Magic Armament Suitability Test (5)
"What... what is this guy? He doesn't even have a weapon..."
The spells unquestionably reached Junon as he tramped forward, step by steady step. Yet if anyone witnessed this scene and tried to write an official report, they could never use the word 'hit.'
The magic vanished the moment it brushed his hand. That was the only way to describe it.
"Don't panic! He's just intercepting the spells beforehand with shields, just like last time! Fire projectile magic without magic circles unless you're hitting him from a blind spot, and switch to discharge or radial spells!"
"Kayden. Th-The thing is..."
"What now?!"
"Discharge magic, radial spells, trap spells—none of them work on him! It makes no sense! Everything just vanishes!"
"What kind of bullshit is that?!"
"I don't know! It's like he's making every single spell cease to exist!"
Someone among them had faced him before and come prepared with countermeasures against the applications of Junon's Unique Magic, Mana Shield. They assumed he had simply tricked their eyes by anticipating the magic circles and conjuring barriers along the trajectories to disrupt the spells at ignition. Knowing that, all they needed to do was switch to different schools of magic to bypass such cheap tricks.
Yet no matter how ferociously they unleashed their barrage, their magic failed to leave so much as a scratch on him.
"You lowborn bastard... my teeth...!"
"Told you to clench your jaw," Junon replied flatly. "That's what happens when you don't."
"Ghk! Cough...!"
"Let go of him, you bastard! Get your filthy hands off him!"
Unable to stand by and watch his comrade get beaten, another noble fired a spell. But to their shock, the magic didn't vanish this time. It struck a body dead-on.
"...Are you using a human shield?"
"You coward...!"
"...Coward? Me?"
"Yes! Hiding the true nature of your power and refusing to fight fair and square—what else would you call that if not cowardly?!"
A dry, incredulous laugh broke from Junon's throat.
"You piece-of-shit hypocrites. We can't manifest magic armaments, and thanks to the absurd academy rules you nobles shoved down our throats, we aren't even allowed to carry weapons. And you have the nerve to call me a coward? What a load of absolute bullshit."
His fists trembled with cold fury at their brazen audacity.
"No weapons. No armor. Nothing to face your spells with except our bare flesh and blood. You cowards swarm us with sheer numbers to stomp us into the dirt, and you dare open your mouths about cowardice, you wretched bastards?"
The nobles flinched instinctively.
From the start, they had manifested their magic armaments solely to force submission from those who possessed no power at all. Even a ten-year-old child could see which side truly earned the label of coward.
"No. Why waste my breath? Talking won't get through to you anyway. You'll just have to learn with your bodies. Every single one of you."
They were cowards who had chosen the easy road of long-range magic. And because they took the path of least resistance, every step they took had left them pitifully weak. Even those who avoided their true aptitudes just to escape persecution were cut from the exact same cloth. In the end, they were nothing more than parasites obsessed with stepping on anyone beneath them to crawl higher.
All they craved was authority and superficial power. Which meant they would never learn until crushed under a force so overwhelming that they couldn't twitch a single finger.
He employed the exact same approach as before.
He didn't run, nor did he hurry his pace. He simply walked toward them in measured strides, letting the certainty of their impending pulverization sink into their bones, giving them ample time to drown in creeping terror.
"U-Uhh... N-No! I don't know, I don't care anymore!"
"What are you doing?! Don't run! Stand and fight—"
"Right. You shouldn't run."
With a wet thud, something caught the fleeing noble's foot, sending him crashing to the floor. He scrambled to check what had tripped him, but there was nothing there.
Before the fallen noble could even scramble up, Junon closed the distance. Seizing the back of the boy's neck in an iron grip, he slammed his face repeatedly into the stone floor.
"John and Noel fought back without backing down once, even when you brought a mob that outmatched them, you worthless piece of trash."
"Guh! St-Stop... please... gah!"
For a brief second, the merciless battering against the floor paused.
"When they begged you to stop, did you?"
"Th-That's..."
"Not once, right? All you cared about was inflicting more pain and sneering at people groveling before you. So now you get to feel it. Exactly what they've had to endure from you."
True to his word, Junon's grip on the back of the neck never slackened as he resumed driving the face into the stone.
By the time the noble lost consciousness, vivid, bruising handprints were burned crimson into the flesh of his neck.
Grinding the unconscious boy's head beneath his boot, Junon looked up at the rest of them.
"I'm going to leave every single one of you looking like this. So come on, whoever's left. Step up, you fuckers."
He was only one man, yet against that solitary opponent, the nobles stood no chance.
Even when multiple casters pooled their mana to unleash massive fireballs, or tried to restrict his movements, Junon simply dodged or the spells dissolved into nothingness.
Before long, only one was left standing.
"Just you left, Kayden."
"Ha... haha... You lunatic..."
Who could have ever predicted this? Not a single soul could have imagined they would be crushed so thoroughly, pinned down and left crawling on the dirt without a single person able to flee.
They had manifested their magic armaments and even figured out the trick he used to deceive their eyes. They had erected a soundproof barrier so no help would come, and with twelve companions backing him, there should have been zero disadvantage in numbers.
Yet all twelve were completely broken. And Kayden, the last one standing, instinctively knew he had no hope of beating Junon either.
Junon's threat to snap his arm had been no bluff.
And yet.
"Heh... heh. Do you really think this changes anything?"
"...What?"
"Nothing changes. Beat me half to death, beat every last one of us bloody—it won't change a damn thing. You think the noble families above us can't sweep away a petty incident like this even if you tattle to the professors? As if! They'll just chalk it up to lowlifes causing trouble and bury the whole thing."
Unlike the others, Kayden showed no sign of cowering, even after watching his peers collapse, give up, and desperately try to flee with his own eyes.
"You vanguards are destined to lose to us in the rearguard once our power matures! Even if we lose today, we will reclaim our victory over you tomorrow! That is reality!"
"..."
"Besides, ever since the nobility seized real power over the past few years, not a single one of your complaints has ever changed anything! The world revolves around nobles and rearguards. That is the natural order, an immutable truth! What can scum at the very bottom of the barrel possibly do? Trash is still trash no matter how nicely you wrap it! Nothing you useless vermin do will ever change anything!!"
He laughed with vile confidence, unshakably convinced that his status remained untouchable.
That sneer was reserved for those struggling desperately against their lot in life.
There's always a lower bottom.
Trash is trash no matter how nicely you wrap it.
Nothing changes just because a useless nobody tries to do something.
It was the same tired rhetoric spat by those who sought to drag down the powerless, refusing to grant them even a shred of hope. And it was a refrain Junon had heard so often his ears had grown calloused to it.
He had stomached the insults, the mockery, the degrading labels forced upon him. But this was the one reality he refused to accept.
To Junon, those words went beyond a bitter pill—they struck his rawest nerve.
"The world doesn't change! You will always stay right there, prostrating beneath our boots, looking up at us—ghk!"
"Done running your mouth, you frog in a well?"
"Kh... Khahaha! Still too thick-headed to understand words, aren't you, Junon?! You're the one who's going to take the blame for all of this! Congratulations!"
Even as he took the blow, Kayden didn't seem particularly perturbed. Instead, a sinister grin spread across his face as he imagined the retribution waiting for Junon.
His wretched laughter, however, went no further.
"Is that so? Then I'll just take the blame. Who gives a shit."
"Wh-What...?!"
"What's wrong? You were ready to take a beating when you ran your mouth, but you didn't expect that? That's why you're nothing more than a frog in a well."
Junon couldn't care less about whatever unfair disciplinary action the academy might throw at him.
Originally, his sole objective was to prevent the Second Underachiever Rampage Incident—to put the arrogant nobles in their place, set an example, and plant a seed of hope so the lower-class and the weak wouldn't surrender. He had assumed he could wrap things up at that level.
Kayden's sickening mockery had changed his mind.
"Nothing changes if I beat you and your lackeys senseless? Bullshit. It's already changed. Because I haven't knelt, and I haven't bowed my head!"
Perhaps in another timeline, he would have bowed his back and lowered his head in subservience. But this time, he had not submitted.
"You say we're doomed to lose no matter what? All thirteen of you already lost. To one single person!"
Perhaps in another timeline, they would have surrendered, believing that speaking out was useless. But this time, victory was in their hands.
"The world revolves around nobles and rearguards? Don't make me laugh! A mere commoner from Class E, someone you called the weakest vanguard, just beat every last one of you! That alone is change!"
If he had collapsed, surrendered, or resigned himself to fate, nothing would have changed. But he had stepped forward and overturned a matchup everyone had deemed impossible.
"Being a commoner or a vanguard doesn't mean you can't do it! Because we haven't even tried yet, the potential to change is still there! The world does change, you bastard!"
"Aaargh...!"
Thinking of the aftermath, this was reckless. Escalating this incident would only invite an even heavier retaliation from the nobility. If he wanted to avoid trouble, pulling his punches to keep things contained would have been the sensible choice.
Yet he despised Kayden's words to his very core.
Because they sounded like a total rejection of everything he was doing to avoid repeating the past.
Because they felt like mockery directed at every single step he took.
Because they declared that nothing would ever change this time either.
And... because they claimed his life was meaningless.
His body moved on instinct, crossing a line he knew he shouldn't cross.
"Khk... Y-You... If you do this, the punishment will be..."
"Shut your mouth!"
He had no intention of letting history repeat itself. That was the future chosen by a man given a second chance at life, determined to survive until the very end.
And he was not the only one walking toward that future.
"Sorry, Junon. I know it's shameless to jump in after you did all the work, but we can't take this anymore either."
"Kh...?! Y-You bastards...!"
"What? Nothing changes? Don't give us that shit, you bastard!"
"We're never getting on our knees again. Never!"
"Y-You scoundrels! You couldn't even beat us in a fair fight!"
"Win or lose, hearing 'fair and square' from your mouth makes me want to vomit! Have you no shame?!"
"You ganged up on John and Noel, so why the hell can't we gang up on you?!"
"Even if you come back for revenge later, we're settling the score today!"
"We're making you pay for what you did to those two, too! Don't you dare think you're walking out of here in one piece!"
They had trembled.
The weak, ground down time and time again beneath the might of the strong.
They had bowed and yielded every single time.
The commoners, unable to resist noble force and resigning themselves to their lot.
As if convinced that nothing they did would ever change reality, they had lowered their heads and hunched their shoulders. They had resigned themselves to the role of the weak.
Yet now, that was no longer true.
They had braced for inevitable despair, but it never arrived. The conviction that nothing could ever change was being shattered with their own two hands.
If they ran now while there was an opening, they might escape worse retaliation from the nobles later. And yet, despite their battered bodies, they chose to stand their ground.
Their eyes remained glued to a single figure. Because Junon, having crushed the nobles into the dirt, seemed to be telling them:
You can do it.
And so, they chose never to kneel again. No—they chose never to remain 'underachievers' again.
"Get your filthy feet off... gh! Off me...! Ack!"
"Shut up!" they shouted together.
Even knowing the tempest of consequences that attacking Kayden directly would invite, they did not stop.
"Ugh... I wanna punch that bastard once too..."
Even John, who had regained consciousness at some point, voiced his desire to join the fray.
Junon wasn't the only one who wanted to reject an unchanging reality. They were human too, and they had seen firsthand that cowering would never change anything. That was why they stepped forward.
To no longer be pushed around, to fight back, and to prove with their own hands that they would never give up.
"Seeing you fired everyone up," John muttered. "Giving up and doing nothing might be comfortable right now, but that'd just be proving that bastard right."
"..."
"Wait, is that not it? Uh... I don't know. Anyway, watching you made everyone realize they couldn't just sit back and take it anymore! You get what I mean, right?"
"...Yeah. You don't have to explain."
John struggled to put his thoughts into coherent words, but Junon understood him perfectly. They wanted to spark a change, however small, to shatter the immutable reality Kayden had proclaimed.
That was more than enough.
Shortly thereafter, faculty staff burst into the scene.
And as luck—or the heavens—would have it:
"You lot! Stop this instant!"
"Professor Jake...?"
It wasn't an administrator biased toward noble backings, but Professor Jake, known for treating commoners fairly, who arrived first.
With this, every single expectation Kayden had harbored was completely shattered.
As if heeding Junon's cry that the world was changing.
The Second Underachiever Rampage Incident.
With the 'underachievers' gone, no such incident could ever occur.
"What took you so long, Senia? I finished ages ago and have been waiting forever."
Senia was supposed to have headed straight to Dubhe Hall after delivering her message to Erika. Why she had been delayed was a secret known only to the beads of sweat clinging to her hair.
"..."
"Senia? Did something happen?"
"...No. Nothing."
It was all true. Just as Aris had described, down to the last syllable.
The vivid scenes that had flooded her mind were undeniably memories she had personally witnessed and lived through.
Her resolve was set.
"Erika. Remember that discussion about recruiting a new teammate? Junon. About that."
"...Why bring that up all of a sudden? Don't ruin my mood, don't even talk about—"
"Let's do as you said. We shouldn't bring him into Team Tembris after all."
"...Huh?"
To ensure history would never repeat itself. To ensure that, in the future, his life would never be snuffed out in vain by someone from Tembris.
Gritting her teeth, Senia had no choice but to push away the man who had saved her life, barring him from the party.