Silent Witch

It had been a week since Monica had been recuperating in Isabelle's room. Now her physical condition has improved, she decided to return to her room in the attic as before.

Why not continue to stay in her room, so Isabelle suggested, but Monica refused since she was carrying out a secret mission.

"Let's go, Monica. I'll lead the way. Follow me when I give the signal."

"Yeah…"

Nero went ahead to make sure no one was around, and when he gave the signal, Monica crept her way across the corridor.

At night in the girls' dormitory, several supervisors would take turns keeping watch around. In the pretense of emergencies or intruders, but in reality, it's to keep an eye on the students who are planning to have a night out.

Monica asked Nero to keep an eye out for her to avoid being spotted as she carefully made her way to the attic.

She's almost got caught a few times on her way there, but thanks to Nero, she made it to reach the attic without being spotted, then climbed up the old ladder to the top and pushed up the door.

Then, she heard a clacking sound.

The door hit something when she pushed it up… it was a small, thin, rectangular piece of wood. The wooden pieces arranged at equal intervals were placed in such a way that their tips would collide with each other when the door pushed up.

After Monica opened up the door, the evenly spaced pieces of wood dropped one after another following by clicking sounds. At the end of it stood a quill pen that was propped up against the ink pot, barely vertical.

As the quill was pushed down by the piece of wood, the tip of the quill grazed the top of a can set up nearby.

The round stone that was placed on top of the can was sliding across the measuring stick like a slide. At the end of the way down was one tip of the scales of the balance. When a pebble fell on it, the scale tilted, and on the top of the lifted scale was a piece of paper that said ‘Goal!' written on…

A distracting whistle sound came from above the stunned Monica and Nero: toot-toot, toot-toot, toot-toot!

As they looked up, they saw a beautiful woman in a maid's uniform—Louis Miller's contracted spirit—Lynn, standing inside the attic, looking down expressionlessly at Monica and her group coming up, with a flute in her mouth.

Lynn swooped down to the floor in a weightless motion, picked up the hem of her skirt, and bowed gracefully.

"Welcome back, Miss [Silent Witch], Sir Black Cat."

"…Um, Miss, Lynn…?"

"Indeed. This one is the very contracted high spirit of Louis Miller, Lyndberghfield."

Spoke the beautiful, doll-like expressionless face with the usual indifferent voice.

And yet, the flute in her mouth stood out in contrast to her action. How does she vocalize her voice?

Nero seemed to be curious about the trick that was triggered when the door opened, and when he saw how the pieces of wood set up, he was impressed and said, "Wow, this is amazing."

In response, Lynn expressionlessly nodded somewhat proud.

"This is a huge work that took me 2,174 failed attempts and 62 hours of work (including gathering materials). It was not easy to cut these pieces of wood to the same size."

"Um… what's this… for…?" said Monica after managed to squeeze her words, which was responded by Lynn with a serious tone.

"It was approximately 72 hours ago when I arrived in this room to receive the regular report. The task of waiting for your return in this place has left me so bored."

In other words, Lynn had been waiting for Monica in this attic for three days, while diligently scraping and arranging pieces of wood.

As Monica paled at the guilt she had felt after leaving her for so long, Nero spoke up in exasperation.

"Don't let her words fooled you, Monica. Spirits wouldn't get bored in just three days. Their sense of time was different from humans"

"…now that you mention it, you're right, I suppose."

Nero, who had tasted the deliciousness of human food and the enjoyment of novels ever since became her familiar, nodded in agreement.

After quickly cleaned up the pieces of wood scattered on the floor, Lynn looked at Monica as if she has finally remembered her main objective.

"So, where have you been for the past few days?"

"Well, I apologize for that… for the past week, I've been staying in Lady Isabelle's room… After being poisoned, I've been recuperating there…"

As Monica fidgeting her finger trying to explain her circumstance, Lynn bent her head to the side. She's probably trying to tilt her head, but what she's done looked so creepy.

"I wonder how could you, the Silent Witch, who should escort His Highness, be poisoned."

"…I would like to know too."

She also wanted to know the answer.

Recalling her recent event for the past month and a half, she's become a member of the student council as soon as she transferred to the school, having her tea leaves dumped on her during the tea ceremony class, and was nearly poisoned by a classmate.

"I have heard that there will be a school festival next month."

"Well… yeah…"

"Since many outsiders will be coming in, the attempts to assassinate the second prince will be increased too. Sir Louis also left some advice, please keep your guard up."

"I-I will."

Monica steeled her resolve once again. That's right, her recent surrounding events had made her forgot that Felix's life has always been surrounded by danger.

As Monica thought, I have to pull myself together, in her mind, Nero looked up nudged at her.

"I've been thinking this for a while. If you want to assassinate the prince, why don't you just fire a large magic weapon at this school? Wouldn't that be easier?"

"…Nero, if you do that, it wouldn't be called assassination anymore…"

If they really planned to do that on that scale, it would like to be declaring war.

That thought recalled back her memories when Louis told her about some of his stories.

"I think you don't have to worry about people attacking from the outside… After all, this school had been protected by a barrier covering around."

"Is that so?"

"It is. And most of the major facilities in this kingdom have been protected by the barrier created by Louis.".

Louis Miller has another alias which was the [Barrier Magician]… Although he's widely known for his martial artist, his specialty was creating a barrier. Its strength, scale, precision, and duration said to be unrivaled by anyone.

And that Louis has put a lot of effort and time into a large-scale barrier that covered this school.

"…I think he's set up a barrier for defense then combined it with a detection magic formula. Usually, it would remain in a dormant state, but when it detects an attack from the outside, the barrier would activate… As long as we have Louis's barrier, an attack from the outside would be the last thing to concern about."

For that reason, the thing she should worry about was an assassination from the inside.

The barrier that Louis set up can defend against an attack from the outside, but it can't do anything to the things that happened inside.

I need to act more carefully, as Monica told herself so…

"I guess we need to think of a plan during the school festival. Lynn, could you wait for a moment. I will write the regular report now…"

As Monica turned to her desk, picked up her quill, Lynn clapped her hands together as if she had remembered something, and began rummaging through the pockets of her maid's uniform.

"Miss [Silent Witch], while you were away, a few secret letters had arrived in this attic."

"…Secret letters?"

"Yes, since it had been slipped in between the gaps of the door, I was able to retrieve it. Here."

What Lynn presented to her was a simple piece of paper folded in half.

Leaving her body to stiffen as the nervousness growing up.

She recalled the thing that happened a long time ago before she enrolled into Minerva, where some ill-words written on the letters slipped into her room. Such horrible words like ‘go to hell' or ‘get out from Minerva'.

Imagining such thoughts, Monica unfolded the paper with her trembling fingers.

"………ah."

What's written there was the change of her period class and the things that should be brought in which shaped in rounded fonts. And it ended with one sentence of ‘you should get better quickly.'

Although there's no name on it, from that handwritings, she knew the senders… and it was Lana. Looking at the number sheets of the papers, she speculated Lana had sent one letter every day for the past week.

And the letter that arrived recently has ‘there will be course selection in the school tomorrow, so you must come for sure!' written on.

Monica couldn't help but raise her mouth as she covered her red face with both hands.

"………Eh-heh."

After re-reading the letters one by one carefully, she put them inside her drawer—where she had put her precious coffee pot in—then locked it.