That Weird Pink-Haired Girl
"The youth these days have no manners at all. Even when you speak to them kindly, they won't lend an ear — they just let it slide with a 'when will this end~' and that's exactly why something like what happened earlier came to pass. Back in my day, such a thing wasn't even imaginable. Hasn't the world changed terribly?"
"Does it now?"
"Indeed it does. Lily... no, Dean, aren't you the same? Watching the young ones these days, doesn't your blood boil? In the past, there were no cases of anyone attacking with such disregard for decorum—"
Uncle Inom — or rather, Pharaoh, whom I'd met in the waiting room — had abandoned all pretense of a fight and launched into a full-blown lecture instead.
Of course, the sermon wasn't aimed at me. It was for the viewers.
"Seems everyone's curious about who I am."
"Tsk. To think they can't even recognize the Great Emperor."
Behold!
Golden light burst forth from the golden mask draped upon the statue. Ssss...! As if answering his call, a wind of sand whipped up around him, and soldiers of sand rose one by one from the ground. The swirling sand soon gathered at a single point above the golden mask, settling into the shape of a crown.
At last, the mouth of the Great Emperor who had once commanded the deserts of an entire continent twisted.
"You insolent fool!"
"Wow. Uncle Inom!"
Clap clap clap.
I applauded his dramatic entrance. Uncle Inom glared at me, seething with indignation.
"...Must you always do this?"
"Do what?"
"You twisted my words at the very end!"
"What's the harm? Seems like it suits your personality pretty well, honestly."
Even earlier, I'd caught him diligently calling every ranker he came across an insolent fool. Weren't he secretly rather fond of it himself?
"Absolutely not!"
"They're asking what your name is, Uncle Inom."
"My name is Pha— Uncle Inom. HEY!!"
"You heard him."
Uncle Inom huffed and puffed, his massive frame thundering through the waiting room, but he made no move to step forward. To be precise, he was reluctant to fight me.
"You won't come in? The prospective students seem curious."
"...I have no desire to be beaten half to death like with that vampire."
Flinch.
At those words, Rasty — who had been quietly glaring with nothing but her crimson eyes visible from her corner — silently lowered her head.
"I do not fight battles whose outcomes are already decided."
"Then why did you fight last time?"
"Because at the time, I didn't think it was decided."
With that, Pharaoh leaned casually against the wall. Perhaps because of his experience as an emperor, his ability to read a situation had always been exceptional.
'Though his eyes had clouded over from thousands of years of time.'
"So you're going to teach those hatchlings now?"
"Once they're finished, yes. I'll call for you again when that time comes."
"I have my doubts that hatchlings could truly understand, even if you did teach them. Would they even be able to grasp a great Authority in the flesh?"
"Hmm..."
Pharaoh's reaction was rather skeptical. And admittedly, he had a point — those who had only just awakened their mana could hardly hope to mimic Pharaoh's transcendent Authority. Half of it was innate; the other half had been refined over thousands of years. No matter how gifted someone might be, perfectly keeping pace with Pharaoh bordered on impossible. Most wouldn't understand even one percent of what he had to teach.
"It doesn't matter. We're not aiming for perfection anyway."
"Is that so."
"Besides, it's not as though the only things worth teaching are grand techniques, right? Passing on knowledge is enough."
Rankers weren't merely brilliant martial artists — each was also a lord governing a territory in their own right. The experience of a lifetime spent as an emperor would surely be of some use to them.
"Rasty, you say something too."
"...Don't come with a lighthearted attitude. I intend to take this seriously."
Rasty's magic. In some respects, it surpassed even mine.
The entrance examination ran for a total of three days.
Two days had already passed, and with the final day drawing near, the number of successful applicants stood at twenty-five. Genuine passers had become vanishingly rare now — we were down to roughly one new name every four or five hours. The existing qualifiers were busy making their marks in all sorts of ways: challenging the new difficulty tiers, chasing records, and the like.
Yet the original top three remained unmoved, holding their positions with iron certainty. Yena, in third place, had been repeatedly challenging the Trial of the Progenitor, but...
"No! I wasn't supposed to use the awl here, was I?!"
"You weren't. It was the blade."
"Grrr... Again!"
She hadn't even carved through half of the Progenitor's blood, yet she kept throwing herself back into it, again and again and again. What on earth made her think she could succeed at something even Leo had given up on?
"...You're here."
"Have a seat."
And so I found myself facing Rasty in the room that would serve as Professor Rasty's office. She sat with her shoulders slightly hunched, pointedly turning her head away as she sipped the tea set before her.
Silence settled over the room.
"You're using honorifics..."
"Why don't you tell me why that might be."
"Well."
"You clearly weren't unaware of it, were you? I explained everything in advance. You saw it with your own eyes, too."
Before any of this began, I had given both Rasty and Pharaoh a full briefing, and Rasty had accepted my proposal on those terms.
"The coffin and the Sacred Fire are both sealed. Which means you're in no condition to use them until your body stabilizes."
"That's right..."
"Then was I truly obligated to face you while I was still unstable — even if it meant straining myself with techniques I can't afford to use?"
"...You were the one who issued the duel, Unnie."
"Then why did you lay a hand on Leo? And while wagging the word 'human' at me, no less."
She knew perfectly well what that meant. The conversation broke off for a moment.
Rasty mumbled and fidgeted for a while before finally lowering her head.
"......I'm sorry."
"I told you I wouldn't touch anything concerning your teaching. I won't say a word about you going after Leo, either. However."
Tap. Tap.
Slender fingers knocked twice against the table. In the silence that had fallen, the sound of each knock rang out all the louder.
"Was there ever any reason to invoke the word 'human'?"
"...I'm cold."
"The heating in here is warm. And it's full spring outside."
"Hug me."
Rasty spread both her arms wide. Following her lead, the sullen girl's two eyes gazed up at me, pitiful and pleading.
"Whining won't get you anywhere."
"I'm sorry. You just seemed... stifled. It was hard to watch — having that much talent and power, and still fumbling around the way you do."
"I'm living just fine, though?"
"Because that's you, Unnie. That drive is what powers you, your very reason for living. But that little nymph isn't you."
A girl gifted with a transcendent talent — one who commanded the spirits of five whole attributes.
"In all the years I have lived, I have never once laid eyes on a being with talent like hers. Not merely among nymphs — not among humans either."
Leo was the one who could step beyond being a mere nymph and rise into the very rank of the Transcendent.
"She might one day grow stronger than even the Spirit Kings. How could I simply stand by and leave her be?"
"That's exactly why she has to be handled slowly. She's lived far too short a life for the power she carries. One careless step, and she'll lose her existing self entirely."
"Why does that matter so much?"
Clink.
The teacup came down on the table.
"Since being born into this land, every living thing has carried a time limit on its life. Any moment, anywhere, some wretched species could crawl out of the dirt and kill us all. Rather than wasting time debating whether one's self is intact or not, even one day sooner—"
"The war is over, Lasty Ervenus."
Clink!
This time, it was my teacup that came down on the table.
The crimson bloodlight smoldering in her eyes gradually dimmed.
"The war is over, and you are no longer the Monarch of the Blood Nobles."
"......"
"Just the young duchess, Lasty Ervenus. Though I honestly can't see why I bother adding the family name at all?"
"...My family."
"Right."
Lasty Ervenus, eldest daughter of the Ervenus Ducal House. The entire house had been wiped out at the eldest daughter's own hands — and yet the final bloodline to carry its name remained, even after thousands of years.
Seemingly a little calmer now, Rasty lifted her teacup once more and savored it.
"...I got a bit worked up, didn't I."
"It happens."
"The honorifics aga— fine, fine. I'll take things slowly. And I'll take back the Authority I poured into Leo, too."
"How's your body holding up?"
"Body? Ah. Right. I have gotten weaker, haven't I."
This was not the dimensional space — this was the world of DeoEn. In the Void Space, she had wielded power on the level of a greater demon, but the Rasty summoned here through the Blue-Red Stone and magic possessed a body far frailer than her original one.
She clenched and unclenched her hand, as if taking measure of her own strength.
"...I'm definitely weaker than my first stage."
"Roughly where would that put you, level-wise?"
"...Leo? About the same as Leo."
"Leo."
That should be more than enough for teaching. Her strength had diminished — not her knowledge.
"By the way, when exactly are you planning to drop the honorifics?"
"Who knows."
"I'm going to sulk."
"And what am I supposed to do if you sulk?"
"If I sulk..."
Rasty turned her head away. What surfaced in her mind was a capable human... no, a student.
As it happened, a few of them looked rather promising.
"I'll just go bother someone else, then. Someone without the racial risks, like you said, Unnie."
"...Yena?"
"That one's useful too, but... not her. There's this weird pink-haired girl."
A weird pink-haired girl...
That would be Candy Star.