So I Throw the Dice

"WhaaaAAAT?!!!!"

The scream rang through the spear club room, rattling the walls.

The source of the noise was Ene, the club president, who had only just woken up. She trembled from head to toe as she read the letter laid out before her, her whole body shaking.

The letter contained a formal acceptance — a promise to answer the challenge she had issued.

She was the one who had submitted the application in the first place, so naturally the reply was addressed to her — and yet she was staring at it in horror. Because the sender was Asuka Elfosis, someone she had absolutely no connection to.

"Wh-why why why does the princess have this?!" she demanded, wearing an expression of pure disbelief.

"I sent it to the swordsmanship club, but it turns out there are two swordsmanship clubs here."

"Ah. No way."

"Yep. Wrong address."

I hadn't expected this either. If I had combed through every one of those skipped memories, I could have delivered it properly, but Ene had fainted, and from what I'd skimmed, time was running short — so I'd sent it off quickly. The problem was where it had landed.

"...You didn't do that on purpose, did you?"

"Of course not."

No matter how much of that Ene had learned, she was nowhere near a level where she could beat Asuka. Even if she used it, whether she could hold out was questionable.

"All that training has paid off, but she still can't beat the princess. It was meant for the existing swordsmanship club, obviously."

"......"

"Hmm, but that's strange. Normally, when someone realizes a letter came to them by mistake, they return it to its rightful owner or just ignore it."

Asuka was wary of me at the moment, so if an opportunity like this landed in her lap, she would seize it without hesitation. That much was certain. But the fact that the letter had reached Asuka intact at all was the puzzling part.

True, I had slipped it into the mailbox — but the princess received so many letters and correspondences by virtue of her station that she hardly seemed the type to check them one by one. Even if another club member had found it, anyone who understood the circumstances would have returned it to its original owner without bothering Asuka. I was the same way, even now — dozens of letters reached me only after being filtered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠through someone who handled manager-type work for me.

I plucked the letter from Ene's soul-departed hand.

Let's see here...

"C-can't we still call it off..."

"...Aha?"

So that's how it got delivered.

Aisha was on the club's member roster.

Aisha had joined the second swordsmanship club. She was a ranker, a devoted fangirl of the Sword God, and someone who had repeatedly shown considerable wariness toward me. But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at some point she had vanished from view, so I hadn't paid it much mind...

"I didn't realize she'd use something like this to keep me in check."

Having seen the misdelivered letter, Aisha had decided to exploit the opportunity — to engineer a fight between the princess and me.

Even if I caught the mistake and pulled out, Aisha would lose nothing. If I refused the match, my influence would shrink, and the Sword God, quietly building his own influence bit by bit, would drift closer to victory.

"I must have misheard you."

"You didn't."

"You're actually doing this? WHY?!"

And so I accepted the fight.

"Equal terms, and I'm in."

This was a friendly match. Not a fight to the death with everything on the line, not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a midterm where grades hung in the balance. The conditions could be set however we pleased.

"The princess has enormous pride in her skill, you know. Would a woman like that really accept a challenge just to stomp on a no-name club?"

No. If it were the princess — if it were Asuka — she'd want to settle it on pure skill instead. Demonstrating an overwhelming gap in power had already failed once, after all.

"You can do this."

"Uuagh..."

Episodes didn't skip in neat, single units. When a special event cropped up, time could jump by hours, a day, sometimes a whole week — and occasionally it slipped past without me even noticing. Those were the times the Sword God or Aisha was probably making a move.

In any case, this event featured both Aisha and me. Almost as soon as I accepted the match, the time had skipped forward to the day of the friendly duel.

Rumor must have spread, because students came flooding into a training arena ten times the size of the minor practice grounds. For a mere friendly match, the scale was absurd — though from another angle, it made perfect sense.

A duel between the princess and the rising saint.

Few people cared about the drama between the spear club and the swordsmanship club. Most of the crowd probably couldn't even name the spear club's president. Everyone here was waiting for one thing only: Asuka versus me.

Both of us were figures of enormous buzz who had caused seismic waves the moment we enrolled. Add in that small clash back in Class A, and our fight was more than enough to become the students' favorite gossip.

-Asuka! Asuka!

-Princess~!

-Go, Ria!

-Princess!!

-Beautiful as ever today!

-Ria, fighting!!

"......"

Not a single voice called out the name of Ene, the one who had trained harder than anyone. She wore the anxious expression of someone standing somewhere she had no right to be.

Of the massive crowd, not one person called her name. No ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— more accurately, nobody even knew her name. President of a fringe club. An unremarkable third-year. A half-blood elf. The negative labels had eaten away at her.

It probably hadn't been like this when she first joined the spear club.

I met her eyes.

"All you have to do from here on is make them learn it. The name Ene Lizua."

"...But."

"Why so little confidence? Want more training?"

She did seem a bit short on practice. Thirty minutes left — maybe a special session would...

"No! I'll kill them all!"

She pumped herself full of resolve and let out a fierce battle cry.

That's the spirit.

The rules of the friendly match were simple. Each side selected three members, and the duel proceeded as a relay. Fighters went one-on-one; when one lost, the next was sent in. Lose again, and the final fighter took the field. If you kept winning, a single person could carry the entire match alone.

Which made deployment the most important decision. Put your strongest fighter last, and you could conserve strength — or hide it. Conversely, you could throw them in first to seize the opening momentum. The conventional wisdom was to save them for the later rounds.

I looked over the square-shaped mana barrier surrounding the field. A wall of mana reportedly built by the Academy's headmaster himself — constructed of a structure so solid that, at my current level, it wouldn't break easily.

"Hmm..."

But Asuka could probably break it.

As I approached her while she studied the barrier, Asuka pulled her hand away and glared at me like I was something to be guarded against.

"Didn't expect a challenge request in this format. So you handle weapons as well as magic, do you?"

"Yes."

"......"

Well.

There was no reason to play humble here of all places. Unlike back in the classroom, I was standing on this stage to fight, and behind me stood Ene, who needed to show results. For her sake if nothing else, it was better to project every ounce of confidence I had.

And above all...

It happens to be true.

My specialty was never magic. It was the martial arts of weapons.

"Hmph. Fine then. Let's see just how impressive this skill of yours really is."

Asuka spun on her heel and returned to where her club members waited.

Asuka's swordsmanship club had three members. Like mine, the headcount had been padded out with names on paper, but the real membership came to exactly three — one of whom was Aisha, one of the architects of this whole mess.

She won't come out herself, will she.

The princess's pride would drive her to step forward first, and besides, Aisha fundamentally had no intention of facing me. She loved the Sword God and all, following him around thoughtlessly — but for all that, she was a rank 11 player. Good enough to gauge an opponent's level at a glance.

Ever since the Sword God lost, she'd never admit it aloud, but deep down she had to feel it in her bones.

That she could never win.

"So how should we do this? Maybe the junior goes last, and I take the second slot..."

"The club president goes first. I'll take second, and our remaining member closes it out."

At my words, Ene and the member who existed purely to fill a seat both went wide-eyed.

In a normal match, the weakest first fighter would stall for as much time as possible and gather information. Then Ene would take the second slot, and the strongest — me — would finish. That was the textbook 'correct' approach.

But the protagonist of this stage was not me.

"The princess is coming out in the first round. Stalling won't be enough against her — if anything, our first fighter could take a serious wound."

A friendly match wasn't brutal enough to kill anyone, but the opponent was the princess. No matter how many healers stood on standby, no matter how complete the protective gear, the mental anguish wouldn't be halved. The princess would show no mercy.

"And above all, momentum matters. The kind of momentum it takes to knock the princess down in the very first round."

That would be the starting point for Ene Lizua, Child of the World Tree.

"Then..."

"Use it from the opening. That thing."

There was no winning by normal means. Not a chance.

So I throw the dice.

"If it lands, then from that moment on, she has a future."

A roar that pierces straight through the enemy.