Just then—
The room's automatic door slid open without a sound. Olga Marie, curled up on the floor with her back against the foot of the bed, lifted her nearly lifeless eyes and looked at the person who had entered.
"…Who are you…?"
"You don't remember? I'm Tenkei Shiomi, the last Master scheduled to join Team A, and the practical combat instructor for all Masters. I introduced myself the day you arrived at Chaldea, didn't I?"
Holding a tray of food, Shiomi sat down on the floor opposite Olga Marie.
"…Is that so…" Olga Marie said, recalling it.
A former Sealing Designation Enforcer, a Master dispatched by the Mage's Association, and a Magus tasked with internally monitoring Chaldea.
Even so, Shiomi lacked the air most Magi carried about them.
He looked more like an ordinary person who had never had any contact with Magecraft at all.
"What are you here for?" she asked. "If it's work—"
"Your voice sounds weak. You haven't eaten… for a week, have you?" Shiomi was clearly focused on something else. "Even Magi will starve to death if they don't eat."
"…Leave me alone." Olga Marie muttered, brushing off his concern.
"But I could teach you a method. How to use Mana to maintain the bare minimum of your vital functions. If you get better at converting the Mana in the air, you could survive without eating or drinking and still be full of energy—" Shiomi went on as if he hadn't heard her at all.
"I said leave me alone! Get out!" Olga Marie snapped, trying to drive him away.
"I'll leave once you eat." Shiomi's tone remained calm and unprovoked. "My family made a special meal today. I cooked a bit extra, and when I heard you hadn't eaten, I brought some over."
It felt to Olga Marie like her emotions were striking cotton. No matter how she reacted, Shiomi's attitude never changed.
If this had been their first meeting, she might even have mistaken him for a homunculus with incomplete cognition.
"…"
So she chose silence.
But Shiomi had no intention of letting her stay that way.
"I know about Mash as well. I arrived here a few days earlier than you," Shiomi said. "That was the Demi-Servant experiment led by Marisbury. A year ago, the entire plan was shelved when the possessed Servant refused to cooperate. If you have no intention of restarting that experiment, there's no reason to keep blaming yourself over it."
"That's easy for you to say." Olga Marie glared at him. "You're not the one responsible, so of course you can talk like that! Father is gone, but what he did won't just disappear! Mash will definitely take revenge on me! I'll surely be brutally murdered somewhere like a bathroom! That's only natural!"
The more she spoke, the more agitated she became. After barely eating for an entire week, the violent emotional surge left her severely drained. Olga Marie panted miserably, her breathing uneven and ragged.
"Only natural?" Shiomi considered for a moment. "If you believe being targeted by Mash, being avenged upon, is inevitable. But has Mash really thought about any of that?"
"How could she not? She's human too!" Olga Marie clutched her head and shouted back. "Being treated like a tool, sooner or later she'll realize it!"
Despair, fear, and other crushing mental pressures had been tormenting Olga Marie all this time.
During the days she locked herself in her room, she did nothing but dwell on these thoughts, imagining the fate she believed she deserved.
Perhaps, given enough time, Olga Marie could have found her own way out of this dead end.
But it could just as easily spiral further, until the mental strain became unbearable and she chose to end everything herself.
She was only in her early twenties, even younger than Caren.
A Magus whose wings had yet to fully grow. Even if she could stand on her own, she still needed someone to shield her from the storm.
"In that case, I'll be your bodyguard." Shiomi helped her up and settled her with her back against the bedside. "You know I used to be a Sealing Designation Enforcer. I'm not completely useless. If the day ever comes when Mash really does come for you, I'll stop her."
"Why?"
The offer left Olga Marie staring at him in disbelief.
"Because I'm an adult?" Shiomi didn't seem sure himself, so he turned it into a joke. "You're even a little younger than Caren. If you were my kid, you'd be the youngest in the house. Everyone would dote on you."
"I don't need that…" Olga Marie rejected it with forced firmness. "I am the head of the Animusphere family, Olga Marie Animusphere. I come from a Magus Family with over two thousand years of history. The family name is the meaning of my birth, and the source of my hono—"
"Who asked you about any of that?" Shiomi cut her off. "And don't get ahead of yourself. Even if you wanted to be my kid, I don't want to raise you."
"You…!"
Olga Marie's face flushed bright red with anger.
This man was impossible to read. One moment he was considerate, and the next he said something that made her want to blow up.
"Still got the energy to get mad. Then you're probably fine," Shiomi said with an easy smile. "Feeling guilty is a good thing. Most Magi throw away their humanity in pursuit of Magecraft. Maybe that's the 'right' way to survive, but I can't agree with it."
"So that's why you became the kind of Magus you are now," Olga Marie muttered.
"Someone once said, 'You shouldn't choose your path based on the sins you carry. You should carry your sins on the path you choose.'" Shiomi's voice was low. "Whatever Marisbury did, that's Marisbury's fault. As his daughter, his successor, it's admirable that you're willing to accept that burden. The problem is, if you throw away the road you were meant to walk and choose a road that exists only so you can bear guilt…"
His voice wasn't loud, and his tone stayed gentle, but every word landed squarely in Olga Marie's chest, ringing in her ears.
She bit down on her thumbnail, her face tight with distress and conflict.
"But Mash was treated like that… like that…"
"Then how do you plan to face Mash?" Shiomi asked. "Keep carrying the guilt and continue the experiment Maris Bili left unfinished? Or…"
He didn't finish.
Olga Marie was young, but she wasn't a child. By the time it got to that point, she could understand what he was saying.
And yet she still worried at her thumb, wavering on the inner scales of contradiction.
"I'll leave the food here. Eat it while it's hot." Shiomi rose to his feet. "In an hour, Caren will come by to collect the dishes."
"I'm not hungry," Olga Marie said without looking up.
"Eat what you can. Don't force it." Shiomi smiled quietly. "You can't atone if you don't live. Anyway, I'll be coming by every day from now on, so prepare yourself."
"Shiomi, you—"
"It's 'Teacher Shiomi,'" he corrected with a grin. "All the Lords of your generation were my students. Showing me a little respect won't kill you."
With that, Shiomi turned and left the room, leaving Olga Marie staring blankly at the tray on the floor.
"…It's all Eastern food…"