[334] A Midwinter Night (5)
Shirone gripped Amy's hand tightly.
"Amy, you're strong. Stronger than anyone I know. You'll find a solution. You already have."
Amy turned to look at Shirone. The moment their eyes met, it felt as if an electric current ran through her.
The moonlit landscape, the sound reverberating along the wall, Shirone's touch through her hand—everything set her heart racing.
As if the shudders from a moment ago had been a lie, fierce courage welled up in both of them.
'Shirone….'
Amy had to choose.
Another year of hell lay ahead.
Having already suffered one defeat, the only thing she ought to care about was mastering her magic.
But she had never before wanted to rely on someone so badly, to cling to someone like this.
She had neither the strength nor the confidence to face it alone.
Even in the silence, Shirone kept looking at her with an unshakable gaze.
She had to cross a point of no return.
If she looked away now, Shirone would leave her side.
To not lose Shirone, she had to accept him.
Amy thought she had steeled herself. But at the same time a fresh wave of hesitation surged through her.
Selfishness.
Was it greedy to hope he would stay beside her even if she chose nothing and pretended not to know—cold, as before?
'Just one year… just give me one more year. Stay like this until then so I can decide carefully, please?'
Amy slowly withdrew her hand. If his disappointment would come from this, it was a hand she never should have pulled away.
A bitter scoff rose in her heart.
'What? Prepared? Liar.'
The truth was, she already knew.
Shirone would wait.
Even if she called herself selfish, there was nothing to be done. Between the graduation exam and Shirone, Amy couldn't give up either.
"Thanks, Shirone. I'm glad you're here."
After saying it, Amy wanted to hide somewhere.
She had agonized over her words and still managed to produce such a perfunctory reply.
But Shirone smiled at her with the gentleness she had hoped for.
"Same here. Let's work hard."
He squeezed Amy's shoulder hard, went back to his spot, and spread his sleeping bag on the floor.
Amy felt relief. It was as if she had returned to a past where what had just happened never occurred.
Still, the scarlet light in Shirone's eyes from a moment ago reminded her that it had been real.
How long would he wait for her?
Self-loathing and guilt toward Shirone tangled in Amy's eyes.
* * *
Past midnight.
Jokre and his group were thoroughly drunk.
Not satisfied, they had bought a large bottle and some snacks from a shop and settled in a clearing near the castle wall.
Jokre opened the strong whiskey and poured it into the glasses in front of Ludvans and Vivian.
He filled his own glass last, didn't bother with a toast, and swallowed it in one gulp.
"Ugh, that's strong. What are you doing? Aren't you going to drink?" Ludvans asked, worried.
"Aren't you drinking too much? What are you going to do tomorrow?"
"Tch, if my stomach hurts I'll just hole up in the dorm."
Vivian wet her lips and stared up at the night sky.
"Sigh. Graduating doesn't feel like much. I thought we'd have a blast before graduation. Not even one guy came on to me."
Jokre pointed at himself with his thumb.
"We're guys too."
"Oh, Asher. You really intend to hit on me with that face?"
"Ha! Vivian, you're not exactly a looker yourself."
Ludvans agreed.
"Yeah, to be called pretty you'd have to be like that Amy from earlier."
Jokre's face crumpled.
"Damn it! I remember now! How dare she look down on us? They haven't even graduated yet!"
"But what happened between you and Amy? You didn't need to chase her to the skating rink. Little things like that make them look down on you."
Vivian, curious, waited for his answer.
At the rink, Jokre had been more worked up than usual.
He had planned to take what happened at thirteen to the grave. But once drunk, his mouth itched.
It might seem trivial to others, but it had been an unbearable humiliation for him.
"Right before I transferred to Eins, I confessed to Amy."
Vivian squealed at the unexpected revelation.
"Oh my, really? And? What happened?"
"She said no."
"No, she said no?"
"Yeah! She said she didn't like me! It wasn't 'Thank you for your feelings, but…' or 'You're a good kid, but…' It wasn't even the excuse of 'I already like someone else.' She just said she didn't like me!"
"Oh my, how cruel!"
"How arrogant."
Vivian and Ludvans tossed in comments.
Jokre trembled as he remembered.
"Do you know the worst part? I answered like that at the time. I said, 'Okay, I'm sorry.' I'll never forget that humiliation."
Vivian clicked her tongue.
"Anyway, half-decent-looking kids only think about themselves. Hey, hey! It's for the best. Who cares about that brat? We're mages now. Jokre! We won! Drink."
Jokre downed the drink Vivian poured. His throat burned and fire rose in his stomach.
Still, he felt okay. In the end, friends were the only ones to rely on.
What did it matter that they hadn't gone to a prestigious school?
They had people who understood them; no regrets, no remorse.
Jokre's group kept passing the bottle around, using Jokre's miserable past as drinking fodder.
Soon the world began to spin.
A winter wind howled across the snowfield.
Before long, no one spoke.
They all knew—no consolation would change the truth.
Jokre couldn't beat Amy.
Vivian leaned back, hand on the ground. Her eyes, turned to the sky, had already gone slack. She exhaled in a warm breath.
"Well, it's true. Alpheas School of Magic is one of the kingdom's five elite schools, and if you graduate you can at least get a job with an official institution."
Jokre and Ludvans agreed in silence.
Being a mage didn't put everyone on equal footing. Noble rank and connections mattered, and in a merit-based world, treatment differed sharply by background.
Anyone in the magical community knew there was a gap between prestigious and ordinary schools.
So different treatment was natural.
Ludvans said, "Anyway, we graduated from a magic school and became mages. That's something. There are lots of people who didn't even graduate but brag about learning a spell."
Whether you graduated or joined a guild, the certificates you got were unofficial, so on paper there wasn't much difference.
Still, students clung to schools to have the school's name printed in the origin field of their qualifications.
In reality, mages who listed a guild as their origin often fell to a level Jokre's group could sneer at.
But that fact wasn't comforting.
Above ordinary school graduates were those from the prestigious schools. Their main target was official mage certification.
Guild mages earned money with magic and were treated as professionals, but the kingdom recognized mages based on whether they held official certification.
And not just anyone could obtain that.
It was one of the kingdom's five major exams: competition was fierce, and the nation's capable mages all gathered for it.
The expected path was: enter a prestigious school, advance each year, pass the graduation exam, sit the official exam, and pass. Only then were you considered an elite in the magic world.
So Jokre's group couldn't smugly claim they were above guild mages from the starting line.
Jokre tipped the bottle back and shouted as he drank straight from it.
"Damn it! Who cares if others get guild certifications? Once we're employed, we're all mages anyway. And we'll be working under people from prestigious schools, too. Look at Dante—he's been smashing pro mages since his days at the Royal School."
"But that's just gossip you see in the journals, isn't it?" Ludvans said.
Jokre's tongue began to slur.
"What do I care. It's the same. We'll be competing with the kingdom's five big schools on resumes. Will the major institutions pick us? We're not top nobles. In the end we'll be underlings—rank nine after doing crap work, slave away to rank eight, and after ten years? Those from prestigious schools will already be sixth rank and sitting in management."
It was drunken talk, but not untrue. Vivian, accepting the reality, nodded.
"True. And prestigious schools aren't the end. The top graduates there hit sixth rank within two or three years. What are we supposed to do?"
Jokre jabbed the air wildly.
"And the worst part? Those geniuses end up becoming teachers at the prestigious schools. Talent begets talent. Genius teachers attract geniuses. We don't even have a chance to get in."
Jokre's words edged toward exaggeration, but they weren't entirely wrong.
Of course, some from ordinary schools rose to the highest positions.
But such exceptions lose meaning against the average.
Ordinary school graduates were regarded as less skilled than those from prestigious schools.
That was the consensus.
The pessimism spilling from Jokre's mouth clung to their drinking circle like the wind, refusing to leave.
In school they thought being a mage would be enough. But once they were mages, their fervent hopes vanished like a mirage and new worries surfaced.
Staring at the stars, Vivian suddenly voiced a thought.
"Have you ever felt like this world is a play? We live our lives and someone out there is watching us."
Jokre and Ludvans turned to her.
"If that's the case, I'd never be the protagonist. The audience wouldn't want me to succeed. They probably wouldn't care. They'd want me offstage fast—maybe dead."
Jokre looked at Vivian with pity.
She'd been sensitive since childhood. What stung more than anything was that her remark might not be just the product of drink.
Maybe she was right.
"Why think like that? Life isn't a play. No one knows for sure, and no one thinks lightly of you."
"But still—Shirone, Dante, Amy. Do they even know how much we wanted to be like them? Probably not. They stick together. Maybe there never was a place for us to join. Like extras in a play."
The mood around the fire sank into gloom.
Jokre felt especially miserable, unable to refute Vivian.
"Damn it! This is supposed to be our graduation trip! We passed! We became mages! We won! We just ran into some lucky bastards!"
Jokre jammed the bottle to his mouth and drained it. The harsh liquor flowed down his throat.