How Dare You Try That Enviable Act Before Me!
As expected of an Academy raised at the very heart of the Union.
I'd figured the gymnasium would be like any middle or high school athletic hall — a volleyball court, a basketball court, and not much else. Instead the interior stretched far wider than it had looked from the outside, training equipment of every kind scattered in every direction.
Did Dyna haul the gear she used to put me through my paces from here?
And more than anything, a ring that called a boxing arena to mind — complete with spectator seats arranged around it — seized my gaze at once.
"What's that?"
"I told you to shut up… hah. Combat training ground. Doubles as an arena."
"Oh."
Not just boxing — wrestling too. A mixed-combat stadium. Thinking back to the way she'd been slamming those here-knight cadets into the lecture-hall floor, this was clearly where she did her training.
"What are you gawking around for, hostage?"
"There's no law that says a hostage can't look around, is there?"
"…Fair enough."
Seizing the chance to drag Dyna onto her own home turf, Professor Ferriot hauled me up onto the ring — a prison with all four sides wide open.
"W-what do I do next? I kidnapped him on impulse, but…"
"Tie me up with a rope, maybe."
"How could I do something that cruel to someone who isn't even a heretic?!"
Apparently the Female Knight Tribe and heretics were subject to an entirely different set of standards. I was so dumbfounded I just stared at her in silence. Professor Ferriot plucked a few of her own feathers, fidgeting restlessly.
"But I can't just leave a hostage sitting around either. Hmm… in that case… ah!"
"?"
Something good had apparently occurred to her. She crooked a finger, beckoning me over, and I approached carefully —
A rush of air.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"You're a hostage! I can't let you wander around, and I certainly can't leave you be when Dyna Hercules called you her lord!"
My body lifted off the ground. Without warning, Professor Ferriot had wrapped her arms around my waist, slid her hands to my thighs, and hoisted me into the air. Depending on how you looked at it, the position was extremely suggestive — her face buried against my lower body — but all I could feel was panic.
"A-a powerbomb?!"
"You'll bite your tongue. Think of it as a gag that shuts you up on its own, and be grateful!"
A thunderous crash drove my body into the floor hard enough to wring a scream out of me.
"Ghhhkkk…?!"
"Stay down."
I'd already known that every woman around me was missing a few screws, but taking a complete stranger hostage and then hitting him with a powerbomb? I'd expected her to tie me up, slap cuffs on me, or just stand guard. Instead she'd gone with an option I'd never even imagined: if the hostage moves, beat him until he can't.
"I thought about it, and tying you up felt wrong, so just lie there quietly until Dyna Hercules shows up."
"Y-you crazy bitch… I thought I was a hostage…!"
"That's why I made sure you couldn't move."
"Who the hell powerbombs their hostage…?!"
I'd been thrown off a Juggernaut's back. I'd been rolled every which way. I'd thought I was pretty well seasoned against just about anything. But a wrestling move I'd never taken in my life was another matter entirely — my body refused to so much as twitch.
"Just tie me up already, what even is this…!"
"Tie you up?! Why are you so determined to make me out as some kind of villain? As if being associated with the Female Knight Tribe wasn't enough, now you're trying to…!"
If kidnapping a complete stranger as a hostage, powerbombing him into submission, and then striking a satisfied victory pose didn't make someone a villain, I didn't know what would. I wanted nothing more than to get even right then and there, but wanting and doing were two different things. The shock still ringing through my back and the back of my skull meant my body wasn't taking orders.
"Hmph. Now you actually look like a hostage."
All I could do was glare at Professor Ferriot. Unfortunately, I was doing it from an undignified position — flipped over with my ass pointed at the ceiling — so she just snorted as if I were beneath her notice, then asked:
"Good. I'll use this opening to interrogate you. You — what's your relationship with Dyna Hercules?!"
"We're workout partners. Perfectly wholesome."
"Liar! I saw you two doing baby-making exercises right in front of me! Ah — wait, I remember now. You're that h-human who's been training with Dyna Hercules on the athletic field for the past few years, aren't you?!"
I'd spent three years training with Dyna on this Academy's field, rain or snow. Anyone affiliated with the Academy should have known who I was. Sure enough, she was checking her memory against my face.
"That's right. And you, Professor? Aside from glimpsing you in passing, I didn't even know your name."
"I'm Ferriot. Ferriot Condor. Same way Dyna Hercules handles the here-knights, I hold the professorship for the Drib department."
I had my doubts about whether someone whose idea of a greeting was a Batista Bomb qualified as a professor. Then again, there was already a race that called getting publicly defiled Knight Pure Love. Was a race that opened conversations with wrestling moves really so strange?
"What exactly do you teach?"
"The Drib tribe's combat arts! What you just took is one of our techniques, you know?"
"…I'm not even surprised anymore."
There was nobody here but the two of us, yet Professor Ferriot struck a strangely showy pose, as if putting on a display. She toyed with her eye mask, something occurring to her, and asked:
"More importantly, your name was… hmm, Iceman? Snowman? I remember Dyna Hercules calling you something like that."
"That's right."
"Why do they call you that? What, do you use magic or something?"
"Nothing like that. It's just a nickname."
Explaining that they'd slapped the name Iceman on me the way you'd label a nameless dinosaur fossil — me, who'd been sleeping in the ice like some prehistoric cartoon character fished out of a river — would have taken far too long. Besides, I didn't have the time. Something was pounding toward us, shaking the ground with every stride.
A colossal crash shattered the gymnasium doors.
Splintered planks flew. Sunlight poured through the wreckage. And standing against that light was a here-knight clad in jet-black armor. She probably hadn't intended the effect, but Dyna looked as if she'd stepped into a spotlight. The moment she spotted me sprawled across the ring, she shouted:
"My lord!"
"I'm a bit indisposed, so you'll have to forgive me for greeting you from the floor."
"Even in jest, know the time and place!"
…
"Stay where you are! I shall come to your rescue at once!"
The jet-black here-knight charged. The speed was unbelievable for someone in full plate — she came at us like a sprinter, barreling toward the ring where Professor Ferriot and I stood. Not to be outdone, Professor Ferriot threw her arms wide and let out a kyaooooh like some purple-haired character from a reaction meme, striking a bizarre pose as she bellowed at Dyna.
"I let my guard down last time, but not now! This is my home ground, Dyna Hercules!"
"You wench! I can see you've done something unspeakable to my lord!"
"…What?"
Professor Ferriot looked as if she couldn't believe her ears. Dyna pointed straight at me, as if daring her to play dumb.
"Had I been but a moment later, you two would have been mating already! And that posture my lord is in — you were about to lick his anus, weren't you?! How dare you attempt such an enviable act before I could! As my lord's human-toilet knight, I cannot possibly forgive this!"
"What are you even talking about, Dyna Hercules?!"
A line of reasoning so thoroughly here-knight that Professor Ferriot's ears flushed scarlet. Dyna thundered up and vaulted onto the ring — but Professor Ferriot had been ready. She beat the wings sprouting from her armpits and arms and soared into the air, evading the charge.
"My lord! Are you unharmed?! Please tell me that sparrow did not sample your rear passage before I could! To let a sparrow like her lick your ass when you have a human-toilet knight such as myself — I beg you, tell me it did not happen! Put my heart at ease!"
"Nothing like that happened, so just help me up."
Her thoughts were thoroughly impure, but the fact that she'd come tearing all the way here to rescue me was undeniable. Dyna's eyes took on a lewd gleam at the sight of my position, and she even licked her lips — but the moment she spotted Professor Ferriot gliding through the gymnasium airspace, she hauled me to my feet. She made no attempt to hide her disappointment, of course.
"You wicked creature! I can endure any attack upon our Female Knight Tribe, but to think you would inflict such an outrage upon my lord as well! Upon my name, I swear I shall visit upon you a humiliation equal to what my lord has suffered this day!"
"I told you I didn't do any of that!!"
Professor Ferriot squawked, looking ready to die of injustice.
