Chapter 6: Crackdown

“What?” she yelped, turning to the glass to find that Bernard had dug his fingers into it. Little by little, cracks began to spread out across the cage.

“Y-you! Stop that!” she implored, pouring power into the Artifact to stop the glass from breaking.

He screamed as the barrier repelled his limbs. There came the sickening crunch of bones.

Oh no—

She rushed to let some of the force drain out. But this time, instead of resorting to his unusable hands, he head-butted the glass.

“Hey!”

Infused with the Obstruction’s might, his blows were enough to shatter the weakened glass into smithereens.

As he fell forward, he bared his teeth and attempted to spring at Cecilia first, the person closest to him. He was primed to tear her throat out. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, frozen stiff.

“Cecil!” Gilbert cried, shoving her away. After landing on her behind, she looked up to see Bernard sinking his teeth into Oscar’s arm.

“Oscar!”

“Oscar?!”

“Your Highness!”

Cecilia was the only one who couldn’t make a sound.

Face twisted in pain, Oscar stabbed his sacred sword into Bernard’s torso. Then the black mist swiftly dissipated from his body.

“Ah…”

Now that the Obstruction was gone, Bernard fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, then promptly passed out.

“That was one hell of a bite,” the crown prince muttered, falling to his knees.

“Oscar?!” Cecilia cried as she ran over to him.

Although Bernard had chomped over his shirt, blood still welled up from the spot.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. No broken bones or anything.”

“I’m really sorry.” Cecilia sighed as she cleaned Oscar’s wound. About half an hour had passed since he’d been injured protecting her.

Jade and Gilbert had already hauled Bernard off somewhere, leaving Cecilia and Dante to bring Oscar to the nurse’s office for treatment. But there wasn’t much they could do for a bleeding surface wound besides sterilizing it and wrapping it in gauze to keep germs from getting in. Besides, this was just a stopgap measure until Mordred came to. Once he did, he would heal a minor injury like this in a flash.

Dante disappeared a little later on. He gave an excuse about Emily’s situation reminding him of something before he left, but Cecilia thought he was just skiving off. He’d acted so worried when Oscar had gotten injured, but once he realized it was just a flesh wound, he wandered away.

Mordred, who Huey had knocked out cold, was snoozing on the bed behind them. But there was no sign of Lean and Huey, who’d brought him there.

Now it was just Cecilia, Oscar, and an unconscious Mordred in the nurse’s office.

“I’m really sorry. I’m never any good at dodging in time…”

“I told you, I’m fine. And don’t apologize over and over. As long as you’re not hurt, I’m good.”

“Okay. Thanks, Oscar,” she said, continuing to treat him despite her low spirits. It was Hans who’d drilled this first aid knowledge into her.

“Actually, I had something I wanted to ask you,” noted Oscar.

“What is it?” she replied, keeping her eyes on his arm as she wrapped bandages around it.

“Were you just following Mordred around so you could investigate this whole thing?”

“Huh?”

Caught off guard by the question, she gazed up at him. His cheeks were faintly red as he stared at her with a strange intensity.

“Yeah, I was actually,” she answered, a little puzzled.

Once she did, Oscar let out a long, relieved sigh, as though he were exhaling everything in his lungs. Then he let his head fall forward.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, I’m just glad,” he replied.

“About what?” she asked, scrutinizing him.

“Never mind,” he responded, jerking his face to the side. Had she given the wrong answer?

Well, he’s not mad, so it’s probably fine.

Choosing not to dwell too deeply on it, Cecilia went on dressing the wound. Then something occurred to her. “Hey, isn’t this kind of the opposite of how it was before?”

“Opposite of what?”

“You know, during the school trip! You helped treat that cut on my face, remember?” she recalled, pointing to her right cheek where a chip from the wooden cutting board had grazed her skin. At the time, they hadn’t been close enough to be chatting warmly like they were now, but that incident had truly brought them a little closer together.

He huffed out a chuckle. “That’s right. That did happen, huh?”

“You were so scary back then.”

“Was I?”

“Yeah, you were! Your eyes were so intense! And you wouldn’t stop demanding to see Cecilia and hounding me about whether I’d made plans for that yet. To be honest, it was a little annoying!”

“O-oh,” he responded. When she said annoying, his face fell like someone had punched him in the pit of his stomach.

“It’s a fun memory now, though! Come to think of it, you haven’t said anything like that lately.”

“Like what?”

“Asking to meet Cecilia and all that.”

Even though it wasn’t as bad as in the beginning, at least once a week, Oscar had still been asking Cecil about getting to see Cecilia. That had been before the cottage incident. But ever since then, he hadn’t said one word about her. While that made it a lot easier for her, she still felt a little anxious about his change in behavior.

“Oh, unless you’re good now that you got to reunite with her at the Sylvies’?”

“Not exactly…I just don’t need to go out of my way to see her anymore,” he replied, sounding as though he was having a hard time explaining it for some reason.

Her confusion only deepened. “You don’t need to go out of your way to see her? Does that mean you’re planning to dissolve the engagement without any hard feelings?”

“What? Dissolve the engagement?! Why would you say that?” he cried, his eyes growing as wide as saucers.

“I—I mean, didn’t you want to establish some sort of relationship with her so you could cancel the engagement on a good note?”

“What?!” he snapped.

Cecilia shrank in on herself. “Ummm, I mean, don’t you have a crush on Lean? And so that’s why…you know…you wanted to wrap everything up nicely before…”

“Excuse me?” Oscar asked. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He was gawking at her as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Why would you think this has anything to do with liking her?”

“Uhhh…intuition? I just kinda got that sense looking at you… You know?” she replied. She obviously couldn’t bring up her past life or the game.

His eyes widened even further, if that were possible, and he repeated, “Intuition?” in a trembling voice.

Oscar’s reaction being not quite what she’d excepted, Cecilia cocked her head in confusion. “So wait, have you given up on Lean?”

“Why are you talking like I used to like her at all?” he muttered, clutching at his head like he had a headache.

“Did you not?”

He didn’t respond; he merely massaged the furrow in his brow. Then, after a long silence, he looked up with a face haggard with exhaustion. “I do not like Lean…”

“What? Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not? Why is that your reaction?” he inquired in a low, resonant voice, his face darkening. His unhappy expression completely threw her.

Does that mean that in this world, the criteria for Oscar falling in love with Lean is different?!

That meant she was in trouble.

If he liked someone else who wasn’t Lean, and Cecilia unwittingly offended that girl somehow, it would lead straight to a bad ending for both Cecil and Cecilia.

Now Oscar himself was the biggest indicator that Cecilia was hurtling toward doom.

I have to get him to tell me who he likes no matter what it takes!

“So who do you like, then?”

In a situation like this, Cecilia wouldn’t beat around the bush but would instead come right out and ask directly. This quality was both a strength and a weakness.

“Who…?”

“I wanna be friends with her! I’ll support you two all the way! Who is it?”

“……”

Oscar didn’t look good. In fact, he even seemed a little pissed off.

“Oh, I know! You said you didn’t have to go out of your way to see Cecilia anymore, right? So does that mean she’s someone equal in status to a daughter of Duke Sylvie? That would definitely make it hard for House Sylvie to publicly object!”

“……”

“Is it Sonya Wills? I’ve heard she’s really pretty—”

“No!” he shouted, getting to his feet like he couldn’t take this any longer. His chair clattered to the floor behind him with the momentum. The gauze on his wound was about to come off.

“Oh no, your bandage!”

“I don’t like her!”

“You don’t? Then…”

“You’re the one I like! Isn’t it obvious?!”

A long pause. “Huh?”

Time stopped. Their conversation played on a loop inside her mind. After spending about three full minutes mulling over what it could mean, she finally reached a conclusion.

“Awww, c’mon, stop kidding aro—”

“It’s not a joke!”

Three minutes of careful deliberation were squashed in a millisecond.

Flustered, Cecilia looked up at Oscar only to see that his face was redder than it had ever been. In that moment, she knew.

Oh. He’s serious?

Finally, the meaning of his words sank in, and she blushed.

“Ummm, wait, so the one you like is…me?” she asked, wanting to confirm.

“Yes,” was all he replied in a quiet voice.

Another silence fell.

What do I…even say…?

She had not anticipated this turn of events.

While Cecilia sat there frozen, Oscar suddenly ran his fingers through his hair. “Augh! I’m leaving!”