5. Send Her Back Before She Becomes the Heroine
5. Send Her Back Before She Becomes the Heroine
Boom!!!
"Huh? Sounds like something else just blew up. Rus, want to check it out?"
"......I'm fine."
"Yeah? Well, it was shocking at first, but now it's just part of the routine."
Despite the blast echoing from somewhere, the faint tremor, and the plume of smoke rising, Mina—still seated on the coffeehouse terrace—managed only a wry smile as she set down her cup.
How long had it been since the entrance ceremony? About two weeks now?
When the ceremony had first ended, she'd sworn she would never get used to this.
Yet after barely two weeks, here she was, calmly accepting it as everyday life.
"Still, you are curious, right? Where'd it blow up this time? Based on the direction, it looks like the Magic Department?"
"A lab...... or a lecture hall, probably."
"Why isn't there a training ground over there, anyway...?"
Were all city academies like this? Country-girl Mina's misconceptions about the city deepened as she gazed toward the rising smoke.
The buildings near the smoke did look like research facilities. She'd heard some labs got blown up so often they'd stopped repairing them altogether.
"Is that sort of thing normal for magic students? I mean, for us, the worst that happens is cracks or a collapse, you know? Explosions are... not a thing."
"It's all the same in the end."
"Hoo, maybe the Student Council President was right after all. She said magic and martial arts don't have any real advantage over administration, didn't she? She also said that senior she respects so deeply was in Administration."
".........."
"I know that senior's already graduated, but if the Student Council President admired them that much, I'd have loved to meet them. What about you, Rus? The President is a 6th Rank just like you, isn't she!"
"Mina.........."
"Ah, sorry. You're still doing your community service......."
Why am I so clueless? Mina sighed inwardly.
Her friend Rus had violated the restrictions during the entrance ceremony, used his Sword Aura, and slashed apart the Manticore illusion. For that, he'd been summoned to the Student Affairs Department, reprimanded, and disciplined.
'Two hundred hours of community service, and banned from leaving the Academy until it's all done.......'
She'd heard Rus was the fastest freshman to receive disciplinary action since the Student Council President herself—and even that penalty had been reduced because the ceremony was treated as an unscheduled event. Two weeks later, Rus was still squeezing in various service duties after lectures, cutting into his sleep to manage it.
And here I am, right before he has to head off to another shift, casually bringing up rank tiers.
Rus watched Mina fidgeting for a moment, then silently slid a pastry toward her.
"......Don't get too down. I'll have all 200 hours finished by next month."
"R-right. Once those service hours are done, let's go out somewhere beyond the Academy! I've already scouted out a bunch of places! Like, if you head to the east street, there's—"
".........You're talking about that potato-cooking place, aren't you?"
"Huh? Rus, how did you know?"
It was supposed to be a hidden gem even most students didn't know about, so how did Rus, who couldn't even leave the Academy, know about it?
At the innocent and sudden question, Rus hesitated briefly.
"Oh! You heard about it from another upperclassman, right?"
"......Yeah, that's right."
"That's our Rus! I knew it—tons of students in our year and seniors have tried to talk to you!"
Having a genuine 6th Rank swordsman as a classmate—it would have been impossible not to attract attention.
Sure, the ugly rumors about ignoring Lady Risha's handshake at the entrance ceremony had circulated for a while, but Mina knew full well that was a ridiculous misunderstanding.
'He's just shy around strangers.'
The proof was how much effort Rus put into getting close to people. He already knew a fair bit about his classmates he'd just met, the professors, and even about Mina herself.
He was shy, but he must've worked hard to observe others so he could find ways to talk to them. A simple country girl beloved by everyone in her village, Mina believed that without the slightest doubt.
Put kindly, she was pure. Put less kindly, she was naive.
At Mina's response, Rus gazed quietly into her eyes for a moment, then set down her coffee cup.
As if he'd known all along that Mina would react exactly that way.
"......Mina, about that upperclassman."
"Hm? Rus, you want to meet that senior the Student Council President respects too, right!?"
"No."
"H-huh? Rus?"
"It'd be better if you...... never met him at all."
The corners of Rus's eyes were so desolate and sunken as he spoke
that Mina shivered from an inexplicable chill, then quickly let out a "hehe" laugh.
"Well, okay! After all, that's the word of a 6th Rank, so I'll heed it!"
"......Don't worry. You can grow far stronger than me."
"Me? Come on, Rus. You don't have to hype me up just because we're friends. I'm still only 3rd Rank. I'm practically at the bottom of the Combat specialization, too......."
"......You'll find out later. Your instincts are truly...... exceptional."
"Thanks. Hehe, I really wish I could manifest Ki the way you do. Did you see what the Chairwoman did with Rigid Energy at the entrance ceremony? Even thinking of myself as a fellow martial artist felt like blasphemy."
"The Chairwoman.........."
"She's the most famous person in the Kingdom. We even learned about it in yesterday's history lecture—about a hundred years ago, when assassins broke into the royal palace and nearly wiped out the entire royal family!"
"......And she dealt with all of them alone."
A soft click.
Rus, having dumped several sugar cubes into his coffee, continued quietly.
Beyond stopping the assassins, the Chairwoman's many other exploits had made her a celebrated hero of the Kingdom. When she later tried to leave the Kingdom for elsewhere, the Previous King had offered her a duchy and vast territory to persuade her to stay—a fact famous enough to be recorded in history texts.
There was also the saying that the number of 8th Rank transcendent powers a nation possessed was a direct measure of its national strength. The hegemonic Empire had over ten 8th Ranks, the Kingdom—runner-up—had four, and there were small nations that didn't possess even a single one.
Why the Chairwoman, who had received overtures from the Empire as well at the time, chose the Kingdom instead, no one knew. She refused the title but accepted the territory, and given that she used it to establish Grandis Academy, she clearly had a purpose—but then, that same purpose could arguably have been pursued in the Empire too.
At any rate, wielding a transcendent financial power whose source no one could guess, the Chairwoman had rapidly shaped Grandis Academy into a prestigious institution over several decades. Many things had happened in the intervening years, but Grandis Academy would surely endure for another hundred, another two hundred years.
———So.
The person known as Rus Spero had once,
believed without the faintest doubt.
Those days had existed.
"............."
"Rus? What's wrong?"
"......Just, thinking about old times."
He answered Mina's concern simply, then turned his head toward the street.
When she was pointlessly swallowed up by memories of "before," zoning out was better than continuing to dwell on them. Considering what she'd gotten herself into before coming to the Academy—thinking back to the rock salt mine—this was for the best.
Just as she was staring blankly from the terrace at the street where students came and went,
clamoring voices reached him.
"Is that for real? Another duel? Has that princess lost her mind?"
"Crazy or not, it's guaranteed entertainment, that's for sure. You think she challenged Chloe without some kind of plan? She's got a hidden trump card."
"Hey, I saw that duel a week ago with my own eyes, okay? Trump card or not, the gap in ability is overwhelming. She was basically toying with her. And more than anything, isn't the princess going to self-destruct even standing still, thanks to that chronic illness of hers?"
"So you're not going to watch?"
"Can't you see me running right now?"
"Rus, did you hear that? A duel!"
".........."
A duel. Not as common as building explosions or collapses, but it happened often enough that you'd just start to forget about the last one when the next one came.
Rus himself had received duel challenges from classmates and various upperclassmen. Against a 6th Rank swordsman, there was no chance of victory—but if, say, he sealed one arm and didn't use Sword Aura, then maybe...?
Because he'd turned them all down, some mockery had surfaced: it's nothing special, he's just scared, they said. But after the first sparring session, when he knocked out ten opponents simultaneously with a single swing of his blade, those rumors stopped.
That was why Rus wasn't focused on the duel itself.
More precisely, his attention was on the duel's participants.
"......Amatrius Delphia Beatrice, Chloe Pisti."
"Wow, you've got their full names memorized? My tongue keeps tripping over them."
"Those two are dueling?"
"That's right. You've been busy with community service after lectures every day, so you didn't know—a week ago, the princess and the Archmage Lord's disciple fought!"
"......What?"
"Anyway, it's a Magic Department matter, so it wasn't huge talk on our side. The Martial Arts Department's been buzzing about a different story, hasn't it?"
"A different rumor?"
"Ha ha...... Rus, because of what you did in that first sparring session......."
"............."
For someone usually so even-keeled, Rus's visible fluster was rare, but after a sip of his sweetened coffee he regained his composure.
He seemed to mull something over for a moment, then asked Mina.
"......What happened in that duel?"
"I heard the disciple won overwhelmingly! But from what they just said, barely a week's passed and the princess challenged her again—do you think she trained frantically in the meantime?"
"......I see. So Beatrice, who suffers from a chronic illness, has turned around and challenged Chloe to a duel."
"Rus?"
"......'This time'...... you've chosen Beatrice, then."
A deep sigh. And eyes that seemed steeped in remorse.
Like this, Mina's best friend Rus sometimes seemed startlingly different from Mina herself. As if she'd already lived an entire life, perhaps?
'It feels a bit rude to say this, but.'
Rus was...... oddly like Mina's grandmother. Not in appearance, of course—in his mannerisms, his air.
Never flustered, acting as though he knew everything, impossible to view as the same age.
Less maturity, maybe, and more like years of hard-won experience?
If she said any of this out loud, Rus would definitely glare at her again. Having learned her lesson from moments ago, Mina nodded inwardly and kept her lips firmly shut, instead shifting the subject.
"We've still got time before you have to go to your service, right? Want to go watch together?"
"......I'm fine. The outcome's obvious anyway."
"Hm? You think the disciple's going to win too, Rus?"
"Hard to say......."
Rus stirred his coffee spoon for a moment,
then murmured something under his breath.
"......Adam."
"Hm? That name, where did I hear it? Definitely......."
"......Forget it, Mina."
"It's not a name...... that would do you any good to remember."
But for me, it's a name I must never forget.
Even in death, I won't be able to forget it.
"A name like that."
*
Duel Arena 21 was already packed with spectators.
Since it was an arena located in the Magic Department's section, most of the onlookers were yellow-braceleted magic-division students, though a few blue-braceleted martial-arts students were also present.
Alas, the Administration students were virtually absent—they had group projects and reports to write during the hours anyone else would be watching duels. Known as the hope of the commoners, their division had the largest student body, which made the academic competition among them especially fierce.
In any case, the consensus among the students enjoying their relative leisure compared to Administration was broadly similar.
"Even so, she can't really win, can she?"
"She must've had some idea in mind to issue the challenge, but what can the princess do? It's not like she could've resolved that chronic illness in a week."
Unlike a week ago, it was Beatrice who had issued the duel this time. She couldn't be entirely thoughtless, yet winning still seemed unlikely.
The chattering students fell silent one by one.
"............."
"Oh my, Princess? Don't tell me you couldn't even manage your condition?"
Beatrice and Chloe—the two duelists had appeared.
But compared to Chloe, who was the picture of composure, Beatrice's state was visibly poor.
Her steps were heavy, her breathing looked labored, and she staggered as though she might collapse at any moment.
Even so, Beatrice trudged onto the duel stage as if this condition was familiar to her. At the sight, a mocking smile curled on Chloe's lips.
"I'll compliment you, Princess."
"......On what?"
"On mustering your courage, I suppose. Or no—is it that showing disgrace once means showing it a second time doesn't matter? You're not planning to keep challenging me until you win, are you?"
"......There won't be any need for that."
Beatrice, who had answered with a voice that sounded nearly split in two,
took something out from her coat and clutched it.
"Why not? I was thinking I'd keep accepting."
"Because...... I'm going to win anyway."
"......That's a boring thing to say."
What she held was a clock-shaped Artifact.
Chloe made no move to stop her. If both parties consented, Artifact use was permitted in duels. And, naturally, Chloe was gracious enough to allow Beatrice hers.
"You spent a whole week practicing with that? Artifact utilization? Don't tell me you thought you could beat me with little toys like that?"
"............."
"In the first place, that thing isn't even for combat. It's just an Artifact with an alarm spell and a few convenience spells added. What could you possibly—"
Right then,
Chloe's brow furrowed.
Something had felt off for a while now, but she'd dismissed it, telling herself it couldn't be.
......She has no mana.
Beatrice's mana was utterly hollowed out. It was close to the state of Mana Exhaustion that she'd only ever heard described.
Mana Exhaustion was akin to death by starvation or dehydration for an ordinary person. A normal mage's body would prevent Mana Exhaustion at the instinctual level, if only for self-preservation.
So why?
"You."
But even more astonishing than that—
Mana was flowing through Beatrice's body, a body on the verge of exhaustion.
From the clock Artifact in her hand.
The mana streamed to the tips of Beatrice's fingers and coalesced.
[Fireball]
A scene she'd witnessed somewhere before unfolded.
Multiple spheres of flame hovering in the air.
And then.
Crack!
The fireballs froze over.
Fwooosh!!
Wind whipped up, forming pillars of fire.
Kra-krack!
Lightning wreathed the Fireballs, reinforcing them.
"Y-you......!!"
"......Not especially difficult. Cough—was this what you were boasting about?"
The talent recognized by the Archmage.
Like Chloe, Beatrice too was a rare multi-attribute wielder.
A week ago, in that duel, Beatrice had flawlessly reproduced the very magic Chloe herself had displayed last time.
But unlike then, she now controlled the magic perfectly.
"How!? Don't tell me, don't tell me you're using the Artifact's mana? Why would you go through such a pointless step——no."
Staring in reverse at the very spectacle she herself had once created, Chloe ground her teeth until her gums bled.
She aimed eyes boiling with jealousy and hatred at Beatrice.
"That's your method, isn't it? A way to escape that chronic illness of yours."
"............."
"I don't know what the hell you did, and I don't care."
Whoosh!
[Fireball]
Just as Beatrice had, Chloe conjured her own fireballs—more of them, even—
and declared in a voice that sounded like it wanted to devour something whole.
"That impertinent talent the Master recognized......!! Once I crush it——!!"
"......Adam."
"It'll be certain that I, and I alone, am the only mage worthy of his acknowledgment!!!"
"Wait for me. I'll come see you soon."
Right after she spoke,
the spells collided.