HTACS 07

Chapter 07

Eve von Lohengrin.

The first Emperor of Lohengrin was a rare sage-king, said to have no equal in wisdom, magic, or martial prowess. Putting aside historians’ plausible embellishments, the princes and princesses were generally capable. And Eve von Lohengrin, the youngest princess of this generation, was renowned as a prodigy who would leave her name in history.

She felt mana at age 4, mastered Tier 9 magic at 5. Tier 8 at 8 years old. Tier 7 at 10. Now at 16, she’s an exceptional-class mage who has mastered Tier 5 magic.

She was a bundle of talent—the kind of talent that made jealousy itself impossible.

The most brilliant mage in the world, she shone exceptionally even in the Imperial family, where seniority was valued. And that light shone all the brighter when juxtaposed with the darkness directly above her—her own older brother, Wolfram von Lohengrin.

Despite being only 16, she surpasses undergraduates, and even the graduate students do not underestimate her magical skill, talent, and knowledge.

She already has lab access, and even now is making her mark in the field of light magic research.

Pride in the Imperial family. Confidence in herself. Charisma that commands those around her. The youngest Student Council President of Zeppelin. Beautiful appearance. With all of that, Eve today briefly appeared at the graduate lab with an air of ease.

“Hello, senior.”

“Hello, Your Highness.”

A senior she knew greeted her. More of a political operator and networker than a pure researcher. Eve didn’t particularly like him, but opportunists are sometimes necessary. She kept him around to develop the eye to discern when he might make his move and do something vulgar.

“Your Highness, truly remarkable. Hehe.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just deeply moved by Your Highness. …Ah, right. Would you like one too?”

With that, she handed over something round wrapped in paper.

A sweet fragrance. The scent of fruit. Sugar? And… artificial—but not offensively so, very faint.

“…Candy?”

“Yes. Hehe. I bought one myself.”

“……?”

To Eve, candy was an extremely high-end snack. Even setting aside her status as princess, high-quality candy easily exceeds 500,000 rin per piece. Good fruits grow in areas dense with mana, and naturally, magical beasts gather where mana is dense. The fruits supplied to the Imperial family are grown with that much risk. Even while in the Imperial palace, she’d rarely had the chance to try candies made from such fruits.

“…Uh, umm. Candy.”

So Eve hesitated. Between the anxiety that a cheap candy might ruin her palate and the desire to feed her brain some sugar, she deliberated briefly before accepting the candy.

“I’ll gladly take it, senior.”

“Yes, yes!”

The somewhat awkward senior bowed his head, and Eve smiled as she popped the candy into her mouth. And then—

“…Huh? Hehehe.”

“It seems you like it.”

Eve couldn’t hide the smile that spread across her face. A refreshingly sweet taste—a gentleness that soothed the heart. It was just candy, but this level of candy was a luxury not even easily found in the Imperial palace.

“W-where did you get this?”

“…Huh? You didn’t know? …Huh?”

“Senior?”

“Ah, well. I thought you knew…”

The senior was flustered, and Eve tilted her head. Who on earth was selling it that made him this nervous?

“Who is it? I truly don’t know…”

“…Was it not by Your Highness’s orders that someone’s been pulling a cart in front of the Magic Quarter since dawn?”

“……?”

“Th-that it wasn’t punishment? Ah, no, then—”

“Punishment? There’s no one around me who’s committed such a grave offense…”

She tilted her head in genuine confusion. The senior stared at Eve, then squeezed his eyes shut as if thinking “screw it” and answered.

“W-Wolfram… It’s Wolfram von Lohengrin, Your Highness.”

“Pardon?”

“In-in the morning, he was selling fish soup and candy for us, so I casually picked some up—I thought it was by Your Highness’s orders, so… so I bought it.”

*Plop.*

The strawberry candy fell from Eve’s mouth.

I can guarantee—in her entire life, the last time she’d dropped food from her mouth was at age one, when she threw away her pacifier out of shame.

—

No matter how much Wolfram has become a convenience store owner—an in-game extra turned shopkeeper—he still has to attend classes.

As student council president, he could have attended class just one day a week and still graduate, but now, as a commoner Wolfram, that’s not the case. He must complete his major, take liberal arts, and earn his credits.

Since Lee Yeongjin in the real world had never experienced university, it was actually a fairly enjoyable experience—except for two factors.

“Ugh… ghugh.”

If you drag a cart and do business from dawn, then attend class, naturally you’re hit with intense muscle soreness. Wolfram’s trash-tier Endurance-2 stat doesn’t allow him to do two things in a single day.

The next factor is… the murmuring around him.

[*What’s he doing here… Isn’t that Wolfram?*]

[*I thought he left the school?*]

[*I heard Eve-nim is the Student Council President now?*]

[*After doing all that, he still shows up to class*]

[*…Shh! Don’t make eye contact!*]

I’ve done nothing wrong yet I’m cursed at; I’ve done nothing wrong yet they glance at me furtively.

I’ve done nothing wrong and I’m treated like a zoo monkey—yet I can strangely feel malice and killing intent.

I know. I know—but honestly, I had hoped for a little more.

The real-world Lee Yeongjin was a high school graduate, and Zeppelin Academy doubles as a university. So I thought—maybe I could have a campus life? I held that small hope.

But how did it turn out?

Looking around, I found it astonishing how not a single person would meet my eyes.

“Now—the eight colors of magical attributes. By substituting each into their respective concepts, we can make the following deductions. So…”

That professor is someone who can be recruited as an ally in the original, and although he’s a bit of an over-explainer, he’s quite pleasant. But right now, he’s desperately just staring at the blackboard and lecturing. Why? Because if he turns around, he’ll make eye contact with me. And the students avert their eyes the moment I glance at them.

*Mumble mumble.* The teacher lectures.

*Scratch scratch scratch.* The students take notes.

A strange silence fills the classroom, and in that suffocating atmosphere, I kept taking notes.

Anyway—Wolfram took the shit, but Lee Yeongjin has to clean it up. What a dogshit situation.

My dream campus life was, from the very start, confirmed to be socially dead.

—

After the lecture ended and I returned to the convenience store, I let out a deep sigh.

Traces of candy-making covered the entire store, and the sweet smell was vibrating throughout—enough to drive me crazy.

“I don’t like things too sweet… Maybe I should change the order.”

The dried pollack soup and candy made decent money, but at this rate, it’s putting the cart before the horse.

But then I shook my head.

“…Rather than investing in something new, let’s get what we already have on track.”

Of course, there are items that *inevitably* ride the wave. The Sharp Destruction Incident in Act 2 is a prime example.

Millefeuille, a 4th-year Magic Department student who always ranked second, cast a grand spell that temporarily corrupted the concept of all students’ pens—all because she wished exams would just disappear.

As a result, the very concept of “pens” within the Magic Quarter crumbled, and they had to bring in items from outside that could write but weren’t pens.

What an amazing episode.

Anyway—unless it’s a guaranteed trending item, I need to be careful with orders.

First, I need to attract customers to this convenience store. For that, this store needs a charm point—something that says “this is our advantage.”

If my endurance were better, I could drag the cart around every day, but going to class afterward would kill me from exhaustion.

There’s so much to do. As I was pondering my future schedule—

*Ding. Ding. Ding.*

A clear chime rang out—the signal that a customer had entered.

Wait—a customer in this store? Has hell frozen over?

I looked up at the customer, and—

“It’s been a while, Wolfram. I never imagined you’d be in a place like this.”

The current Student Council President—and my younger sister—was glaring at me.

—

“Wondering what you were up to, and it turns out—a convenience store in a place like this? What’s your scheme?”

Wow—straight to the fastball, huh. I shrugged.

“Scheme? That’s harsh language. I acquired this store through a proper contract and am running a legitimate business.”

“Can you swear there isn’t a single shady element in all of that?”

“There is. Want me to print out my résumé? I even prepaid this quarter’s taxes. Deduct it properly later and give me my refund.”

“…Wha—what did you say?”

“Never mind. Anyway, I’m running this place with a clear conscience.”

“You—you haven’t done anything bad?”

“Of course. Feel free to check the paperwork.”

Hearing that, Eve took the documents in front of me, examined them for a moment, and then clenched her fist.

“That can’t be.”

“It can.”

Her face flushed red with frustration.

Now then—Eve can be described as a charismatic, iron-fisted leader full of preconceptions.

In simple terms, she firmly sets her own “answers”: “Wolfram is evil. Aila can’t be trusted. Kelter can be trusted. The school is rotten.” She collects “evidence” to support her views and “acts” accordingly.

One mistake and she’s a self-righteous tyrant. That’s why Eve is infinitely cautious when reaching conclusions—and once she reaches one, she never overturns it.

How do I know? Because I saw it countless times while playing. It’s written that way in the setting book too.

So in Eve’s mind, Wolfram is a villain, and she’s certain he’s up to something dirty—which is why she came looking to see if there’s some hidden scheme.

“…So, your first move was to sell food and candy in front of the Magic Quarter? There’s no way you didn’t tamper with that food or those candies, right?”

“Here’s the Magic Quarter ingredient comparison chart. I used exactly what the previous owner ordered.”

I handed her a paper marked “No abnormalities found.” Eve clenched her fist in frustration.

“Ugh… b-but the probability that you added something while cooking…”

“Stop grasping at straws—and are you trying to insult your own seniors?”

“What?”

“Even if they’re rotten, they’re still Magic Department graduate students. They’re skilled at detecting all contamination and alteration. Checking all variables, comparing, verifying, blocking—isn’t that their most basic aptitude? If they ate something problematic without noticing, they might as well drop out immediately.”

“…Ugh.”

Eve’s face turned bright red, and her eyes were even welling up with tears. The fact that Wolfram, whom she’d deemed a villain, had no openings—that must be the ultimate humiliation for her.

“B-by school regulations, you—not even affiliated with Maestro but with the Magic Department—doing this kind of thing doesn’t comply with the rules!”

“It does.”

“Ehh?”

“Article 3, Clause 1: Every student of Zeppelin has the duty to freely discover and develop their own abilities. Article 17, Clause 6: Even if it’s outside one’s major, if one judges oneself to have talent, discovering that talent takes priority over transferring departments—provided performance is proven.”

“…Ehh?”

“I acquired a failing convenience store and turned a profit from day one. Any problem?”

“…Ugh, ughhh!!”

Eve stomped the floor with her foot, then hopped around in frustration. That habit of hers is still the same.

“If you have no complaints, leave.”

“Then what about that candy?”

“That candy?”

“The candy the seniors bought! I tried some too! Where did you get such high-quality candy? I’ll trace the illegal funding!”

“Ah…”

High-quality? That candy I grew?

“U-um. Was it good?”

“Of course! It was overwhelmingly better than the candies supplied to the Imperial family! You must have drugged it! A drug to brainwash the seniors!”

“No—so that’s it. It was good, huh.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? As I thought, you used dirty dark magic—did your fiancée Aila put you up to it? Hah!”

“I made it from fruit I grew myself.”

“………?”

Eve tilted her head.

“I made it from fruit I grew with my own secret method.”

“Pardon?”

“Not ‘pardon.’ Um… here, take this.”

With that, I plucked a fully grown Prutie from the sapling beside me, wiped it off, and handed it to Eve. She took it, bit into it—and—

“…Hehe.”

She smiled like a simpleton.

That face is etched in my memory. …Kelter giving her sweets and her smiling like an idiot—Eve’s gap, one of her endearing character traits.

But—maybe it’s because she’s my sister. Maybe my body rejects it.

It, uh—it kind of gave me chills.

“Anyway—I appreciate you saying it’s delicious.”

“…Ugh. Th-there’s no way. Fruit made by you…”

Clutching the fruit, Eve trembled.

“Going to throw it away?”

“I’ll take it and investigate!”

“…Do what you want. When you finish, throw the trash away properly.”

“…G-grrr!!”

Her ears burning red, she stomped the store floor with her foot. Hey. Hey. If those tiles break, it’s my money, you brat.

“Ah—I’ll be watching you from now on. I’ll see what dirty tricks you pull—and if I catch even one loophole, you’re closed down on the spot.”

“Whatever.”

“G-grrrr!!”

Eve turned her back in frustration at my response, and I called out to her.

“Eve von Lohengrin.”

She tried to ignore me and walk out, but at my next words, she stopped in her tracks.

“If you like it that much, why not buy a bag of candy? I’ll give you a killer deal—10,000 rin per piece.”

“Grrrrrr!!”

Watching Eve leave the store clutching a bag of candy as if it were the most infuriating thing in the world, I shrugged.

“I sold it to the grad students at 50,000 rin per cup—and she bought a hundred pieces in one shot.”

Wow. Long live the Imperial princess.

If she’s buying that much, maybe I should’ve thrown in a few extra as a service.

“No—if I did that, I’d have to see that creepy smile of hers again…”

Guess a sister is still a sister.

I didn’t really want to see that terrifying smile too often.