Chapter 632: The Blindness Before the Fall

Ezra tilted his head slightly to the right.

He rested the side of his head against his right hand, his forearm lying on the armrest of the chair.

The light from his Starlix 11 fell across his face, while the holographic screens in front of him displayed Gena and Blake.

"So, basically..."

Ezra’s expression remained plain.

"What you found funny was the fact that, at the end of the semester, she suddenly began building herself back on her feet."

He spoke without much interest in his voice.

He definitely didn’t care about what was happening in Pamela’s life.

Whether she was doing well or badly had little to do with him. However, from the way Gena had explained why she felt pity towards Pamela, Ezra already had an idea of what she was trying to say.

There was one particular phrase that had caught his attention.

’Found strangely interesting.’

Those were the words he had picked out from her earlier statement.

’I know you don’t care, but I found something strangely interesting when I saw it.’

Ezra had paid attention to that part.

If Gena had only wanted to talk about Pamela’s poor performance at Ash Academy, there would have been little reason for her to describe what she saw as strangely interesting.

The girl had been struggling since their life at the academy began.

That alone was hardly new information.

But Gena had mentioned something else.

She had spoken about pity, and about how Pamela’s situation reminded her of something she had experienced herself.

Ezra put those details together.

His guess was that Pamela had begun picking herself up again.

She was no longer simply allowing herself to be dragged down by what had happened to her.

That meant...

Something had changed during the semester exams, and Gena had noticed it.

Still, his guess did not explain everything.

There was a missing piece, and Gena was the one who could provide it.

"How did you know?"

Gena’s voice carried a faint note of shock.

Her white eyes widened slightly as she stared at Ezra through the holographic screen.

She had not expected him to reach that conclusion from the few things she had said.

"As expected of Sir Ezra."

Blake looked at Ezra with admiration.

He seemed impressed by how quickly Ezra had understood what Gena was getting at.

Even though they were discussing something that had happened to another student, Ezra had managed to find the point Gena had been leading towards.

"Just continue, please."

Ezra’s dry reply brought the conversation back to its original direction.

"Oh, okay."

Gena straightened herself.

The surprise on her face gradually faded, and her expression became serious again.

"Like you said, Lady Pamela, during our first-semester exams, especially in the combat aspect of the exam, reignited back to how she used to be during the Trial of Steel."

She resumed her explanation.

"Before that, especially during Akai matches, she was an easy target."

Gena shifted slightly as she spoke, moving one hand while she explained how the system worked at Ash Academy.

"Our Academy made use of Akai as a challenging system that students from all Years are allowed to use. If you have a beef with another student and want to express your anger, you can challenge them to an Akai."

She had deviated from the main topic for a moment, but the explanation was necessary for the others to understand what she meant.

"That seems fun."

Lucy spoke calmly.

She remained behind Ezra, her hands still together in front of her.

Her gaze rested on Gena’s holographic image, and her expression showed that she was following the conversation.

"Yeah, it is."

Gena nodded.

Then she returned to the matter at hand.

"Well, back to the topic. Lady Pamela was an easy target for almost everyone, since she refused to fight back no matter what."

Her voice settled into a more serious tone.

"Nathalia had to intervene a lot of times just to help keep Lady Pamela safe from the number of people who hated her because of the Trial of Steel."

Gena paused briefly.

The situation had not been difficult to understand.

Pamela had become someone many students disliked, and her refusal to fight back had only made it easier for them to target her.

When someone did not defend themselves, there were always people willing to take advantage of it.

Nathalia had been forced to intervene more than once to keep Pamela safe.

"But during the semester exams, Lady Pamela changed completely. Even though I said she seemed to be back to her former self, she still felt a bit different."

Gena spoke more softly this time.

"She wasn’t back to her authoritative attitude or anything like that. And she seemed to have gotten close to a boy at that."

Her lips curved slightly.

"Haha... haha..."

She laughed lightly as she remembered what she had seen.

It was not the kind of laughter that came from finding something truly funny.

There was something else behind it, something that made the smile on her face linger for only a short while.

"She looked like a girl who had finally come to terms with her weakness and begun working on rebuilding herself. And she also looked like a girl in love."

Gena turned her gaze towards Ezra.

Her expression became complicated again.

The change in Pamela had caught her attention because it was not simply a return to the girl she had been before.

Pamela had not suddenly recovered her old attitude and started behaving as though nothing had happened.

There was a difference in the way she carried herself.

She seemed to have accepted that she had weaknesses.

Rather than continue pretending otherwise, she had begun trying to rebuild herself.

At the same time, she appeared to have grown close to someone.

Those were the things Gena had noticed during the semester exams.

And for some reason, she had continued thinking about them even after the exams were over.

"The reason why this stuck in my mind till now..."

Gena’s voice slowed.

"Was that, why do we always have to wait until we lose something or suffer badly enough before we realize any of our weaknesses?"

She asked the question while looking at Ezra.

"Must it always be like this?"

Her hands tightened slightly.

The question remained between them for a moment.

Gena did not immediately continue.

Instead, she raised her head and looked towards the ceiling of her room.

The holographic screens continued displaying Ezra and Blake.

On Ezra’s screen, Lucy could still be seen standing behind him, watching the conversation unfold.

Blake remained on the other screen, his attention fixed on Gena.

Gena eventually lowered her gaze from the ceiling and looked at the two screens again.

"You know..."

She hesitated.

"I started remembering my past with Mina, those times we played together and laughed together."

Her words came more slowly now.

The memories had returned while she was thinking about Pamela.

Seeing another girl struggle, then begin to rebuild herself, had reminded Gena of someone whose suffering she had failed to notice until it was too late.

Gena paused.

"I saw the signs."

She spoke softly.

"I really did see them."

Her gaze fell.

The expression on her face grew more complicated as she continued to remember the things she had once overlooked.

"Mina wasn’t a fan of wearing long trousers, or even leggings. She always said it made her legs feel hot, even though our usual weather was always cold."

Gena gave another laugh.

"Haha... haha..."

But this time, the sound was bitter.

It was a small detail, the sort of thing that might not have seemed important at the time.

Mina Orvain disliked wearing long trousers and leggings because she found them uncomfortable in the cold weather they usually experienced.

Gena had known that about her friend.

"The next thing, she suddenly started wearing them. I thought it was cute, and even began copying her, asking for fashion advice on what kind of trousers or leggings would fit me. So, we could dress the same way, like Twin sisters."

Gena’s voice softened as she recalled it.

Back then, she had thought it was something nice.

Mina had changed the way she dressed, and Gena had decided to follow her example.

She had even asked Mina for advice so they could wear similar clothes.

She had wanted them to look alike.

Like sisters.

The memory was simple, but it was one she could still recall clearly.

She remembered the change in Mina’s clothing, the way she had copied her, and how little she had thought about the reason behind it.

At the time, she had not considered that the change might have meant anything.

Now, she could not look back at it in the same way.

"I should have known when she stopped allowing me to bathe with her."

Gena’s fingers tightened against each other.

"I should have noticed all those signs. And there were more, but... but I just never did notice."

She stopped for a moment, struggling to continue.

"I only finally realized that my best friend was suffering when it was too late."

The last words came out more quietly than the rest.

Gena stopped talking.

There was no further explanation from her.

She had already said what she wanted to say, yet the memories remained with her.

Her gaze stayed lowered, and her hands tightened further.

Even though she had gotten the revenge Mina deserved, she still could not shake off the guilt within her.

The guilt remained.

If she had been a good friend, she would have noticed her friend’s suffering.

She would have paid attention to the changes instead of treating them as ordinary things that did not need a second look.

But she had not noticed.

She had continued spending time with Mina, playing with her and laughing with her, without understanding what her friend had been going through.

Only after it was too late had she finally understood that the girl beside her had been suffering.

Now, remembering those past moments only made that failure harder to ignore.

Gena’s hands tightened again.

Lucy looked at her with a sad expression.

From what Gena had said, Lucy could feel the same pressure weighing on her.

The words had brought her own regrets back to the surface, reminding her of the things she had failed to do when she still had the chance.

She had not been strong enough at the right time.

When she fell into the river, Lucy had not been able to pull her along with her, so they could escape together.

She had been too weak to do what was needed, and Gwen had ended up protecting her instead.

That was not the only time.

Gwen had also been forced to protect Lucy from a bullet because Lucy was too weak to run properly.

The memory of that incident remained another reminder of how much she had depended on Gwen.

Gwen had been the one to protect her, even when Lucy was unable to keep up.

And the Gwen Lucy knew had once been a very different girl from the person she had become.

Gwen had been strong.

But she hated blood the most.

That was the Gwen Lucy knew, a girl who never wanted to see anybody dead.

Her strength had never meant that she wanted to hurt people.

No matter how capable she was, she hated the sight of blood.

That was what made the change so difficult to accept.

But now...

Gwen had become someone ready to stay low and manipulate an entire household into ruins.

She was also working with an organization that seemed to be planning something very bad against the Kingdom.

The difference between the Gwen Lucy remembered and the person she had become was difficult to ignore.

Lucy could not help thinking about it.

Since the incident in Velcryon, she had often wondered about the choices she had made and the things she had failed to do.

If she had worked harder to grow stronger during her time in the House of Melody, would things have been different?

If she had not accepted the life that had become her daily routine in the House of Melody, would Gwen’s life have taken another path?

If only she had become the Alchemist, she was now...

Would the life Gwen lived now be different?

That was the question Lucy kept asking herself.

She could not know what the answer would have been.

The past could not be changed, and the things she had failed to do could not simply be undone. Still, the question remained, returning whenever she remembered what had happened in Velcryon and how far Gwen had changed from the girl she once knew.

It was a question she had continued to carry with her.

Blake was no different.

He also had regrets hidden away in his heart.

If he had been a better Master, perhaps things would have been different.

Maybe he should have been more charming, or possessed the qualities that hid within his idol.

Perhaps he should have been more like Ezra Ashenlocke.

Or maybe, if he had been an Alchemist, things might have been different.