As we were chatting, the sky visible through the window turned yellow.
It's evening.
Victoria asked if I wanted to have dinner together, but I shook my head because I had somewhere I needed to go first.
Since dinner is provided at the dormitory where she lives, at least she won't miss a meal.
So I said goodbye to Victoria, saying I'd see her tomorrow, and left the student dormitory.
The large building immediately to the left after exiting the main gate.
That's where I'll be living.
As soon as I entered, someone came out to greet me. Not someone like a caretaker, but a real butler. Since it's a place provided by King Hypion, it would be strange if there wasn't such a person.
What I do after coming inside is simple.
Wash up, change clothes, eat, and be left alone.
If there's a problem with not showing too much subjectivity, it's that I have absolutely no money in my possession.
No one explains why they put me in the Royal Academy. So it's a bit frustrating that I have to infer everything.
My head isn't that good to begin with, and while I might be able to interpret things I've experienced, it's too difficult to predict future events or the thoughts of people I haven't seen.
But it's not to the extent that I can't bear it and have to ask.
Someday Hypion will age, and as he ages, his body will wear out and he'll get sick. Then he'll eventually use the opportunity for treatment that is the harvester. I don't know when he'll use that one-time opportunity, but there's no way he won't use it.
They've highly promoted that harvesters are good, right?
At that time, I can gain organized memories, so it's better to aim for that time.
When someone becomes a harvester, after that, I don't read memories. I watch together and remember. There's a subtle difference. If memories have the subjectivity of the subject, when I watch together, my subjectivity is included.
Of course, that doesn't only have disadvantages.
Literally, I just can't control that body, but I feel the same. No, I feel even more.
I feel all the body's movements that could be called unconscious. From the surface of the skin to the internal organs.
I spent the day like that.
* * *
The next day.
Although the body was sleeping, since I myself don't sleep, I woke up in time for morning.
A person with the job of a maid came in, and seeing me getting up immediately, she made an expression saying it was creepy.
Is it that strange?
It might look that way because it's based on Soo-oh's appearance before she grew, with a hint of Choseol's appearance mixed in.
The skin is so white it looks pale.
When I get up from the bed, the maid approaches. And as she leads, I wash if she says to wash, and put on clothes as she dresses me.
While I was eating breakfast, the butler. whose name I still don't know. asked if he should prepare a carriage, but I shook my head to refuse.
I felt like there would be too little movement if I didn't at least walk this much.
So I greeted the butler who saw me off at the entrance and immediately went to school at the Royal Academy.
Carriages come and go on the main road stretching from the main gate to the building in the middle of the school.
And beside that, students who came out of the dormitory are going to school. There must be people living outside like me, and people living in the dormitory.
The building is built in a very classical style. There are stairs going up at the entrance, and large columns stand in a row like a temple.
When you go inside, there's a wide space. And on both sides of the wide space there are stairs you can go up. The stairs spiral up in different directions on both sides.
But I won't have to go up there until next year.
The grade and floor are matched.
Since I came as a first-year student, I headed to the classroom on the first floor.
The inside isn't a space with desks and chairs arranged tightly like in classrooms from faded man's memories.
Rather, it's extremely spacious. There's a fan-shaped space, and at the vertex, there's a podium where the teacher educates like a performance hall. And around that, there's a structure with tables and chairs placed like stairs.
Considering the number of people, it's so open that you might think the density is too low to call it a classroom.
There are already several students inside. Both male and female genders are present.
Standing at the entrance and looking around the class, I can see roughly 4 groups. Strictly speaking, 5 groups, but.
The last one is people without a group. Victoria and I are also included there.
Victoria hasn't come yet.
She often wakes up late. It's the same today. She's running hard now, so I hope she doesn't be late.
Thinking that, I headed to the seat I sat in yesterday.
When I went up the stairs, someone was already in that seat.
"Eek!"
A girl who was startled as soon as she saw me got up from her seat, and saying she was sorry, she runs away. She was a person who was in this class yesterday, so even if she runs away, she can't really run away, so why is she running?
She went far away without giving me a chance to say anything.
It felt awkward to move to another seat, so I went to the seat I sat in yesterday.
Just in case, I looked it over, but the seat is clean.
If they had done something, they would have.
Seeing that nothing stands out, it means she just sat down and then ran away in surprise when I came.
I should have just gone and sat in an empty seat.
I thought I could always sit there because the seat I sat in yesterday was empty, but I wonder if there's something where the seats change every day?
Not long after, Victoria came in.
Immediately after that, the teacher came in, so she narrowly avoided being late.
Victoria sits next to me like yesterday.
Maybe because she ran in a hurry, I can feel the heat coming from her body even here.
See, you should have woken up earlier.
Fortunately, or perhaps using her superpower unnecessarily, she's evaporating sweat as soon as it forms on her body, so her clothes aren't wet at all.
At first, I thought she would be out of breath, but the sweat evaporated as soon as it formed on her body.
Seeing that, I realized she was using her superpower.
There were such trivial things, but the first class of the day ended and lunchtime came.
"It's hard, Belle..."
While everyone was getting up from their seats and leaving, Victoria whispered to me. Her expression is of mental fatigue rather than physical exhaustion.
There are many people in different positions from those she usually meets. So it seems being here is hard for Victoria.
Well, Victoria isn't such a social person.
Maybe she takes after her father more than her mother, she likes touching clockwork machines. For such a person, being thrown into a place where she has to be careful about relationships must be tiring.
"You'll feel better after eating."
"I'm not that simple, you know?"
But a smile forms on her lips.
I remember her eating an enormous amount yesterday, saying the food was delicious. That must have been not only delicious but also a stress reliever.
As there's an implicit structure where higher-ranking people leave first, I'm waiting at my seat with Victoria, who isn't of noble rank, when suddenly a girl approached me.
"Are you Belle? Follow me."
She doesn't even introduce herself with an authoritative attitude. But I nodded. When I nodded without answering, she made an angry expression, but didn't say anything to me.
She wants to say something, but suppressing it is stronger. In other words, someone used this girl to call me. Since the order is just to bring me, she must be forcibly holding back.
"Belle, do you have to follow?"
"You eat first."
Victoria asks me worriedly. I wonder who's worrying about whom.
I followed the girl who called me.
That girl didn't go to the cafeteria. She's heading to a place far from the classroom where we have lessons.
Deep inside the building.
She even turns 90 degrees once and goes deep inside.
As we went inside, the smell changed. If the outside had a school-like smell, this inside has a strong fragrance. No, rather than fragrance, is it a thick grass smell?
"Lady Theodor. I've brought her."
"Good work. You may go."
As we went inside, an extremely sharp-looking girl is sitting. The peculiar point is that although it's summer, unlike others, she's wearing a considerably long dress.
Considering that the people in the class were wearing relatively short clothes, this person is likely someone who is behind the times or needs to care about tradition.
"Lady Theodor. She's a barbarian whose identity is unknown."
"It's fine. Or do I need to order you?"
At that, the girl who brought me bowed her head, and as she passed by me, she whispered:
"Behave politely to Lady Theodor."
And she left the room. She's truly a person who cares extremely. Not in the sense of flattery or anything like that, but she genuinely thinks it's important from within.
This girl called Theodor must be a person with popularity.
"Now, sit here."
The person whose name I don't know whether it's her first or last name pointed in front of her. There's a table in front, and tea is set on the empty seat.
So I sat down.
"For someone so promoted by the royal family, you're very quiet. When I saw you on the broadcast, you seemed like a sharper person."
She said while looking at me.
It's a face that someone who doesn't know well might mistake for glaring, but she was looking at me with curiosity without any particular emotion.
"I am Kanna Temuraine Theodor. You're Belle, right?"
The Theodor family. She's a person of quite high rank. It's a name in Aurora's memories.
"Yes. I'm currently using the name Belle."
So I told the truth.
"You speak strangely. Do you have an original name or something?"
Her expression is full of questions. And judging by the slight change in her speech, the stiff way of speaking earlier was pretense. This is her original way of speaking. It seems like she's using her head to think, but I wonder if she's not that smart?
"Usually people use their original names, but this body didn't have an original name."
As an artificially created piece of meat, it doesn't have a name.
The girl in front of me thought for a long time after hearing my words.
"Ah. Perhaps the owners of the body and mind are different?"
At least I don't remember saying that in broadcasts or newspapers. But did this person figure that out from my words?
"That's right. How did you know?"
When I said that, the person who said it was even more surprised and stepped back.
Fear, disgust, doubt, and curiosity.
She's making an expression mixed with various feelings.
"Just, I thought it might be, I don't know. Because your words were similar to what I imagined."
I don't really understand what she means.
It sounds like she had imagined something where the body and mind are different, and I said something that such a person might say.
"You're an interesting person."
At my words, she blinks her eyes.
"You're not doing anything to me?"
"Why?"
"If the owner of the body is different, no. Ah. I see. It's originally an empty body. That. Since you said there's no name, you're so confident because you didn't steal it?"
She starts speaking and immediately reaches the truth, then asks about it.
This person is smart. I was wrong to think she might be foolish because her speech changed easily earlier.
"Yes."
She has a smart head. Both the Great Kraken and the Primordial Heavenly Lord were like that. Even though I have the memories, I can't do like them.
"Your words are short. Are you uncomfortable by any chance?"
"No. I'm not much of a talkative personality."
There's also the fact that it's easy to make mistakes if you talk too much, and I wasn't a talkative person from the faded man times.
And I've said enough words for a lifetime to the point where my speech pattern won't return to normal. I begged, and begged, and begged again.
Anyway.
"What do you want from me?"
She must have called me because she has some purpose. I looked straight at her and asked about her business. She thought about my words for a while, then said this:
"This time it's to greet you. And if anything happens in the future, say that Princess Theodor called and come find me."
As if she knows something will happen, she said that.
I drank what was in front of me. It's extremely bland. No, in this case I should say it's clear, but it's not to my taste.
Then she smiled bitterly.
"You're not cautious. What if that was poison?"
It's a tone closer to advice rather than joking. I don't know what it is, but I guess she called me to test me in various ways.
Then let's give a point to that.
Since I strive to speak only the truth in my own way, I answered like this:
"Monsters are hard to kill."
And after getting up from my seat, I greeted her and left the room.