Victory Cry
Instantly, a makeshift altar rose three tiers high. In front of it, Professor Karlsen, who had been passionately praying toward the Death King, threw both arms into the air with a triumphant shout as he watched the children secure their victory.
His skinny arms, raised high above his head, flapped like bare winter branches. “Congratulations!”
Beside him, Professor Repli—his plump arms jiggling like marshmallows in stark contrast—echoed the cheer with equal enthusiasm. ‘Isn’t it a bit much to shout for joy when your own team lost?’ The thought crossed more than one mind, yet seeing him celebrate the opposing team’s win with genuine delight made it clear just how magnanimous he truly was.
“Thank you!”
The chubby one and the rail-thin one. The sight of the two opposites hugging fiercely and jumping up and down was enough to sour anyone’s mood. Disgust rose in the throat unbidden. Professor Clara barely suppressed a grimace, whipped her head away, and slowly walked off to put more distance between herself and the pair.
‘They won.’
Yet soon enough, a faint smile crept across her lips as well.
Benedict Academy B-team’s victory. Especially noteworthy was the young lady’s standout performance at the very end.
‘As expected of the young lady.’
Her growth was remarkably fast. A literal overnight leap in skill. A splendid achievement befitting the master’s niece. Of course, strictly speaking, they shared no blood relation whatsoever. Still, in this world, wasn’t the heart always more important than blood?
‘She’s a natural-born fighter.’
The way people awakened their talents varied wildly. Some elevated themselves through solitary discipline—study, meditation, that sort of thing. Others, in contrast, grew by absorbing enlightenment through combat and raw experience rather than the mind. When talent was broadly divided into those two categories, Arina clearly belonged to the latter. She was the type who learned with her body, not her head.
Watching this match, Jealousy became certain of it. Despite her fragile and timid personality, the young lady possessed an innate talent for battle.
‘Peace was letting her talent rot.’
At her current rate of growth, if she had been born into the underworld—a world of survival of the fittest, where the strong devoured the weak—she would have achieved greatness far beyond what she was capable of now. In a way, those peaceful, unstimulating days had completely stifled her potential. That fact left a bitter taste in his mouth, yet at the same time, Jealousy thought it was perhaps for the best.
Though she hadn’t awakened her full talent, the sight of her laughing and chatting with her friends on the screen looked undeniably happy. Unlike his own past, stained with misfortune.
‘The master must already know.’
There was no way the master, with his exceptional insight, could have missed something even Jealousy had noticed. And yet the master had deliberately chosen not to shatter her current life. Because he, too, understood that her happiness mattered more than awakening her talent.
‘I’m jealous.’
If only he himself had possessed even one reliable guardian standing firmly behind him like the master, his personality might not have twisted so horribly.
The overprotective, doting Jealousy who fussed over the young lady every single day felt, for the first time, a pang of envy toward Arina that matched his own infamous moniker. But he quickly shook off the negative emotion and turned his gaze back to the screen.
His brow furrowed deeply as he watched Marily and Arina struggling to row the boat, each gripping one oar, while Togun lay sprawled unconscious behind them.
‘That damn bastard.’
The young lady was sweating buckets rowing the oar, and he was just sleeping peacefully in the back? The fact that Togun had single-handedly carried the race with his fantastic boat-handling skills from the first checkpoint to the fourth never even registered in Jealousy’s mind right now.
‘When we get back to the academy, you’re dead meat.’
Did he really think the competition was truly over just because the day’s matches had ended?
The face of Professor Clara, smiling gently with a sweet expression, hid the hideous, contorted inner muscles writhing beneath the skin mask.
“……”
Meanwhile, just like Jealousy who felt proud of the young lady’s growth, Kain was also watching Arina row with a bright smile and feeling a rare surge of emotion.
‘Is this about the right level of doing well?’
His own childhood had been incredibly poor. He himself hadn’t minded much, but his older sister had felt terribly sorry about it and always apologized to him. From watching her, he had learned what “this is a bad thing” meant.
And so he had wanted to spare Arina from ever feeling that way as much as possible. He wanted to give her everything she could possibly need or want. Yet even while living together with her, an inexplicable anxiety refused to disappear.
The empty space of a parent that his sister had once filled in his stead. Was he doing a good enough job filling it himself? Was he properly carrying out the last wish she had left him—to take good care of her daughter? That kind of anxiety.
Especially since Arina never really asked for anything no matter what he tried to give her.
But seeing her smile like that brought him a sense of relief. At least he wasn’t doing too terrible a job.
“……”
Kain was, by nature, terrible at understanding other people’s emotions. Therefore, the only standard he used to judge any situation was the result. In that sense, the current situation—with Arina smiling brightly—couldn’t be considered a bad outcome.
After all, his older sister had always put his happiness first when raising him.
“Senior was right.”
Just as Kain was secretly feeling a swell of pride, a conversation from the seat beside him drifted over by chance.
“To think she took Aaron Dice’s magic head-on like that. That girl is seriously amazing, isn’t she?”
A junior stared at his senior with sparkling eyes.
“Yeah, she is.”
But the senior scout responded to his junior’s admiration in a rather indifferent tone. His face was utterly expressionless. Yet within the gaze fixed on Arina on the screen, a hint of admiration was mixed with a fair amount of worry.
“She managed to shine today somehow, but tomorrow’s going to be the real test for her. That kid.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Never mind. It might just be needless worry.”
But if his concern proved true, then perhaps starting tomorrow they would finally see the real Arina. Whether that would be in a good way or a bad way, he still couldn’t tell.
‘He has a good eye.’
Kain let out a small chuckle as he eavesdropped on their conversation. The senior’s worry was clearly justified. After all, Kain had already noticed the same issue even earlier.
‘It’s definitely broken.’
This wouldn’t do. If left alone in her current state, tomorrow’s match would face serious problems. And the smiling face currently etched on Arina’s features would quickly turn into tears.
That alone was absolutely unacceptable.
‘I’ll have to visit her tonight.’
They had eaten together yesterday as well. He had planned to give her some alone time today, but the situation refused to cooperate.
‘I really have no talent for teaching.’
Still, she had grown a lot during this competition period. Maybe she would understand his words a little better than she used to.
With a tiny bit of worry and a touch of anticipation, Kain stared intently at Arina’s smiling face as she crossed the finish line on the screen.
I won!
Arina clenched both fists as she gazed up at the blue sky of the collapsing virtual world. The blue sky vanished, replaced by the pure white ceiling of the indoor gymnasium. The thunderous applause and cheers pouring down on her doubled the joy welling up from deep inside her heart.
“Arina!”
Marily came barreling toward her with enough force to knock her over, fully intent on sharing in that joy. She frantically stroked the back of Arina’s head while continuing the excited fussing she had kept up since they were still on the boat.
“You beautiful thing, you!”
Aaron’s final strike. Even Marily had been ready to accept defeat in the face of it. But her friend had refused to give up even then. In other words, this match’s victory belonged entirely to Arina. To Marily, the girl who already looked the prettiest in the world somehow looked even prettier now.
“Want me to give you a big fat kiss? If you want, I’ll go brush my teeth right now and come right back!”
“No, it’s fine. Really.”
“Rejecting the princess’s kiss! How terribly rude!”
Even as she said that, an irrepressible smile kept blooming on her lips.
“Uwaaa.”
While the two of them were hugging tightly and bursting with fierce joy, Togun—who had been sleeping behind them as if dead—slowly rose with the grotesque movements of a zombie crawling out of a graveyard.
One of the most groundbreaking aspects of the virtual world was that physical damage sustained inside did not transfer to reality. Whether you received a scratch or a severed limb, it was all illusory. The same applied to stamina loss and muscle pain.
But that only applied to the body itself.
All phenomena in this world operated according to the law of conservation. Put another way, any physical damage taken in the virtual world was simply converted and accumulated elsewhere.
‘This is seriously too much.’
All damage taken in the virtual world accumulated as mental fatigue. It wasn’t just a momentary injury; he had performed ultra-high-intensity exercise intense enough to melt muscle for nearly an hour. The mental exhaustion piled up in Togun’s mind was enormous. It was honestly strange that he hadn’t simply passed out on the spot.
“Are you okay?”
Togun, pushed out of the female teammates’ attention by their excitement, found concern only from Jeon, who had been competing in other events while their boat race took place. Jeon supported his staggering friend and asked worriedly. When Togun gave a weak nod, Jeon chuckled and patted his shoulder.
“Good work.”
“Yeah.”
Normally he would have modestly denied it, but this time even he felt he had worked incredibly hard. To the point where, if he exaggerated a little, it could be compared to his master’s (temporary) training.
He wanted to complain about his suffering a bit more. With that slightly spoiled thought, Togun looked up at Jeon.
“……”
That was when he saw it—the faint, bitter smile on Jeon’s face. What could that smile possibly mean?
“Oh, Togun.”
Before Togun could ask, Marily’s voice called from afar. Had she finally remembered he existed? She released Arina from her tight embrace and turned toward him.
“Hmm. Since you didn’t pass out, it looks like tomorrow’s match won’t be a problem.”
She looked the limp Togun up and down, then nodded as if evaluating him. Did this princess have neither blood nor tears? After he worked so hard, she could have at least given him one word of praise. The temperature difference compared to how she treated Arina was extreme.
‘Marily…….’
Even her friend Arina thought the same and covered her face with her left hand. She had never realized it because her blunt uncle never acted this way, but she was learning that being overly doting could actually be quite embarrassing.
“Hm?”
Following the movement of her hand, the Mana Restriction Cuffs on her left wrist jingled. Had she sensed something off? A sense of unease washed over Arina as she slowly turned her gaze toward the cuff on her left wrist.
“……”
And then she froze solid as if turned to ice. Her eyes widened in shock. Her pupils darted around in confusion. Her lips opened and closed repeatedly, unable to form words.
“Still, thanks to you we made it through today safely. While we’re at it, just suffer a little more for the next few days, okay?”
Marily gave Togun’s back—draped over Jeon’s shoulder like wet laundry—a few hearty thumps. Arina cautiously reached out and tugged at her friend’s sleeve, unable to ignore the way Marily was tormenting her exhausted friend.
“What is it, Arina?”
Arina’s atmosphere had completely changed. The friend who had been sharing joy with her just moments ago was gone. In her place stood a girl with a gloomy, tearful expression. Marily grabbed her shoulders with a worried look.
“H-how do I fix this?”
Arina lifted her left wrist toward her. And Marily saw it—cracks spiderwebbing across the Mana Restriction Cuffs fastened to her left wrist.
“It looks like… this thing is broken……”
Perhaps the strain of blocking Aaron’s final attack had been too much. As they stared at the shattered Mana Restriction Cuffs, every single member of Benedict Academy B-team froze in place.