The Defense Team
"I'll go."
A chorus of impressed gasps rippled out from every corner of the room.
The first to volunteer was Simon.
"Figures."
"Must come with the job of Student Council President. The man's on another level."
Thanks to his recent change in reputation, his classmates' reactions had grown noticeably warmer as of late. Even Hector's faction was holding their tongues, choosing not to pick a fight with Simon amid such a mood.
A broad smile spread across Grelion's face.
"Hahahaha! If you're stepping up, I couldn't ask for better! Excellent!"
Simon rose from his seat and wrote his name on the defense team roster. If there was anything he could do to help Aaron, he wanted to do it—whatever it took.
Just then, a faint rustle came from somewhere nearby, and another person rose from their seat right beside Simon.
This time, even Simon was taken aback.
"I'll go as well."
Lorraine Archbold.
She raised her hand. The students buzzed with astonishment.
"Hmm. Well, yours is a somewhat... special case."
Grelion narrowed his eyes and scratched his head.
"Do you have combat authorization?"
Though he'd phrased it that way, what he was really asking was whether her mother—Nephthys—had given her permission.
She nodded.
"I was told it's acceptable to use my power in an emergency. All the more so when it's for the sake of my fellow students."
The teaching assistants immediately swarmed around Grelion, hounding him with hushed, urgent voices—No! You can't approve this! If anything were to happen to Nephthys's daughter, the consequences would go far beyond simply being expelled from the school.
But Grelion just grinned.
"How could I pretend not to see someone volunteering with such noble resolve and conviction! Welcome to the defense team!"
"Thank you."
Lorraine bowed her head politely.
Off to the side, the Head Assistant could be seen sighing, her face clouded with worry.
"Now then, I'll take just one more volunteer for the last slot!"
Since Simon had already committed, everyone fully expected Hector to rise—and rise he did.
"I'll go as w—"
"I believe I'll volunteer instead."
A figure rose from her seat, cutting Hector off mid-sentence.
Hector, of course—and this time, every single person in the room was stunned.
The girl who always sat in the back, quietly observing, no matter what class was being taught. She swept up her lush platinum-blonde hair and loftily raised a single hand. It was none other than the future Master of the Ivory Tower, Serne Eindark.
"Don't get in my way."
Hector growled through gritted teeth. But Serne's expression didn't so much as flicker; she cast him a sly, foxlike smirk.
"You owe me a few things from before. You do remember, don't you?"
"……"
"Besides, sending the department representative off with the defense team would be rather problematic, no? Someone needs to stay behind and look after the students if an emergency arises."
Hector's eyes flared like embers—but after a long, seething silence, he let out a heavy sigh and sank back into his seat.
To stop that Hector cold. The surrounding students couldn't help but regard Serne with a flicker of admiration.
"Me, me! I volunteer~"
Having casually knocked her competition out of the running, Serne waved her hand with breezy confidence.
Grelion skimmed through her file.
"Your grades in Sacred Defense and this training cycle aren't exactly stellar, but……"
He trailed off, then let out a short laugh and folded the papers shut.
"Shouldn't be a problem."
That one was no mere teenage student wearing a uniform; her abilities had long since left the realm of students far behind. She was something beyond human—a monster, in the truest sense. She would likely outclass even most active-duty necromancer agents.
"Welcome to the defense team, Serne Eindark."
Serne glided over on light, swaying steps and made her way to Simon's side. A moment later she had latched snugly onto his arm, smiling up at him.
"Looks like we're on the same team now, Simon?"
As every eye in the room turned toward them, Simon flustered—and Lorraine, twin flames practically igniting in her eyes, peeled her off of him.
"What are you scheming?"
"Scheming? Nothing of the sort. If I have to go anyway, the side where Simon happens to be simply looks more entertaining."
Simon Polentia.
Lorraine Archbold.
Serne Eindark.
It was a lineup whose names alone carried staggering weight. Whichever priest came, the defense team those three belonged to seemed capable of holding the line against anything.
"Looking forward to working with you! I'll be providing the defense team with more detailed information on the mission."
Grelion turned his head.
"Everyone else—prepare to move out!"
"Sorry, what?"
"Now that you've heard even a fragment of a classified mission, you are all to be relocated to an isolated facility and held there until the operation begins!"
Whoooom!
As if they'd been waiting for the signal, Kizen minions came spilling out from every corner of the cavern and began escorting the students away one by one.
Teleportation circles unfurled across the floor in multiple places. The minions even fitted the students with blindfolds so they couldn't see where the teleportation arrays were positioned.
"It's a security matter, so cooperate even if it's uncomfortable! The operation launches at dawn, two days from now!"
Grelion clenched his fist.
"We cross the border!"
Relocated to a holding site right after the mission briefing.
Only Grelion could pull off something this explosively decisive.
The students were ferried off via teleportation circle to somewhere utterly unknown.
Fortunately, the blindfolds came off shortly after they arrived. When Simon pulled his free and opened his eyes, he found Lorraine and Serne on either side of him, one clutching his arm, the other gripping the hem of his coat.
"……Guys?"
Simon stammered, flustered. Two boys passing by shot him looks of such envious fury they could have killed.
Anyway, with his vision restored, a large stone building now stood before them. Nothing else marked the surroundings—just open grassland stretching to the horizon, dotted with hills large and small.
He could hear the sighing of the wind, the babble of a nearby stream.
It felt as though a single house and a handful of students had been dropped, utterly alone, into the middle of this vast plain.
"We must be near the border."
Lorraine murmured, tugging her blindfold off. Serne pushed hers up with the tip of one finger, humming a little tune.
"Hahahaha! Everyone made it safe and sound!"
Grelion and the assistants arrived moments later. Grelion snorted a blast of air through his nose.
"First and second floors for the boys, third and fourth for the girls! Unpack and rest a while—the assistants will hand out documents listing what you need. Write down anything you're missing, from toiletries to underwear to spare clothes, and the minions will bring them from your dorm rooms! All communication with the outside is strictly forbidden, and you are not to set foot beyond this barrier!"
He gave a low grunt, pushed his sunglasses up, and skimmed over the notes.
"Three hours of rest inside, then we reconvene here for simulations and mission drills! Now get in there and rest up!"
"Yes, sir!"
They had come expecting to attend class in their usual easygoing way, and now it had abruptly turned into a boot-camp situation.
Still, Kizen students were quick to adapt to this sort of thing, and they began drifting off in loose clusters.
As it happened, Toto came over hauling Fitzgerald along and proposed they share a room. Simon readily agreed and was just heading their way when—
"Hold it!"
Grelion thrust out a hand.
"The defense team uses separate quarters! The mission effectively starts now—you four are the ones who'll be protecting your fellow students!"
"Wait, what?"
Simon looked bewildered, while Serne practically sparkled with delight as she sidled up beside him.
"Oh my, look at this. Again. Isn't that nice? Nice for me, at least."
Just imagining what she'd put him through made Simon foresee an exhausting day ahead.
In any case, the defense team's quarters turned out to be a small annex attached to the main building—positioned so they could rush out at a moment's notice if anything happened.
A guide led Simon, Lorraine, and Serne into the separate lodging.
Not a bad room.
He hadn't expected much from a building jutting up out of an empty field, but it was more spacious and spotless than anticipated. There were even enough beds—one for each of them.
The assistant handed each of them a form for listing needed items and left. While Simon unpacked his things, Serne scribbled away on her form with a quill.
"Snacks, cosmetics, pajamas, a pillow. And underwear. What design do you like, Simon?"
Simon decided to pretend he hadn't heard. Lorraine, for her part, was filling out her form with an intensely focused expression.
Two hours later.
"……"
Lorraine's bed had turned pink. It was buried under dolls and cushions.
She seemed to have brought every last scrap of bedding from her dorm room.
"We'll be here a day or two at most. Isn't this a bit much?"
Simon asked carefully.
"...I can't sleep well unless it's my own things."
Lorraine answered, twisting a strand of hair around her finger, embarrassed.
"Fufufu."
Serne tried to lay out a few scandalous garments by her bed as if to show them off, but Lorraine forcibly confiscated them and stuffed them into a drawer.
There was still time before training, so the three of them fell into easy conversation.
"During breaks, I used to follow my mother to the border fairly often."
Lorraine said with her eyes closed.
"The frontier between the Alliance and the Federation is always a place where battles large and small break out, but lately the atmosphere there has been unmistakably different from usual."
"The Dark Alliance has gotten soft wallowing in peace."
Serne perched on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs.
"On the Holy Federation's side, the threat of war has people hoarding supplies left and right—and over here, we're throwing festivals like nothing's happening. Don't you think people ought to at least be aware of it?"
"I'd say the lack of urgency is a fair criticism."
For once, the two of them actually agreed on something. Serne went on.
"Word is war could break out any day now. The Ivory Tower has its intelligence network running and is preparing accordingly—and the mood is anything but ordinary."
Simon laced his fingers together.
"Relations between the two nations weren't that bad, though. Why now, all of a sudden……"
"So much time has passed since the last war that people say what's been building up is bound to burst eventually. It's not as if border skirmishes and mission conflicts ever stopped—only all-out war did. And more than anything."
Lorraine's expression turned grave.
"The world has far too many warmongers who want a war."
A basement room where not a single ray of light entered.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound of falling liquid echoed softly through the darkness.
Blood, to be precise.
A man slumped in a creaking wooden chair, head hanging low, blood streaming down his body from every inch of him. Torture instruments of every description crowded the room, and the floor was strewn haphazardly with fingernails, toenails, and teeth.
"You're a tough one to kill."
Whoosh—
Another man bit down on a cigar and lit it.
Smoke drifted hazily upward, tracing the bloodstains along the damp wall before slipping past the basement's narrow vent.
"There's one thing about your Dark Alliance that I do envy."
The man twirled the cigar between his fingers and let out a sinister chuckle from the shadows.
"Your sheer variety of torture methods. Curses, blood arts, even potent venoms. The torturer never tires, and the tortured never grows bored."
His shoulders shook with a low, lewd snicker.
"But our Federation's way is primal and simple. Pull, tear, cut—that sort of thing. Still, there's one thing we can boast of."
The man rose from his seat and signaled with a flick of his hand.
"Watch closely."
Whooom!
Priests in white robes who had been waiting outside the room flooded in and laid their hands upon his body.
Holy light flowed from the priests' palms, knitting flesh and restoring blood.
Vmmm—!
Little by little, the man's body was being restored. The body of a man who had been driven to the very brink of death—shock, massive blood loss—was knitting itself back together.
"Astonishing, isn't it? Rip the core out of a man alive, purge every trace of jet-black from his system, then apply healing magic—and though it's slow, he recovers all the same."
Focus slowly began returning to the tortured man's eyes. Vitality crept back into his flesh.
"You people, every last one of you, say the same thing when you're before me. Just kill me instead. But a captive has no right to die. Death is a privilege."
He snickered.
"Life is suffering, and death is peace. Does a heretic truly believe he deserves peace?"
Light returned to the man's eyes.
His mind surfaced, and his head jerked up. Then he realized where he was—and understood what had been done to him.
And last of all.
He looked upon the white demon before him.
"No! No!"
He convulsed, shaking his body like a madman.
"Stop! Stop it! Don't heal me! Just leave me alone!"
So long as he had a body, he was nothing more than fresh material for the demon's work.
And so the priests—praying to their goddess for the recovery of this poor, wounded man—matched their fingers to his remaining nails and toes and poured healing into him.
"Stop! Pleeeease!"
As his body was restored, the man writhed in agony worse than any torture could inflict.
The white demon smiled.
"You may not even have the right to die without permission. Welcome to the realm of life."
The man who left the basement worked the stiffness from his body as he climbed the stairs.
A man waiting outside, standing at rigid attention, bowed his head.
"Reporting as ordered, Director."