A month had passed since I entered the Judicial Training Institute. Fontaine’s Judicial Training Institute lasted for one year, after which you decided whether to become a prosecutor or a lawyer based on your grades—or your own choice. Judges? Fontaine had no judges because of the Oratrice Mecanique d’Analyse Cardinale. Most people wanted to become prosecutors, but since I had set my sights on becoming a lawyer, I could afford to take it easy. Even taking it easy was enough to drive me insane, though. The workload was enormous. It came at you so relentlessly that I would have been better off learning directly from Focalors, and there were exams all the time. How was a thirteen-year-old supposed to manage this?
The age range was all over the place. People in their twenties and thirties made up the majority, and I occasionally saw people in their forties too. Since I was the only teenager—more than that, the only one in my early teens—I had worried a great deal about being ostracized. But perhaps because I was the top-ranked student, plenty of people actually treated me warmly. A few of them had even become friends despite the age gap. Marco and Elena were two of those people.
Marco and Elena had passed the bar exam in their mid-twenties, and they said they had become close at the Judicial Training Institute too. When I was being crushed by the volume of studying, Marco had been the first to approach and ask whether I was all right. Elena even bought me snacks, telling me to make sure I grew up well. She said it made her feel like she was taking care of a younger sibling back when she was little.
At lunchtime, the three of us were eating together.
"So, so! Did you see Furina’s play yesterday? She was seriously amazing!"
"Hey... stop obsessing over Furina and study. Keep that up, and you’ll fail a subject and get kicked out of the institute."
"So what? Like I’m going to fail? All I need is over twenty-five points. I could get that much with one night of cramming."
"Elena, do you really like Furina that much?"
"Why do you never call her Lady Furina? You aren’t actually from Fontaine—you’re from Snezhnaya, aren’t you?"
"No? I’m a pure-blooded Fontainian, though?"
"You never know. Since you’re an orphan, maybe you don’t know where you’re from—Aah!"
"How can you say something like that to a child? Honestly!"
Marco gave Elena a knuckle rap on the head. That was refreshing to watch.
I was a pure Fontainian recognized by Focalors herself. There was a water spirit dwelling in me? Which meant one hit of Primordial Sea water would finish me off. I had originally intended to kill myself that way, but damn Furina moved the exam up and threw off my timing.
"Anyway, Avrora, how did you study civil law? The amount of material is fucking insane, isn’t it?"
"Don’t you just memorize the whole thing?"
"What the hell is wrong with your brain...?"
Marco stared at me in shock. Memorizing an entire book word for word was tough, sure. Especially when it was civil law.
"Come to think of it, tomorrow is payday, isn’t it? What are you two going to spend yours on?"
"I’m going to look at some clothes at the department store~ Then I’ll eat out with my parents."
"What about you, Avrora? What are you going to do?"
"Me? Naturally..."
Dvor Hotel Café
"You’re really spending it here?! Great Demon King, you’re awesome!"
"I’m in a good mood today! Let’s dig in!"
"Brother... you’re the best."
"So much delicious food..."
What else would I spend it on but feeding the children? People said your first paycheck should go to your parents, but I did not have parents. I had a whole pile of younger siblings instead. Then wasn’t it only right to invest in them? That was why I had come to the Dvor Hotel Café, where I had come with Yanfei before. Now that I had gotten paid, surely we could splurge on one meal.
Citra and Cravie’s eyes had gone wide. They seemed unable to decide which dessert to start with. As always, Peruel ordered milk and cake. She really only ate what she was used to eating.
"Avrora, thank you! I’m glad I’m alive!"
"Great Demon King! Thank you!"
"Yeah, yeah. Eat as much as you want. How often do we get a day like this?"
Seeing the children eat with such relish filled my own heart with warmth. Kids this age needed to eat well.
"You? When are you going to kill yourself? I’m bored to death..."
"How should I know? Blame Furina. She moved the exam up six months, so I missed my chance."
"I didn’t expect Furina to become drunk on love either, but I never thought she would go that far."
It seemed Focalors did not fully understand just how mentally cornered Furina was. There were multiple reasons Furina clung to me: I was someone who understood her suffering, someone she had given her first time to, someone she could approach without fear, and more. To Furina, my existence was growing ever larger inside her.
"You didn’t expect it either? You were the one telling me to marry Furina."
"I didn’t know she would charge in so aggressively right from the start! Just how starved for love was she...?"
"If you dumped even half the pain Furina suffers onto yourself, you would never be bored. Isn’t that just transferring pain onto someone else?"
"She is an absolutely necessary stand-in. It can’t be helped!"
"So? Have you thought of a way to kill me?"
"I wonder... Could an ordinary person suddenly just drop dead in front of the Fountain of Lucine? That would be the easiest option."
"What is this, Death Note...?"
"What’s that?"
"You don’t need to know."
Someone who died in front of the Fountain of Lucine? Vacher? He had suddenly dropped dead, hadn’t he?
I could die quickly if I went to Vacher’s workshop and stole some Primordial Sea water, but it was not as though I had any reason to go there...
"Haven’t you thought about it separately?"
"I wonder... To be honest, I’m starting to like this life too. Maybe growing old like this would not be so bad..."
"Really? Isn’t that different from what you said before? You said you had to die."
"I started wondering if it would be fine as long as I suddenly disappeared. Dying would be more dramatic, of course, but disappearing from Fontaine might be all right too."
"Hmm... I suppose you could think of it that way. But when would you disappear? Isn’t that a problem too?"
"You’re right... Timing is the issue for both of them."
When would I die? When would I disappear? Both came down to timing. Dying? I could hang myself right now, but that would take me further from my goal of getting back at Kujavina. Disappearing? If I vanished now, Kujavina would be the one delighted by it. It would be better to become a Fatui Debt Collector and secretly kill Kujavina instead.
"Well, think it over from every angle~ I’ll help as much as I can~"
"Hmm..."
The best outcome would be to lure Kujavina to the Opera Epiclese, duel her there, and then die. And if a third party got involved and witnessed the scene? That would be absolutely perfect. The truth would spread everywhere. But the issue was how to draw Kujavina in... Cravie? She might be her biological daughter, but that bitch had no maternal feelings whatsoever, so using her as a false lure would be difficult. Use the closure of the House of the Hearth as bait? That would mean approaching Neuvillette... It did seem like the most suitable option.
"Focalors. What are the odds that Neuvillette will listen to Furina?"
"I wonder. Furina’s treatment has been terribly poor, so I doubt he would listen to her very well."
Furina’s treatment during the early part of Fontaine’s story had been truly awful. People even treated her like, Is this really a god? Neuvillette probably saw Furina as nothing more than a nuisance as well. Looking at it that way, the psychological damage must have been enormous. Was that why she was so obsessed with me?
"Do I need to meet Neuvillette myself and settle this face-to-face...?"
"Oh? Looks like you’ve come up with some sort of scheme?"
"I don’t know how it will turn out, but it’s worth trying. I need to get up soon, so goodbye."
"All right~ See you later~"
At lunch, I had planned to ask Neuvillette once more to investigate the House of the Hearth, on the condition that I took part. Since I had lived there for five years, I could dig into all sorts of filth firsthand. I intended to pitch myself as a useful card to bring along. But that attempt was swallowed up when I became entangled in an even bigger incident.
Before first period began, Marco approached me and spoke.
"Hey, Avrora, have you seen Elena today?"
"I don’t think I have. What’s wrong?"
"After Elena had dinner out with her parents last night, she went outside for a little exercise, but she never came back. This seems serious... Do you think someone took her?"
The moment I heard that, I immediately knew who might have done it.
That bastard Vacher... So I would finally meet him...
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