Bonehead Veronica's Genius Idea
"I never thought a flock of gargoyles would actually attack…"
"Louis was just spouting some half-assed excuse, and it happened to be true by pure chance."
Leo Epsilt declared it as fact.
"Of course, right?"
The Saintess glued to his side, Esther, readily agreed.
Leo and his party were on their way to accept their next assignment.
Five members in total.
Leo Epsilt, Esther Kalt, Elin Nidia, Veronica Eltwin, and Aine.
Louis Wallenstein no longer belonged to their party.
Felice Ansberg had already departed for her territory.
Leo considered Louis's absence a welcome improvement. Felice's departure, however, left him mildly irritated.
Leaving at a time this critical… irresponsible bitch.
The fact that her territory had been wrecked and the count left in critical condition was none of his concern.
What he meant by "critical time" was that they had finally expelled Louis and could now take on high-difficulty missions.
Until now that coward Louis had opposed everything, making it impossible. At last they could perform tasks befitting a Hero candidate.
Having Felice drop out right then left him a little uneasy, but—
Well, with me here it hardly matters.
With the magnanimous spirit of a true Hero candidate, he decided to forgive her.
They arrived at the office to accept an assignment and began slowly reviewing the available list.
That was when Aine opened her mouth and spoke in a tiny voice.
"Um… Lord Leo…"
"Huh? What."
Aine used honorifics naturally.
In principle everyone inside the Academy was equal, but that principle was rarely observed in practice.
Leo believed a commoner had no business speaking casually to someone from the Epsilt ducal house, so he answered in the casual, condescending register without a second thought.
"This weekend I have somewhere I need to go…"
Her voice grew smaller and smaller as she trailed off.
"Shut it."
He cut her off.
A pathetic little thief girl was useless in real combat anyway, but if she left there would be no commoner left to handle the menial chores.
"I really… have to visit my sister…"
She muttered timidly, but Leo acted as though her words did not exist. He picked up a sheet of paper instead.
"Our next assignment… is this! How about it!"
He announced it with flair.
"Wow! A truly Hero-worthy mission, Leo!"
Esther gushed. The praise improved Leo's mood, but the other three women did not share her enthusiasm.
Veronica spoke up.
"Uh… Leo? Felice isn't here. Shouldn't we pick something a little easier?"
The assignment he had chosen was, at a glance, absurdly difficult.
Or rather, if Louis had still been with them it might have been doable.
Louis Wallenstein, what the hell are you even made of!
In truth, actually expelling him from the party had never been Veronica's intention.
She was, in real time, panicking at how the situation had spiraled.
When Leo first proposed kicking Louis out, a stroke of pure genius had struck her.
To expel an Academy-assigned party member required the unanimous consent of the rest. Aine, who had opposed it, had been won over by some scheme of Leo's, so persuading her again would be difficult.
Therefore, once Louis heard the news of his expulsion, he would naturally cling to the one person he was somewhat close to—her.
Veronica, I'm so sorry! Please, I'm begging you!
When he dropped to his knees in front of her, she would smile and say,
Ufufu, beg more! More! Show me some proper respect!
She planned to toy with him thoroughly and then, as if she had no choice, vote against the expulsion.
Instead, Louis accepted his expulsion with complete calm.
Uh…?
It was outside every expectation.
When Leo actually submitted the formal expulsion request, cold sweat ran down her back.
Huh…?
She had still believed that given a little time he would come crawling to her. Two days had already passed, and he had neither begged nor even shown his face.
If she acted now she could still reverse it, but once they left to perform a mission without him it would become permanent.
Veronica was growing frantic.
In any case she waited for Leo Epsilt's reply, thinking that even a blockhead like him couldn't seriously believe they could clear something that hard.
His answer was spectacular.
"Veronica. I know you desk-bound mages are cowards, but I'm the Hero candidate, remember? With me here this is nothing!"
Crack.
A vein bulged on Veronica's forehead.
Ordinarily she would have unloaded a torrent of abuse on the spot. She barely restrained herself by recalling her master's warning.
Her master, the Red Magic Tower Master, was said to fear nothing in the world—except money. And the Epsilt ducal house was the Red Magic Tower's largest client and patron.
Even with that admonition hanging over her, however, the arrogant, prideful Veronica had no intention of simpering after Leo the way that Saintess did. There was a far better method.
To her, men were simple creatures. You only had to prod their pride. There was no need to cater to Leo's mood; all she had to do was insult Louis and Leo would beam with delight.
(For the record, Louis got sulky whenever she praised Leo or compared the two of them, which had always made him fun to tease.)
Well, Louis wasn't here now.
Veronica swallowed her anger and used Aine as an excuse instead.
"Aine has something she needs to do this weekend too. Can't we just skip a week?"
She kept her face blank, but the approaching weekend terrified her. She was certain Louis would not come looking for her before then, so she decided to buy him extra time out of pure generosity.
Aine looked at her with an expression of genuine gratitude. The guilt that sparked made the gaze a little uncomfortable, but still.
"What are you talking about, Veronica? Since when did you ever care about that commoner girl?"
It was true. She had been arrogant, and her position had allowed it. Veronica found herself with nothing to say.
The last remaining hope was the elf archer, Elin Nidia.
Inwardly Elin was thinking something along the lines of Inferior human… how can anyone be this stupid?, yet outwardly she merely smiled and nodded.
"Leo, with you here I'm sure it's more than possible."
Leo had never intended to change the assignment even if they all opposed him. He took the paper and strode toward the student seated at the reception desk.
The girl had been reading a book with an air of complete disinterest. When Leo approached she spoke flatly.
"Assignment registration?"
Leo nodded and placed the paper on the desk. She glanced over it once and replied simply,
"Rejected."
"What did you just say?"
Leo was annoyed, but the person in front of him was almost certainly a senior—and a member of the student council. The student council handled the primary screening of party assignments, so he at least refrained from raising his voice.
The woman at the desk continued,
"I'm well aware of your party. This is beyond your capability."
"What is that supposed to mean!"
Leo argued, but she gave no further answer. He returned, fuming, to choose another assignment.
His mood had soured, yet the Saintess beside him spoke up.
"Honestly, it's all because of Louis Wallenstein that we're being treated like this! If only the Hero were here, a mission like that would be nothing!"
Thanks to her, his mood improved a little.
"Pfft!"
A snort of laughter came from the direction of the desk. Leo spun around, but the student council girl was still reading her book with the same blank expression.
Did I mishear?
That was what he decided.
"Leo, how about this one?"
In the meantime Veronica had already selected an assignment and held the paper out to him. He examined it carefully.
"What's this? It has a fixed start date. And it begins next week."
"Ah, r-right? I must have missed that."
Despite her words, Veronica wore a look of pure disappointment.
I thought the idiot would fall for it. Too bad.
Thus Veronica's little scheme failed. Leo chose yet another assignment—still harder than what they normally took, but clearly within their current ability.
He submitted the new paper to the student council woman. This time she did not even look at it.
"Rejected."
"What the hell is this!"
Leo finally lost his temper. The Saintess chimed in beside him.
"Is it because some party members are missing? Even with the remaining people this level should be perfectly—"
It was true that when unavoidable circumstances kept part of a party from participating, the upper limit on selectable difficulty was sometimes lowered. Before the Saintess could finish, however, the student council woman shook her head.
"That's not it."
"Then why on earth!"
Esther asked in place of the fuming Leo. The words that left the woman's mouth immediately after left every one of them genuinely stunned.
"Because, as a rule, you can only perform assignments while you still belong to a party."