Twin-Faced Tower Izermar · Fence-Sitting Faction

"No wonder it's a gathering of the Democratic Faction. There were practically no people from Bartholomew's side, and no one from any other faction either. Even being surrounded on all sides had its limits..."

A few minutes earlier, in the Moon Tower's ballroom, someone had voiced a sentiment similar to Olga Marie's.

"Mm..."

El-Melloi II listened to Rinnes and let out a faint sigh. He said nothing, merely reaching for the cigar on his person out of habit—only to remember that this was a party and give up helplessly.

Even as a professor at Big Ben☆ and Heaven's Feel, ranked near the top of the popularity charts and possessed of exceptional teaching ability, he naturally had things he was not good at.

For example, his inherently inferior Mage Circuits—and the party before him.

—The former was an innate lack of talent, while the latter was an embodiment of Clock Tower politics. Though they represented different fields, they were equally troublesome.

Mages were all solitary sorts. The secretive nature of magecraft meant that mages were fated to be unlike ordinary people. Yet no matter how much they touted their own uniqueness, they were still human and shared the same need for social interaction.

But upon closer consideration, mages' needs differed greatly from those of ordinary people. Take the nature of a mage social gathering, for instance: its foremost purpose was to ascertain the balance of factions.

Although this was Rinnes's first time attending a gathering in this region and she knew almost no one, she had been forced to grow accustomed to social parties from childhood. She was confident that she could identify a person's faction from the slightest details of their attire or mannerisms.

"Animusphere... Why are they here too?"

Of course, calling that boy "beautiful" might have been too