School tour and the girl’s secret

 
 
 ☆
 
 
 “That helped. Thanks.”
 
 Johanna waved her hand, and the office lady leaving the infirmary turned around and frowned slightly.
 
 “I’m not treating her just for Senpai’s sake. If a junior was injured, you wouldn’t leave them alone, would you?”
 
 “That’s true. But it still helps.”
 
 The woman sighed at the smiling Johanna, then turned to us and smiled.
 
 “I’ll call out to Freya Astrid when she comes to fetch her wand, so take it easy until then.”
 
 ““Thank you.””
 
 “Ah, th-, thank you.”
 
 Anna and I harmonised, while the girl thanked her one beat slower.
 
 Then when the woman left, Johanna spoke to us.
 
 “It won’t take long to apply for the exam. We can just wait till those ladies leave to apply.”
 
 “Sure.”
 
 I nodded.
 
 Then, the girl with medicine applied to her cheek timidly turned our way.
 
 “Uhm, I am truly grateful for your help back there.”
 
 Johanna smiled.
 
 “It’s fine. I don’t know what kind of relationship you and that lady have, but something like that should absolutely never happen. It’s thanks to Letty for making the first move.”
 
 “No, I didn’t know what to do after that. It really helped that Johanna followed up after me.”
 
 When I said that, I turned around to face the girl.
 
 
 
 “And so, I would like to talk about 『what happens from here on』.”
 
 “What happens from here on, is it?”
 
 “Right. As I said earlier, for the time being, I intend to protect you. If you were to bump into those people in town, who knows what would happen? ——— Johanna. Until we’re enrolled, I want to shelter her at home, but is that not ok?”
 
 “Hmmm…”
 
 Johanna began thinking.
 She pondered with her arms crossed for a while, then eventually murmured 『well, whatever』.
 
 “Got it. I’ll talk with Glen.”
 
 Saying so, she shot me two thumbs up.
 
 “But, you don’t have to go so far to help me…”
 
 With her gaze lowered, she muttered while chewing on her words.
 Her state spoke loudly of her insecurities.
 
 I reached out, and layered my hands over hers.
 
 “This is something I decided to do. That’s why you don’t need to feel so guilty about it. ——— Of course, if you don’t like it, I won’t force you.”
 
 “Never! There’s no way I wouldn’t want that!”
 
 The girl looked up and shouted.
 
 I smiled at her.
 
 “Then, let’s stay together till our admission. I too would be reassured if I had a friend to prepare for the exam with.”
 
 Just then, tears began to well up in her eyes.
 
 “Huh, did you hate it so much you started crying?!”
 
 I asked her this in a panic, put she shook her head emphatically side to side.
 
 “Not that. I, I’ve never been treated so nicely by someone before, I’m really happy…”
 
 Sniffing, she wiped her tears.
 
 I wiped away her tears with a handkerchief, then held out my hand.
 
 “Then, let’s get along from now on. I’m Letia Ainbell from Heielland. This is my older sister, Anna, and a relative of mine, Johanna.”
 
 She looked at each of us in turn, then took my hand.
 
 “Renee Janson, from the Astrid territory.”
 
 “Nice to meet you, Renee!”
 
 “Same!”
 
 It was then that, finally, she showed us a smiling face.
 
 ——— I’m glad I came to save her.
 I once again thought as such.
 
 Thus, in the short period till we our admission, we were to live together under the same roof.
 
 
 ☆
 
 
 A short time later, the office lady who treated Renee showed up in the infirmary.
 
 It seems the young ladies in question had retrieved the wand and promptly boarded the boat back.
 
 That’s a relief.
 
 “Then, let’s go too.”
 
 ““Yes.””
 
 We applied for the exam in the large auditorium, then Johanna gave us a tour around school.
 
 By the way, we had lunch in the school cafeteria, and the lunch set, which mainly consisted of a local dish of herring and potato gratin, was quite good.
 
 “Delicious…!”
 
 “I’ve never had such excellent cooking.”
 
 “That’s true, it’s quite tasty.”
 
 While saying these things, we were quite pleased.
 
 (Now I’m looking forward to lunchtime!)
 
 Lunch time is one of the pleasures of student life.
 
 While eating delicious meals with bosom buddies, it will undoubtedly become a blissful time.
 
 I had a triumphant pose in my heart.
 
 
 ☆
 
 
 After lunch, we went around to see things like the student accommodation and indoor and outdoor training ground.
 
 Porta Island, where Runefelt Sorcery School is situated, has depth and is quite larger than the impression one gets when looking at it from Ettelstad.
 
 Thanks to that, by the time we took the boat back, the sky was beginning to be dyed red.
 
 “By the way, I wonder why that kid called Freya hates you so much. If it’s alright, could you tell us?”
 
 Having spent the day together, we’d gotten to the point where we could have casual conversations.
 
 Aboard the boat, I asked her what I’d been wondering about.
 
 Renee’s expression clouded over.
 
 “Ah, of course, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to!”
 
 I hastily put in that addition, and my friend, whom I had only met today, hesitated a little, then looked at me.
 
 “——— no, Letia-san has just been helping me. If you don’t mind, could you hear me out?”
 
 “Yes, of course!”
 
 I took her hand and smiled.
 
 
 
 “My mother used to be a maid in Marquis Astrid’s mansion.”
 
 Reene’s story was quite heavy.
 
 Marquise Astrid, her employer, one day laid his hands on her mother, a servant, and she became pregnant with Renee.
 
 In other words, Renee is Marquise Astrid’s illegitimate child, and is Freya’s half-sister.
 
 The Marquise himself tried to provide support in his own way, but his wife from a distinguished family found it unbearable, and ultimately kicked her out of the servants’ dorms and chase her off to a storage shed at the edge of the estate.
 
 That was where she gave birth to Renee.
 
 Since then, she was forbidden from entering the mansion and was ordered to tend to the garden and clean elsewhere, and the two have lived as his lowly servant and daughter.
 
 “Mother and I tried to stay away from the main building as much as possible, but we still came across the Madam and the Young Lady several times———”
 
 Each time they would pour on the verbal abuse, and would be struck with a whip for discipline.
 
 “That, it must have been hard for you…”
 
 I put my own hand atop Renee’s.
 However, she just bashfully shook her head.
 
 “Being struck with the whip certainly hurt, but even if things like that happened, I was still able to happily live with Mother. I was even allowed to go to school in the city, and was able to make friends.”
 
 Her life took a complete turn last year.
 
 
 
 “When I turned 12, I took a group magic test at church and found out that I had a little more magic power than the average person. So Mother asked my school teacher a favour, to ask Master^[1] if I could take the sorcery school’s exam.”
 
 As a result, perhaps because he felt he owed her, the Marquis decided to get her a sorcery teacher.
 
 Renee was to go to the main building, which she had not been allowed to enter before, to study and receive special training in sorcery.
 
 However, unlike Freya, who had a private tutor from the age of seven, the knowledge and sorcery that Renee was able to acquire in a little less than a year was just barely enough to meet the passing mark.
 
 “Lady Freya told me not to take the exam, but when I think of Mother who did all sorts of things for my sake, I simply can’t give up…”
 
 Renee said this with a fleeting smile.
 
 Seeing her like that, I———
 
 “Then we have to pass… don’t you think? Let’s do our best!”
 
 “Yes!!”
 
 As we said this, we held each other’s hands.