Senior-Junior Exchange Match (5)
When I opened my eyes, what I saw was a dark, unfamiliar ceiling. The only sources of light in the room were the candles placed here and there. A fragrant yet bitter scent of medicinal herbs filled the air.
“An unfamiliar ceiling,” I murmured.
I touched my temple. I had expected it to be swollen, but surprisingly I felt no pain at all. It puzzled me.
Did Senior Suzu treat me while I was out?
Fortunately, my memories up until the moment I lost consciousness remained perfectly intact. In the game, Suzu Auriel had no combat scenes, yet she had struck me with a backspin elbow and driven me straight into the wall.
Breaking patterns with Parry is possible, but completely unknown attacks are extremely difficult.
I knew the drill sparrow’s attacks inside and out from seeing them countless times during the tutorial. Fenrir’s first pattern was always a fixed front-paw strike, so I could predict it. But reacting to a battle motion I had never seen before was another matter entirely.
Even if I can fight S-class opponents, right now even C-class might be too much for me.
It would be manageable against S-class foes whose patterns I knew completely, or against the protagonists of other class scenarios. E-class or D-class students whose stats fell below my current self—blessed by Fenrir—would also be within reach. But against C-class opponents with unknown information, I stood little chance. It felt as though I had unintentionally discovered a new challenge.
At that moment, someone approached the sofa where I lay. Pale lavender braided hair. Her eyes openly displayed raw hostility and displeasure, making no attempt to hide them.
“You’re awake, yeo?”
“Nice to meet you, Senior.”
“How shameless. You threaten someone and then act like this, yeo.”
“Would only a senior who commits such acts inside a research lab—granted solely to those the academy trusts and believes in—say that?”
“Ugh…!”
Suzu’s complexion worsened visibly. I scanned the room. One entire wall was covered with photographs of the president. I had no idea where she had obtained so many. There was even a photo of the president’s panties. Of course that was problematic, but something else mattered far more.
“As expected. This is the spot.”
I tapped the wall lightly. Suzu’s face drained of all color.
At first glance, the wall covered in countless photographs looked like the creation of a president-obsessed otaku whose love had twisted in the wrong direction. In truth, it was a meticulously engineered safe. Once you obtained the proper information through a side quest and tapped the photos in the correct sequence, it would open.
Entrance ceremony photo
Photo taken from above
Photo of her sleeping, seen through the window
Photo of her holding a sword
Recent photo of her handing over a scroll at the entrance ceremony
And finally, the panties photo
After several taps, the wall vibrated. A hidden space revealed itself.
“As expected. You sealed it thoroughly.”
The space was so small my basket wouldn’t have fit. Inside, an unidentified pink potion sat heavily guarded by numerous talismans and sealing spells.
I turned to Suzu with a sly smile.
“Black magic within the academy. Are you certain that’s acceptable?”
“You… you…!”
Suzu raised her hand. Yet she could not bring it down. Even as she trembled, the motion never became an attack.
Everyone in the lab at the time—every second- and third-year who had gathered to see me—had witnessed the boy at the center of the current uproar being struck by Suzu and dragged here. With my duel against the student council president scheduled for next week’s senior-junior exchange event, any trouble involving me would send blame flying straight toward her. She would face investigation, and in the worst case lose her research lab. During that process, the one thing she desperately wished to conceal would be exposed to the entire world.
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of spreading this around.”
Hearing those words, Suzu lowered her raised fist. She hated it, but there was only one path left.
“So what exactly do you want, yeo?”
The eccentric alchemist, Suzu Auriel.
With no notable alchemists among the third-years and the first-years yet to distinguish themselves, she stood as the finest alchemist among all current academy students. The sole reason she had not reached S-class was her failure to meet the minimum combat requirement. The instructors already treated her no differently from an S-class student.
Yet this student possessed one peculiar trait: an obsessive “president love.” The setting claimed that because the president had saved her life during her first year when she had nearly died, she had become fanatically attached to her. Still, that part hardly mattered. Plastering a wall with the president’s photographs might seem strange, but given Suzu’s usual reputation it caused no real problems.
The true issue was that her love had veered in the wrong direction.
Black Magic
Love Potion
The item Suzu secretly crafted inside the academy would, in the game, permanently lower the target’s stats while raising their favorability toward her. Of course, knowing Suzu’s single-minded devotion to the president and that the love potion would never be completed before the ending, I could smile while pointing out the traces of black magic. The academy, however, stricter than anyone on the subject of black magic, would never let her go if they learned of this.
The soundproof magic filling the room and the barrier that rejected all external interaction stemmed partly from Suzu’s dislike of socializing, but largely existed to prevent this black-magic experiment from leaking.
Fortunately, Suzu was the scholarly type. She quickly understood the situation and reached out to me first. She knew that denial, threats, and violence would all be useless here. She chose to resolve the matter through the most amicable method possible: mutual agreement.
“So what exactly do you want, yeo?”
She did not even ask how I had learned the potion’s identity—a model negotiation. Suzu had realized that discovering the source of my information would force her to surrender even more. Of course the glare she fixed on me remained unchanged, but I could endure that much. In the game, forcing the secret out dropped favorability from zero straight into the negatives, so no further explanation was needed.
“I would like you to make a potion for me.”
“…Are you asking me to create a potion for you to fight the president, yeo?”
“Yes. It has to be you. Though even you might find it too much.”
“What an interesting provocation, yeo. Excluding the professors, no alchemist in the academy surpasses me, yeo.”
“This is not a question of relative skill. It is measured by the standard of absolute ability.”
“As arrogant as the rumors claimed, yeo. I see no respect for your senior at all, yeo.”
Suzu was undeniably an outstanding scholar and alchemist. Though placed in A-class, she had already published numerous papers in continental academic societies. Few scholars in the entire academy could match her. My attitude, which seemed to dismiss her, was more than enough to sour her already terrible mood further.
To such a person, I took out a carefully folded note I had kept in my inner pocket.
“First, please look at this. It is the formula for the potion I desire.”
“Hah. What could possibly be so—”
Time seemed to stop. Suzu froze the instant she accepted and unfolded the note. Her eyes raced across the paper again and again.
Whether she possessed zero knowledge of alchemy and herbology, or simply because it was nothing more than a list of ingredients—a piece of trash she would normally tear apart and shove into the mouth of whoever handed it over without a second glance—she could not look away. Her experience, achievements, and ability as an alchemist whispered that if she combined everything in this garbage recipe properly, something might emerge.
And not just anything—something that had never existed in this world before.
“How is it? Can you make it?”
“…Hah. This is interesting, yeo. Truly interesting, yeo. It is exactly like a garbage recipe jotted down by someone who only watched a renowned alchemist work from the side and copied the ingredients, yeo.”
A temptation no scholar or alchemist could resist. The hand holding the paper trembled faintly.
“But betraying the president…”
Yet Suzu did not accept the request immediately. As a scholar and alchemist she burned to abandon every class and begin work at once, but the heart of the girl who adored the student council president held her back. What slipped into that girl’s heart was my tongue, smooth and serpentine.
“No, Senior Suzu. You must think of it in reverse.”
“Re…verse?”
Suzu’s ears perked at the tempting suggestion. Seeing it, I smiled inwardly.
“The president is someone who constantly pursues strength. If I achieve good results in the duel thanks to Senior’s potion, wouldn’t she grow interested in it?”
In truth, that was false. Hina Lionhart pursued only the strength of the body itself. In the game she carried the bizarre restriction of being unable to equip any other items, yet she overwhelmed that handicap with sheer stats and combat ability. She could use only the bare minimum of stamina recovery items. No matter how outstanding the potion, the chance Hina Lionhart would take interest was extremely low.
But none of that mattered. What mattered now was whether Suzu believed it. Her instinct screaming to begin research on this potion immediately halted the brilliant mind that would have reached a negative conclusion through suspicion.
“I-is that so, yeo…?”
“Yes, of course. The student council president will become interested in this potion. Then she will approach Senior first. Something like, ‘Hey. What’s that potion? It’s insanely good?!’”
Suzu’s eyes began spinning. Her scholarly thirst for knowledge, her alchemist’s curiosity, and her maiden heart in love tangled together and warred among themselves. I waited calmly for her answer.
After a moment, Suzu spoke.
“You must tell the president that I made it, yeo…? A-and! The black magic part must remain an absolute secret, yeo!”
“Hehehe. You need not worry. I, too, wish to maintain a long… close relationship with you, Senior.”
“Hiiiiiiik!”
Suzu’s adorable scream echoed through the narrow, dark laboratory.
As expected, this guy is scary somehow, yeo!
It was the first meeting between Suzu and me, the beginning of a long cooperative relationship to come.