I Start with a Bad Hand!

The semester was coming to an end. Despite various issues, they were manageable, such as preparing for the drama presentation next term. I was shocked when I received the final list of actors.

“What? Why do we only have this many actors?”

“Probably because the actors can read the script,” Agnes replied indifferently. “Who would join after reading your script?”

Out of forty-four members in the drama club, only three had been assigned to our play. How was this possible? Other groups had at least five actors. I stared at the meager list of actors, my hands trembling.

‘Is everyone really avoiding this that much?’

But I needed to focus on the positive. If three people had signed up, it meant that besides Agnes, two others had read the script and still wanted to participate. I steadied my trembling hands and responded calmly.

“At least, aside from you, there are other drama club members who signed up. It’s not entirely meaningless.”

Agnes scanned the actor list and then handed the paper back to me with a rotting smile.

“One went back to their hometown due to illness when the applications were open, and the other… who is this? I’ve never seen this name before.”

My hand, which had momentarily stopped trembling, started shaking again. One actor was forcibly recruited, one was a ghost member, and the remaining one was Agnes.

Before the semester ended, I arranged a meeting with the actors to prepare for the presentation next term. One actor couldn’t attend because they were in their hometown. The other claimed to be sick but was reportedly seen in town by a classmate. The last one was Agnes.

‘Can we recruit actors from outside?’

I held my head in frustration. Our already small team was scattering like sand in an emergency.

‘Klaus can’t this time. He’s going for archivist training, and asking Irene, who is already busy, to take on more is unreasonable. Then who…’

Icarus.

I started crossing out names but paused at his. 

‘Icarus.’

Why am I like this? If it’s over, it’s over. After causing such a commotion and saying those things, asking for his help now would be shameless. Even if I were in his position, I would find it ridiculous. After all those hurtful things I said, asking for help now…

‘He’s gone on some expedition and won’t be back until next term anyway. Even if we hadn’t fought, Icarus couldn’t help.’

I slammed my notebook with my fist, trying to distract myself with physical pain, but it didn’t work. My usual way of dealing with psychological distress was to push my body to the limit, but since that wasn’t working, I didn’t know what to do. Trying to divert my attention to other tasks was pointless since the semester was almost over, and there wasn’t much to focus on.

It was the same when it came to exams.

‘Easy, too easy.’

What I gained during my year at this academy was not knowledge but know-how. It was the result of accumulating 16 years of experience, striving to achieve the maximum efficiency with minimal study, and developing the intuition to know how much effort would yield specific grades to maintain a certain rank.

This semester, my final rank was sixth. I felt like I studied similarly to the midterms, yet my rank had improved.

‘These guys… they really don’t study.’

I looked at the ranking chart posted in the hallway. For the nobles here, who had the wealth and ability to hire people to labor and think for them, devoting themselves solely to academics might be seen as unnecessary. Except for a few naturally achievement-oriented students, the atmosphere here was so anti-academic that it made me wonder, ‘How far will they go without studying?’ I realized this too late.

I carefully examined the other scores.

Archery, well, it was now just at a warm-up level. In the drama class, I brought in a script full of revisions and received a slight frown from the professor but passed without major issues.

‘No problem with the rank, no problem with the scholarship. Even though I no longer need to rely heavily on the scholarship.’

Feeling a strange emptiness in my chest, I lingered in front of the ranking chart. A piece of paper that visibly proved my achievements and my identity.

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

At that moment, a small, round chin rested on my shoulder, along with hair that tickled my cheek. Standing on tiptoe, Agnes leaned heavily against me and followed my gaze upward.

“Just. Thinking about which club to join next semester.”

“What are you talking about? Of course, you should join the drama club. We need to prepare for the spring festival.”

“What? I wanted to join something else this time. When can I ever get out of the drama club?”

“That’s why it’s nicknamed the antlion’s den. Once you get in, you can never get out.”

No wonder there were so many students who stayed in the drama club for a long time. I rubbed my forehead with a light sigh.

“I thought preparing for the festival was separate.”

“What did you want to join that made you so disappointed?”

Honestly, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to join another club as it was wanting to escape the drama club. But to be more honest, I doubted whether joining another club next semester would have any significant meaning. Could I master any new artistic skill within the remaining less than a year?

As I skimmed through the pass and non-pass records of the arts subjects on the ranking chart, I mentioned the name of the subject I had wanted to take when I first came here.

“Instruments club.”

“Instruments? Why all of a sudden?”

“I’ve always had a longing to play an instrument.”

I had always wanted to learn, but there were always more important things. Delaying and delaying, I realized I might never learn before my life ends. With a bitter taste in my mouth, I moved away from the ranking chart. Agnes followed and asked,

“I can play the lute. You can learn from me.”

“Lute?”

What’s a lute? Seeing Agnes mimicking playing the lute, it seemed similar to a guitar. A guitar… I had always wanted to learn to play the guitar. But now, what was the point? Would I even have time to finish learning a single piece before everything ended?

“Forget it. I don’t have money to buy an instrument.”

“Why not? You have the director. Ask her for some pocket money.”

This girl… She talks as if she’s dealing with her own aunt… But her shamelessness had a charming side, so I gave her a half-hearted response.

“Sure. Maybe I’ll ask for a pipe organ, or a harp instead of a lute?”

At that point, my words were no longer coming from my brain but from my mouth itself. The only instrument I could play was the recorder. If simply beating on something counted as playing, I could add castanets and a tambourine. Agnes, knowing that I was exaggerating beyond reason, began to respond in kind.

“Why not? If it’s the president, he’d surely buy it for you. Lucero is famous for its music and instruments. Maybe he’ll get you a harp made by a true master?”

“Wow. Then I guess I really need to join the instruments club next semester. I’ll practice until my fingertips are worn out.”

“Hey, when you say things like that, I can actually picture it. Ah!”

Just as we were turning the corner of the hallway, laughing and chatting about nonsensical things, someone bumped into Agnes.

“Are you okay? How did you…”

Before I could finish my sentence, what caught my eye was the silver hair that seemed to ripple like waves. Roxanne, with a slightly dazed and somewhat rigid expression, had collided with Agnes and remained in that position. Roxanne was wearing a white, fluffy fur coat that suited her slender frame perfectly.

“Uh… sorry.”

Unlike Agnes, who had completely fallen on her bottom, Roxanne had luckily not fallen. However, despite Agnes’ apology and my greeting nod, Roxanne didn’t respond. Her gaze was fixed on something in my hand.

It was a gift box, adorned with a meticulously decorated water-colored ribbon on an elegant silver wrapping, with the recipient’s name blatantly displayed.

‘Ah, of all times, why did I have to run into Roxanne while holding this?’

When I left the dormitory to check the rankings, the gift I had handed over as lost property to the student council room had been returned to me, suspiciously decorated in very clear colors.

‘Did Elexion send this…?’

I looked down at it with a sense of indifference and turmoil. But it didn’t matter whether it was truly from Elexion or from someone impersonating Elexion. Either way, I had no reason to accept the gift.

‘I was going to check the rankings and then return it to the student council room as lost property…’

Feeling Roxanne’s blatant gaze on the gift box, I hastily threw it aside and helped Agnes, who was still sitting on the floor, to her feet.

“Why do you have that…?”

At that moment, I heard Roxanne’s thin murmur. As I looked up from my crouched position next to Agnes, Roxanne… had an expression I couldn’t quite describe. But before I could respond, she brushed past us.

Agnes looked slightly embarrassed as Roxanne left without acknowledging our apologies, but we shrugged it off. Sometimes apologies are ignored, after all.

Agnes, glancing at Roxanne’s receding figure, lowered her voice and asked,

“When will the senior finish that job?”

“He said if it’s late, he’d let us know by the spring semester… If he hasn’t mentioned anything yet, it seems like that’s the case.”

“What’s this? That means it’s still a long way off.”

She thought it would be over once it was stolen from the ducal house. But it wasn’t like that. Muttering in a somewhat disappointed voice, Agnes still had the self-awareness that it was a theft, which I found reassuring as I nodded vaguely.

At the student council room, Evan was there again. When I said, “I found lost property again and came to store it in the student council room,” Evan silently accepted the gift box. From his expression, I could be sure.

The sender was indeed Elexion. If not Evan, then at least someone bearing the Elexion name.

‘I don’t care who it is or why they sent it…’

What whim led them to do this, really? I couldn’t easily understand the minds of people who were not in their right minds, and above all, it was too trivial to expend my attention on. My life, as Dietrich, was already filled with other mysteries that made Elexion’s intentions trivial in comparison.

Indeed, my burden had lessened, but in reality, nothing had been resolved. Who were the people who made Dietrich so unhappy, was Dietrich truly ‘their’ child, and what were Dietrich’s remaining two regrets?

For now, winter had come, and I had to bury and postpone all these questions.