Aine and I's last semester at the academy has begun.
And, the academy, which I returned to after almost two months, was busy preparing for an unexpected ball.
The auditorium, which was to become the ballroom, was already adorned with various splendid decorations, and the student council was having a heated discussion about how to decorate the ballroom.
This festival was expected to be a grand one, with the emperor and other members of the royal family supporting it and even visiting in person, so the students were working very hard to prepare for it.
"Brother Klein, preparing for the festival is so hard. I guess I joined the student council for nothing..."
Of course, Luffy, who was at the bottom of the student council, also had to participate in the festival preparations, so Luffy grumbled at me but went back to the meeting as if he had no choice.
Unfortunately for Luffy, there was a lot to prepare for this year's festival.
Most students are voluntarily and diligently participating in the festival preparations, but there are probably quite a few students who, like Luffy, complain that they didn't know that preparing for the festival would be this difficult.
However, since Aine and I were already fourth-year students and had become distant from participating in the festival preparations, there was nothing we could do other than pray for Luffy to complete the festival preparations safely.
Well, if Luffy were to truly ask for a little help, saying he's having a hard time, I could help him out a little. Until then, I plan to wander around the Academy, busy with festival preparations, and fully enjoy the Academy's final festival.
"Aine, then let's go there first."
So, Luffy, cheer up.
In the end, Luffy was able to successfully complete preparations for the Academy Festival without even asking for our help.
Strictly speaking, as a member of the student council, her workload was probably much smaller than that of the student council president. However, the work she had to do was by no means easy, so I told her that she had worked hard and encouraged her.
This year's Academy Festival was held about a week after the start of the second semester, unlike previous years.
This was because there was a lot to prepare for and it was necessary to coordinate with the royal family's schedule.
Thanks to this, the academy was completely immersed in a festive atmosphere for a week without any classes.
"Hey, but do you have to study even at this moment?"
"I'm planning what I'll do with my life after graduating from the academy."
But even in this atmosphere, Aine was sitting in the library, looking through books.
As the sole heir and next head of the Rose family, I knew that I had a huge responsibility, but I also wondered if I really had to study this hard.
More than anything, I felt unnecessarily anxious about wasting time like this when there wasn't much time left to spend together.
So I ended up doing something to Aine that I would never normally do.
"Wait, wait? Klein, where are you going now?"
"Let's go outside the academy for a bit and have some fun. During the festival, I think it would be good to focus on the festival and have fun."
My voice was quite hoarse, not like mine at all, and upon hearing that hoarse voice, she smiled at me with her eyes shining as if she was surprised.
Her eye smile made me feel a little embarrassed and my face turned slightly red, but I thought I couldn't be here anymore, so I overcame my embarrassment and left the academy.
"Should we go to a cafe? Or maybe a board game cafe?"
I suggested to her some places we often visited when we were out of the academy.
But this time, Aine seemed to have a slightly different idea.
"No, come to think of it, there's a place I'd like to visit this time. Would you like to go with me?"
"Where is it?"
"Where my parents are."
She suggested that I go with her to where her parents are buried.
Her offer was so unexpected that I was taken aback for a moment, but her eyes were so earnest that I decided to accept her offer.
When citizens of Britain died, it was customary to be buried in the British Cemetery.
This cemetery, built about 250 years ago, is now so crowded with gravestones that so many people are buried there.
Now, I wondered if there could be more people buried in this cemetery.
It was to the extent that during the construction of the British Academy, there was even a proposal to add a cemetery site to the park of the British Academy.
Fortunately, the decision was made to build a new cemetery on a different, more suitable site, but the Academy's park almost became a ghost park every night.
Anyway, in this cemetery with so many gravestones, she somehow managed to find the gravestone where her parents were buried.
Unusually for a family known as the Roses of the Empire, their tombstones were plain, almost indistinguishable from those of ordinary people, save for a few peculiarities.
-Glen Rose
-Rayna Rose
Rather, it was a neat gravestone with almost nothing written on it except for the name and the family crest engraved underneath it.
"Mom, Dad. I'm home."
Aine stood before their graves today, her eyes shining pure and bright, as if she had returned to being a ten-year-old child.
"I'm truly sorry. It's been almost eight years since I've visited you in person. I never had the courage to do so. I wasn't sure I'd be in my right mind if I saw Mom and Dad's graves in person."
And then what she said was even more shocking than I expected.
Her trauma must have been more intense than I had imagined, as she confessed that she was even very scared to visit her parents' graves.
Despite having spent over four and a half years with me, she has never dared to visit her parents' graves in person.
As if to support her words, her body was trembling slightly.
Even though she had come here with her own determination, the trauma of that day still tormented her.
But she never broke down.
"I'm okay now. I still have a hard time accepting Mom and Dad's deaths, and I'm still so worried about what the future holds. But I've gotten stronger enough to figure things out on my own."
Strength is not simply about having a strong body or magical power.
Despite having only sufficient knowledge and an extraordinary mind, in the original novel, she withstood countless wizards and warlocks for over five years, and sometimes even fought back.
Even after encountering the black magic that once brought the empire to the brink of destruction, he came up with a way to destroy it.
There's a reason it's called brain-smart.
A person can become quite strong simply by knowing what he knows and being able to use his intuition well.
So, now she was a person strong enough to be compared to anyone in this world.
Even without me, you can navigate this world well enough on your own.
Aine, who spent time with her parents, told me a story about her parents.
Her parents, she said, were always affectionate and friendly to her, just like the ideal parents we often think of.
The relationship between the two was so good that everyone who visited her mansion was amazed by their love.
According to what the butler said, since both of them had difficulty conceiving, they were very surprised and overjoyed when Aine became pregnant.
Although the butler wasn't at the Rose household when her mother was pregnant with her, considering that he knew about it, I wondered if perhaps the two of them had said that to explain to the butler how special Aine was to him.
Anyway, what was certain was that Aine was so precious to them that they were willing to sacrifice their own lives for her.
I looked at the two tombstones and quietly closed my eyes.
I expressed my gratitude to them in my heart, saying thank you for saving Aine's life and thank you for raising Aine to be such a good child.
"Thank you for helping my child get back on his feet."
It must have been my imagination that I suddenly heard that sound from the wind.
After saying goodbye to her parents, we quietly tried to leave the British Cemetery.
However, we had to stop for a moment because a gentleman wearing a black coat and black hat blocked our path.
I was a little annoyed by the sudden blockage, so I told him in a slightly nervous tone to get out of the way.
Then he nodded as if he understood and quietly passed by me.
'It's not over yet.'
As he passed by me, he said something strange in a voice so small that only I could hear it.
That night, I couldn't fall asleep because his words kept going through my head.