Just as I’d feared — Allison was outside, gleefully tearing into the heroine, who’d been waiting there for us.
“What, were you trying to sneak off the other way the second you saw me? Not even going to say hello?”
“No, ma’am, I wasn’t avoiding you, I really—”
“Marrying well and coasting through life, that’s what you’re really after. Playing the good girl doesn’t fool—”
“With respect, ma’am, I think that’s an inappropriate thing to say.”
For once, even the heroine lifted her head sharply.
“I came to the palace because I genuinely wanted to help people. Please don’t speak to me that way, every time you see me.”
I stood there holding my breath, nearly ready to applaud.
Yes! Nailed it!
All that talk about the company not being everything hadn’t gone to waste after all!
But Allison just let out a scornful little laugh.
“Talking back so smoothly. I suppose your parents taught you that too?”
“…!”
“Oh, that’s right — you don’t have parents either, do you, like Rowell? How fitting. Two new hires, both raised without any manners.”
I could shrug it off myself, but Julianna’s parents had actually been murdered by black magic.
Only once she’d twisted that particular knife did Allison seem satisfied enough to turn and walk away.
Hm. My mind was made up.
I’m reporting this.
There was no way to write this off as “we’ll never cross paths again anyway, just let it go.”
Getting a target on my back this early in training was a risk, but I’d at least reach out to Human Resources about it.
But before that — I hurried straight to the heroine’s side.
“Julianna!”
“Oh, Leila…?”
Julianna’s face went bright red, embarrassed to have been caught.
“Are you okay…? Just now—”
“Ha, I’m fine.”
She scrubbed at her eyes and tried to smile, but her lips were trembling.
“It’s just — the thing about my parents, that stung a little…”
I nodded, silently.
I understand.
Bringing up Leila Rowell’s parents didn’t land the same way with me.
A note pinned with a name was all they left me at the orphanage — that’s it.
But if someone had said something like that about my parents from my last life, I’d have grabbed them by the hair and gone to war.
They died in an accident, after all.
Still, right now, the heroine came first.
I reached out to pat her shoulder — and she suddenly stopped moving.
Her breathing sounded… strange.
“Julianna?”
“…”
“What’s wr—”
“W— wait.”
Julianna staggered backward, step by step. She clutched at her chest with one hand, gasping.
The color drained from her face all at once, leaving her as pale as a corpse.
“S— stay away from me.”
“Julianna?”
“Aughh—!”
The moment she doubled over, groaning—
A horrific tearing sound ripped through the air.
Crack. Crack—!
The crackle of electricity split the air.
Huh?
A voice like fingernails dragging down a wall clawed its way out of her.
“—rip you apart…”
At the same moment, the shadows around her lurched and swelled, and black mist began pouring out from within her.
It split apart in an instant, branching like roots.
The thickest tendril lashed violently up and down.
“Gah!”
The smooth pavement shattered in a single blow!
Black mist blotted out my entire field of vision.
A shout rang out from behind me.
“Rowell! Get clear!”
But even standing at the edge of certain doom, one thought floated stubbornly through my mind—
Told you, didn’t I.
Hardship doesn’t make people stronger.
It just makes people lose their minds.
For the past several days, nothing but sighs had echoed through the Black Spoon Division.
“…”
Carlyle sat with his head in his hands, sighing.
The trainees rotating through this week had cleared out and gone home long ago.
Not that they’d been any help while they were here, anyway.
If anything, their careless mistakes had only added to his workload.
But Carlyle wasn’t sunk in gloom over that.
Why did I say something like that?
Hadn’t his whole plan been to win Leila Rowell over properly?
That was the entire reason he’d been loitering around the Protocol Team’s building in the first place!
He’d even bought a drink he thought she’d like and brought it along!
And somehow I ended up lecturing her instead.
It wasn’t that Allison Kafres’s behavior was in any way justified — ruining good talent wasn’t an efficient way to run anything.
But she just needs to survive one week.
Hardship built strength. Made people stronger.
I’ve believed that… my entire life.
Three hundred years ago, roughly.
House Rupesk had been cursed with black magic.
No matter how powerful the aura you were born with, if you couldn’t master your own overwhelming emotions, you underwent a runaway surge and turned into a black wolf.
A monster that couldn’t even recognize its own family anymore…
“…”
Carlyle’s brow furrowed at a memory that surfaced unbidden.
Blood everywhere. The Grand Duke’s family, fallen. The people of the territory…
That’s why hardship needs to have a reason behind it.
Because he didn’t want to believe misfortune simply struck at random.
But…
“Hardship doesn’t make people stronger.”
“It just makes people lose their minds.”
The look on Leila Rowell’s face in that moment—
It had looked exactly like the expression he wore whenever Edgar started talking nonsense.
I’ve ruined it.
That was when Edgar Crowe — his aggravating superior and the Minister overseeing black magic — sauntered in with a smirk.
“Well, well. Our meticulous, thorough future Grand Duke.”
“Quiet.”
“Got shot down by a new hire, did you? So pitiful.”
“If you already read my mind, why bother asking. And I wasn’t shot down.”
“I enjoy watching you squirm, that’s why. And you were absolutely shot down, Rupesk.”
Carlyle’s fist clenched involuntarily.
That damned sadist, Edgar Crowe.
Pristine silver hair. Deep green eyes.
A man who radiated nobility from head to toe.
House Crowe, seated in the capital, had managed the Temple’s affairs for generations — another of the empire’s great houses.
But behind that ever-smiling face lurked something thoroughly black-hearted, along with a habit of reading other people’s minds without permission.
Not that Edgar loathed black magic any less than Carlyle did.
Carlyle should never have let himself get talked into founding the Black Spoon Division in the first place, back when Edgar pitched it as “let’s get revenge on those bastards together”!
Just then, a faint tremor ran through the floor.
Rumble…
It didn’t stop at once.
Twice. Three times.
The mountains of paperwork shuddered and collapsed.
Even Edgar’s face tightened, and he muttered, urgent.
“An earthquake? But—”
Arpelt Palace carried ancient warding magic specifically so that natural disasters would never disrupt an official’s work.
Which meant an ordinary earthquake shouldn’t be able to shake it like this.
Edgar’s eyes flared with the one possibility that made sense.
“Don’t tell me.”
At that moment, the view through the window rippled ominously.
Particles of black light glimmered, ominous, in the air.
And beside Edgar, a crimson magical sigil flared into being.
An urgent transmission from the perimeter watch.
Minister Crowe! Team Leader Rupesk! Emergency! Black magic has broken out inside the palace!
“On our way. Direction?”
The avenue connecting the Central Bureau building and the plaza! Reinforcements can’t get close!
“Anyone caught in it?”
It looks like some of the new officials are caught in it right now!
“…!”
Seamus Finley, Julianna Crosswell, and one more—
He didn’t need to hear the rest of the name.
Carlyle was already out the door.
