It Was Super Effective
Paper Company, a member of the Red Teeth Mushroom Illegal Growers Association, hardened his resolve to redeem himself after his humiliating failure on the way to class.
While the juniors monopolized the Giant King Crabs, the sophomores had begun cornering the seafood that the freshmen were desperately eyeing for food!
“If you want fish, pay points and buy it! Free fishing is strictly prohibited!”
“Hey, pull that rod out right now! If you don’t pack it up this second, I’ll snip your fishing line with magic!”
Naturally, the freshmen revolted.
“Who do you think you are, monopolizing all the fish, nya! Do you wanna die?! I’ll smack you with my Nya-Nya Punch, nya!!”
Faced with the adorable resistance of Jenya, the cat beastperson jumping up and down in sheer fury, alongside a clutch of greenhorns shouting in solidarity behind her, Paper Company responded with cold-blooded cruelty.
“Boys, looks like our dear freshmen want a taste of the real world. Give ’em a wake-up call!”
“Arise, oh waves!”
“Surge forth, waters!”
Waves surged from either flank of the twenty-passenger fishing boat, crashing directly into the window where Jenya and the freshmen had poked their heads out.
“Aaargh! A wave is hitting us!”
“Hold onto the windowsill! If the undertow drags you out, you’re drowning!”
“Pbbbt! Pwah! It’s way too salty, nya!!”
Paper Company and the illicit cultivators following him burst into uproarious laughter.
“Bwahahaha! At this point in the term, freshmen are still drowning in the misery of tracing mana pathways and memorizing basic patterns, let alone casting water spells! You can never beat a sophomore!”
“Now that you know your place, quietly hand over your points and buy your fish! And while you’re at it, cough up the name of that cryomancer!”
“Tell us who owns the iron plate that stir-fried our mushrooms, too! Do that, and we’ll throw in a fish for free!”
Soaked to the bone, the freshmen wore tearful expressions, yet they summoned what little courage they had left and screamed back.
“You think we’ll tell you just because you asked?!”
“You bullies! There are plenty of strong people in the freshman class! We’re telling on you!”
“The guy with the hot plate is a delicious-smelling guy named Leff Iron-Plate Charcoal Galbi, nya.”
The lower-class students turned, glaring at her with eyes brimming with betrayal. How could she sell out a classmate’s identity to an upperclassman so casually?
“He’s an Imperial bastard, nya! He called Jenya, an Outskirts girl, an uncivilized cat, and said I’d make a fine match for the tomcat back at his mansion, nya!”
“In this day and age? Parroting racial insults that should’ve died a century ago?!”
“I knew Imperial bastards were scum.”
“Yeah, he deserved to be sold out.”
“So I asked to see a picture of the tomcat, and he showed me a baby that wasn’t even one year old yet, nya! I can never forgive a freak who treats Jenya like a pedo, nya!”
“…Wait, that was the issue?”
Leaving her thoroughly conflicted classmates behind, Jenya held her head high, having proudly leaked Leff’s personal information and secured her fish. And now, having finished recounting the whole saga from start to finish, she thrust the raw seafood out toward Isabelle.
“So, before you head out, could you cook just one of these for me, nya? You’re such a great cook, Isabelle, nya.”
Having sat through Jenya’s epic tale of betrayal and petty vengeance from beginning to end, Isabelle gave a deadpan response.
“No. I’m going to help Orknodi.”
Seize the Seafood Fishing Rights!
Spiteful sophomores are attempting to monopolize the seafood supply.
Punks of the fishing zone.
It is time to teach those maritime thugs a lesson.
Stake the freshmen’s right to survive and take a stand!
Even without an event prompt egging me on, there was no way I could let them get away with this. But blindly charging in wasn’t a smart solution either. To properly teach those troublesome upperclassmen a lesson, I needed enough uninterrupted time for a proper battle. A brief skirmish squeezed into a class break or travel time simply wouldn’t cut it.
So, I endured the rest of the lecture schedule, biding my time until the dinner hour arrived.
“Orknodi, we’re all ready!”
“Heard you’re picking a fight with the sophomores! We’re coming too!”
“Some juniors thought it sounded hilarious and lent us a battering ram! If things get ugly, we can just ram right through them!”
Having caught wind of the situation during third period’s Basics and Understanding of Mana Usage, Dorothy had somehow borrowed a full-sized battering ram from upperclassmen in another course. It left me thoroughly bewildered.
“We’re fighting a naval battle, you know?”
“Still, wouldn’t a battering ram look threatening?”
“I guess so!”
Well, better than having nothing at all!
“We shall provide assistance as well. If the academy regulations permit shooting sophomores dead, we can offer fire support. A junior working as a teaching assistant procured a ballista for us.”
Scholar, the descendant of the Divine Archer taking fourth period’s Ranged Weapon Mastery with us, hauled in an enormous siege ballista.
“…I appreciate the enthusiasm, but if you skewer an upperclassman with a siege ballista, you’re getting expelled!”
“What about regular arrows?”
“As long as it doesn’t cause permanent bodily harm, probably just light disciplinary action?”
“Then we shall restrict ourselves to bows.”
“Wait, aren’t you guys from Group B? Why are you even helping us?”
“Setting aside the feud between the Outskirts and the Empire, sophomores meddling with the freshmen’s food supply cannot be forgiven. Besides, Leff Iron-Plate Charcoal Galbi was ambushed.”
It appeared Jenya’s cowardly leaking of Leff’s personal info had inadvertently rallied the Imperial faction to our side. If they ever uncovered the truth, that terrifying volley of archers might turn their sights on us instead, so I needed to ensure this secret stayed buried forever!
“So, what is the retaliation plan? Do we launch a vessel, lie in ambush on the water, and unleash a coordinated volley?”
“No!”
“It’d be a waste not to use the battering ram we dragged here. How about we lure them close to a window, charge the ram straight through the frame, and drop it on top of their boat?”
“They might actually die!”
“You are far too soft.”
“She’s right! If this is off-limits and that is off-limits, what are we supposed to do?”
Both Scholar and Dorothy voiced their discontent. True to their nature as ranged DPS players, their temperaments were downright ruthless. Had the sophomores already been designated as fair game to be sniped on sight in their minds? This was why ranged carries terrified me. I made a mental note, as I did in every single playthrough: whenever I built a party later, a mandatory personality test was non-negotiable for the archer slot.
“How about an assassination op? We slip beneath their boat in the shadows, punch a hole in the hull, and drown them all.”
“Leave the bodyguard duty to me. If you’re spotted while punching holes in their hull, I’ll lay down my life to hold them off!”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but please control yourselves!”
There were simply too many bloodthirsty students catching the fever, just like Zhuang and Mob. It was a massive headache.
“Let’s try talking to them first!”
And so, we launched our boat and approached the twenty-passenger vessel piloted by the sophomores.
“Excuse me, seniors! Let’s talk for a moment!”
“Are you looking to make a bulk purchase? We can’t do too much, but I’ll shave off ten percent!”
“We didn’t come to buy fish!”
The senior wearing a folded paper captain’s hat shot me a sour, irritated glare.
“Then why are you here?”
“Please cease monopolizing the seafood fishing rights against the freshmen immediately! Otherwise, we will report everything you did today straight to the student council!”
“Oh? A mere freshman knows about the student council? How precious. But isn’t this a shame?”
The senior sneered, oozing condescension.
“We conducted proper commerce for fair compensation. Our pricing was determined within reasonable market bounds. If you think running to the student council will get them to take your side, you’re sorely mistaken.”
There seemed to be zero room for compromise. But I hadn’t stepped forward to negotiate without a plan of my own.
“In that case, are you fine with everyone finding out that you seniors were illegally cultivating Red Teeth Mushrooms?”
“You little punk… You were one of the freshmen who raided our farm, weren’t you?!”
The upperclassmen’s expressions turned instantly vicious. This had been a regular event back when I was a hulking brute, so I had casually stepped up to negotiate without much thought. But unlike back then, when opponents shrank back in terror and bent the knee on their own, these seniors were pushing back aggressively.
“No! I only stepped forward to mediate after hearing what the others had to say.”
“Mediate?”
“We’ll keep your illegal Red Teeth Mushroom farm a secret, so please stop harassing the freshmen!”
“And what about our losses? What about the damages from having the Red Teeth Mushrooms we painstakingly raised for mana sacs brutally abducted and eaten alive?!”
“Can’t you let it slide just this once for the sake of your adorable underclassmen?”
“Who in their right mind would let that slide?!”
Behind the senior in the paper captain’s hat, a few sophomores began murmuring among themselves.
“She is pretty cute, though.”
“She’s tiny, but she speaks so clearly.”
“Hey, kid, we made some jerky. Want a piece?”
“What kind of jerky is it?”
“Tree squirrel jerky.”
“I’ve already had that, so no thank you.”
Hmph. Believe it or not, I have high culinary standards!
“Dammit! What’s wrong with you slackers?! Why are you playing around with a kid?! These punks inflicted damages on our enterprise! Until we receive proper restitution, there will be no compromise!”
The senior shoved my chest with an open palm as I stood on their boat.
Yes. This is exactly what I was waiting for.
There were many ways to put an end to violence in this world. One could suppress it with overwhelming force. Or one could plead for intervention from the faculty or the student council.
“Owwie!”
Or, one could overact, executing a flawless three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin from the slightest tap before collapsing dramatically.
“Y-You! When the hell did I push you that hard?! Stop faking and get up right now!”
As his hand reached out roughly to drag me to my feet, I kicked off the deck, launching myself ten meters backward through the air with a theatrical splash straight into the water.
After about three seconds submerged, Zhuang and Mob dove in frantically, hoisting me back onto our lifeboat.
“Orknodi was attacked!!”
“Cowardly scum! How dare you lay hands on a child who only came to negotiate peace?!”
The classic dispute resolution tactic I had abused endlessly back in my days as a musclebound juggernaut: the dive scam. A tried-and-true shortcut that spared you from paying mutual-assault fines in precious points to the student council or the academy, while turning your opponent into public enemy number one and resolving everything smoothly!
…At least, that had been the original intention.
Perhaps because I pulled off this soccer dive with the frail body of a delicate little girl instead of a towering pile of muscle, the effect was astronomically beyond expectations.
“You absolute pieces of trash!!”
“Where on that tiny body could you possibly find an excuse to hit her?!”
“Avenge Orknodi!!”
“Forget senior, junior, or whatever! Beat them all into the ground!!”
In an instant, our classmates erupted in blinding fury, swarming en masse toward the sophomores’ twenty-passenger vessel. Upper class, lower class, Outskirts, Empire—every faction boundary melted away in an explosion of collective, unbridled rage.
…An all-out riot broke out.