There was only a single day left until White Valentine's Day.
During the daytime, Dark had already noticed that his classmates were growing slightly restless.
Especially those who had given out chocolates on Valentine's Day—they were all looking forward to a return gift.
Even if what they'd given was obligatory chocolate, being able to receive a return gift would still roughly indicate that the other party didn't dislike them.
And those who had nothing to do with it were quietly gossiping too.
The little Magic Guide Masters never tired of this sort of emotional topic.
But for those who had received chocolate on Valentine's Day, White Valentine's Day was actually a rather serious matter.
Especially when one held a certain degree of fondness for the gift-giver.
This was precisely Dark's current situation.
And his troubles were five times those of a normal person.
"Let's start with Professor Lily."
The reply to Professor Lily was the easiest to write.
After all, Professor Lily hadn't given any written message at all, and even the chocolate had been fake.
Dark felt that the fact he was giving her a return gift at all was already on account of their teacher-student relationship.
After a moment's thought, he wrote on a card: "Drink a little less."
...
But after finishing that line, Dark suddenly realized that, since what he was giving was liqueur chocolates yet what he'd written was this kind of high-minded remark, it was far too pretentious—well, it was already written, so let it be!
In any case, there was no way Professor Lily would quit drinking because of it.
So Dark breezily picked up the next card.
It was a pink card, scattered with drifting cherry blossoms.
Dark had actually been hesitating all along over whether to give Eudora a return gift, but the transmutation of "Honedge" truly had been thanks to the guidance of her prophecy.
"Speaking of prophecy..."
Dark mulled it over for a moment, then promptly wrote: "May your studies bear fruit, and your future hold promise."
Writing this kind of thing on a White Valentine's Day return gift was really quite tone-deaf!
...
After finishing Eudora's card, Dark picked out the one for Diana and casually drew a picture of a drooling (ˉ﹃ˉ) [Little Bear] eating chocolate, then wrote "Yummy" inside a speech bubble.
As he lifted his pen at the end, Dark looked at that vividly lifelike, gluttonous [Little Bear] and couldn't help chuckling softly.
Diana really was a little ray of sunshine.
...
After that, he picked out Rose's card and took up his pen.
But this time, he never once set the pen down to it.
Eventually, just as he had with Diana, he simply drew a little rabbit lying on a crescent moon on the card.
But after finishing this little rabbit, he always felt something was missing.
After thinking it over for a long while, he drew a [Little Bear] beside the little rabbit.
Later still, he simply added a cat on the other side.
With that, the whole composition finally drew toward completeness.
As if it had always been meant to be this way.
Rose always believed that it was the existence of Dark and Diana that had added color to her academy life, which should have been a dreary gray.
But for Dark, weren't Rose and Diana likewise adding color to his?
If not for the two of them actively drawing close to him, Dark—who had borne the pressure of "Major Sin" since the very start of the term and made distancing himself from socializing his guiding principle—might gradually have grown reclusive, walking toward an entirely different future.
A person's psychological changes are enormously influenced by their environment.
Every friend along the road of growth was infinitely precious.
Dark slipped the finished card into the chocolate gift box and brought the last card before him.
"Haah..."
Even though "Major Sin" had reached the point of being in short supply.
His situation at this moment hadn't really changed much.
To put it more poetically.
He still had half a foot planted in the abyss.
In the end, Dark casually wrote down a single line: "Get more rest."
...
Tuesday...
On the day with less than twenty-four hours left until White Valentine's Day, the atmosphere in the classroom was as if a mutiny had suddenly broken out.
The distance between the boys and the girls had, for some inexplicable reason, grown even greater.
Dark hadn't paid it much mind at first, until he was packing his book bag after class let out in the afternoon, when he suddenly remembered that he hadn't said even half a sentence to Diana the entire day.
This was honestly more shocking than the sky falling!
In that brief moment of stunned daze, Dark watched Diana and Rose slip arm-in-arm out of the classroom in a great hurry.
"Well now, that's quite the ear-covering-while-stealing-the-bell trick."
Dark smiled a little helplessly, then headed to the Library as usual.
Today there had been three classes: Dueling, Arithmetic Class, and History of Magic.
Dueling class never assigned much homework.
Arithmetic Class homework didn't even need to be done.
Instead, History of Magic—which seemed least likely to have homework—always assigned the kind of work that required a great deal of time spent looking up reference materials.
But the process of looking up materials was, in fact, also a process of learning.
Dark arrived at the Library, registered before Ms. Bella, and then went inside to do his research.
By the time he finished his homework and came out, it was already dinnertime.
The librarian behind the counter had been replaced by Senior Pandora.
Pandora was teasing that plump Chinchilla Grass, and when she saw Dark, she looked up and said, "Leaving so early today?"
Dark nodded. "I just finished up a busy stretch. I'm planning to go back and dig out some books I'd set aside for a while to keep reading."
Pandora teased, "How is it that every time I see you, you seem even busier than me?"
Dark shrugged. "I always rest where others can't see me."
Pandora gave the Chinchilla Grass's cheek a slight tug, stretching it out and then letting it go, and laughed, "Shouldn't it be that you work hard where others can't see you?"
Dark laughed. "What does it matter?"
Pandora: "True enough."
After Dark finished registering, he resisted the urge to pinch the Chinchilla Grass's soft, squishy cheek and waved his hand. "Well then, Senior, I'll head back first."
Pandora raised her hand and waved as well. "See you."
But Dark had only taken two steps when she called out loudly again, "Hey, don't forget my chocolate!"
...
After eating dinner in the Canteen, Dark returned to his dormitory.
Just as he'd said earlier, he intended to pick back up some things he'd set aside for now—especially his research into the "[Zoo]."
The amount of knowledge the "[Zoo]" involved was enormous, and in the process of researching the "[Zoo]," the gains he was making were gradually surpassing the "[Zoo]" itself.
Perhaps because he hadn't touched it for a fairly long time, when he looked at the same content again he unexpectedly felt a rawness that shouldn't have been there anymore.
And then some questions that had never arisen before sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain.
This phenomenon, far from scaring him off, instead filled him with pleasant surprise.
His concentration grew even sharper, and he began tackling the difficult problems one by one.
Gradually, he became engrossed.
...
It wasn't until the bell of midnight softly chimed that Dark abruptly came back to himself.
He looked at his somewhat increased "[Greed]" and felt a faint joy at the thirst for knowledge he had cultivated over this past half year.
In this process of reviewing the old to learn the new, he discovered that his understanding of the "[Zoo]" transmutation method had taken another great stride forward.
"Perhaps before this semester ends, I'll be able to learn the transmutation of the '[Zoo]' by my own strength!"
The bountiful fruit one can only pluck after putting in effort is always sweeter than what is simply handed over.
After a few moments of musing, Dark looked up at the wall clock and realized that the time had already crossed from the 13th into the 14th.
So, according to plan, he picked up three of the five portions of liqueur chocolates from the desk, intending to place them in front of the three girls' doors under cover of deep night.
This was both an imitation of Diana and Eudora and a way to avoid the awkwardness of giving return chocolates in the classroom.
After all, his return gift was just that—a "return gift"—without much other meaning.
But as he picked up the chocolates and had just pulled the door open a crack, he suddenly noticed that there were actually voices out in the corridor in the dead of night?
"You've got to be kidding?"
Quietly poking his head out for a glance, Dark discovered that there were actually quite a lot of people who had the same idea as him...
"Forget it, I'll wait until daytime."
"Am I the kind of person who sneaks around?"
"Of course not!"
Dark straightened his collar, preparing to change into his pajamas, and along the way shot a glare at the Magic Guide Spirits who were peeking.
Only once the Magic Guide Spirits had shrunk back into their covers did he wash up, get into bed, and lie down still dressed.
Three in the morning.
Dark quietly opened his eyes, carefully drew his arm out from under the Sylveon's little belly, and slipped out of the covers bit by bit.
Of course, it wasn't to take those three portions of liqueur chocolates to the three girls' doors again.
Rather, it was to secretly place the ten portions of milk chocolates that belonged to the Magic Guide Spirits at their bedsides.
White Valentine's Day chocolate return gifts were supposed to be a surprise.
But he had made the chocolates together with the Magic Guide Spirits, which was tantamount to having robbed them of that surprise.
Secretly placing the chocolates at their bedsides at three in the morning was only to make up for it a little.
He simply hoped that when they woke, they might feel a little more joy because of it.
After finishing this whole series of tasks, Dark groped his way back into the covers.
The bed he'd left for a brief while still hadn't lost its warmth.
Dark burrowed deeper in, unable to help sighing, "This White Valentine's Day—how is it that I'm spending it just like Christmas..."
...
The morning of March 14th held nothing too extraordinary.
The sun rose as always, and the spring breeze was still icy.
As one crawled out of the covers, the cold wind that seized the chance to sweep in made one cling all the more fondly to the bedding.
After waking, Dark blinked, and suddenly noticed that the Sylveon and Gatomon at his side were already gone.
Puzzled, he sat up and turned his head toward the row of little beds against the wall.
On the bed spots belonging to the Sylveon and Gatomon, the bedding was bulging plump; at some point the two Magic Guide Spirits had burrowed back in.
When Dark made noise getting out of bed, the Magic Guide Spirits one after another opened their eyes too.
Those pairs of hazy, drowsy eyes, those whimpering little cries as though just roused from sleep, that perfectly synchronized lifting of the covers.
And then, within the span of just a few seconds, the Magic Guide Spirits, one by one, let out delighted cries at the sight of the chocolate beside their beds!
In an instant, meowing sounds, mooing sounds, buzzing sounds, slurping sounds...
The entire bedroom was filled with that chaotically unified clamor.
...
Watching this scene of clumsy acting, Dark wore a blank expression.
Then he got out of bed, washed up, changed clothes, packed his books, clipped on his card pouch, took the chocolate, and pushed the door open to leave.
It was a rare occasion that he didn't eat breakfast in the dormitory.
The Meowth and Leomon he'd left behind crouched within their Magic Guide Cards, gazing up at the sky.
"Click."
The instant the door lock sounded, the dormitory fell silent in a flash.
So silent that even a needle dropping to the floor could be heard clear as day.
The Magic Guide Spirits looked at one another, confusion and worry showing in every pair of eyes.
After a long while, DemiDevimon finally muttered, "Did we mess this up?"
...
Outside the door...
After leaving, Dark hadn't actually gone far; he just stopped at the doorway and rubbed the corner of his eye.
The pad of his finger was a little damp.
He must not have wiped it dry when he went out.
The corners of his eyes were a bit red.
It must have been from getting up at three in the morning.
"Yo-mi——"
Dark smacked the little Drifloon, which had poked half its head out from inside the door, back in with one hand, and strode off toward the staircase.
It was rare for him to go to the Canteen in the morning—if he didn't add a little "Gluttony," how could he do himself justice?
...
The Halfling Cooks, catching sight of his appearance, were all taken by surprise.
He greeted the cooks, came up to the serving window, and ordered a steak, a fried egg, two slices of bread, a cup of milk, and two sausages.
The slightly chubby-faced halfling auntie made a gesture as she handed him the tray piled with food: "One moment."
Puzzled, Dark set the foot he'd already lifted back down.
In a short while, that halfling auntie brought out a copy of the Great Sage Daily, rolled it up, and placed it at the side of his tray.
Dark was stunned for a moment, then hurriedly said, "Thank you, auntie!"
"What's there to thank me for?" The halfling auntie revealed a kindly smile. "Happy Valentine's Day."
...
Dark found a seat in a corner of the Canteen, spread the Great Sage Daily open on one side of the table, and, as was his habit, read while he ate.
This wasn't really proper etiquette.
But what did that matter?
One day, when enough people did this, it would become etiquette.
The headline section of this issue of the Great Sage Daily was, as expected, taken up by White Valentine's Day.
It seemed a wave of divination fervor had sprung up within the kingdom because of it.
In order to learn in advance whether their confessions would be accepted, men and women sought out diviners everywhere to have their fortunes told before this day arrived.
The opportunistic merchants who chased after the stench of money draped themselves in black cloaks, cupped crystal balls in their hands, and transformed into diviners one after another, charging enormous divination fees and telling the kind of fortunes that would make their clients happy.
This sort of fervor came around once every year.
And every year, the moment White Valentine's Day itself arrived, all the diviners who had suddenly cropped up would vanish without a trace.
Yet people still did the same thing year after year.
This issue of the Great Sage Daily contained no profound events—mostly some headless gossip.
Occasionally interspersed with some amusing anecdotes about noble luminaries, good for a laugh.
But when Dark had eaten halfway through his steak, he suddenly spotted, in an inconspicuous corner of the newspaper, a piece of news that was obviously fake at a glance.
"It is rumored that First Prince Charles may, in the name of an elder brother, be actively arranging a mat—matchmaking affair for Eldest Princess Eliza? Pfft!"
Dark nearly spat out the milk he'd just taken into his mouth.
"Just how much free time does Charles have... but come to think of it, this is actually a clever move to break the deadlock!"
"You think so too?"
A wave of rich fragrance suddenly assailed him.
Dark turned his head slightly and saw Professor Medea Bartholomew, forever in the same outfit, sit down with her tray in the empty seat beside him.
Dark had no choice but to gather up his newspaper to make room for her.
"Good morning, Professor."
"Good morning."
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