Became a Traitor in an Academy

Lies

On Saturday, we headed to Lapis’s house as promised.

In a limousine.

“It’s so wide…”

“The car seats are softer and more comfortable than chairs at home…”

Yeon-hwa and Jin-hyeon couldn’t continue speaking.

“…Lapis. Do you take this kind of car to school every day?”

“W-well… just to the nearby station… it’s too far…”

I was also struck speechless.

I already knew Lapis was wealthy.

In the original work, she often showed her economic sense was completely shattered when she got close to the protagonist.

Moreover, when he went to her house, he explicitly said it was a good house.

So I had somewhat prepared myself mentally.

But I never expected her to pick us up in a limousine.

If it was about not being able to pick up a life-saver in just any car—well, perhaps that could be understandable, but this clearly wasn’t done with that sentiment.

If it were, Lapis’s parents or grandparents would have been inside the car instead.

Thinking about parents who would readily agree to let their daughter take a limousine to pick up friends…

I felt a strange sense of reverence.

How much money must they have to live like this?

And that sense of reverence only grew as we got closer to her ‘house’.

“…Is that a house?”

Her ‘house’ seen from afar was so impressive that it was hard to speak badly about it.

It was so grand that I momentarily doubted the original protagonist’s perspective.

“Y-yes, it’s a house… my grandmother built it herself…”

I couldn’t tell what made this good. It was an ultra-luxurious mansion.

Just looking at the entrance, garden, front yard, and sculpture-lined walking path…

And this wasn’t even in the countryside, but firmly within Heros City.

A mansion this large in Heros City, where land prices are astronomical.

In terms of pure wealth, it was probably dozens of times more than Lim Chang-won’s family.

Yeon-hwa, Jin-hyeon, and I were completely in sync at that moment.

“Your grandmother must be incredibly remarkable…”

“Of c-course! At least half the buildings in Heros City couldn’t have been built without my grandmother…!”

When her grandmother was mentioned, Lapis, unlike her usual self, became excited and cheerfully revealed a terrifyingly matter-of-fact statement.

I immediately thought that compared to their wealth, they must live quite frugally—an absurd thought.

“Welcome. You must be Lapis’s friends?”

As we entered through a mysteriously large gate that seemed to open by itself, Lapis’s parents greeted us.

Her mother, seemingly from the returnee bloodline, also had dragon horns and a tail like Lapis.

However, her appearance was quite different except for the eyes.

She had long black hair and white skin. In fact, I suspected she inherited her skin tone from her father’s side.

Her father’s skin color was similar to Lapis’s.

“You must be Jin-hyeon! And you’re Yeon-hwa. And you’re Blanca! Welcome, welcome!”

Though Lapis might not look like her, she seemed to have inherited her mother’s personality.

Her father greeted us quite energetically, while her mother watched us with a kind smile.

“F-first time meeting you! I-I’m Lee Yeon-hwa…! Go on, say something!”

“You don’t need to bow. We should be the ones bowing.”

Just as Yeon-hwa was stiffly greeting them, her mother politely bowed to us and expressed gratitude.

“Thank you for becoming friends with our Lapis, and for protecting our daughter.”

Jin-hyeon was also unexpectedly flustered, and Lapis, for some reason, was swept up in the atmosphere and thanked us.

“…Actually, we never imagined our daughter would have ordinary friends. When Lapis said she made a friend in Arena, we were so happy.”

Her father was even tearing up.

“…Are you doing this in front of the kids? Come in. The food might get cold. First, eat, and then you can play with Lapis or chat.”

Her mother poked her husband’s side and guided us to the kitchen.

…It took three minutes just to reach the kitchen.

After finishing the meal, Lapis took us to her room.

Her parents told us to call if we needed anything and tactfully left.

With just the four of us in the room, Jin-hyeon, who had been silent, finally spoke.

“…I’ve never seen such a wide house.”

“The room is huge too… Oh, no. That’s not important right now. Lapis! Are those jewels in your room… decorations?”

“Huh? Oh, no. They’re… snacks…”

“Snacks?!”

Lapis was flustered and argued that due to family circumstances, she needed to periodically eat some stones.

“Isn’t this… strange?”

“What’s strange about it? People can eat stones too. There are people who eat poison.”

Saying this while pointing at me, Lapis relaxed and laughed.

“Then… shall you tell me your story, Bl-Blanca…?”

Oh, right.

I’d completely forgotten, overwhelmed by their capital power.

I was originally here to tell my story.

“Well, if you really want to hear a story that’s not even interesting… fine. I’ll tell you.”

Taking off and folding my school coat, I began a story about people who never existed and events that never happened.

“When I came to my senses, I was already being raised by nomads in the outskirts, without any original parents.”

“Wait, where are the original parents?!”

“I don’t know. Whether they’re dead or alive. Whether they sold me to the nomads or the nomads killed my parents and took me in.”

Don’t think too deeply about it.

Families are rarely complete in the outskirts. I added this and continued my story.

“Anyway, I grew up doing various odd jobs among kids in similar situations. Sometimes monsters coming out of the gate would take my friends, but somehow we survived.”

By the time I was around 10, only a few kids remained, countable on one hand.

From then on, we’d sometimes go inside the gate with adults.

“Kids, inside the gate…? That’s not just—”

“Jin-hyeon. In front of survival, there’s no justice or morality. Such noble concepts are only discussed when you’re well-fed and comfortable.”

I interjected to stop Jin-hyeon’s nonsense.

Although my words were lies, I didn’t even want to hear his justice sermon.

“Where was I? Oh, right. The gate. Our role inside the gate was as bait.”

We’d be pushed in to check intersections or to test whether something was a trap.

“…How many survived?”

I extended one finger and then pointed that finger at myself.

“When my life was hanging by a thread, I gained abilities similar to now. Originally, I just had an ability to be okay eating anything, but from then I could start emitting various things.”

“Like Gazer’s ability awakening…?”

I was about to say ‘awakening’ but changed my words, thinking it wasn’t quite right.

“No, I’d say I finally understood what my ability was. Well, like Jin-hyeon, I couldn’t control it properly and involved many people.”

But I wasn’t particularly sad.

Because they were people who had been treating us harshly.

“Naturally, when colleagues got involved, they were so angry they tried to kill me. So I ran. Deep, deep into the dungeon.”

“Oh my god…”

Lapis was shocked, mouth covered, apparently never expecting such a story.

But after a moment, driven by curiosity, she asked how I eventually came to Heros City.

“While running away, I coincidentally met hunters and heroes.”

A stroke of luck. I spun this lie.

Normally, each gate should have one entrance, but the gate I entered had multiple entrances for some reason.

And through one of those entrances, a hunter from Heros City had entered, got seriously injured, and sent a rescue request, which I coincidentally witnessed.

“…There was a misunderstanding, and I was almost attacked, but fortunately a hero took me out. I would have died without that person.”

“Oh, what an incredible story…”

I concluded the story by saying that hero, seeing my ability and circumstances, volunteered as my guardian, which is how I came to live in Heros City.

“That’s why I entered the hero course. I want to become someone like that hero.”

“…Could I know that hero’s hero name?”

Jin-hyeon, as if feeling some kinship, asked the hero’s name.

“Gazer.”

“G-Gazer?! J-Justitia sensei?!”

Lapis was shocked when Justitia’s name was mentioned.

“Wait, you had such a relationship with Justitia sensei?! Why didn’t you tell us?”

Yeon-hwa was also surprised like Lapis and asked why I hadn’t told them.

“Well, it wasn’t particularly important. Even as a guardian, we didn’t have an especially deep connection.”

“I… see…”

After the story ended, the room’s atmosphere became even more solemn.

Hmm. Perhaps it worked somewhat.

“…You must have had a hard time, Blanca.”

“You must have had a hard time too, yet you reached out to someone like me…”

Jin-hyeon was the only one silently maintaining a complex expression.

Well, I’ll consider this a great success for now.