Episode 1
***
“So, you’re saying that my name is Lasha?”
At my words, the doctor slowly swallowed and then nodded. His face was filled with nervousness.
He asked carefully.
“You truly don’t remember anything?”
“Not at all.”
“Not even who you are, how old you are, or where you work?”
“There’s nothing I can remember.”
As I answered, I carefully looked around.
The walls were covered with teal wallpaper, the sunlight streamed in well, and the room smelled of wildflowers.
Through the translucent curtains, the morning sunlight poured in. Dust drifting in the sunlight looked almost unreal.
When I touched my head, I felt the bandage wrapped around my forehead.
‘…Did I injure my head?’
As I sat there blankly, the doctor cleared his throat.
“Miss Lasha Clément, you are the assistant at the most prestigious of the prestigious, the Declas Academy.”
“Assistant…”
“Assistant means the professor’s direct disciple. You are the one and only disciple of the Archmage, professor, and quarter-dragon, Lord Clint.”
The doctor glanced at me, hopeful that my memory might return.
He introduced himself as the doctor in charge of the Academy faculty.
He said this was the room I had always used, but aside from the impression that there were far too many books, I felt nothing.
One wall was filled floor to ceiling with tightly packed bookshelves, and the broad paulownia desk looked worn beyond its years from frequent use.
Even stacks of papers covered the desk, some of them stained with blood.
What… is that? Nosebleeds, maybe?
“I’m really an assistant at the Academy…”
An Archmage’s disciple who studied so hard I bled on the desk?
Muttering blankly, I soon lowered my head and thought seriously.
‘This… this is a scam, isn’t it?’
They suddenly call me some genius assistant of the Academy, but who would believe that?
Yet I truly couldn’t remember a single thing. It felt like someone had cleanly carved away a part of my brain.
“It seems you still have some headaches left. Miss Clément, you were in a carriage accident…”
“A carriage accident?”
At that moment, noise rose in the hallway outside.
Thump, thump. Footsteps rushing closer and a voice trying to hold someone back reached my ears.
“You cannot go in, Lord Clint. Miss Lasha still needs rest…”
“Who dares block my way. Move.”
Crash!
With a thunderous sound, the door split into two pieces and flung open violently.
Standing there was a young man with both hands shoved in his pockets.
It wasn’t the wind, nor had he punched the door. Then this must be…
I instinctively realized it was ‘magic.’
The sound of shoes approached, and the man’s face became clear.
Hair half-slicked with wax hung loosely across his pale forehead.
Black hair tinged with blue, blue eyes, pale skin, and horn-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.
And a face twisted with sheer annoyance.
The man entered the room, and I instinctively clutched the blanket.
Looking down, I saw my fists trembling.
‘W-why am I shaking like this?’
Even though my memories were gone, fear of this man was etched into my very body!
As he came closer to the bed, I shivered but still met his gaze.
Looking into those icy blue eyes in silence, emotions I couldn’t name welled up inside.
This man and I… what kind of relationship do we have?
“So. My blockheaded disciple has lost her memory, has she?”
“Block…”
Calling a patient wrapped in bandages blockhead right off the bat.
“I don’t think I’m a blockhead, though?”
The man’s face darkened. Then he twisted his lips into a villainous grin.
Why… why smile like that…
“Lasha Clément. How dare you lose your memory without my permission.”
“Excuse me?”
His voice boiled like it might erupt, and at last he seized my small head as though to crush it.
“Eeek!”
“La. Sha. Clé. Ment.”
Creeeak. He pulled my face straight toward his.
I once again faced that chilling expression.
“You’ve gone full circle.”
Full circle, 360 degrees, meant back to the starting point.
“In other words, even if a blockhead loses her memory, she’s still a blockhead.”
He snorted as he spoke.
He perched by my bedside, legs crossed, chin tilted arrogantly.
Contrary to the threatening atmosphere from moments ago, he now wore a stubborn expression as he sat at the edge of my bed.
As he said nothing, the doctor wiped cold sweat and introduced him.
“Miss Lasha, this is your master, the one and only Archmage in existence, and heir to dragon blood, the quarter-dragon—Lord Clint Redroshi.”
“D-dragon…”
“Look at me like I’m some oversized reptile one more time, Lasha Clément. If you’d like to lose your eyesight along with your memory, that is.”
The man said.
“Do you, perhaps, ha—”
“No tail, and I can’t manifest wings either. The moment you learned I was a dragon, you asked if I was polymorphed. Do you know how rude that question is to a half-blood? I’m three-quarters human. But since I carry a dragon’s heart, my mana is far greater than that of you humans.”
The man—no, the professor—snapped his fingers right in front of me.
I blinked at him.
A faint headache made me wrinkle my nose bridge.
“This is so strange. I can’t even remember myself, but you, Lord Clint… you feel strangely familiar.”
“Of course. As my assistant, you probably saw my face in the lab more than your own in the mirror. You even cursed me through a voodoo doll sketch you made. Once, you were caught cursing me right to my face.”
“Th-that’s…”
It’s a miracle I’m alive.
“But I forgave you. If others are vermin, you at least are a blockhead. A head exists, at least.”
The professor tapped his temple and grinned, showing his teeth.
At that eerie smile, I shivered as though with a fever. Facing him felt like being a rabbit cornered before a predator.
“That’s the way between professor and assistant. And call me Master, Lasha. You always did.”
“Y-yes, M-master…”
I lowered my eyes to the professor’s vest badge, gleaming with brilliance.
Even to someone ignorant of jewels and clothes, it looked extravagantly expensive. No ordinary status could purchase such a gem.
‘So he really is a great Academy professor…’
At least it wasn’t some scam trickery…?
The professor snapped his head toward the doctor and asked.
“How about reading and writing? Arithmetic and memory? Social function? Did she suddenly develop antisocial personality disorder and plan to stab me? She’s bound to have plenty of grudges against me. Tsk.”
“No issues in those areas, Mr. Redroshi. But Miss Clément cannot recall who she is or what relationships she had. Her brain has effectively been reset.”
“I see. In that case…”
The professor let out a long sigh.
“She can still work.”
What? I doubted my ears.
“Pardon, Master, did I mishear? Work?”
“Why so shocked? You’ve been unconscious for a week, so of course the lab is piled with tasks. And exams are just around the corner at the Academy. We’re impossibly busy. I can’t tolerate a manpower shortage!”
Hah. His shameless words made me snort.
This was absurd. Telling a patient fresh out of bed to work?
“…But I’m a patient.”
I pleaded desperately, but the professor just looked at me with an expression that said, “So what?”
“Even patients must earn money. You live alone without ties. Food and shelter cost money. Will you just lie here? Do you think money sprouts from the ground?”
“That’s…”
True, but still!
Even if his words were undeniably logical, how could he be so merciless as to order his sick disciple back to work immediately? My lips jutted out in protest.
“Cluck, cluck, your duck bill could reach the far wall.”
The professor made a motion like slicing my pout out of the air.
“Your one-week paid leave is over, Lasha. If you still want to lie in bed, I won’t stop you…”
“…”
“For the record, you have student loans.”
“Dear god!”
