so she knew only as much about him as she had heard from rumors.

According to Louis Miller, he was "a ruthlessly ambitious man who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals."

"I bet they will tighten the security. And because the school festival will be the second prince's debut appearance, the festival will be going on as planned. As a matter of fact, Duke Crockford will always prioritize the second prince's debut over his safety… So long as the second prince is his puppet, he would be unable to decline…"

The second prince was Duke Crockford's puppet—that's what Casey had said. But for some reason, Monica couldn't help but feel that the word "puppet" didn't seem to fit for Felix.

With an unease feeling stirring in her chest, Monica sipped the contents of her cup. Hoping that the cause of her tingling spine was from the cold.