My Protagonist (2)

Vivian considered it.

Should I just kill them?

Honestly, she was getting a little pissed off.

"Ha! The strongest ain't even all that?!"

One little shit, fleeing in the most disgraceful way imaginable, still running his mouth at the top of his lungs.

"...Twenty."

Slap!

And another, weaving clones out of dense poison mist to scramble her senses into a blur.

Vivian did the math.

One second?

Two, at the outside.

That was how long it would take to grab both of these freaks by the skull and tear their heads from their bodies.

And yet here she was, listening to garbage like this from trash of that caliber.

"Hey!! That all you got?!"

"...Quiet. Focus. On the escape."

"Hah."

She really wanted to beat them to death.

But she couldn't.

Eugene still hadn't given the signal, which meant for now, she had to endure it.

"...Number Three. When. Ready?"

"Almost done."

She was tailing them, catching even their faintest whispers, when a question surfaced out of nowhere.

Why am I listening to that guy?

For Ariel's cipher?

No. The deal was already finished. And even if it weren't, she could beat the answers out of him whenever she felt like it.

"?"

Vivian stopped in her tracks without realizing it.

"Why, though? For real?"

No matter how she turned it over, it didn't make sense.

"...Now."

Numbers Three and Six did not miss the opening.

"Tell her to head back on her own!!"

The instant Number Three struck the ground—

Vivian caught a bizarre distortion unfolding from the spaces her gaze couldn't reach.

A gate?

A strange, labyrinthine gate — every point an entrance, every point an exit.

But that wasn't the end of it.

"...Even one team. Alive. Escape. Success."

The clones she had dismissed as nothing special were suddenly inhabited by a force of life, taking on physical form. In appearance and in the aura they gave off, they were indistinguishable from the original Number Three and Number Six.

Which meant—

They're all real.

This was a different breed from an assassin's afterimages. This was multiplication of the actual body, in the most literal sense.

...Even if only one team survives, the escape succeeds.

So that's what they meant.

Can I pin them all down?

She was still analyzing this unfamiliar shape of power ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠when—

"See ya, you monster!!"

"...Face. Memorized."

Bodies that had, in the blink of an eye, numbered close to a hundred hurled themselves toward their respective Blind Spots. If even a single one of them slipped away, the escape would succeed.

Unfortunately for them.

"You lot are a pain."

Their opponent was Vivian.

The instant Vivian unleashed her mana, magic circles bloomed on every clone's head.

"The hell is this now?!"

"...Careful!!"

While Number Three spat curses, Number Six hurled the "somethings" she had created into a Blind Spot. Number Three's Blind Spot scattered them across points a hundred meters out, and immediately after—

"Ah, shit."

KRA-KOOOOOM!!!!

Every last body detonated.

It was a massacre, not a subdual, which nagged at Vivian a little, but—

"Beats letting them get away."

She decided to think of it that way.

The next moment, however—

She sensed Number Three and Number Six's auras at multiple points beyond the hundred-meter mark.

And at the same time.

A presence she took to be Eugene's "signal" — an aura that could stand alongside her own.

An ordinary person would have hesitated. Hunt the enemy down and wipe them out, or follow a comrade's signal and return?

Vivian did not hesitate.

Kill them. Then go.

She wasn't so weak that she had to choose.

Fssht.

The instant she decided, she was gone.

And a short while later.

Crack. Crrrack!

The sound of waterlogged timber snapping echoed from points beyond a hundred meters, and kept going.

After about thirty seconds of that.

BOOM, KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-KRAKOOM!!

Massive explosions erupted dozens of times over from every place the sounds had come from.

Vivian confirmed that Numbers Three and Six had already been reduced to ash. Not a single clone so much as twitched. The auras from before were gone.

Confirmed kills. Done.

Now.

Time to answer Eugene's call.

A woman like a natural disaster left the forest behind.

Skill — Shadow Tracking.

A movement skill that, limited to those one has already faced, allows the user to travel to their side.

The place Eugene arrived was—

"Eugene Gay?"

"...Excuse me?"

"Ah, no. Never mind. More importantly, you look all right now."

"Thanks to House Vulcanus's consideration."

—at the side of Hestia Vulcanus, acting head of Count Vulcanus's household.

"...Mother. Who exactly is this man?"

"...I-I'm scared."

She had already rescued Raphael and Raniel and appeared to be moving them somewhere.

Raphael Vulcanus.

The second son of House Vulcanus, whose talent with the sword surpassed even Rania's.

And with Hestia — a former top-class adventurer — with them, they shouldn't be in any real danger. Still.

When it came to safety, there was no such thing as too many precautions.

"I'll stand watch for a moment."

While Eugene held his silence, Hestia shrank back despite herself.

What is that aura...?

Even throttled down to its minimum, Eugene's Overpowering was originally Vivian's. To anyone else, he simply looked like yet another monster.

"Are any of you injured?"

"N-no, we're fine."

"Margrave Vulcan should be arriving at the flower garden shortly. I'd like you to wait there with the person I'll be assigning to you."

Hestia found herself asking back.

"Assigning? Who exactly would you be..."

"Right on cue."

The next instant.

CRASH!

A massive windowpane shattered into fragments, moonlight glittering across every shard of broken glass.

Eugene spoke first. He set down Raniel, whom he had been holding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠protectively, and made a request of Vivian.

"These people. Take them to the flower garden."

"All three?"

Eugene nodded.

"Lord Vulkan will be there soon as well. Please protect them until I bring Rania."

Vivian snorted.

"And why would I?"

"I'm asking you. Please."

"Hey. You know how much the previous emperor paid me to guard him for a single hour?"

"A million gold."

"That's right, a million gol—"

Vivian's brow furrowed.

"I've never told anyone that."

Normally Eugene would have cracked a joke right about now, so Vivian found herself expecting one. But—

"We don't have time. What do you want?"

For some reason, he was dead serious.

He looks pissed.

Maybe I should lighten the mood.

And so Vivian decided, for the first time in her life, to attempt something called a joke. After a moment's thought, she summoned a faint smile and a trickle of aura.

"Your life."

A light joke.

Eugene, reading it for what it was, nodded with a small smile of his own.

"It's yours."

That restored a sliver of ease. Seeing it, Vivian scooped Raniel into her arms and flicked her hand.

"Go on, then."

"Thank you."

Eugene returned a brief bow, immediately grabbed a potion, and turned on his heel.

Which is why he never knew.

"The nice older brother who looks scary!"

"...To think he would stake his life for our family."

"He is a benefactor of our house, Mother."

"Yes. So remember this well. That child is House Vulcanus's new benefactor..."

That a very small misunderstanding had taken root.

And—

"His name is Eugene Gay."

A slightly larger one.

Protagonist.

A word for the figure who drives an entire novel — the center of a grand narrative.

I don't know about the protagonists of other stories, but the protagonist of Protect the Academy!, Rania Vulcanus, was righteous and strong.

To be honest, she wasn't strong.

She possessed talent that outstripped the ordinary, but it fell short of what a true genius commanded. House Vulcanus was a renowned sword lineage as well — but the last of the three great sword houses.

Ambiguous talent. Ambiguous background. Conditions too vague to call her the protagonist of a world.

So how had she become this world's protagonist?

The reader who had loved Protect the Academy! more than anyone else had put it this way:

Because no matter how hopeless the situation, she never surrenders, and always searches for a way forward.

And now.

"...You're tenacious."

"...I'll never... let you... kill them."

The quality that reader had identified in a protagonist was shining brighter than it ever had.

"Keep this up and you'll actually die."

She swung her sword instead of answering.

"..."

It had no more strength than a child's swing, and was turned aside the way an old man might catch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a blow. And yet.

"...You're not getting past me."

CLANG!

"Kh!"

And so Rania's blade began to move more unpredictably than usual.

In vulgar terms: the protagonist buff.

Even driven to the brink, coincidences interlock and lend the protagonist their strength.

Please, please, please!!

As her attacks started landing, her fading consciousness grew steadily clearer.

The sensation of a possibility that had been infinitely close to zero soaring exponentially.

With every movement she could feel even the last few minutes of her life dripping away. And still.

Rania kept swinging her sword.

Hoping that this one second she was buying.

Would be enough to save her family.

And that maybe, just maybe, Eugene would come.

But that was as far as it went.

Despite the protagonist's blood-soaked effort, the world had not changed in any meaningful way. And the villain who had survived, just as before, now threatened the protagonist's life.

"...You really are a protagonist, through and through."

Haviel lamented it, and Rania found herself letting out a small, involuntary laugh.

What a pathetic protagonist I am, she thought.

But then.

"For a villain, you've got a good eye. That's right. Rania is the protagonist."

Pop!

A sweet potion flowed in, and—

The one she had been hoping for stood before her.