Chapter 9: The Genius Mage Has No Brakes

The night when the guild’s business hours ended, and the hustle and bustle had completely vanished from the hall.

She appeared before me as I was organizing the ledgers. The Ice-Flame Prodigy, Fran.

“…I came to talk about something I don’t want anyone else to hear today.”

She said that the moment she stepped into the small room. Her back was straight as always, but her voice carried a desperate ring she never let show during the day.

“Please.”

I offered her a chair and brewed some warm tea. Fran quietly sat down, wrapping both hands around her cup.

After that bloodbath… I mean, pseudo-group therapy session, I felt like Fran’s complexion had gotten just a tiny bit better. However, the underlying fragility hadn’t disappeared yet.

“So. Something you don’t want anyone to hear?”

“Yes.”

Fran spoke, keeping her eyes fixed on the rim of her cup.

“You told me the other day. That I’m afraid to rest, to stop.”

“Yes.”

“And that being able to realize that was ‘progress’.”

“Yeah. You can’t treat a wound if you don’t know where it is.”

Fran let out a small breath.

“I thought so too. I figured that since I was able to put the true nature of my fear into words, I should be able to deal with it logically. …But I was wrong.”

“You were wrong?”

“When I actually get into bed and try to rest, this time I can’t forgive ‘the me who is trying to rest’.”

Fran’s fingertips curled tightly. Squeeze.

“I’ve lived my whole life thinking anything less than a hundred points is a failure.”

“…”

“If I rest, my performance temporarily drops to eighty. I understand in my head that it’s a necessary measure for recovery. But I personally can’t tolerate that eighty.”

She raised her head and looked at me. What floated in those pale blue eyes wasn’t fear, but an intense self-loathing.

“I can’t give myself permission to say, ‘It’s okay to rest for today.’ …Choosing to rest on my own judgment is nothing but ‘indulgence’ and ‘defeat’ to me.”

That was the core of her suffering.

She knows she should rest. She knows she’s at her limit. Even so, she can’t stop herself with her own hands.

“Unless someone explicitly orders me to ‘stop now,’ I can’t stop. …How ridiculous. Not even able to control my own body.”

Fran twisted her lips in self-derision. More than the fact that she was breaking down, the very reality of ‘being unable to discipline herself’ was deeply wounding her pride.

“Fran.”

I straightened my posture and looked straight back into her eyes.

“Your problem isn’t that your will is weak.”

“…”

“It’s the exact opposite. Your will is too strong.”

I quickly sketched out three circles.

Judgment. Action. Stop.

It was a rough diagram, but it would do for now.

“Normal people, when they get tired, will escape into ‘that’s enough for today’ at some point.”

“Escape, huh.”

“Yeah. But you don’t escape there. Far from it, you keep slamming on the accelerator like getting tired is when the real work begins.”

“…That’s true.”

“That’s why your action and continuation functions are strong. But only your stopping brake is broken.”

“Only my stopping…”

“The judgment system that says ‘it’s okay to rest’ isn’t working properly inside you right now.”

Fran stared intently at the diagram.

She didn’t push back. She just remained silent. It was the face of someone verifying in their head whether the logic held up.

“If you can’t rest based on your own judgment,”

I said.

“You have no choice but to use an external rule for now.”

“An external rule.”

Fran’s eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“Are you telling me to let go of managing myself?”

“Not permanently. They’re training wheels.”

“Training wheels.”

“When you’re going down a hill in a carriage with no brakes, you wouldn’t say, ‘Stop with sheer willpower,’ right?”

“…What an unpleasant analogy.”

“But it’s close. Right now, you have the power to run, but only your mechanism for stopping is messed up.”

“…”

“Then, place the stopping line on the outside. A line that won’t budge based on your mood or feelings of guilt.”

Fran lowered her gaze just a fraction.

“It’s humiliating.”

“I bet.”

“Because it means admitting that I can’t be complete all on my own.”

“But it’s necessary.”

“…”

Silence fell.

The flame of the lamp flickered faintly. It was quiet outside. Lise wasn’t going to burst in and slice through the atmosphere like she did during the day.

Because of that, I understood the meaning behind Fran’s silence very well.

She wasn’t angry. She was hurting.

More than being exhausted, she was hurting over the fact that she couldn’t stop herself.

“Hey, Nagi.”

“Yes.”

“When other people tell me to ‘rest,’ it pisses me off.”

“That’s honest. It’s a good sign.”

“Because it sounds irresponsible. It feels like they’re just leaving pretty words behind without knowing a thing.”

“…Right.”

“Sometimes it even looks like they’re just drunk on the idea of themselves caring for a broken genius.”

There were thorns in her phrasing, but no lies.

She had probably been exposed to those kinds of gazes for a long time.

“But your words are a little different.”

“Mine?”

“Yes. You observe before you comfort me.”

“Observation is important, you know.”

Fran set her cup down.

“You never say ‘poor thing.’ First you lay out the facts, and then you try to fix the execution.”

“Well, that’s my job.”

“So it’s not that I don’t get annoyed at all,”

“I-Is that so?”

“But I also end up thinking I could actually follow them.”

That wasn’t really a line I could just let slide.

Inside this person, my words were starting to shift from “advice” into something else entirely. I got that kind of feeling.

“Fran.”

“What is it?”

“Just to be clear, I don’t want to be a ruler or a supervisor.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to micromanage your life from start to finish, either.”

“Yes.”

“I’m just saying that right now, ‘if you can’t stop on your own, you have to place the line outside’.”

“I understand that.”

What’s scary is that she’s making those eyes even after understanding it.

“…The logic holds up.”

Fran slowly straightened her back.

“My judgment system is only abnormal when it comes to resting.”

“Right.”

“If so, a normally functioning external standard is required.”

“Right.”

“If I can think of it not as me indulging myself, but simply obeying an outside rule, then there’s at least room for me to stop.”

That much is fine. That much is actually pretty good.

The problem is how fast this woman bridges the gap from there on out.

“Then,”

Fran looked straight at me.

“Who do you suppose should decide that standard?”

I had a bad feeling about this.

Premonitions at times like these are usually right on the money.

“…There are plenty of options,”

I said carefully.

“Like making it a guild-wide regulation, putting it in writing, or factoring in a healer’s diagnosis.”

“But it won’t work if it’s anyone else.”

“An immediate rejection, huh.”

“Yes. Because getting told to rest by others pisses me off.”

She wasn’t budging on that part at all, it seemed.

And then, Fran spoke with complete naturalness, wearing a face that said this was the obvious conclusion.

“Then, you should be the one to decide the standard.”

“…Huh?”

With that single line, the angle of this consultation completely shifted.

We were no longer in the phase of just listening. Nor just handing out advice.

Right now, this woman is starting to look at me as the repository for her stopping authority.

It was a quiet expression. Her cheeks weren’t flushed. Her voice wasn’t feverish.

But that was exactly why it felt so heavy.

She wasn’t like Lise, who would just leap at me purely out of emotion. Fran stacked up her logic, blocked off all my escape routes, and dumped her conclusion straight in my lap.

In my past life, this would be an ethics committee case. It might be a good idea to set up a committee in this world as soon as possible.