Chapter 31 - Volume 3 (1/2)

School Arc – Chapter 12

The cause of Lily’s coma was diagnosed as something like fatigue by means of magic depletion. Though the details were something that made everyone incline their heads in wonder, even Lily herself, who had woken up, seemed puzzled.

『I didn’t use magic yesterday. We never used magic during class either…』

This was what Lily said, according to the woman assigned as the doctor for the female dormitory.

She clearly remembered being called out by Art, the trouble that followed, and even until she went looking for the bird in the forest. Yet, her memories after that was strangely unclear.

Lily found the bird, as it was, in its usual spot. However, the little bird didn’t come down to Lily like it always did.

Thinking that the little bird might have been injured, Lily chased after the young animal as it flew away.

In favour of looking up as she made chase, it seemed that when Lily, who wasn’t too familiar with the terrain, realized it, she was already in a place she didn’t know. From there, Lily’s memories became more and more unclear.

I’m certain I encountered someone, was what Lily had seemingly said. But, for some reason, I can’t recall a thing about the other person.

I ended up having a considerably long discussion with that person. And when I realized it, it was already late, so I hurried back to the dormitory.

It was an entirely vague story.

With even the female doctor bewildered, this was what I, who stormed in, was told.

From beginning till the end, Lily had been somewhat absent-minded, it was like she was trying hard to follow those string of memories. But, eventually, without recalling who that person she had been with was, she ended up going back to sleep again. This happened last night.

To be on the safe side, Lily was taking a break from class today.

「Even if she’s dopey from her coma, whatever the circumstances may be, don’t you think her memories are way too ambiguous? 」

Since Shade said this, expressing something rude in his words, I glared at my younger brother, putting various meanings into my gaze.

「Don’t say something as impolite as『dopey』. Lily is the victim here, you know」

Since Shade, at times, makes cynical remarks by habit, I know he doesn’t mean anything ill from it. But, I couldn’t bring myself to ignore it today. Just before what may have been an outbreak of a sibling quarrel, Wolf nobly intervened.

「If her memories are unclear to that extent, there is a possibility that magic was involved」

「Yeah. I think so too」

I nodded with a “that’s exactly what I thought”, then flauntingly, I flattered him with an “as expected of Wolf”. Shade faced the other way, acting slightly pig-headed.

Today, our group brought food into the small cafeteria for visitor use and had our lunch. Although the special rights, which were granted to the dormitory head and the prefects, wind up being called excessive, that was pretty much it. Since we didn’t break the tacit understanding of not littering and not causing too much uproar, getting permission to use this room with just a reason of『we have something we wanted to discuss a bit about』wasn’t difficult.

「We’ve confirmed that this wasn’t the work of magic muddling her memories, at present. But, maybe that person who Lily was talking to, applied magic on himself making him difficult to remember. There has to be a method for how he did it」

「If that’s the case, who was she talking with? Why would he go to the trouble of concealing himself? And, why did her magic dry up?」

Wolf’s words apparently piqued Shade’s interest, since the sulking Shade suddenly returned to the conversation.

「But Miss Lilium’s power was strong enough to break the measuring instrument, wasn’t it? For it to have dried up, you’ve got to wonder what on earth that amount of magic was used for」

「You do know Lily should only be able to use healing magic, right?」

「That’s what makes it so mysterious, don’t you think? Do you think she resurrected the dead or something?」

“That’s not the scope of healing magic-“, I stopped midway, having realized. Lily’s magic was non-standard.

「…for what reason would a dead person be inside the school」

「Maybe someone died from some sort of accident inside the school. Having been on-site, Miss Lilium performed resuscitation by magic. Then, someone used some sort of magic so she couldn’t remember」

Although it was quite absurd, the chance of it wasn’t zero. As I was led astray, Wolf countered Shade’s theory.

「Finding a corpse and resurrecting the dead are both fairly shocking events. Casting magic to conceal these so that nothing remains in the person’s memories is likely impossible」

「Well then, there’s still the possibility that Miss Lilium was lying from the start, isn’t there?」

Wolf didn’t reply to counter this.

It was at that moment that I became painfully aware of the fact that these two didn’t entirely trust Lily’s words.

「… there are still other possibilities. Maybe『whoever』 met up with Lily was after Lily’s magic. Since her magic abilities are strong, the person might have been scheming to use her magic」