Midterm Exam (7): The Protect-Saya Alliance
A silence as thin and treacherous as ice.
I was the first to break the suffocating standoff.
“Let’s head for the center for now. Better that than all of us getting swept up by the boundary and eliminated right here, don’t you think?”
Ricotta stared at me for a long moment before finally giving a curt nod.
Avoiding the vanishing boundary, we moved quietly toward the heart of the garden.
Waiting for us there was another survivor.
A girl with soft pink hair—
Salad.
And standing beside her was Rench, Basil’s former teammate from the Moonlight Spring.
“S-Saya…!”
The moment he spotted me he sucked in a sharp breath. The unreal image of me standing under the moonlight in a swimsuit seemed to replay in his mind; a faint flush rose to his cheeks.
Salad shoved Rench aside and came flying toward me, face already on the verge of tears. She closed the distance faster than I expected and threw herself straight into my arms.
“Hic… Saya! You’re alive! I’m so, so glad…!”
Her small, slender frame trembled against me. The hands clutching my clothes carried both relief and the desperate strength of someone clinging to something about to shatter.
In that same instant three separate gazes stabbed into my back, sharper than any battlefield air.
Ricotta’s eyes had gone ice-cold.
Ravne’s smile never left her face—yet it no longer looked like the gentle smile of a saintess.
Basil simply stared at Salad and me, completely at a loss.
I stood frozen, unable either to push the sobbing girl away or to properly return the embrace.
In the game she used to make mistakes and break down mentally during the midterms and get eliminated early… Has her emotional control improved that much?
In the original game Salad’s glass-fragile mind and rock-bottom self-esteem had been her biggest problems, but her raw ability had always been something no one could casually overlook.
Saving her from Scone’s clutches and pulling her out of that swamp of despair had been the right call. But the more we met under the banner of the Losers’ Alliance, the more she began to lean on me—and the dependence only grew stronger.
“Salad.”
“Hic… Yeah…”
“I’m fine. Can you try to calm down for a second?”
Reluctantly, very slowly, she peeled herself away. Then, right in front of everyone, she reached for the glowing token on her chest.
“Saya, this…”
“Huh?”
“I’m giving it to you. I don’t want to fight you.”
She meant every word. Even if it meant forfeiting this brutal exam, she could not bear to stand as an enemy against the person who had lifted her out of despair. It was a raw, earnest plea.
I had no choice but to shake my head.
Ugh, if I take that here, what are the professors watching through the subspace—and every other student—going to think of me?
This exam was an official evaluation under the eyes of the academy faculty. Picking up tokens from students eliminated by large-scale magic was one thing. Accepting some kind of deal or pity token would do me no favors.
“No, Salad. As hard as it is, this is a test you have to fight through to the end.”
I gently pushed her hand away.
“And I… want to see how much you’ve grown.”
Salad’s eyes trembled violently.
That was when a new voice cut in.
“Oh my. Are the survivors holding a little tea party?”
On the far side of the crater, two students appeared atop a pile of shattered rock.
One of them, surprisingly, was Kado—my teammate from the outdoor evaluation.
Beside him stood a red-haired girl.
Hair like living flame, eyes even fiercer, a long spear of faintly glowing mana strapped across her back.
A name flashed through my mind.
…Esme?
A battle maniac who poured overwhelming destructive magic into her spear, someone whose moral compass was… flexible. In the original game she appeared only briefly but far more often than the extra named “Saya.”
Kado spotted me and let out a snide little laugh.
“Ha. Saya, do you just go around stirring up chaos wherever you go?”
While we spoke, the boundary quietly closed in and completely encircled us.
The final survivors left on the battlefield were the eight of us here:
Saya–Ravne pair.
Basil–Ricotta pair.
Rench–Salad pair.
Kado–Esme pair.
Familiar faces, every last one of them.
The vanishing boundary pressed in like a rising river already at our throats. There was nowhere left to retreat.
“Well then… shall we decide who gets to stay until the end?”
Esme smiled thinly and raised her spear. The blood-red tip, shimmering with mana, swept across every remaining survivor in turn.
At last those crimson eyes locked onto me. The smile on her lips grew darker, more cruel.
“Oh…?”
Esme murmured.
“Nothing to show for yourself except a pretty face. Mana flow is weak, and that body looks like a stiff breeze would knock it over. Perfect. I’ve decided.”
She leveled the spear tip straight at my heart and declared,
“Isn’t that how it always goes? Before the real hunt starts, you crush the little bug crawling around your feet first.”
A cheap provocation. In front of every last survivor she had marked me as the easiest prey, trying to diminish my worth and rattle everyone else’s nerves.
Kado clicked his tongue at the display but showed no intention of interfering with his partner’s combat style.
I toyed with the case of Trigger Needles at my waist.
Final duel, so two in the right arm? No—I’ve already used several in the left. Even one more could wreck me. But… I have to, don’t I?
The moment I steeled myself and reached for a needle—
Esme’s body exploded forward.
“You always start the hunt with the weak ones—that’s basic!”
Shuuuuk—!
Her spear tore through space with a sonic crack, becoming a blood-red flash aimed straight at my heart.
Unavoidable speed. Unstoppable force.
But the spear never reached me.
“How dare you.”
A voice cold as ice.
Ricotta moved first. Her body became a silver afterimage that cut in front of me. She danced her rapier in a perfect arc and twisted the spear’s trajectory by a hair’s breadth.
Kaaaaang!
A metal shriek that nearly split eardrums, and the blood-red magic spear buried itself in the rock behind me.
At the same instant Basil roared like a beast and charged Esme’s flank. His longsword lacked Ricotta’s precision, but it carried the raw force and fury to shatter stone.
“Sanctuary Veil!”
Just as Esme tried to yank her spear free to block Basil, a radiant golden barrier bloomed in front of me—Ravne’s work.
“I will not allow anyone to harm Saya-ssi before my eyes.”
“Th-this…! Salad, us too!”
Rench shouted in panic and sprinted with Salad toward Esme’s rear. The fragile girl who had clung to me moments earlier was gone. In her eyes, instead of tears, burned pure venom.
It happened in a single breath.
One attack aimed at me had ignited the fury of every remaining fighter on the field. As if they had planned it in advance, five people bared their fangs at a single enemy.
A five-person alliance excluding me.
The birth of the temporary “Protect Saya” coalition.
“Wh-what the hell is wrong with you people…!”
Esme could not comprehend the absurdity of rival competitors all rushing to protect the one person who looked weakest.
For the first time the composure vanished from her face. She shouted toward Kado in panic.
“Kado! Are you just going to stand there and watch?!”
“Haa… You brought this on yourself, Esme.”
Kado sighed and moved to help her, but the tide had already turned completely.
“Hah!”
Ricotta’s silver blade never stopped hammering Esme. The red-haired girl was hard-pressed just to parry the rapier, while Basil’s longsword kept crashing in from the side with merciless force.
Ravne clasped her hands in earnest prayer; golden thorns of holy power erupted from the ground and coiled around Esme’s ankles. The instant her movement locked, Rench and Salad’s desperate attacks poured into her back.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
Esme—who in the original story had ranked among the stronger fighters of the early-to-mid game—was now suffering the full consequences of the disaster she herself had invited.
With eyes full of rage and bewilderment she glared at me, the origin of it all.
But it was already far too late.
“You always start the hunt with the weak ones—wasn’t that the basic rule?”
Ricotta’s rapier pierced Esme’s chest with perfect precision.
Still wearing an expression of pure incomprehension, Esme dissolved into a handful of glittering light and vanished without a trace.