The Duel with Arthur (2)
The terms Arthur laid out before me were as follows.
The duel would take the form of a dungeon delve.
Five days from now, on Saturday at eleven in the morning, both parties would enter the same dungeon, and by six that evening, whoever had pushed deeper would be declared the winner.
Each party would be composed entirely of first-year students, save for a single professor or upperclassman permitted per side.
Attacking the opposing party was forbidden.
He'd scribbled down a pile of other trivial rules besides, but none of them were worth worrying about.
<And how do you plan to manage that?>
The moment Arthur and I parted ways, Grandpa asked me quietly.
How do I plan to manage it? I win, obviously.
<In a state where you can't even scrape together a single soul to enter the dungeon with you?>
Okay, that was a fair point.
My reputation was already garbage to begin with.
Word of my confrontation with Arthur had just broken, so the rumor mill would be churning out stories about how I'd made an enemy of the Third Prince. Who in their right mind would side with me now?
Someone willing to hug a train-wreck young lady to their chest, fully prepared to earn Arthur's displeasure?
Doubtful.
And even if such a person existed, they'd have to be clinically insane, which would make them more trouble than they were worth.
Well, there's one person at least.
Under normal circumstances, Frey—who was walking beside me right now—would also fall into that category, but in this situation she looked positively angelic.
Frey...
"Scrub swordsman."
"You're asking me to join your party, aren't you?"
Oh? Since when is she this perceptive?
Normally I'd have to spell it out and she'd still tilt her head at me.
"I'll join. On one condition."
A condition Frey would actually want?
Did such a thing even exist?
This was a girl who considered swinging her sword and sparring with me to be the height of fulfillment.
"Spar with me!"
I'm sorry... sparring?
"What? Sparring?"
"Yeah!"
We already...
"We spar every single day until I'm sick of it, Scrub Swordsman. Did something break in your head?"
Frey and I trained together every evening after classes let out.
We were both people you'd struggle to find a proper match for within our own year, so sparring each other benefited us both.
Which meant her asking me to spar was less a request and more a formality.
"That way you can't weasel out later with excuses!"
Ahh. So she's putting a leash on me in advance to make sure I don't bolt later. Got it.
You act all blunt, but you're secretly pretty crafty, aren't you?
Fine, deal.
"Deal, Scrub Swordsman."
Truth be told, I never had the slightest intention of dodging a spar with Frey anyway.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a single person in this godforsaken academy willing to cross blades with me?
Ever since I flattened that third-year senior to earn my Underdog skill, every last soul at the training grounds has been averting their eyes the moment I show up!
Karl was the only possible substitute for Frey, but he'd seemed busy lately, and it felt wrong to summon him out of nowhere.
"You promise?"
I promise.
"Good."
Watching me nod, Frey looked satisfied with herself, then simply sprinted off ahead on her own.
<One slot filled. Say you'll ask your knight for the second. What will you do about the last one?>
That's what I need to figure out starting now.
Under the current circumstances, the best-balanced options were Phoebe or Joy.
One vanguard—me—was plenty, so what I needed was someone to hold the rear and provide support.
Given that I could cover the healer role myself, Joy joining the party would be ideal, but after the whole Pitiful Prince incident, Joy and I hadn't exchanged a single word.
I had no idea what she thought of me now.
With her naturally kind nature, she probably didn't hate me—but I doubted she'd go out of her way to help, either.
Then there was Phoebe.
Hmm.
She was a person with a heart as pure white as fresh snow, so if I bowed my head and screamed please, I'm begging you, help me!, maybe pity alone would move her.
Not that I could ever stoop to such a pathetic display, mesugaki skill or no.
No—I'd probably just wind up spouting something like, What's the matter, Scrub Saintess? I'm giving you the honor of helping me.
Still, it couldn't hurt to ask.
And if all else failed, I'd just strong-arm some random extra into joining. Whatever works.
◆
"Your Highness, the Third Prince."
Lunchtime at the academy.
Arthur was eating with his friends when Joy Partran appeared out of nowhere, and he gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.
His expression was never exactly pleasant, but today it was worse than usual.
And the fact that she'd come to see him alone, without any attendants nearby, suggested she was thoroughly furious.
"Joy. What brings you here?"
"There is something I must discuss with you. Might we speak in private?"
"Hm. Perfect timing, actually. There was something I wished to say to you as well."
Every inch the prince, Arthur made his excuses to his friends with due formality, then accompanied Joy out to the garden beyond the dining hall.
The moment they reached a spot far from any other students, Joy's voice turned to ice.
"I trust you have already guessed why I have come."
"Because I proposed a contest to Lucy Aln?"
"Precisely."
"I fail to see the problem. We have merely agreed to a fair contest."
"Fair? From what I heard, it was stuffed to the brim with terms disadvantageous to Lady Aln."
Making the dungeon delve the format of the contest was the first problem.
Unlike Lucy, who could barely scrape together a four-person party, Arthur could assemble his team however he pleased, from an abundance of willing candidates.
No matter how exceptional Lucy Aln might be as an individual, a gap in party quality would inevitably put her at a disadvantage.
And that wasn't all.
The clause forbidding combat between the parties.
The absence of any restrictions on consumable items.
Every other condition had been structured to favor Arthur.
Even the stakes of the contest were no exception.
Arthur had nothing to lose, while Lucy stood to lose everything—an utterly lopsided contract.
To call such a thing fair was an insult to the very god of contracts.
"Is that truly a problem? Both parties consented, did they not?"
At Arthur's placid reply, a hard light entered Joy's eyes.
"You engineered a situation where she had no choice but to consent, did you not?"
Hearing this, Arthur answered her accusation with a smile—an admission in its own way.
It was, after all, true that he had used Lucy Aln's reputation as a lever to pressure her.
"Consent given is consent given, all the same."
It was Lucy Aln who had accepted the proposal, frightened by the eyes and the condemnation of everyone around her.
At those words, Joy fell silent.
Strictly speaking, there was nothing Arthur could be faulted for.
"Besides, it was Lucy Aln who started all of this in the first place. My resolve to see this through was born of nothing more than her choosing to call me the Pitiful Prince."
Nor could the matter be condemned on moral grounds, for this very reason.
It was Lucy Aln who had picked the fight with Arthur first.
Arthur had merely chosen to exact revenge for a personal insult.
"I genuinely cannot fathom what you would have me answer for."
It wasn't as though Joy was ignorant of these facts.
However sheltered a hothouse flower her upbringing had been, she was still the daughter of a ducal house.
She possessed at least the minimum political sense.
"Joy. Do you still believe yourself in Lucy Aln's debt?"
The reason she had come to Arthur despite all of this was, in the end, because Joy considered Lucy Aln her savior.
When Arthur probed at precisely that point, Joy bit her lip gently.
"I do. Is that wrong?"
"No. It is not wrong. It merely... disappoints me."
Arthur's voice lowered as he took a single step toward her.
Joy was tall for a woman—but only in comparison to other women.
Beside Arthur, who already stood shoulder to shoulder with grown men, she could not help but seem small.
Ice-blue eyes, as though crystals of frost had gathered within them, looked down upon her.
"You and I have known each other a long, long time. And yet you would take the side of that insolent little count's daughter."
"My parents taught me that a debt of gratitude must be repaid in full."
"They must be admirable people, to have raised you so well."
Despite his half-threatening tone, Joy did not retreat a single inch, and Arthur smiled bitterly to himself.
The girl of old would have shown at least a flicker of fear.
She had changed so much since coming back from that dungeon.
"So. What is it you wished to say?"
"You never intended to forgive Lady Aln from the start, did you. Proposing a contest was nothing more than a means of humiliating her. It is malicious."
"Yes. Joy, you are quite right. So what of it?"
When Joy had finished speaking, Arthur spread his arms wide and raised his voice.
"I was raised differently from you. I was taught that one repays not only kindness, but grudges as well—in full.
Lucy Aln laid hands on my shame. The shame that lies buried deepest of all within me!
So I shall repay her by forcing humiliation down her throat! Is there something wrong with my thinking? Well? Is there!"
Having shouted himself red in the neck, Arthur caught sight of Joy's frozen expression, coughed awkwardly, and ran a hand down his face.
"Judging by how you look at this, you have no intention of hearing my offer."
"You were going to ask me to be part of your party?"
"I was."
"Then I must respectfully decline. However—out of consideration for our old bond, I will not aid Lady Aln either."
"How very kind of you."
Just as Joy, having said her piece, moved to bow and take her leave, Arthur caught her arm.
"Joy. One question."
"Yes?"
"Who do you believe will win?"
"Lady Aln."
Joy answered without a moment's hesitation.
She had spent this entire conversation insisting Lucy was at a disadvantage, that the contest was rigged—and the reply that slipped out so effortlessly drew a hollow laugh from Arthur.
"Why do you think so?"
"Did I not tell you before? If it weren't for Lady Aln, I would be dead."
All this time, no matter how insistently Joy sang Lucy Aln's praises, no one had believed her.
Because to everyone else, Lucy Aln was nothing but a train-wreck of a young lady.
They all just clucked their tongues about how humble the Partran girl was, and that was that.
And still, Joy kept talking about Lucy Aln.
Because it was the truth.
"I have almost no experience delving dungeons myself. But I doubt there is a single person alive who reads a dungeon better than Lady Aln does."
With those parting words, Joy bowed and turned her back on him.
Some time later, left alone in the garden, Arthur stared blankly at the empty air for a long while before letting out a slow, heavy breath.
◆
Phoebe, sadly, turned down my request.
She said that since it was impossible to say which side was in the right, she couldn't take either of ours.
If nothing else, it was a very saintess-like answer.
Having fully expected this outcome from the start, I wasn't the least bit rattled.
Really, I should just be grateful she didn't side with Arthur.
Which left me exactly one option.
Evening, after a full day of classes had ended.
The moment our eyes met, the hanger-on young lady shot up from her chair in a panic and tried to bolt—but she was a necromancer, and I was a knight.
There was no way a girl losing out on raw physical ability was ever going to shake me off her tail.
Thus half-dragged to a table, the hanger-on sat with her legs primly folded together, casting nervous glances up at me.
"Um... what can I do for you?"
I need someone to work with me.
"Someone to work with you. I suppose even a scrub of a hanger-on young lady will have to do."
The moment I laid out my business, the color drained from the hanger-on's face.