7. Midterms on a Deserted Island, as Expected
7. Midterms on a Deserted Island, as Expected
There are memories that never fade.
Scenes from the daily grind, countless moments from the past, a lifetime's worth of sights—and among them, one image lodged like a thorn you cannot pull free.
"What... is this?"
Acrid smoke climbs into the sky. The great citadel, the ordinary houses, the well-tended roads, even the corpses that were once people.
All of it burns without distinction. Everything in sight is ablaze and dying.
...No. That is not right.
It is not dying. It is already dead. All of it.
I arrived after every soul in this kingdom had already met its end.
The setting sun dips low, and only the sun blazing beyond the mountains looks down on it all with equal indifference.
And there was someone watching the whole scene.
A familiar silhouette, seen from behind.
"...Adam? Adam Caines?"
"...Ah."
"The—Finance Director—why are you—?"
A sight I never expected, a meeting far too abrupt, and a person with no business being here at all.
Less than a year after I graduated from Grandis Academy, the academy fell.
They said the Chairwoman died and Adam vanished somewhere after that.
For years there was no word, no sign of him... so why here?
"It has been a while, Rus. How many years has it been?"
"Well, it has been over three years since we graduated... I suppose."
A perfectly ordinary conversation held before a landscape of flame and death.
Maybe it was the dissonance. Adam's voice was so utterly calm it sent a chill down my spine.
How could Adam
look at that inferno as if it were nothing?
"Finance Director, what in the world...?"
"Is it not strange?"
"Wh-what is?"
"I have been chain-smoking stuff way stronger than before, nobody is around anymore to filter out the side effects and the toxins, and yet my mind is clearer than ever. Am I dying right now, or just coming alive?"
A riddle I could not follow.
Maybe he had not expected an answer. Adam muttered a moment longer, then went on in the same flat, indifferent tone, as though none of it mattered much.
"It is nothing special. I just burned it all."
"Huh?"
"It was not hard. The flames caught better than I expected. Whoosh. Just like the academy, that day."
Step.
Adam, who had been looking down at the burning kingdom from the ridge.
He waved a hand lazily through the smoke rising from below, as if trying to mix it with the smoke from his own cigarette.
I could not understand the gesture. Could not fathom why.
And then Adam turned quietly, eyes holding none of the weariness I remembered from the academy days.
"You would not know this, but there is a saying—burn down the whole house to kill one bedbug."
"What? What does that...?"
"Originally it means an idiot who torches his own house trying to kill a bug. But I started thinking—at least that way, the bedbug, the pest, is one hundred percent exterminated."
The Adam I met after three years had changed.
The bleached hair, the worn robes, even the cigarette—all the same.
But he had stopped using polite speech.
He had stopped looking exhausted.
The smoke he exhaled was far harsher than before.
And above all.
"So I did it. That is all."
"...Finance Director."
"Sorry, but call me by my name instead."
"What?"
"There was only one person who could call me 'Finance Director'... and she is gone now."
Those eyes. At a glance, they did not look so different from three years ago.
But after graduation, hunting down every lead on the Dark Sword, I had learned to recognize it.
The madness coiled deep behind the pupils. The look of a man ensnared by the Dark Sword. The look of a man who had lost himself to something with desperate, all-consuming obsession.
"Ad—Finance Director. You will not believe me, but right now the Dark Sword has you in its grip. I do not know how you came into contact with that blade, but if you let me help—"
"Oh, right. I can see how it might look that way."
"...Excuse me?"
"I did come into contact with it. I only cleared the academy part of the game, but I accidentally stumbled on a strategy guide post that gave away the Dark Sword's location and how to get it."
"Wait—what? A what?"
Academy part? Strategy guide? Accidentally?
Listening to Adam mutter to himself, I was certain.
The Adam in front of me had lost his mind. Enthralled by the Dark Sword, driven over the edge. That was why he had burned this little frontier kingdom to ash.
'His crimes will not vanish.'
But we had been friendly back at the academy. I knew the Adam from those days.
I wanted to help him atone, bring him back to who he had been—
"But a 1st Rank cannot even hold the thing. That was pretty disheartening, honestly... Ah, time is almost up."
"Stay still, Adam. Right now I will—"
"Let us begin."
He said it without even glancing at me or the sword I had raised.
Spoke toward the sun beyond the mountains.
A madman's act, I thought.
"Drop it, Chloe."
"...Chl—Chloe?"
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAAAAA!!!!!
The instant Adam's quiet voice faded, the sun beyond the peaks began to move.
...No. That was not the sun. It was simply so colossal I had mistaken it for one.
A [Fireball] vast enough to swallow an entire mountain, so immense it dimmed the real sun blazing behind it.
A grand spell that soared far past the 7th Rank, magic that only the Empire's Archmage might hope to rival.
It falls.
And then—
"All done, Adam."
"Thanks, Chloe. As always."
"Please, it is us. More importantly... who is she?"
"You do not remember? Rus Spero. Perpetual dead last."
"The one you were always so wrapped up in back at the academy? Do not tell me you are still—"
"Well, back then I suppose I was, but..."
—Fero!
"Not anymore."
—Rus!
"...None of it means anything now."
—Spero!
"Rus Spero!!"
"..."
"Rus Spero! Final warning—lower your sword!"
My awareness snaps back to the present. The memory so vivid it could never fade recedes to the far edge of my thoughts.
The stench of burning corpses and buildings, the falling sun and the sunset sky, Adam so utterly changed, and Chloe standing beside him.
Even returning to the past could not erase those things.
How long had I been trapped in that moment?
The Exam Officer and several professors had already encircled me completely. Even against a student, a 6th Rank opponent warranted zero complacency.
"...Adam."
And at the tip of my outstretched blade stands Adam Caines.
The man who had approached me when I was struggling as perpetual dead last, a laughingstock. Who had helped me. Someone I had considered a benefactor.
But the man who ultimately became the world's destroyer.
After that memory, Adam and Chloe had roamed far and wide, leaving slaughter and death in their wake. I had chased them desperately, but it was as if they knew my every move—they always slipped away.
Until finally, using the 8th Rank monsters of the Empire's western wasteland, they even brought the hegemonic Empire to its knees.
And in a world beaten to ruin,
after killing Chloe, the Adam I at last came face-to-face with was—
Clang!
"...Forgive me. I was momentarily disoriented and could not tell what I was doing. I apologize."
"Hah... Understood. We will be confiscating the sword for now."
"Kaern Deste is disqualified, but what about Rus Spero?"
"The familiar's record shows Kaern Deste was the one who charged in unprovoked. Rus Spero's actions are clearly self-defense."
I let my sword fall. The Exam Officer and professors, relieved, discuss what comes next.
Milia and Beatrice approached me where I had collapsed onto the dirt.
"Rus, are you alright?"
"Lady Rus...?"
"...I am fine. My apologies."
"No, the fault lies with that youngest knight. Charging in out of nowhere like that..."
"I knew it. The rumors that he is half out of his mind really are true."
Beatrice and Milia are saying something, but the words barely register. From behind Adam, a hair-raising killing intent presses toward me—affecting no one else, aimed only at me—but I pay it no mind.
I simply
keep my eyes on Adam Caines,
who blinks as though he has not the faintest idea what just happened.
*
What is her deal? Why is she staring daggers at me? Did I do something?
I watched Rus being led away by some unassuming girl student, then turned away soon enough. From what I had gathered, for once this was not the protagonist punk's fault.
Instead I called out to a familiar silhouette—a girl whose back was turned to me.
"Your Highness, Princess Beatrice?"
"...Um, Adam."
"What is wrong? Are you feeling al—"
"D-do not come any closer!"
"Pardon?"
"Right now, I am... my clothes are filthy, and I have not been able to wash properly..."
Ah. That, I can respect. Three days roughing it on an uninhabited island—I would not want an acquaintance seeing me in that state either.
Beatrice had ducked behind a tree, back turned. I averted my gaze to give her some dignity.
"In any case, you are not injured?"
"No, I am fine."
"Good. The exam will resume shortly, so rest for now."
"Yes..."
I would deal with Beatrice later.
The moment Rus had leveled her sword at me, the Chairwoman had almost shot forward—I had had to frantically signal her with my eyes to hold back.
Now I looked down at the full-plate armor being hauled in under strict escort by the Exam Officer and professors.
"You are Student Kaern Deste, correct?"
"I am."
"Do you admit to breaking the rules and using force during the exam?"
"Of course! A knight does not lie!"
"Then I trust a knight will also stand proudly by his actions."
"Naturally!"
Good.
You just said that with your own mouth, did you not?
"Madam Chairwoman, if you would."
"Understood, Finance Director."
"M-Madam Chairwoman?!"
"Madam Chairwoman! You came in person!"
"Exam Officer and professors, clear the area appropriately. I will speak with Student Kaern myself."
"""Yes, Madam Chairwoman!"""
The Exam Officer and professors, none of them eager to stand right next to the Chairwoman, scrambled into motion.
Kirke, too, had gone pale the instant she spotted the Chairwoman—I had had to stop her from bolting as well.
She is that terrified of the Chairwoman, and yet she still pulled that stunt with the Custom? Did something happen to her afterward?
Well, whatever happened, it is none of my business.
The Chairwoman—plainly in a foul mood thanks to Rus's little outburst a moment ago—stepped up to Kaern. He started trembling from head to toe.
If it were battle-lust or competitive shivers, I would almost respect that.
But with his teeth chattering like that, it is just terror. Fake madness after all.
"Kaern Deste."
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
"You have really done it now, have you not? The report says you declared rules meant nothing and launched an attack at Student Rus that mimicked Sword Aura. Is this true?"
"It is not!"
Hey, did you not just swear knights do not lie?
The lie rolled out without a heartbeat's hesitation—even the Chairwoman looked briefly taken aback. But after a magic-department professor managing the familiars stepped forward and whispered in her ear, her expression hardened into a scowl.
"You lie quite shamelessly."
"My apologies! I will take full responsibility!"
"Responsibility. Then you will be paying compensation, will you not?"
"Pardon? B-but academy regulations state that damages incurred on academy grounds are—"
"Does Student Kaern imagine this island looks like academy grounds?"
"Ah."
He knew full well the regulation—that the academy typically covers repairs for damages on campus—and still tried claiming he would take responsibility. The gall.
The youngest knight, Kaern Deste, was the same character in Dark Kingdom. Not so much an upright knight as a cunning one, with a mouth that never stopped running.
But even that silver tongue seemed to break down in front of an angry Chairwoman.
"These islands in the Luftragina Archipelago are my personal property. Naturally, they are not academy grounds."
"..."
"You have turned the center of the island into a wreck, uprooted a great many trees—the compensation for all of that will be quite substantial, I imagine."
At the Chairwoman's words, all the color drained from Kaern's face. Talk of money was his single greatest weakness.
Born to a baronet's house, Kaern Deste meticulously hoards every donation and scrap of coin that comes his way. His goal is to elevate his family to the rank of baron.
In the game, he even had a "miser" trait hard-coded in. If he is forced to pay restitution here, his coffers will be emptied entirely—or worse, it still will not be enough.
...Of course, all of this was a script the Chairwoman and I had worked out in advance.
'These islands were left to rot anyway. Compensation, my ass.'
Compensation? The old Chairwoman would not have bothered. If it were not for me, the academy would never have used this archipelago in the first place.
Not that we had orchestrated this incident just to wring money out of him. No matter how desperate the academy's finances, the Chairwoman fundamentally cares about her students—she would never greenlight a scheme like that.
I had genuinely only been trying to cut the midterm exam costs. I never imagined we would land a prize catch like this.
Kaern Deste, the youngest knight, was already one of my targets on several fronts. I had been working angles—never expected him to tangle himself up with us this neatly.
So from the moment Darcun the Exam Officer reported that the damage appeared to be Kaern's doing, the Chairwoman and I had gotten our stories straight.
'Little hiccup when the protagonist punk suddenly swung a sword at me and the Chairwoman nearly went off, but whatever.'
Anyway. Coincidence or not, the situation was what it was.
The Chairwoman looked at the trembling Kaern and spoke the lines we had agreed upon.
"However. Even a promising talent hailed as the youngest knight would struggle to shoulder such a compensation sum alone."
"Y-yes, madam! I am truly sorry!"
"Then I suppose we must speak with your guardian."
"...Excuse me?"
She was not talking about Kaern's parents. They had already passed away from chronic illness.
Nor was this some crude jab at the dead. For someone in Kaern's position now, the word "guardian" meant one man.
"The one who knighted Student Kaern. Sir Julius."
"...!!!"
"Good heavens, that little brat is now the Royal Knight Commander. Astonishing. In any case, since he himself knighted Student Kaern, he ought to bear some responsibility as well."
"M-Madam Chairwoman!"
"Student Kaern is already disqualified regardless. Once you return to the port city, write to that Julius at once."
—Tell him to come to Grandis Academy as fast as he can.
"That will suffice."
"Ah..."
"And one more thing. I cherish every student in this academy equally. I look after them all."
However.
"A student who flouts the rules on a whim, and then tries to exploit those very rules—"
"..."
"I may find myself disliking that student. Just a little."
Kaern crumbled, his face a portrait of absolute ruin.
Kirke, who had caught the Chairwoman's smile, was trembling all over again too.
Meanwhile, I was quietly turning over thoughts of Sir Julius.
'Sir Julius. 7th Rank swordsman and disciple of Margrave Claudia. Current Royal Knight Commander...'
And a knight with more money to his name than plenty of merchant guilds and nobles.
One of the wealthiest men in the entire kingdom.
'Moneybag... no, Sir Julius.'
Right now,
I am coming to see you.