Chapter 4
Chapter 4
I ended up in Class F.
I would like to dedicate all this glorious achievement to the imperial princess Robelia who kept bothering me, Ariel, and that son of a bitch Dietrich who stabbed me with a sword.
Fortunately, even though I became Class F, it is not the worst outcome yet.
When people make plans, they do not rely on only one possibility. And I am someone who knows how to do the obvious as well.
From the beginning, the assumption that I would pass the survival exam was never a plan with a one hundred percent probability.
I could have been eliminated simply by getting hit by a stray arrow. I made plans while taking even that kind of situation into account.
Though I never imagined my written score would be insufficient…
Anyway, now it is time for Plan B.
“Ahem! Khm, hup! Huhu… huuk. Sob! Sob sob!”
First, I clear my throat.
From now on, I must appeal with more emotion than anything else.
Of course, if I add a bit of exaggeration to that, it will be even better.
“G-good. This should be enough…”
My dormitory room.
While organizing the books piled on my desk, I finally found the mirror I had not used in a while.
This was not an ordinary mirror.
It was an alchemical device connected all the way to the Damas Count family estate. It was commonly called a Silver Mirror.
As one might guess from the name, it was made of real silver, something commoners could not even dream of possessing.
Though it was called a telephone, it could only connect to one corresponding mirror. It would be easier to think of it as a slightly longer-range string telephone.
Swoosh—
When I rubbed the gemstones decorating the edge of the mirror in a certain order, the mirror began to glow.
With that, the lock of the Silver Mirror would be released and the signal would be sent to the mirror on the other side.
The mirror blinked several times, and finally the figure of my father, Samuel Damas, appeared beyond the glass.
“Yes, my son. What is the matter—”
“Waaah! Father! Fatherrr!”
Right now, I am wronged.
Extremely wronged.
So wronged that the moment I saw my father, emotions surged up and I could not hold back my tears.
Following the concept I had prepared beforehand, I entered full method acting.
“Khuk! Huuuk!”
“Oh my, my son.”
“F-father…”
My father’s voice shifted from a calm tone to a bitter one.
Did it work?
“Stop pretending to cry and get to the point.”
“…Didn’t work.”
“My son, you’ve already tried that five times. Do you think it will work again? Do I look like a fool to you?”
“You did not grant a single one of my requests during those five times. How can you be so cold?”
“A request depends on what kind of request it is. So? What nonsense has possessed you this time that you’re laying groundwork first?”
“I have something important to say.”
“Everything you say is important. That line is practically a greeting by now, so stop wasting time with the buildup.”
“Yes, Father.”
Nobles supposedly had blue blood flowing through their veins.
Perhaps because of that, my father’s words were mercilessly cold.
Suppressing my aching heart, I began my appeal.
“I want to quit the Cradle.”
“Then do so.”
“Something happened, you see… Wait. What? Is that really okay?”
“If that is Sir Johan’s choice, how could I possibly stop you?”
“…”
Ah. This will not work.
He is basically telling me he will remove me from the family registry, just phrased nicely.
Behind the sentence “how could I stop you,” I could clearly hear the omitted words “since we would no longer be family anyway.”
“At least listen to the story…”
“I have listened for half a year. And for half a year I have said no.”
“Father, you are too harsh.”
During this past year.
Of course I had no intention of quietly continuing my life at the Cradle.
There had already been twenty-two terrorist attacks in a single year. Why would I keep attending?
“My life is hanging by a thread, yet you only care about the family name?”
I want to drop out.
At the very least, I want to take a leave of absence.
But the only response I received was my father’s threat to remove me from the family registry.
The reason was absurd.
“Are you saying that ridiculous noble title is more important than your son’s life?!”
“If you alone abandon that ridiculous noble title, then dropping out is perfectly fine.”
The emperor, who was obsessed with dignity and prestige, had declared that noble students who dropped out had no right to be nobles.
Apparently they were worse than commoners who remained in dangerous places for the sake of learning.
As if this situation was not caused by the emperor himself going mad with conquest wars.
Because of the emperor’s stubborn decree, any noble who dropped out or took leave from the Cradle would have their title stripped.
“If I lose my backing as well, I will not just die on the streets. I will be assassinated.”
The emperor was already watching noble students with burning eyes.
If my own family disowned me on top of that?
Then my head would be cut off immediately for the crime of insolence.
A former noble student without backing would not trouble him in the slightest.
At the snap of a finger, countless assassins would swarm toward me.
“Well, that would be unfortunate.”
“Are you insane?”
“You dare speak like that to your father. Sigh. Still, you must be having a hard time. If cursing at me makes you feel better, curse all you like, my son.”
“So the answer is no?”
“Yes. Besides, I do not understand why you want to drop out now after enduring so well until this point. I heard Olga Hermode has become the chairman. If she is there, what place could possibly be safer?”
“That may be true, but…”
“In the first place, choosing to enter the Cradle at this time was your decision.”
“That was…!”
Noble students had compulsory education and had to enter the Cradle.
However, the timing of enrollment was relatively flexible.
That was natural.
Unlike commoners who only needed to bring themselves, nobles had many preparations before entering.
So choosing this time was my own will.
In fact, my father originally tried to stop me because it was dangerous.
But…
“…That was a choice I made to save Chris.”
“Yes. It was.”
I have a younger sibling.
A sibling who had been so frail since childhood that he spent more time lying in bed than playing outside.
My kind and adorable younger brother, Chris.
And I wanted to save him.
So I had to make that choice.
I needed medicine that could cure his frail body as quickly as possible.
And the only place where that was possible was the Cradle.
It was the only place packed with authorities from every field.
Even if incidents happened often, it still claimed to be the best institution in the Empire.
The support it could provide was on a completely different level.
And ironically, the support increased when the Cradle was shaken by chaos inside and out.
To calm the anger of parents, they had no choice but to pour money into it.
Enough support to make a diligent chairman who had served for thirty years lose his sanity.
Enough support that one could easily embezzle some along the way.
And the more students were injured in terrorist incidents, the more medical supplies were needed.
Funding for alchemy increased even more.
“How is Mother?”
“…Do not worry about your mother. She is doing well.”
“Then the fact that she has still not contacted me must mean she has not forgiven me yet.”
“Johan.”
“That was a slip of the tongue.”
I created medicine to save Chris.
I studied alchemy like a madman and poured every bit of support provided into it.
But what was the result?
What happened to the child loved by everyone in the family because of the medicine I created?
“I understand. Anyway, you mean dropping out is not allowed.”
“If you need other support, tell me. I will provide as much as you need.”
“I do not need anything.”
The Chris Damas I remember no longer exists.
I made him that way.
Perhaps what I am experiencing now is punishment for that.
Robelia had already begun investigating Johan the moment she started paying attention to him.
And today.
The first report containing information about Johan Damas arrived.
As Robelia skimmed through the documents, she glanced sideways at Ariel, who still looked sulky, and let out a small laugh.
“He worked quite hard during the first semester. In alchemy, he was among the top five first-years.”
“He was fairly diligent. Still, he’s in Class F now. Honestly, that man is bringing disgrace to nobles everywhere.”
“But his grades suddenly plummeted in the second semester. As if he suddenly lost interest in alchemy.”
“Maybe he just lacked perseverance.”
“No. That is not it, Ariel. In situations like this, there is usually a reason. Someone studying like a madman suddenly drops it overnight?”
Robelia flipped through the papers and stopped at one section.
“At this level, it is more accurate to say he no longer needed to do it. It is easier to assume he was only obsessed with it because he needed something.”
“…Needed?”
“Yes.”
Robelia handed one sheet of the report to Ariel.
Though hesitant, Ariel accepted the document bearing the imperial seal with both hands and began reading.
“He has a younger sibling. A sibling suffering from an incurable illness.”
“Surely…”
“If you think about it, something was strange. Even if they lived in the frontier, he is still the son of a count. Does it make sense for such a noble to eat alone without even a servant?”
“….”
Ariel’s body stiffened.
Her red eyes scanning the report filled with sympathy.
The alchemy he had pursued like a madman.
The younger sibling weak from an incurable illness.
The image of him eating alone without a single servant, as if he were hated by his own family.
“It seems Johan Damas earned his mother’s resentment because of that incident.”
“Hah…!”
Ariel covered her mouth.
Had she unknowingly touched someone’s hidden wound?
People naturally wanted to hide painful scars.
“W-what have I done…”
“Ariel.”
Tears began to spill down her cheeks.
Overcome with guilt, Ariel burst into tears and ran out of the room.
Robelia watched her leave before lowering her head.
“Your Highness.”
“Yes.”
At that moment, the boy who had been silently standing behind Robelia stepped forward.
One of Robelia’s closest aides, Stan Robinhood.
Peeking at the document Robelia held, he spoke.
“It says Johan Damas’s younger sibling is alive and well.”
“Indeed. He even became healthy.”
“Well, perhaps there were side effects from the medicine.”
“Have you never heard the saying?”
Robelia finally burst into laughter she had been holding back.
“About how people with large builds claim they took the wrong medicine as children and now gain weight easily.”
“My uncle is exactly like that. He complains about it often.”
“It seems the side effect was something like that.”
“Oh my.”
Robelia picked up the paper Ariel had dropped when she ran out.
It contained an illustration of Johan Damas’s younger brother, Chris.
A beautiful boy with a dreamy and fragile aura, as if he might shatter like glass if touched.
If he had grown normally, he would surely have captured the hearts of countless women.
But that boy no longer existed.
All because of Johan Damas.
Robelia looked at the last page of the report and muttered.
“If such a boy suddenly turned into a barbarian warrior running across wide plains overnight, even I might resent the eldest son a little.”
On the page was the image of a seasoned warrior whose body was nothing but muscle.
The age of that muscle-bound warrior.
Eleven years old.
Since Plan B failed, it is time to move to Plan C.
To be honest, the success rate of Plan B was low from the beginning.
After all, I had been trying to quit for half a year and it never worked.
There was no way it would work now when the situation had actually improved.
“It is a shame I could not even explain the reason… No, perhaps it is fortunate. At least I saved time.”
In truth, there was no rational reason anyway.
I was planning to push through emotionally, but since I failed at the stage of setting the emotional tone, there was nothing to be done.
Now it was time to decide how to survive the inescapable swamp called Class F.
At this point, escaping Class F was impossible.
I could not drop out, and the chairman forced me to choose between Class S and Class F.
What could someone powerless like me do?
Perhaps the only fortunate thing was that I was at least given a choice.
I had thought of various countermeasures for Class F, but I had never even considered becoming part of Class S.
So now that avoiding Class F was impossible, what should I do?
“Maybe it is time to show some presence again.”
What else would it be?
A frontal breakthrough.
I knew many possible futures, but I had never interfered with them.
Changing the future seemed troublesome, and I disliked the attention it would bring to me.
In other words, I had no particular resistance to changing the future itself.
Who cares about the protagonist’s future.
I have to survive first.
Clack!
I had decided on my course of action.
There was nothing left to hesitate about.
I deliberately opened the door of Class F loudly.
The moment everyone’s gaze turned toward me.
Now then.
How should I handle the first impression?
Hmm… yes, this will do.
“What are you looking at?”
I have descended here.
For the bastards who are wallowing in inferiority complexes while whining about differences in status, I shall personally declare it.
“Never seen a noble before?”
There is no one more pathetic than me.
You hypocritical bastards.
The only noble in Class F.
The worm.
Johan Damas has entered.