Chương 52: “Muttual Disgust”

The boy standing in front of her made Celestia's skin crawl. She'd read over a hundred chapters of his life, his victories, his speeches, his convenient awakenings. She knew the shape of his destiny better than he did. And she knew, with absolute certainty, that if she'd had any choice in the matter, she would have spent the rest of her life on another continent entirely rather than stand on the same land as him. Synchronization: 12%... 13% What she couldn't ignore was the scene playing out around her.

It was only similar to the original story, and the girl wasn't even the same character; even the words Arthur was using weren't the same. The circumstances were entirely different. And yet here they were.

'Does this mean certain events are fixed?' she thought.

'That no matter what I do, the story corrects itself?' Or was this just a pure coincidence? Celestia's frown deepened, and her fan snapped open, covering the lower half of her face. Synchronization: 13%... 15% Arthur's voice carried the earnest weight of someone who believed every word coming out of his mouth.

"—making someone grovel in a hallway isn't something I'll just walk past." Behind him, the spectacled girl had hidden behind the man who had suddenly appeared to protect her, her shoulders still trembling. The crowd surrounding them hadn't moved. If anything, more students had gathered. Celestia's crimson eyes stared at Arthur from behind the fan. She knew he'd already decided what had happened here.

"Oh?" Celestia said.

"And what, exactly, did I do to make her grovel?" The question seemed to catch him off guard. Arthur blinked once, and his mouth opened slightly before he recovered.

"You're standing over someone who is terrified out of her mind. That doesn't happen for no reason."

"That isn't an answer to my question," Celestia replied.

"I asked what I did." Synchronization: 15%... 16% Arthur's posture straightened.

"Anyone can clearly tell who is in the wrong here," he said.

"And? What did I do that was so terribly wrong, according to your sense of justice?" Arthur's eyes searched her face for something, but Celestia had this look of superiority on her face, as if she were looking at ants. This had only solidified his resolve even more. Celestia watched Arthur with a detachment that grew harder to maintain with each passing second. The man destined to save the world.

The boy whose every crisis would be resolved by a timely power-up or a heartfelt speech; the boy who the world forced onto this destiny. Synchronization: 16%... 19% And she hated it because there were too many similarities. Blessed by the heavens and given everything. Arthur had been chosen before he was born, just as she had been chosen in her previous life, born into wealth and handed every advantage without earning a single one. The difference was that Arthur was happy.

He wore his fortune with gratitude and warmth, and used it to help others. She had worn hers with boredom and contempt, and used it to tear people down. She was well aware that what sat at the core of her disgust was hypocrisy. But that too was a human enough awareness that changed nothing. Arthur was a mirror of someone who she could have been, but no longer could be. After all, outright kindness was a weakness that she carved out of herself.

"Nobody grovels like that unless they've been forced to," Arthur parroted again.

"I've been here long enough to know how people act when they're scared of someone. And this girl is definitely scared of you."

"Jumping to conclusions from the start." Celestia's words came out sharper than she'd intended, or perhaps exactly as sharp as she didn't mean it to be.

"How very admirable. You see everything as black and white, and decide you already know the full story?" Arthur's retorted.

"I know enough." The fan lowered an inch.

"Why don't you ask the so-called victim what happened, rather than playing the righteous hero in front of your audience?" This made Arthur hesitate.

"So?" Celestia's voice dropped lower. The fan closed with a snap. She held it at her side, and for the first time since Arthur stepped in front of her, she looked at him without any barrier between them. Her crimson eyes looked cold. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Synchronization: 20%"Why don't you ask that filthy commoner behind you whether I forced her to do anything?" The words came out with a venom that surprised even her.

Behind Arthur, the girl with the spectacles clutched her books with both hands. She hadn't said a word since Arthur arrived. Arthur's hands curled into fists at his sides. However, he didn't look away from Celestia, but the certainty in his expression had dimmed. He turned his head halfway toward the girl behind him. His voice was a bit quieter.

"Did she do anything to you?"

"I… I just bumped into her…" The girl's voice was barely above a whisper. She was still clutching her books to her chest, and didn't look at anyone when she said it. Arthur felt like the world stopped.

"Nothing else?" he asked. The girl shook her head.

"S-she was picking up my book for me… and then everyone started watching, and I-I panicked because I knew who she was, and I just…" She trailed off, pressing her face into the spine of one of her textbooks. Arthur's mouth opened, but he felt at a loss with what to say. He turned back toward Celestia and saw that she had already closed the distance between them. She was standing directly in front of him now, and before Arthur could react, she held out the book she'd been carrying since the whole thing started.

"Her book," Celestia said. Arthur looked down at it as his face had gone red. He took the book from her with both hands. Celestia reached into her sleeve, took out a silk napkin, and wiped her hand with it. Then she extended her hand and let the napkin fall to the floor.

"I… I'm sorry," Arthur said. He bowed his head. The words came out stiff.

"I jumped to conclusions. That was wrong of me." Celestia looked at him for a moment.

"Move aside," she said.

"I'm late for class." Arthur nearly stumbled as he stepped out of her path. Celestia walked forward without breaking stride. The crowd parted ahead of her, students pressing themselves against the walls as she passed. Her heels clicked against the stone floor until she turned the corner and was gone. However, the moment Celestia disappeared from sight, the corridor erupted with gossip.

"Did you see that? She wiped her hand after touching the book. As if she might get sick from touching something that belongs to us!"

"Filthy commoner, huh? We all heard it."

"That's the Reingarde daughter for you. We're nothing to her."

"I heard she keeps slaves in a building near the market district. You think she treats them any different?"

"She didn't even accept his apology properly!"

"Probably enjoyed every second of the attention she got from this." The whispers came from every direction. Students who had watched the entire exchange were already rewriting it, stripping away the parts where Celestia had been wronged and keeping only bad parts: the napkin, the phrase "filthy commoner," and the look in her eyes. Liana had now stood beside Arthur, who was still holding the girl's book with both hands. His face hadn't returned to its normal color.

She wanted to hit him on the head like she always did when he got ahead of himself. This was the same Arthur who had once picked a fight with a traveling merchant because he'd assumed the man was cheating a customer, only to find out the customer had been trying to scam the merchant. Liana had spent an hour apologizing on his behalf while Arthur stood behind her, red-faced and miserable. Even after all this time, he hadn't learned.

"You need to apologize to her again," Liana said quietly. Arthur winced.

"I know." He handed the book back to the spectacled girl, who accepted it with a small bow and hurried away into the dispersing crowd.

"I just… it doesn't help that she looks down on us." Liana didn't respond to that. She watched the last of the crowd filter back into the normal flow of students heading to class, and she listened to the conversations that trailed behind them. The whispers were already changing into a new truth. By lunch, this would be another story about Celestia von Reingarde terrorizing commoners.

'I want to talk to her,' Liana thought, though she didn't really know why. Perhaps it was because their first meeting was that memorable.

'I need to understand what kind of person she actually is…' * Celestia sat in her History elective and couldn't hear what her professor was lecturing about. His voice droned at the edge of her awareness while her pen tapped rhythmically against her notebook. Synchronization: 20% She'd been irritated, yes. Disgusted, certainly. But she hadn't said anything that the original Celestia specifically would have said, aside from the "filthy commoner" at the end, and even that had surprised her.

When she uttered those words, she had a vague feeling that her Synchronization and Story Relevance had skyrocketed, and sure enough, when she pulled up her status window, there it was. One was something she was happy about, while the other… She also had a feeling, an instinct she couldn't quite explain, that her synchronization wouldn't drop below this number now. There was a huge problem, though.

She hadn't acted like the original Celestia; she hadn't hurled insults at Arthur unprovoked, nor slapped anyone or made demands. In fact, she'd asked questions, pointed out his assumptions, and told him to verify before accusing. If anything, her behavior had been extremely restrained compared to what the original story had written out. And yet… her synchronization had jumped to twenty percent in the span of a few minutes.

'Why?' Celestia tapped her pen again. There was only one variable that had been consistent throughout the entire exchange. From the moment Arthur stepped in front of her to the moment she walked away, she had felt genuine, personal hostility toward him. Looking at him dredged up something ugly inside her that had nothing to do with the original Celestia's personality and everything to do with her own. A movement caught her eye.

A commoner student beside her had glanced in her direction, just a brief, nervous look, and Celestia's head snapped towards him. Her crimson eyes narrowed into a glare so sharp that the student physically recoiled, nearly sweating out of fear. As for Celestia… the response had been automatic. The glare had come to her body as naturally as breathing. And what was worse was that it had felt comfortable. Celestia stared at her notebook, confused yet again at the many uncertainties she was facing.

'Fuck.'