Ellen had no choice but to change back into her tracksuit.
Ellen was furious as hell.
She was grumpy because this whole situation was irritating and mortifying at the same time.
Most of all, she was annoyed that Reinhardt seemed to find the situation amusing when she didn’t get to show him herself in the dress.
He said he wanted to see what she looked like in the dress, but when Ellen realized she couldn’t put it on by herself, Reinhardt got a kick out of it.
Ellen, on the other hand, was confused.
Reinhardt’s response to her realization that she couldn’t wear the dress by herself was more of a “I see” than a “really?”.
It was as if he had experience wearing dresses.
Of course, that would never be the case.
Anyway, Reinhardt seemed to understand that she couldn’t show him her dress.
They were in the dining room now.
They had both been busy during the entire festival, so it had been a while since they’d had a late-night meal together.
“What do you want to eat?”
Thus, Reinhardt brought Ellen into the dining room so they could get something to eat.
“Beef stew.”
Frustrated, Ellen ordered something that was a pain in the ass to make and took forever to cook.
“Okay.”
Reinhardt nodded obediently, it looked like he’d do anything for her today. Ellen was a little surprised since she was expecting him to complain, but he didn’t.
Ellen watched as Reinhardt went into the kitchen and started preparing the ingredients to cook.
She wanted to show him herself in the dress, but she couldn’t.
But did it really matter at all?
-Clack clack clack clack.
Ellen smiled to herself as she watched Reinhardt start chopping. She continued to watch him cook silently.
-Haaah.
It wasn’t long before Ellen heard a sound coming from the hallway, which made her turn to the source of it.
“Hm? Ellen?”
An exhausted Harriet locked eyes with Ellen as she walked down the corridor. She must have been working late in the magiclab or something.
She saw Ellen sitting in the dining hall and slowly approached her.
“You’ve been up all night…”
Harriet started to say something, but her eyes widened as she happened to glance toward the kitchen.
“Reinhardt?”
She felt a brief surge of panic.
Ellen could see Harriet’s eyes widen.
“Hey you!”
-Huh, wha?
Harriet shrieked loudly as she stomped into the kitchen.
-You! Where have you been today?
-Uh… Huh? What, what’s wrong all of a sudden?
-Where have you been? Wandering somewhere without telling us anything? Why didn’t you come to the contest?
-Uh… Oh. That. That was… You know?
-What do you mean? Tell me quickly!
-Things are… There was a situation….
-What kind of situation? You bastard!
-Ow, ow, ow! Why?! Why are you hitting me? I’m holding a knife, you know? I’m holding a knife… Aargh!
-You bad, bad, bastard! Hyah!
Ellen watched as Harriet continued to hit Reinhardt on the back, face red from anger. She just watched silently in disbelief.
Ellen should have been the one angry at Reinhardt.
Instead, it was Harriet who was red in the face and furious.
-Is this how you demonstrate your strength!? Through violence? You think you can just push me around these days because I don’t hit back? You want me to show you my strength too? Huh?
-Eeeh…? Shouldn’t you feel lucky that I’m only using my arms? Do you want me to use my magic? Do you want to get a taste of my magic? Do you want to try?
-Ah, no… I don’t want to….
-See?! So be quiet and take the hits! Besides, it doesn’t even hurt when I hit you anyways!
-If, if you keep hitting me, it will hurt!
Harriet was furious.
Harriet might have wished that Reinhardt wouldn’t come. Ellen thought so, but Harriet was genuinely upset and was beating at Reinhardt with her fists.
It was strange.
Ellen could see why Harriet was so upset.
As much as she treasured Reinhardt, it seems she was equally worried about Ellen when he didn’t show up.
So, instead of congratulating her on being crowned Miss Temple, she just silently hugged her.
Ellen wasn’t too upset right now.
Harriet was furious on Ellen’s behalf.
It was funny to watch.
‘Thank you.’
‘And I’m sorry.’
‘So so sorry.’
Ellen laughed.
But while she was smiling….
Tears fell down her eyes, though she didn’t know why.
Ellen was laughing as she quietly wiped away her tears.
“You want to beat me up now that you got stronger? Is that why you developed that thing?”
“Of course.”
Eventually, the three of them sat down around a pot of finished beef stew, which was placed in the center of the table. Harriet had joined them, but Ellen didn’t mind.
“It’s snowing.”
Harriet observed, looking out through one of the dining room windows. Ellen and Reinhardt had just gotten back from a long walk in the snow, but Harriet had apparently locked herself in the magic lab.
“Do you want to go out on the terrace and eat?”
Harriet seemed to be picturing a scene of them eating hot stew while looking out over the snowy landscape.
Harriet de Saint-Owan was secretly a romantic.
“Sure.”
It didn’t seem like a bad idea at all, so they went out onto the dining room terrace and set the pot of stew on the table.
The midnight air was chilly, but not too cold. The three of them sat at the terrace table, scooping up bowls of stew and nibbling at it.
The snow was still falling, but it was light.
The snowfall had been going for quite a while now, so the surroundings were all white.
“I remember us building a snowman.”
Harriet said, and smiled at the memory.
“It was a giant, not a man.”
“Anyway, you dolt.”
Ellen had made a realistic snowhuman, while Harriet made a huge snow giant.
Then they explored Castle Epiax and learned that it was haunted.As if suddenly remembering something, Harriet’s expression changed, and she looked back and forth between Reinhardt and Ellen.
“But you know what’s interesting?”
“No? I don’t know”
“Would you take this seriously for once! You’re so annoying!”
“What is it with you and your temper these days? Is it a disease?”
Harriet blushed at Reinhardt’s sarcasm.
“Seriously, what’s the matter with you? Do you always have to piss someone off at least once a day?”
“Frankly… I only do it to you. You’re the only one I mess with, I don’t do it to other people… At least it’s something I can’t do without you.”
“Don’t say it like that! It’s really annoying!”
Harriet’s lips quivered. The look on Reinhardt’s expression whenever he teased Harriet was always irritating.. Even though it wasn’t aimed at Ellen, it still made her fists clench.
“So what was interesting?”
“I don’t know, you pissed me off and now I forgot!”
Harriet scowled and took a spoonful of stew.
”!!!”
Harriet, without letting the steaming stew cool down, hastily spooned a mouthful into her mouth. Immediately, her taste buds were met with an intense heat. Unable to spit it out and overwhelmed, her eyes widened, her arms flailed, and she anxiously stomped her feet in a state of panic.
“Spit it out! What are you doing?”
”!!”
Reinhardt looked at her in exasperation, while Harriet struggled for a while until managing to finally swallow. Being raised with dignity befitting a daughter of a Grand Duke, she couldn’t allow herself to spit.
“My mouth feels scorched….”
Harriet’s mouth was hanging open in a daze.
“That must have been hot. Here, have something to cool off.”
“What are you doing? Just get me some water… Hey. Wha-what are you trying to do…?”
“Something cold.”
Harriet’s face paled as she watched Reinhardt scoop up the snow that had accumulated on the terrace railing. She took a step back when he turned to her, snow in hand.
“What are you doing… No, no, no, you wouldn’t… No way….”
Deep down Harriet knew he would.
Seeing the snow in Reinhardt’s hands, it wasn’t hard for her to figure out what crazy thoughts he could have had.
Still, she…
There were times where she didn’t respond to his provocations, because she thought that there was no way he’d go that far.
But Reinhardt was a madman who never hesitated.
-Bam!
“Ack!”
Harriet’s scream of horror was muffled as a clump of snow was planted squarely in her mouth.
“It’s cold, right?”
After spitting out the snow, Harriet asked in disbelief.
“What… What did you just… do to me?”
She couldn’t even feel angry after experiencing something so unthinkable.
When something so unexpected happens, it’s hard to feel angry at first, but that state of incomprehension doesn’t last long.
With trembling hands, Harriet wiped the rest of the snow from her face and reached out at Reinhardt, her face flushed with anger.
“Die, you bastard!”
-Bam!
“Oof!”
-Gulp!
A blue line of energy appeared on Harriet’s forearm, and Reinhardt, who had been struck by the spell, bounced off the terrace and crashed onto the ground.
“You must be crazy!”
“No, if it’s hot, you have to put something cold in it. Right?”
Reinhardt, who had bounced outside off the terrace, had crawled off the ground, leapt over the railings and sat back down with them by the table.
Despite being extremely irritated, Harriet patted the snow off of Reinhardt.
“By the way, if it’s hot, spit it out. Why force yourself to eat it?”
“I’m not from the streets like you, I was taught to live with dignity.”
“Really? You just said something like ‘Eurk! Euhuk!!’, you know? Is it dignified to make sounds like that?”
“Wha, wha, what? I, I didn’t do that!? Seriously… And when did I ever act like you?”
Reinhardt mimicked what she had just done with an exaggerated flailing of his arms, and she began to squirm and retort again, angrier than ever.
When those two were together, they could go on for hours and hours. They argued and rambled about meaningless things, but time would fly by even as she watched on.
Eventually, after a while, they both got tired of each other and started eating the stew in silence.
“So pretty….”
Harriet mumbled absentmindedly, looking out at the snowy landscape.
“Thank you.”
“I wasn’t talking to– No. No. It won’t work. I’m not falling for that again.”
Even though Harriet had gotten used to Reinhardt’s teasing, she’d still slip up and fall for it time and time again.
It was a cold snowy night.
The sounds from the festivities weren’t that loud from here.
After all it was just the three of them, sitting around eating beef stew on the terrace on that night.
These kinds of things happened all the time, so it wasn’t anything special.
But Ellen knew that these moments couldn’t last forever. One day, they wouldn’t be able to spend time like this anymore.
One day they would remember this moment.
Then they’d look back and realize that this was a special time in their lives.
Ellen had a vague idea.
Maybe it was just supposed to be like this.
Just as these days have been, they will always continue to be.
Maybe it was enough to just keep going like this.
Not getting greedy, not wanting more. Ellen found herself happy enough as it was.
She didn’t have to get any closer.
Perhaps as long as they didn’t drift further apart, it might be enough.
“Hey, get me some water.”
“Y-you want me to… do what?”
“Well, who else would I ask?”
“Don’t order me around!”
“What the hell, you can’t even fetch water after gobbling everything that I’ve cooked for you?”
“Grr, grr, I’ll fetch it!”
Reinhardt must be the only person in the world who could be so disrespectful to a princess, the daughter of a Grand Duke. Her reaction was cute, even Ellen thought so.
Princess
With that thought, Ellen remembered a question she’d been wanting to ask.
“By the way, I was wondering.”
Ellen looked at Harriet.
“About what?”
Harriet grabbed her water bottle and stared at Ellen, wondering what she was curious about.
“How did your parents know about Reinhardt?”
“Oh.”
“Oh… Uh, that….”
Ellen tilted her head at their reaction.
After hearing the details from Reinhardt, Ellen nodded.
“Ah… Senior Adriana?”
“Yeah.”
Ellen knew about the senior that had suddenly withdrawn from Temple, but she didn’t know the details.
Of course, Reinhardt hadn’t explained the circumstances either, just that he had to go to the Duchy of Saint-Owan to speak with her, and while on his way back, he stopped by the White Palace Arnaria to ask for priority access for the wrap gate, and they had become acquainted since then.
At the mention of that senior’s name, Reinhardt’s face darkened slightly, but Ellen assumed it was from worry.
Harriet turned to Ellen with exasperation.
“Isn’t he a strange guy? Even if you are from the same Royal Class, how can you show up at someone’s home and then ask for priority access to the warp gate?”
“…Yes.”
Arnaria wasn’t a place you could simply treat like a friend’s house, and even if it were, it would be rude to show up at that kind of hour.
And it wasn’t a friend’s house, it was the palace of a duchy.
“No, well… if I was absent without giving you a heads up… I thought that you’d kill me for real….”
Reinhardt protested weakly.
Ellen was even more surprised that despite such impudence, the Grand Duke along with his entire family answered the door and welcomed him in.
She had wondered how they got acquainted, but she hadn’t at all expected that senior Adriana was involved in it.
Now that she thought about it, she had a pretty good idea when Reinhardt went to the Duchy.
Even so, she couldn’t believe he traveled that much in a single day.
Ellen had always found Reinhardt’s decisiveness astonishing. With her questions answered, the three tried to return to their meal.
But then Harriet spotted something in the distance and pointed it out.
“Oh, over there….”
The first-year’s dormitory was located on the ground floor.
And since they were on the terrace, the view was a little clearer.
Looking at where Harriet was pointing, Ellen could see a person she hadn’t seen the whole day.
“…that senior.”
And then it got even weirder.
The aforementioned dropout was with her.
Adriana.
Olivia was walking up to the Royal Class dorm with Adriana.
Reinhardt jumped out of his seat and looked at them.
Some strange emotion flashed through Reinhardt’s eyes, and Ellen couldn’t decipher what it was.
Olivia and Adriana couldn’t help but make eye contact with the three of them as they watched from the terrace.
“Ah, Reinhardt….”
Olivia Lanze.
“Junior….”
Adriana.
“I’m sorry, we’re a bit busy right now. Let’s talk later.”
Before Reinhardt could say anything, Olivia pulled Adriana hurriedly towards the direction of the dormitory entrance.
Harriet and Ellen shook their heads at the sight, and Reinhardt sat back down in his seat.
That senior was the runner up of the Open Tournament.
And she didn’t even participate in Miss Temple.
But now, she returned to Temple in the middle of the night along with Adriana, who had abruptly dropped out.
“….What happened with that senior today?”
“…I wonder.”
Reinhardt held his cup, tracing a finger on its edge.
“…I’ll ask later.”
With that, Reinhardt took another sip of water.
Ellen looked at him after he said that.
This was the Reinhardt who had traveled all the way to the Duchy of Saint-Owan, upon hearing that senior Adriana had withdrawn from Temple.
There was no way that Reinhardt would sit quietly when she had said to talk later.
Reinhardt was not that kind of a guy.
Ellen looked at him as he stared in the direction Adriana and Olivia had gone.
Reinhardt knew something.
She didn’t intend to pry, but she knew him too well.
Ellen just naturally realized it.
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