Winning Streak

"T-Tiss. Everyone's staring this way without saying a word."

Shan, her face faintly flushed with excitement, was eagerly giving me a live broadcast of a sight she had never seen before.

"E-everyone's started chanting your name. The word I h-hear the most is 'cute.' I-it's strange. It's a different reaction from the prayers of the faithful."

"Yeah. I think I can hear something too. How's your stomach holding up?"

"I-I'm okay. There's less r-resistance than I expected. M-maybe because we're inside the subspace?"

The sight of that snow-white, fluffy little thing chattering away with a blush on her cheeks was unbearably cute.

"Is that so? Then I guess I need to shift the mood a little more aggressively."

I lifted my head toward the direction the spectators were watching and smiled—as brightly as I possibly could—while flashing a V-sign with my fingers.

The arena was completely sealed off from outside sound, so under ordinary circumstances nothing from beyond would have carried in.

Waaaaaah!!!

"She's so cute!"

"The new little Hero is insanely strong!"

"Wow...! The frozen atmosphere just thawed in an instant."

Shan, who bore the epithet Whispering One, and I could perceive even what was happening beyond the subspace.

"Everyone watching my performance? Cheer for me with everything you've got!"

"Whoa...! The sheer shamelessness! You said you'd never act again. You're doing it anyway?"

"Don't put it like that... I'm swallowing my pride to give them some fan service here. That's harsh."

"Fan ser...vice? D-do you really need to do something that embarrassing? S-so the villain act wasn't acting after all... it was the real you."

"Shan!"

"Eep...!"

Cheeky little fluffball. She'd been waiting for this exact moment to tease me.

Let me get my excuse in first: everything I was about to do, I was doing for a reason.

Now that I had drawn the Holy Sword, I attracted attention no matter what I did. On top of that, I intended to use this opportunity to properly demonstrate the overwhelming martial prowess I possessed.

The small problem was this: an order and hierarchy built on strength is the fastest, surest way to stamp into people's minds who stands above whom—but used poorly, you don't become a leader. You become an object of fear and exclusion. So it was better to bank some goodwill at a big event like this.

"D-do you have some special method?"

"There's no special method."

Our appearance itself was the special method.

There are three cheat codes in the advertising world. A child, a beauty, and an animal—and as it happened, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠checked all three boxes.

I gave my fluffy snow-white tail a gentle sway from side to side, flicked my ears now and then, and smiled toward the stands from time to time.

"CUTE!!!"

The students' cheers swelled even louder. If you put even a little care into using those three attention-grabbing elements this way, the effect was enormous.

"You get that I calculated all of this out of necessity, right? Well? Do my actions look a little different now?"

"Y-you have absolutely no self-awareness, do you."

"What was that?"

"N-nothing. Never mind."

Anyway, five students remained. Unlike the extras, these were the Hero Class leads—each of them given their own standing illustrations and unique models in the game.

Accompanied by the click of high heels, fireworks popped and a bird took noisy wing.

"Kyahaha! Did my little spectator wait just for my magic show?"

A girl with heart and clover tattoos inked across her face appeared. She seized her own shoulder and spun, her crimson cape billowing—and in an instant her outfit transformed into a dazzling tailcoat.

"Wow... that girl is w-wearing some incredible clothes."

Shan's eyes went round. She wasn't as generously proportioned in certain places as Sia, but she had a slender figure the word itself might have been coined for, and she was rocking a no-pants look—pantyhose and high-heeled boots in place of trousers.

She was a girl more familiar by the nicknames Heart Queen or the Magician than by her real name, Lucilla—one of the Hero Class leads, whose ability, true to concept, was tied to magic.

"Wrap it up early today. Show me next time."

"Oh my, the little spectator hasn't taken an interest in magic yet? Come on, just watch once~ You might change your mind."

Heart Queen flourished a wand adorned with extravagant ribbon decorations. She struck a pose, one foot lifted, complete with exaggerated gestures and a wink—and pink smoke suddenly billowed around her as white doves flapped into the air.

I took a step toward Heart Queen as she settled a silk hat that had appeared in her hand onto her head, preparing her trick.

And vanished.

"Huh?"

Heart Queen, whose specialty was sleight of hand built on dazzling magic, had the worst possible matchup against me. Not for me. For her.

The moment I stepped forward, white smoke coiling around me, I closed the distance in a single burst with the power of Ichor.

The foundation of the Silent Killing Method is, of course, the erasure of sound. Every technique in the Silent Killing Method is premised on being used in a state of complete silence, with all sound wiped away.

So what happens if you use a Silent Killing Method technique without erasing the sound?

Shan's shock exploded across my mind.

A Silent Killing Method technique performed without silencing sound produces a bitter, keening scream—like a ghost crying out.

And that wailing cry awakened a primal human terror.

"Eek!"

Startled, Heart Queen hurriedly swung her wand, trying to breathe fire.

Crick. Crack.

"Oh-ho? Why is this crumbling like a cookie?"

"Next."

Heart Queen stared blankly at the wand, now chopped into fine pieces. The moment she started to turn at my word, her head slipped from her neck, hit the floor with a thud, and crumbled into sand.

Bwahahaha!

"Didn't think my turn would come this fast!"

A young man with orange hair, brimming with confidence, dusted off his shoulders and strode up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to Tiss.

"The great me has arrived. Everyone, greet me with applause."

With a flashy pose, he surveyed his surroundings, triumphant—his expression carrying the natural arrogance of someone who took praise as his due. He was also one of the students vying for first and second in the Hero Upper Class.

"I, Daniel, son of Raymond, the strongest Hero of Area 1, will take down our high-and-mighty next Hero. Don't be too tense. I'm merciful, so I'll finish you before you even have a gap to feel pain."

Daniel was so full of himself it was hard to tell who was supposed to be the high-and-mighty one. A strange aura hung around his body, like looking into a warped mirror.

Daniel's ability was psychokinesis—what people commonly called telekinesis. He always wrapped the power of that ability around his body like a shield: an invisible force that stretched in every direction, gripping, gathering, crushing.

"Tiss, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shoot him."

"Shoot what?"

"Th-that. You know. That."

"If you mean that... all right."

Bang!

At Shan's theatrical cry, I compacted some Ichor as a test and fired a forehead flick at Daniel.

"Take this~ Death Beam!"

"That is not its name."

Two tiny projectiles, split in two and exceeding the speed of sound, aimed at his brow and his heart at the same time.

"Hnh!"

In that instant, Daniel's eyes flashed as he manifested his ability. If he failed to dodge like the ones before him, his head would come clean off—but Daniel was different.

Halt.

"Eek...! What? How did he stop the Death Beam?"

Daniel snorted as he looked at the two Ichor rounds frozen in midair.

"Hahaha! Blocked them. Why's this so fast?"

He glanced at the halted forehead-flick rounds and grinned.

"Scary little brat, firing something this monstrous at a person? Now I get why the ones before you got their skulls blown off before they could even react!"

The air began to vibrate with a weight that deserved the word warping. It was the signal that Daniel was drawing up his telekinesis in earnest.

"Bwahahaha! Let's see once and for all who's strongest!"

"Ugh, he makes me sick."

"He really is obnoxious."

KRAKOOM!

Daniel slammed the empty air, and the arena floor inside the subspace heaved and split. A massive ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠impact roared from above and below at once, and enormous shockwaves collided. The collision shook the subspace arena as if an earthquake had struck.

"Hm...?"

A moment later, Daniel looked at the debris scattered across the floor and withdrew his telekinesis, sensing something off. The Tiss who had been right in front of him until a second ago had vanished without a trace.

Wh... where did she go?

He instinctively stepped back and exploded the telekinesis wrapped around his body in a circular wave. But even after firing the pulse a full three hundred and sixty degrees, there was no trace of Tiss anywhere.

"Don't tell me she got pulverized by that last shock, the boring way?"

That couldn't be it. If she had been annihilated by Daniel's telekinesis, the subspace duel would have ended immediately—yet the subspace was still holding. Which meant Tiss was still alive, and in an unseen state, she was after Daniel's life right now.

"Hah, an assassin coming for a psychokinetic like me? Against the great Daniel, in an arena with zero cover? Confident because you're White Ghost's disciple, is that it? Fun. This is fun!"

Bwahahaha!

Daniel shouted, his voice thick with excitement. White Ghost of the Silent Killing Method—one of the most famous legends in this field. Tiss's ghostly movement, reminiscent of that woman's assassination arts, had him burning up.

To fight a legend. And to win.

Daniel had entered this duel to prove he was the strongest first-year. Originally, Daniel and the other Upper Class students had had no intention of participating. Someone had summoned them separately.

Their homeroom teacher, Bumblebee.

The single line he'd tossed out had been more than enough to set fire to the massive pride of the top students.

"So, Daniel, you're acknowledging without even a fight that the strongest first-year is Miss Tiss, and that you yourself are weaker than her?"

"What... hey, Teach, what did you just say?"

Stung by Bumblebee's honey-laced provocation, Daniel had changed his mind and joined the subspace duel.

"Fine, that's how you want to play? All right, I'll find you myself!"

He compressed the telekinesis wrapped around his entire body into a dense weave.

"This isn't enough. More, more!"

So much telekinesis gathered above his hands that the surrounding scenery warped, distorting like a convex mirror.

Done.

Daniel looked at the completed sphere of telekinesis above his hands and smiled in triumph.

"Now there's nowhere left for you to run."

The instant Daniel muttered it with utter certainty, the nets of telekinesis gathered in both hands burst outward like fireworks.

The enormous psychokinetic net Daniel had created was his finishing move—capable of detecting and subduing a target in a single stroke, regardless of numbers, regardless of whether the opponent was even visible. It flew to the very edge of the arena.

But—

"What?"

No matter how long he waited, nothing caught in the net. There was no sensation of impact, of catching, of something trembling in the snare. His finishing move contracted in an instant around anything that so much as brushed the net, wrapping the entire body—and nothing was touching it at all.

Something was badly wrong.

A chill ran down Daniel's spine like a winter wind, and he hurriedly retracted the net, trying to pour all his telekinesis into his body to reinforce his defense.

Drip. Drip.

In that moment, a strange wrongness in his chest made him slowly lower his gaze.

"How...?"

Standing right under his nose, of all places, was a small white girl with a look of utter boredom on her face. As Tiss took one step back, Daniel's vision filled with his own chest, soaked red with blood.

That's impossible.

Daniel hadn't felt a thing. Only after seeing Tiss with his own two eyes did he finally realize he had taken a fatal wound.

Thud.

Strength drained from his entire body in an instant, and Daniel sank onto the floor stained with his own blood.

"How did you dodge my net...?"

Daniel gathered his remaining strength and asked Tiss one last question.

"I didn't dodge."

"Then...?"

The words that left Tiss's mouth were so straightforward they were almost hollow.

"I just cut it from the front."

"That psychokinetic net was the crystallization of my ability, something I poured my heart and soul into. And you still... cut through it before I, the one who made it, even had a chance to feel it?"

"Yeah."

Something he would never have believed if anyone else had said it had just happened to his own body.

Khheh heh.

"So there really is a sky above the sky."

Daniel lowered his head, letting out a thin laugh.

"Hey, little Hero. This round's your win."

With those last words, Daniel's body crumbled like sand and vanished from the subspace. In his final moment, Daniel wore a look of relief.

The student who appeared after Daniel was a rare black-haired East Asian girl named Rin. Along with the Grand Duchess, she was one of the marquee heroines of the Hero Class—a girl with the potential to grow into a great hero depending on the protagonist's aid. But at this point in time, she was nothing more than a freshman whose talents formed a modest little hexagon—well-rounded, and outstanding in nothing, not unlike Yi Rumi.

Slash!

Despite being a late arrival, Rin fell to Tiss even faster than Heart Queen and turned to dust.

"Next."

Only two people remained until Tiss's victory.

Waaaaaah!!!

"Tiss! Tiss! Tiss!"

"Go, Whitey! Crush those Hero Class jerks!"

"Our cute little Hero is the best!"

Outside the arena, the crowd clapped and shouted themselves hoarse, wild with excitement at Tiss's overwhelming, undefeated march.

"Damn it all..."

Unlike the heated masses, there was someone whose face was growing paler by the second. Namely, Lukeshire himself—the one who had started this subspace duel in the first place.

Alongside Tiss, who had taken on the burden of the Holy Sword, Lukeshire had taken on the burden of this pride duel, and his face was growing more ashen by the moment.

Should I have just fought first?

If he had, he wouldn't have had to carry this kind of pressure. The regret came too late.

Beside the anxious Lukeshire, the Grand Duchess's form grew steadily fainter—the sign that she was transferring into the subspace where Tiss waited.

"Grand Duchess... you're the only one left. Please, defeat that Hero-in-waiting."

"It's not particularly for your sake, but... well. I'll do my best."

"I'm truly grateful."

Left alone, Lukeshire glanced around, then pulled a syringe from his pocket and gripped it in both hands.

If even the Grand Duchess loses, then...

In the eyes of Lukeshire as he steeled himself, a golden madness that was not originally his own was swirling.