In the attic, there were no curtains, so when the morning sun came, it would shine directly into the room.
When Monica woke up, she took the coffee pot out of her luggage bag before fixing her appearance.
When Monica left her cabin, the only things she packed in her luggage bag were a coffee pot, a mill, coffee beans, and her black cat, Nero. Having lived her life without interacting with people, she hardly has anything important.
She activated her no-chanting spell and filled the coffee pot with drinking water.
Water that has been produced by spells cannot be used for drinking because it contains a small amount of mana. Since the human body can't store too much mana, consuming a large amount of water containing mana will lead to mana poisoning. That's why Monica usually fetches water from a well.
However, a small amount would not be a problem. As a Seventh Sage, Monica has a higher tolerance for mana than most people. So she will not easily suffer from mana poisoning.
Monica poured that water into the pot, ground the coffee beans in the mill, and set them in the pot.
He also took out a small iron tripod, placed a pot on it, then started a fire with no chanting spell.
To maintain a certain level of firepower and positional coordinates, some precise techniques, and manipulations were required.
Nero, who had been lazily lounging on the bed in the form of a black cat, looked at Monica in exasperation.
"Aren't you wasting too much of your skill, using that just for a coffee?"
"A-After all… I can't just use the kitchen without permission."
After making excuses in a low voice, Monica poured a cup of coffee from the pot.
The hot, bitter coffee flowing over her tongue woke her up with a clear head.
Suddenly, the words of her late father came to her mind.
——Start by cutting down on the useless things. Then, the remaining number will be quite simple.
What did he mean by useless things, I wonder.
For example, to Monica, coffee in the morning was not a useless thing, it was an important thing. But to someone who doesn't like coffee, it may seem useless.
If it was a mathematical equation, I'd know the answer right away.
Deciding the things that considered "useless things" in people's minds was very difficult.
Monica puffed into her cup and glanced at the ribbon and nuts still on the desk.
Until now, Monica had never cared about her hair. So, if it had been the Monica of the past, she would have been able to say that ribbons were a useless thing.
It was the same with the nuts. She was not very interested in eating, so if she didn't have any nuts, she would just skip lunch altogether.
Monica picked some nuts from her desk and chewed on them. She didn't usually taste them, but now she felt like eating them with much delicacy, so she tasted them thoroughly and swallowed them.
"Hey, what kind of things that considered not useless things to you, Nero?"
"Oh? What's up? What's with the philosophical questions all of a sudden? Wow, am I smart and cool enough to know the word "philosophical"? Praise me!"
"Yeah, great, great."
When Monica complimented him crudely, Nero said, "I got it!" then pointed at Monica with his right paw.
"For me, your compliments are not useless things. So praise me more! Praise me! If you want, write a ballad, write a novel, paint a portrait for all posterity!"
The last part was quite absurd, but the fact that Monica's compliment was not a useless thing to Nero made Monica a little happier.
"Glad… to hear that…"
"Also, it's better to enjoy useless things… ‘Life is full of waste. Then why don't we enjoy it?' Dustin Günther wrote about it in one of his novels."
For Monica, who was struggling to survive, enjoying useless things was quite a challenge.
Even then…
"I… I'll give it a shot…"
With that, Monica picked up the ribbon on her desk.
——You know, Monica, the harder the challenge, the more fun it becomes.
The words of her late father came back gently to Monica.
＊ ＊ ＊
Lana Colette was sitting in her seat, resting her head on her hand and flipping through a thin booklet. Her hairstyle and hair ornaments were different from yesterday.
Monica checked Lana's appearance and approached her, berating her trembling legs.
"Um…"
"What?"
Kept facing the booklet, she moved her eyes to look at Monica. Then, her eyes widened.
"What the heck with that hairstyle!?"
Monica's hairstyle was not like the one Lana had done for her yesterday, nor was it her usual pigtails.
It was an avant-garde hairstyle, with unnaturally bulging-out hair on top of her head along two pigtails forcibly affixed to it.
"Um, I wanted to do it like you did for me yesterday."
"Even your pigtails were still better than this hairstyle!"
"……huh?"
After being yelled at by Lana, Monica pulled a ribbon with a pin from her pocket and offered it to Lana.
"Umm… thank you… very much… for what you did yesterday."
Remembering her practice with Nero yesterday, Monica thanked him in a faint voice.
Her speech sounded like she was about to die, but she managed to finish it.
However, when Lana saw the ribbon Monica offered her, she snorted and turned away.
"I don't want it. That stuff's not popular anymore."
Lana's brusque attitude prevented any further conversation.
If it had been the usual Monica, she would have just backed off here.
But Monica stayed there, struggling to squeeze out her voice.
"C-Can you teach me… H-How to do it like yeshterday?"
She bit her tongue.
Monica, who was facing down completely red up to her ears, didn't notice that.
Lana's mouth was twitching as if she was trying to hold in her laughter.
"I-It can't be helped! Come on, sit down here!"
Lana said haughtily then pointed using her chin.
Monica did as she was told, brought her own chair and sat down on it, and Lana quickly undid Monica's hair.
"Gosh, how did you manage to get such a strange haircut, I wonder! It's just unbelievable! Hey, do you have a comb?"
"N-No."
When Monica said it in a weak voice, Lana tugged on Monica's hair.
"You don't even have that and now you say you want to learn from me?"
"I-I'm sorry…"
Lana gave an exasperated sigh before she brought out her own comb. The fine silvery comb with its delicate clear carving was, upon closer inspection, adorned with small jewels.
"Until recently, gold-work combs with large jewels were popular, but the latest trend is definitely this one. Smaller jewels scattered discreetly are cute. The craftsmen in the Ammer region are especially skilled with these kinds of things, so if you want to buy a first-class product, you should buy one made in Ammer…"
For some reason, Lana clammed up there and started brushing Monica's hair in silence.
As Monica wondered why she had suddenly gone silent, Lana muttered in a low voice that only Monica could hear.
"Isn't my story boring?"
At the somewhat sullen muttering, Monica rounded her eyes and looked up at Lana behind her.
Lana's lips were bent into "へ", and she looked somewhat hurt.
"After all, I was just an upstart who bought a title with money. You probably think my story is vulgar and not worth listening to, don't you?"
"Er, um…"
Monica fumbled with her hands for no reason struggling to speak.
"I-I too, am often told that I'm boring… b-because I always talk mostly about numbers…"
When it came to numbers and formulas, she could talk as long as she wanted, but she would tend to forget to look at the other person's reaction and keep on talking.
Because of that, Louis Miller had slapped her over more than once. That good-looking magician would slap her mercilessly on the cheek and say " My colleague, are you back to being human?" in a smile.
Shivering as she recalled that moment, Lana let out a small sigh.
"What's that? That's weird."
"I-Is that so?"
"Of course. Now, turn your face here."
Lana parted Monica's hair in two and swiftly braided it. At this point, the key to making it cute was to make the braid a little loose. Then, cross the slightly loosened braid to the left and right, hide the hair ends, and pin it in place.
"There you go. This is easy, you know."
"Wow… you did it so fast… is it related to how the pins are positioned? …no, maybe the way you position the braids and distribute the amount of hair also play an important role…"
"You have to learn these things by hand, not by numbers. Now, try to do it yourself."
Monica's eyes widened at Lana's words and she exclaimed in a hysterical voice.
"Eh!? It had become this beautiful… and y-you want me to unravel it…?"
The words "It had become this beautiful" caused Lana's mood to improve and turned her mouth into a smile, but with the looks of a big sister, she coughed then looked over at Monica.
"If you don't do it yourself, you'll never learn. And if you screw up, I'll fix it for you, so go ahead and try."
"Uh… It's like taking apart a beautiful, complete mathematical equation then turning it into some crappy equation."
"What kind of description is that?"
Just as Lana laughed in half exasperation and half satisfaction, the classroom suddenly began to buzz.
It was still too early for the teacher to arrive. When Monica looked at the center of the buzz, she saw a male student.
He was a slender male student with long platinum blond hair tied up in a single knot. With each step he took, the crowd, mostly female students, became more and more excited.
Behind Monica, Lana blurted out.
"He is Cyril Ashley, the student council vice president. Why did he come to our class?"
If he was the student council vice-president, he must be the second prince's closest aide. However, as far as Monica knew, there shouldn't be any student council members in this class.
A tense atmosphere hung in the air around Cyril. It was not a vague atmosphere, but a faint oozing of mana. And perhaps it was ice mana.
Could it be that he was someone who was born with a high amount of mana? Did he leak his mana intentionally? Or did he just not have control over his mana?
While she was thinking about this, Cyril stood at the podium and announced in a calm but clear voice.
"Is there a female student in this class named Monica Norton?"
All the eyes of her classmates focused on Monica at once.
Monica half-reflexively crawled under the desk. If it were possible, she would have gone under Lana's skirt. She thought it was a bad idea, so she pulled himself together, but before she could look for another place to hide, Lana hurriedly pulled Monica's arm.
"Hey, silly girl, what are you doing! The vice president wants to see you!"
"I… I'm not here! That's right, skipping! Today, I'll be skipping!"
Cyril walked up to Monica quickly and stared down at Monica, who was clinging to the leg of the desk, teary-eyed and talking nonsense. He's scary! He's scary, but if it were Louis Miller, he would have kicked the desk and smashed his fist into Monica's head. He'd absolutely do that. Compared to that, he's somewhat better, maybe.
"Are you Monica Norton?"
"…yesh."
When Monica answered in sobbing, Cyril wrinkled his brow in discomfort.
"I don't understand. Why would His Highness want to take… this little girl?"
Murmuring bitterly, Cyril coughed lightly before glaring at Monica.
"Come with me."
"Um, our class… is about to start…"
"Are you defying me?"
Monica, who was vulnerable to overbearing attitudes, shuddered before obeyed at Cyril's words… She was crawling under the desk while dragging it with a rattling motion.
After a few steps, Cyril bellowed at her.
"Why are you still following me hiding under the desk!?"
"B-But you're scaring me…"
"Leave that desk now…"
"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Monica apologized and returned the desk to its original position, then wrapped herself around the curtains.
Cyril and his classmates watched the scene in amazement, but eventually, Cyril ripped off the curtain and dragged Monica out.
"You! Why are you hiding behind the curtains?"
"I… I was just wondering if I could hide from you like this…"
"Don't joke with me!"
Cyril chanted a spell in rapid succession. Just by listening to his chanting, Monica understood the meaning of the magic formula.
This spell…
With Monica's no-chant magic, she can immediately activate a counter-technique. If she wanted, she could attack before Cyril's spell could be activated.
But if she did that, Monica's true identity would be exposed.
Cyril snapped his fingers. Then an ice chain extended from the tip of his index finger and entwined itself around Monica's wrist before turned into a handcuff.
It was an ice spell intended to shackle her. If Monica resisted, the mechanism contained in the handcuff would immediately freeze her.
Cyril, who had restrained Monica with an ice handcuff, had a dangerous smile on his face. His dark blue eyes glittered with anger.
"It appears I have been ordered to capture a rare beast… For a rare beast, it's only natural to use a chain, right?"
Why can't both Louis Miller and Cyril Ashley treat Monica like a human being?
Thus, Monica was taken away by Cyril Ashley, who treated her like a freak show.
