Justifiable Self-Defense
I shook my head at the sight of Richmond flopping around on the floor and turned to leave.
Then a voice came from behind me.
"St-stop...!"
Richmond was screaming and struggling to get up, but there was no way he could escape Dorothy Rothermere's hold in his forcibly subdued state.
She sighed as she looked down at Richmond thrashing beneath her.
"Listen here, underclassman. I'm being extremely gentle with you right now. If you keep making a scene, I won't have a choice either, you know?"
"Gyaaaaah!!"
When she pressed down with just a little more force, he screamed in pain.
This is what happens when you don't know your place and act out.
It was utterly pathetic.
"This humiliation! This hatred! I'll definitely eliminate you!!"
Whether he'd truly lost his mind or not, the way he kept running his mouth even while pinned and in agony made him no different from a madman.
"I'll be heading back now."
"I told you to stop──!!"
His rage-filled shout echoed through the training hall, and that was when everything went wrong.
"Huh?"
Dorothy, who was closest to him, seemed to sense something amiss, but it was already too late.
Richmond had detonated his mana like an explosion.
BOOOOM!!
A violent blast of sound accompanied a wave of mana that swept over the surroundings.
"Ugh!!"
"Kyaaah!"
"That crazy bastard actually used mana!!"
Dorothy, who had been pinning Richmond down, was also blasted away by the force of the mana explosion, but she quickly wrapped herself in mana and appeared unharmed.
Richmond slowly rose to his feet, glaring at me with murderous eyes.
The ambient temperature soared in an instant, and blue flames began to rage violently around his body.
Then came a single activation phrase.
"I cloak myself in blue flames and rule the azure heavens."
Phoenix
Blue flames blazed brilliantly, forming massive wings of fire that resembled a halo.
I nodded as I watched.
I'd had my doubts at first, but to think a piece of trash like him was the heir to a marquis house.
"...So the S-rank was because he'd awakened a bloodline talent."
A bloodline talent referred to a special ability where one child per generation was born inheriting the talent of their ancestors.
And the Richmond family was one of the few houses in the empire that possessed such a bloodline talent.
"This just got annoying."
His skill seemed to be a berserker type as well—he already looked like he couldn't see anything in front of him.
"Burn to black ash, Winchester!!!"
Cloaked entirely in blue flames, he charged at me with a speed incomparable to before.
Confirming his charge, I looked not at Richmond but at Dorothy.
"Hey."
"──?!"
My eyes met Dorothy's as she approached to stop Richmond.
"From this point on, this is self-defense."
The eyes that briefly met mine held confusion.
Even she probably hadn't expected things to escalate this far.
But still, she was the one who'd been watching closest as a spectator, and she'd even subdued Richmond when he tried to use mana—only to let him go in the end.
She should have held him properly.
Those flames were a cheat that ordinary people couldn't even touch, so there was nothing I could do about it now either.
"I shall become the dragon that swallows the world."
Dragon Blood
Horns sprouted from my head as crimson mana surged forth.
With my right hand, now likewise dyed red, I gripped my spear tightly and watched Richmond charge toward me.
His straightforward attack hadn't changed at all.
Even if he was using the characteristics of his talent, at this level it was like handing an expensive weapon to a child.
The spear in my hand flashed with a red light.
"Die!!"
Richmond tried to melt both the spear blocking him and the mana with his blue flames, but that choice produced the worst possible result.
When the blue flames met the red mana, they began to be swallowed by the crimson light instead.
"A foolish choice."
In the end, it didn't take long for all the flames to be consumed by the red mana and vanish completely.
With a single clash, the fiercely burning blue flames were extinguished in an instant.
"M-my flames?! This can't be!!"
With his flames snuffed out and his skill forcibly deactivated, Richmond's eyes went wide with panic.
I swung my spear horizontally at him, using the shaft to strike him squarely in the temple.
"Guh!!"
The shaft connected with his skull with a solid crack, and Richmond collapsed without any resistance, rolling across the floor unconscious.
"As it happens, I never lose when it comes to mana affinity superiority."
The Phoenix's blue flames were certainly an incredible skill that could burn even an enemy's mana depending on the user's ability.
If it had been another student, their mana might have been swallowed by those blue flames and reduced them to ash on the spot.
But the red mana I used wasn't ordinary mana.
It was dragon mana.
And not just any dragon—the mana of the Red Dragon King, the strongest dragon of the era.
A little bird wrapped in some flames is far too inadequate to try swallowing this.
Don't tell me he attacked intending to burn my mana? How utterly absurd.
He was a fool who just charged in trusting his talent alone.
"He beat that Richmond in an instant..."
"Overwhelming. As expected of a hero's descendant...?"
"Who the hell said he was D-rank?! How is that D-rank by any measure?!"
The spectators murmured as they looked between me standing unharmed and Richmond collapsed unconscious.
"Jack Richmond is unconscious. Therefore, the winner is Taylor Winchester. Congratulations on your victory, underclassman."
"Waaaaah!!"
"So cool!!"
"That was amazing!!"
As Dorothy Rothermere announced the result as both spectator and referee, cheers erupted from those who had been watching the duel.
Dorothy moved the unconscious Richmond to a corner and then approached me.
"Thank you so much, underclassman. Thanks to you, we were able to resolve this quickly without it turning into a major incident."
"I thought you'd start citing the rules and lecture me about skill usage?"
Her eyes widened at my words, then she laughed as if she'd heard something amusing.
"Ahahaha, no way. Like you said, it was just self-defense."
Every time she laughed, her long silver hair swayed like waves.
I asked while looking at Richmond, who lay limp on the floor like discarded laundry.
"What's going to happen to that guy from now on?"
As the heir of an imperial marquis, expulsion was absolutely impossible.
"Hmm, the victim? I'm not sure if I should call you the victim, underclassman, but first, let me apologize in advance. I'm really sorry."
She bowed her head in genuine apology.
"There probably won't be a heavy punishment. Considering that your house is Winchester, it'll probably be about one or two weeks of suspension?"
"I see."
I'd already guessed as much.
There had been far too many incidents at the academy recently.
An accidental skill use that occurred during a mutually agreed duel.
So from the headmaster's perspective, he clearly wouldn't want to add any more unsavory incidents, and I expected it would be handled roughly like this.
"Anyway, thank you so much, underclassman. From here on, I have to clean up the aftermath. I need to write an incident report for this, contact the Richmond family...! Ugh, I have a mountain of things to do..."
"...Yeah, good luck with that."
Receiving the vice-president's thanks once more, I stepped down from the dueling ground to find more people waiting below than I'd expected.
Just from a rough count of the spectators, there were about fifty of them.
Among them were some familiar faces.
"You guys came too."
I hadn't paid any attention to the audience, so I hadn't noticed, but Elizabeth, Enri, and Angela were mixed in among the crowd waiting for me.
"Young Master, are you unharmed?"
I nodded at Elizabeth's question.
Aside from using a little mana, I was completely fine—no different from when I'd stepped onto the dueling ground.
"He clearly crossed the line. The Spencer family will lodge a formal protest as well."
"That man is an enemy of women! It was so satisfying to see you give him a good thrashing, Young Master!"
"Using a skill against the heir of a ducal house—that man is clearly insane."
Their words were all different, but roughly they seemed happy that I'd won.
"What's going to happen to him now?"
Angela asked about the punishment Richmond would receive.
"According to the vice-president, it'll be about one or two weeks of confinement."
"So that's how it ends up..."
"Eek, does that mean we have to see him in the classroom again?"
Angela nodded as if she roughly understood how the situation would play out, but Enri beside her made a horrified face.
"I did give him a warning for now."
Given his personality, I doubted he'd listen, though.
"If another incident happens, I'll deal with it then."
I hadn't even been able to rest properly after returning from the dungeon.
There was nothing wrong with my body, but I was mentally exhausted.
"I'm returning to the dormitory."
"Understood."
"Yes, Young Master!"
"Alright. It'll work out somehow."
With many eyes watching, we made our way out of the training hall building.