Hypocrisy. Who could ever call it anything but that?
The reason a man steps in where it isn't his business is a vague sense of justice, or some worthless pity.
Justice enacted without even a moment's reflection on whether one's actions will actually help is violence, and it is sin.
And this foolish man, who had committed that sin to a sickening degree, was faithfully piling up his own karma today as well.
Returning to the past brought him no joy at all.
The astonishment of having come back lasted only a moment. Even the faint refreshing feeling of living with a clear, sound mind didn't last more than a few days.
The man before him was watching him with a soft smile. Not the slightest trace of anger showed, even at Teron's barbed words.
Teron Meyer squeezed his throbbing head, shutting his eyes fast and opening them again.
His second life was as good as a failure. Because even now, the mere sight of that damned Deluah still made his blood boil.
At this rate, would anything actually change?
Teron's reason certainly said as much, but the instinctive revulsion was not something he could do anything about.
“Cut out the worthless act.”
Teron muttered under his breath.
He was speaking recklessly. And yet he was enduring to his very limit.
A shabby boy who couldn't use black magic, who had nothing but a single dagger hidden in his coat, was reflected in the blue eyes of the blond-haired male student.
“Teron, this isn't something for you to be ashamed of.”
Eyes full of compassion. Teron Meyer barely choked back the urge to retch. It had been a long time. This searing, blazing rage, this worst of impulses that made him want to kill the man on the spot.
“Your Highness's brain wouldn't even serve as decoration.”
Teron sneered, a mocking smile at the corner of his mouth.
“No matter how stupid you are, I did believe you'd at least understand the Deluah I'm speaking, Your Highness.”
“...How rude.”
Leopold's brow furrowed gently.
Sweeping a hand through his finely groomed blond hair, he looked into Teron's eyes.
“I understand you're upset. And I know well that the hardships you go through every day must make things difficult for you.”
That lofty attitude, as if all the world lay beneath him.
At first. That is, back in his past life, what had Teron said in a situation like this?
The Teron Meyer of that time had been young and driven by emotion, so it couldn't have been much different, he thought.
Perhaps he had behaved far more tactlessly than he did now. And yet the sixteen-year-old Teron of his past life had never once managed to wound Leopold. Because to him, Teron Meyer was nothing more than a pitiful, wretched commoner.
“That doesn't make your rudeness justified, though.”
Teron should have endured.
To save the Kingdom of Deluah, to save the prince Deluah, he should have stopped even now.
He should have accepted the man's goodwill. He should have warned Leopold before his liege began scheming in earnest. The brain, the single most useful of all Teron Meyer's faculties. The result of working it all day long these past few days was precisely this...
No, that wasn't it, really. There was no way at all to save that dreadful Deluah.
Truly. Nothing.
And yet the only countermeasure Teron could think of was this alone.
...Was it really the only one?
Deluah was rotten. Corrupt, and corrupt again, on the verge of bursting.
A fact the academy students, their feet resting on silken carpets, would never notice.
The wretched fate awaiting Leopold Deluah was karma that would befall him entirely because he was this nation's prince.
Black magic already existed. And it was strong.
Strong enough never to be defeated by anyone.
Teron chewed a curse down inside himself. Not even bothering to hide the laugh that broke out of its own accord, he jeered.
“Really... Your Highness is no better than an imbecile.”
“...I don't think there's any need to talk further. Teron, if the moment ever comes when you realize what I meant, I do hope you'll apologize.”
“Let me give you one warning. Your short-sighted inability to see what lies ahead, your arrogant attitude, and that stupid conviction bundled up with a worthless sense of chosen superiority will call down great disaster.”
Leopold wiped away the smile he always wore. What remained in its place was simply the prince of a kingdom, colder than anyone. His eyes chill, he narrowed them.
“I'm warning you. Stop now. The moment you utter one more word, I will no longer protect you.”
Teron was swept up in exhilaration.
This wasn't the first time. It was surely an expression he'd seen somewhere before, though nothing came to him except a fleeting memory that shot through him like a cold spike driven into his skull.
Of course, the Teron Meyer of that time had been stupider and more absurd. Leopold was a saint who knew how to graciously forgive an ignorant commoner, so it had probably been after the war began that he'd come to feel true anger toward Teron. To have brought this moment forward by three whole years...
His head was burning. I shouldn't be doing this, a small voice of reason tugged at him, but Teron simply couldn't restrain himself. He hated Leopold. He had hated him his whole life.
And of them all, the sixteen-year-old Leopold, bundled up in conceit, was the very worst of the worst. Blood seeped from the gums he'd been chewing to hold back his fury.
“Protect? What is your protection, exactly? Picking fights with professors out of some paltry rebelliousness? Dragging your followers around, prattling on about the poor commoner, and driving me into an even tighter corner?”
The truth was that the reason Teron could stand here unharmed was indeed thanks to the “gracious” crown prince's consideration. Because in the Kingdom of Deluah, nobles didn't even see commoners as people.
To them, it was as if a pest, of vulgar blood, with a reeking body and intelligence lower than a monkey's, was strolling through the very heart of the royal academy.
“What on earth is it that Your Highness wants? Is the moral superiority you gain from hypocrisy your one and only aim? If my words still feel to you like the buzzing of an insect...”
The prince was good. If he hadn't been, there was no way Teron would have set his mind to saving him. The most revolting man in the world was, contradictorily, righteous. And since that revulsion was derived from his righteousness, perhaps it wasn't a contradiction after all.
“You deserve to die, revolting Leopold.”
Having heard the curse, Leopold wore a strange expression for a moment as he ran his eyes over Teron. The bewilderment and anger hidden beneath his forced show of composure were plain to see. Things were growing more and more tangled, but this much, at least, was truly a delight.
“Teron.”
Leopold's eyes gleamed fiercely. He took a step closer.
“Do you mean that?”
Teron Meyer drew up the corner of his mouth and mocked him.
“Then do you suppose I don't, Your Highness?”
He had, at last, thought of a new way to save Leopold.
There would no longer be any reason, any justification, to side with Leopold.
It was a stroke of genius born of the loathing that told him enduring Deluah was impossible.
Teron spent his days exactly as before. He attended classes alone, ate his meals, and when the day's schedule was all over, he holed up in the library or the dormitory to do his assignments and read.
As always, the professors could never bring themselves to acknowledge Teron's outstanding grades, and the students would spit a curse at him every time they crossed his path before moving on.
Teron's roommate was the student vice president, Lloyd van Acker. A close friend of Leopold's, he was a pitiful man forced to share a room with Teron at the First Prince's insistence, and he too, as ever, hated Teron Meyer to the point of madness.
The Teron of his past life had been sixteen, so however shameless he'd been, he'd still read the room. Holing himself up in the library to avoid Lloyd, he would creep quietly into the dormitory room late at night and sleep dead still, without so much as a breath.
It had been a ridiculous way to live. When in fact the merciful Leopold Deluah would have smoothed over this much insolence entirely.
Teron had a mountain of books stacked on the desk in his dormitory room. In that single square meter of space, books flung open every which way, he spun his quill and copied out the magical formulas he needed. Advanced Magic Studies, A Collection of Magical Formulas, The Principles of Magic, and the like: books of advanced scholarship that probably didn't even exist in the curriculum.
The Teron of his past life had been a capable black mage. After the war ended, he'd been a capable administrator too. But above all of that, Teron had been Deluah's foremost researcher. The very reason he'd been able to enter the path of black magic at sixteen was, in fact, thanks to his deep interest in magic as a discipline.
The essence of magic was mana. A formless energy that produced transcendent power. The discipline that taught how to wield that energy was magic studies. And the asymmetric tactic of handling mana through blood and killing intent to unleash overwhelming power was called black magic.
To possess great power, one had to learn black magic.
Teron agreed with that idea. Even so, this was still a time of peace where he could afford to dawdle a little, so he was looking into the modification and application of ordinary magic, if only a bit.
The sound of the quill filled the dormitory room. Lloyd came in partway through, but fortunately he lay straight down in bed and pulled the covers over his head. After some time had passed, a hard object came flying at Teron's face. Startled, Teron ducked his head and dodged it. It was a wooden practice sword.
Lloyd ground out the words in a growling voice.
“Won't you stop that goddamn quill-scratching right now?”
Teron picked up the wooden sword and hurled it back onto the bed.
The Lloyd of before would have been struck dumb with shock, mind seizing up at the thought of How dare he, but he no longer showed that kind of noble idiocy.
It was because he'd grown used to it.
“If you don't like it, get out. Reaching for a sword before words, are you? You really haven't got a shred of intellect. And to think a man like this is a young lord of the kingdom.”
Lloyd rose and swung the wooden sword down at Teron's head. Unable to dodge, his scalp split and blood ran. Teron Meyer sneered.
“Go on and kill me, young lord. Do you think that righteous friend of yours will just sit still?”
