The Midterm Exam (8)
As the lingering remnants of light Esme left behind scattered into the empty air, the murderous intent that had crushed the battlefield vanished as if it had never been there at all.
The “Protect Saya Alliance,” which had just moments earlier been executing perfect coordination, dissolved on the spot.
No one spoke. No one turned their back.
The thick trust that had bound them was gone; all that remained in its place was the razor-edged wariness cutting between the survivors.
Seven people still stood on the field.
Among them, Kado watched his teammate vanish and twisted his lips into a bitter smile.
Then, slowly, he leveled the tip of his sword at Ricotta.
“Lady Ricotta.”
Kado’s voice was startlingly calm.
“Since things have come to this, I’d like to test just how far my blade can reach. For the last time, I want to cross swords with you, my lady.”
His bold yet courteous request drew every gaze on the battlefield.
Ricotta regarded him for a moment, then gave a single nod.
“…Very well. Come at me with everything you have.”
“It is an honor.”
Kado dipped his head briefly and gathered every last drop of mana he still possessed.
A fierce aura erupted from his body; the ground of the battlefield trembled lightly beneath him.
“Hyaaaaah!”
With a single shout he kicked off the earth and shot forward.
It was the fastest strike he could produce, a desperate blow that poured his entire being into the blade.
Yet that all-out sword was stopped, almost casually, by the precise tip of Ricotta’s rapier.
Clang—!
A rupture of sound that tore at the eardrums.
Kado’s sword was knocked aside, carving a useless arc through the air.
In that same instant Ricotta’s blade tip drove straight through his chest with perfect accuracy.
Just before he scattered into light, Kado managed a faint smile—bitter, yet free of regret.
As the last faint particles of light he left behind fully dissolved into the air, the boundary of annihilation drew tighter still, shrinking the final stage.
Six survivors remained.
Saya, Ravne.
Basil, Ricotta.
Wrench, Salad.
Everyone was locked in a taut war of nerves, each calculating the next move, when it happened.
The young lady of the ducal house and the mage who had crawled out of the swamp of despair.
The moment their gazes collided in midair, invisible sparks exploded between them.
“Saya…!”
Salad whipped her head around and called my name.
Her voice carried both desperation and hope.
“You’ll cheer me on so I can do well… right?”
“…What?”
Words failed me.
Every eye on the battlefield turned toward me as I stood there in silence.
Ravne was still smiling, yet the hand wrapped around my arm tightened with a force so slight it was almost invisible.
My mind felt as if it were burning pure white.
What choices did I even have here?
Openly take Salad’s side?
That would be no different from declaring I was turning my back on Basil, the true protagonist of the story, and Ricotta, the main heroine.
Refuse?
Salad was the child who had only managed to stand again by taking the hand I offered. Was I supposed to coldly reject that earnest plea in front of everyone?
I forced down the sigh that tried to escape and lifted my head.
Then, wearing the gentlest, most peaceful smile in the world, I spoke.
“I pray that every person present here will prove everything they are… and meet a result they will never regret.”
For a moment, a chill silence settled over the battlefield.
A dry laugh curved Ricotta’s lips.
“Ha. Finished with the moral lecture? Then… let us begin.”
Ricotta no longer looked at me.
Instead she leveled her rapier at Salad standing before her.
“Wrench! I’ll handle this side!”
Salad shouted with firm resolve, and at the same time crimson mana erupted from her entire body like an explosion, dyeing the air of the battlefield red.
“Quite powerful mana. However…!”
Ricotta did not so much as furrow her brow. Her body became a silver afterimage that sliced through the flames and drove straight into Salad’s guard.
But Salad had been waiting. She poured mana into the ground.
“Flame Wall!”
A massive barrier of fire surged up from beneath Ricotta’s feet, blocking her approach.
In the brief moment Ricotta hesitated, Salad clasped both hands and concentrated mana above her head. A gigantic fireball, blazing red, roared as if it meant to swallow the entire field.
“I’ll finish this quickly!”
Her wide-area magic turned the battlefield into a sea of fire, forcing both Basil and Ricotta onto the defensive.
Yet Ricotta was a predator. The more her prey thrashed, the more coldly she carved into its weaknesses.
“Your magic is flashy, but it is full of openings.”
Ricotta murmured quietly as she raised her blade.
Then she slipped between the flames as if gliding, her steps tracing a melody.
She cut through the gaps in the magic, using the fire itself as a shield, and vanished from Salad’s sight.
Salad’s spells detonated one after another, yet Ricotta’s form never appeared.
She brushed past the flames, dodged, disappeared like a fleeting shadow, then reappeared.
Cold sweat beaded on Salad’s forehead.
Even while pouring out overwhelming firepower, she had not landed a single clean hit—the frustration of it began to tangle the flow of her mana.
At last, in the instant her concentration wavered as she prepared to hurl another massive fireball—
“That’s far enough.”
From within the flames a silver flash punched through.
Ricotta’s rapier.
Sharp and cunning as a serpent, it stabbed into the blind spot of the fire and grazed Salad’s shoulder with perfect precision.
“Akh…!”
Her mana cut off; the fireball wavered in midair.
Ash drifted around her feet as Ricotta’s shadow closed in on Salad once more.
Wrench, catching the collapse of his teammate from the corner of his eye, began to shake badly.
Basil, by contrast, never once let his gaze be stolen away.
Whether it was absolute trust in Ricotta or simply total focus on the fight, I could not tell.
His soft green eyes held only the opponent before him.
His rough yet honest longsword steadily absorbed Wrench’s frantic attacks, standing firm like a breakwater against a massive wave.
Clang!
Krrrang!
The sound of metal colliding rang out across the battlefield with desperate force.
Wrench tried desperately to break through Basil and reach the wounded Salad, but Basil did not yield a single step.
On the stage Ricotta had created for him, Basil was holding on with his entire body for the role he had to play.
What decided their match was not skill.
When Salad’s scream rang out again, Wrench’s eyes instinctively flicked toward her.
In that instant—
Basil did not miss it.
Every sense already stretched taut, he twisted his body in one motion and swung the longsword.
A savage, beast-like blow.
A heavy impact, and Wrench’s shoulder was driven straight down.
At the same moment—
The tip of Ricotta’s rapier plunged into Salad, who had finally collapsed.
Just before she scattered into light, Salad turned her head toward me.
“I’m sorry… Saya. In the end… I couldn’t show you how much I’ve grown…”
Before I could answer, her body dissolved into countless particles of light and drifted away into the air.
And at last, only four people remained on the battlefield.
Basil, Ricotta, Ravne, and me.
The once-vast field was tightening as if urging the end, so narrow now that we could hear one another’s breathing and heartbeats.
I swallowed dryly.
My left arm still throbbed from the aftereffects of the Trigger Needles, and successive battles were slowly grinding my mental strength away.
Ravne standing beside me looked calm on the surface, yet I could feel she too was growing tired, little by little.
The two across from us were different.
Basil’s breathing was rough, but his eyes remained sharp.
Ricotta neatly brushed back her streaming golden hair and stood in a flawless, unbroken stance.
Her ash-gray gaze was fixed not on her partner Basil, nor on Ravne beside me—
but solely on me.
So it’s finally here.
The picture I had wanted.
The story of the protagonist and the main heroine teaming up to overcome adversity.
The climax of that scenario would only be complete once they brought me down.
Ironically, that very fact made my chest swell with exhilaration.
Ricotta’s lips parted slowly.
“Saya.”
As if she had erased every other existence, she spoke only my name and continued.
“I hope you will show me a better performance than last time.”
She seemed to measure the distance between us with the tip of her rapier.
Every one of her senses—
her gaze,
her awareness—
was locked on me alone.
At her provocation, Ravne stepped forward beside me, soft yet resolute.
“Lady Ricotta. I will protect Miss Saya. Your blade will never reach her.”
Ravne’s light-purple eyes shone clear.
The tangled emotions of the four of us pressed heavily upon the air of the garden that was steadily vanishing.
“Basil, do not hesitate. In this exam those two are nothing more than enemies.”
Ricotta spoke coldly, as if she could see straight through Basil’s heart, then launched herself at me without the slightest pause.
A silver afterimage split the air, and the tip of her rapier flew straight for my heart.