An Offer You Can't Refuse
"…"
Before the utterly empty altar of Simon's group, Hector found himself at a loss for words.
His group members caught up only belatedly.
"Hector! Did you find them?"
"What the— they're gone!"
Reading the expression of a Hector who looked ready to explode at any moment, his group members finished taking the temperature of the situation and scanned their surroundings.
"Are they seriously allowed to do this? Stealing a red artifact is one thing, but moving it to their own altar breaks the rules!"
"…"
Hector sank into thought.
They were right. You could seize another group's red artifact by force and carry it away, but the red artifact resting on your own altar could not be touched.
Which meant—
"Those bastards…!"
Hector's eyes flashed with savage fury.
An hour earlier.
The students had been given thirty minutes of rest. Each group huddled together with its own members, committing the detailed rules to memory and drawing up their battle plans.
Group 4, slated to fight in the very first match, was no exception.
"Man, the Class Rep's group is intense."
A male student of Group 4 shrugged his shoulders with a quip. Moments earlier, Pierre Buckler of Group 1 had approached and delivered Hector's message before walking away.
The message had been crystal clear.
— Do not interfere.
Hector's Group 1 had made it unmistakably clear: they would strike Simon's Group 10.
"Isn't that actually a good situation for us, though?"
A female student of Group 4 said, drawing her knees in.
"Honestly, the worst-case scenario was Group 1 coming for us and Group 10 coming for Group 13. But if the whales want to tear each other apart on their own, fine by me. All we have to do is stay out of their way and go around collecting artifacts."
"Exactly. At minimum we avoid last place, and we won't get crushed under the Class Rep's heel either."
"…"
Opinions among the group members were converging, but the leader of Group 4 sat with his arms crossed, silently keeping his eyes closed.
"Captain, you've got one of those 'something's bugging me' faces."
The male student who had spoken first narrowed his eyes.
"Don't tell me you're actually aiming for first place?"
"…"
The leader neither confirmed nor denied it. He simply lifted his head.
"Is there something wrong with aiming for first at Kizen?"
"N-no, of course not! I'm just saying let's be realistic. We got stuck against the group with the Student Council President and the Department Representative — how unbelievably unlucky is that? How exactly are we supposed to take them down?"
"…"
When it came to a clever answer, the leader of Group 4 had none to give either.
It was simply that he hated this — having already written himself off as the loser before the match even began, forced to fight only for second or third place.
At this school, anyone can climb to the top.
Starting the first year in the 900s of the entrance rankings, that miracle of reaching the very top by the second year — he had watched it unfold up close, from the same classroom.
It had lit a fire in him. I'll be different in my second year too, he had vowed.
And now, from the very first large-scale practical evaluation, he was expected to abandon that vow over nothing more than a bad draw?
"Hello, hello~"
That was when it happened.
A girl with orange hair suddenly came bounding up to them.
Recognizing the face, the female student of Group 4 waved in welcome.
"Oh, Eshu! Hey~ What brings you here?"
"Ah, her."
The male student's expression hardened with wariness.
"Simon's Group 10."
At those words, the other members of Group 4 immediately shifted into alert mode.
Oblivious or indifferent, Eshu folded her skirt neatly, crouched down right in the middle of the Group 4 members, and beamed a bright, innocent smile.
"So? What do you want?"
asked the leader of Group 4, his mood already soured.
"I heard Hector's group dropped by earlier~ I was wondering if you could tell me what he said, pretty please!"
"Dream on."
Asking something like that to their faces, of all things.
The leader snapped his head away as he answered, and Eshu let out a disappointed little heeng. Then the corners of her mouth curved up slyly.
"Shall I guess, then? Mind if I do? It was something like — we're going after Simon's group, so you lot stay out of it! Am I close?"
The members of Group 4 flinched, and Eshu chuckled as she pressed on.
"Actually, I came to deliver a message from our Student Council President too—"
"Quit it!"
The leader of Group 4 roared. The other members jumped in surprise.
"Is it just you two groups taking this exam, huh? Because you got a little power in the school, you treat everyone else like an afterthought and send down notifications like we should be grateful — it's infuriating! Damn it! Aren't we all Kizen students?!"
"C-Captain!"
"Whoa, where did that come from?!"
His group members scrambled to hold him back. Eshu's eyes went round.
"I think there's been a misunderstanding. We didn't come to 'notify' you. We came to make a proposal."
"…A proposal?"
"Hear me out first, then tell me it's infuriating or whatever. I'll repeat every single word the Student Council President said, without changing so much as a comma."
She clapped her palms together with a smack.
"Starting now, I'm making you an offer you can't refuse."
Simon's proposal was audacity itself.
Having heard the whole thing through, the leader of Group 4 muttered in a dazed voice.
"…You're just… giving us your red artifact?"
Eshu nodded vigorously.
"Eshu. Look me dead in the eye and tell me straight."
The female student of Group 4 demanded, eyes blazing.
"No conditions?"
"Yep!"
"Completely free?"
"Uh-huh!"
"Why?"
"I didn't hear the reason either. I'm just here to deliver the President's message, that's all."
"…"
"…"
The leader of Group 4 rubbed his eyes thoughtfully with a slow sweep of his hand.
Simon knows Hector is coming for him. Rather than let his top rival take the artifact, he's handing it to us to pull off a counterstroke?
Then Eshu spoke again.
"Oh, right — he said one more thing! Our altar will be completely empty, so if you sprint the moment the match starts, you'll get to the red artifact before Hector does."
…I knew it.
In this exam, the value of a fifteen-point red artifact went without saying.
With two red artifacts in hand, second place was locked in at worst, and the odds of first place shot through the roof.
And with that, Simon's motive in scheming all this became crystal clear.
Using a third party to keep those fifteen points out of Hector's group's hands.
For Group 4, it was a sweet, sweet offer.
"Well then, I've said my piece, so I'm off~"
The moment Eshu left, the members of Group 4 huddled tightly together and began to talk.
"This is a trap!"
declared the male student of Group 4.
"They dangle the red artifact as bait, lure us in, and ambush us to wipe us out — that's the play!"
"Could it actually be a collusion with Hector's group?"
The female student beside him raised a new conspiracy theory.
"What if they're only saying all this, but really they've joined hands and agreed to each take down one group and split the red artifacts between them?"
"…No."
At that, a drowsy-eyed male student who had stayed quiet through the whole meeting yawned and spoke up.
"That won't be it."
The leader of Group 4 turned to him as well.
"Come to think of it, you're from Class A, right? What kind of people are Hector and Simon?"
"…Hector Moore will definitely attack Simon. Definitely. And—"
The boy smacked his lips.
"Simon Polentia is not the type to lie."
"…"
Decision made.
The leader rose to his feet.
"I'll take one ghoul and head toward Group 10's side myself. If anything feels off, I'll pull out immediately."
Even if this was a trap and he lost a ghoul or two, it still felt like a trade worth making.
And now, the present.
"Hooah! Hooah!"
The leader of Group 4 tore through the darkness, running himself ragged. Running abreast of him, his ghoul carried Group 10's red artifact in its belly.
Yes! Yes! YES!
It had been exactly as Simon said.
The altar had stood empty, and ahead of it there had been signs of a scuffle — the sounds of some clash. Presumably an engagement between Hector's forces and Simon's.
The leader of Group 4 had made his ghoul swallow the red artifact and was now on his way back to the main camp.
Me — Group 4 —!
His lips trembled with elation.
Past Simon and Hector — straight to first place!
As he ran at full tilt, at last the altar of Group 4 came into view up ahead.
He wanted nothing more than to bring this wonderful news to his teammates at once. Just as he kicked off with his jet-black mana to push his speed even higher—
Chwaaaaaak!
A razor-sharp claw lanced through the darkness and raked past his ghoul. The leader of Group 4 yelped and yanked the ghoul back behind him.
"Hold it right there! Hoooold it! This is a surprise inspection."
At the voice that rang out of nowhere, the leader of Group 4 looked up. Three pairs of eyes glinted in the darkness.
"And where might you be rushing off to in such a hurry?"
-Grrrrrr!
At the same time, ghouls came shambling out of the dark, one after another.
Nine ghouls in total.
He was completely surrounded.
"Your ghoul there seems to have packed on a nice, plump layer of flesh."
Tap—
A male student dropped down from a tree and smirked, raising his index finger.
"Would you mind terribly if we sliced open its belly to see what's inside?"
…Group 13! They must have caught the scent after all!
The leader of Group 4 hurriedly pulled two more ghouls out of his subspace.
Even so, it was three against nine. The numerical disadvantage was stark.
"Right then — tear them all to shreds!"
The nine ghouls under Group 13's control came surging in a wave.
"There they are! Found them!"
"Protect the Captain!"
But now voices rang out from ahead as well.
The rest of Group 4 had arrived. Six ghouls were sprinting toward them at full speed.
"My, how fast! No matter! Kill them all!"
Golden Lines were drawn across several of the ghouls, and Grand Funerary manifested. The ghouls charged forward, scattering black energy like capes behind them.
"Not a chance!"
The leader of Group 4 answered in kind, casting Grand Funerary over his own ghouls.
From the opening move, it was all-out war.
Simon hadn't approached Group 4 alone from the start.
While Eshu was talking with Group 4, he had sent Toto to Group 13, who were plotting their strategy behind the restrooms.
— You're just handing your red artifact to Group 4?
To Group 4, an offer to give them the red artifact.
To Group 13, the information had been deliberately leaked.
The members of Group 13 had also debated fiercely over whether it might be a trap, but it was information they could hardly afford to ignore.
They too had been resigned to their rotten draw, heading into the exam with nothing more in mind than avoiding last place. And then suddenly, an escape route had opened in the most curious of places.
What if Simon was telling the truth? Then first place would go to Group 4.
And from Group 13's standpoint, Group 4 was a considerably easy mark.
True, they had to weigh Group 10's intentions, and there was a chance it was all a trap.
— I can't stand the thought of watching Group 4 take first place while I just sit here. Pisses me off too much.
It was a game in which they were doomed to fight over a boring third or fourth place anyway. If there was even the slightest chance at first place, they were more than willing to place their bet there.
And so, once the exam began, the leader of Group 13 — ostensibly out hunting for artifacts — had led three of his members to lie in wait along the route between Groups 10 and 4.
And just as Simon's information promised, the leader of Group 4 came passing through alone.
Thus began the mud-slinging brawl between the two groups aiming for first place.
Ooh hoo hoo! Our Student Council President's brain really does work overtime, huh?
Eshu clicked her tongue in admiration.
His understanding of a person like Hector. The circumstances every other group found themselves in. He had grasped it all — which was how he'd been able to build a strategy like this.
And so, while everyone fought tooth and nail, Eshu's destination was Group 13's home base.
"Wh-who's there?!"
Group 13 had gone off to raid Group 4, and only a single member remained to guard the altar.
As he whirled around in alarm and took up a guard stance, Eshu waved cheerfully.
"Hello~ I'm a burglar!"
Eshu had set herself some personal criteria.
Two or more defenders — pass.
Defender in Group A through B — pass.
But mercifully, the altar was being guarded by a lone Group D student — the weakest of the lot.
That meant she could fight and win.
"You're from Group 10…!"
He pointed at her, face contorting in fury.
"You tricked us!"
"Hm? We really, really didn't trick you at all."
Eshu tilted her head.
"All we did was give you information about Group 4, didn't we? No pressure, no requests. Whether you used that information or ignored it was entirely your own call."
She thrust her arm forward. Yap!
"And with that said — that red artifact of yours! We'll be taking it!"
Behind Eshu, a ghoul painted over in orange paint began to charge. For some reason, it was even wearing lipstick.
"You have terrible taste!"
The Group 13 student was controlling three ghouls.
Three against one. Eshu's lipstick-wearing ghoul didn't last long before it was pinned to the ground and subdued.
"Ha, what was that? You strutted in all confident with just ONE ghoul?"
As the Group 13 student crowed and taunted her, the mouth of the subdued ghoul fell open.
Activate!
Her ghoul's summoning magic circle began to change.
The calculated values of the equations and geometries that formed its ecosystem shifted, and the circle inscribed alongside them lit up.
Eshu had reverse-engineered the structure in one go and rebuilt it. In an instant, the components were reassembled into a configuration that would trigger a curse.
— Examinees may use only techniques that apply to ghouls.
A curse doll — conjured purely through the ghoul's summoning magic circle, in perfect compliance with that rule — slipped neatly down the throats of the opposing ghouls.
"Grand Funerary on a ghoul. Honestly, my live success rate isn't great either."
She raised both arms like a pianist.
"But I'm very confident in my failures!"
The curse doll's magic successfully penetrated the interior of the opponent's summoning magic circles. In one fluid stroke, Eshu drew Reno's Golden Line — in reverse.
Gush, gush, gush!
The Group 13 student's ghouls howled in agony as black mana began pouring from their mouths.
"Wh-what is this?! What did you do!"
Eshu laughed out loud, resting a fingertip on her tongue.
"Everybody thinks about casting Grand Funerary on their own ghouls. Nobody ever thinks to cast it on the enemy's."
Ku-boom!
Thud!
All three of the ghouls the Group 13 student held collapsed.
Eshu drew a fresh ghoul from her subspace and had it casually pluck the red artifact from the enemy's grasp.
All the Group 13 student could do was stand there, hands empty, and watch it happen.
"Youuuuuu!"
"Bye-bye! It's an exam, so don't hate me too much!"
Chuckling, she fled with her ghoul in tow.
I think I joined a really fun group!
With that, Group 10 had secured two artifacts and taken a long stride toward victory.
Revenge from Group 13 was realistically beyond them now, and they had no choice but to pour everything into the showdown with Group 4 and their two artifacts.
The only remaining problem was Hector of Group 1, who had just been played by Simon. And of course, he would not back down so easily.
Hee hee — so, how exactly is Hector going to come out of this one?