What Even Is Simon, Anyway?
Simon's consciousness severed, and he began to plummet in free fall.
"Simon!"
The instant Lorraine yanked her skeletal horse's reins to dive after him, the living bandages sustaining Big Kroom burst apart in every direction.
"Ghk—!"
The bandages shattered the cliff face and sliced whole trees to splinters as they scorched the surrounding area. Some of them even went flying toward the central Kera Island.
Lorraine hastily threw up a defensive magic circle and swept her jet-black sword through the air, cutting the bandages down, while Serne sent her feathers to seal them off. The TAs scrambled into action to handle the aftermath.
"Ah, Simon!!"
"Don't worry."
Serne extended her right arm toward the direction Simon was falling. The feathers still clinging to his back flickered with a faint glow.
"I set the remaining feathers to produce a deceleration effect, so he won't get hurt from the fall."
"Thank you."
Serne let out a sharp breath and shot him an incredulous look.
"I'm the one who helped Simon. Why are *you* thanking me? It's so annoying."
"...?"
Lorraine blinked at her in bewilderment.
* * *
The place Simon came down was the base of the southern island. And there was one person who found the unconscious Simon faster than anyone else.
'Bwahaha! So this is what they mean by fortune following right on the heels of disaster!'
Haren Coke was sprinting toward the spot where Simon had fallen.
He had come within a hair's breadth of death just moments ago.
The feather Serne had given him must have run out of power, because Malcolm had snapped back to his senses. If Haren hadn't noticed and bolted fast enough, Malcolm's retribution would have ended everything right there.
'Whew. The rest of my school life is going to be miserable.'
If the rumors were true—if all of Class M belonged to Malcolm's faction—then he'd just made an enemy of an entire class.
Still, Haren had one thing left to believe in.
'The moment this business is done, I'm joining Serne's faction!'
The guy who'd caught the last train—Special Admission No. 10—what could he possibly do to someone standing beneath the Ivory Tower's heir?
And above all, if things went well and he became Professor Bahil's direct disciple, no one would dare lay a hand on him.
Because of the recent commotion, the southern island was nearly empty of students, and Haren crossed the bridge without a single interruption.
Once on the southern island, he pushed through the underbrush, forging recklessly ahead until at last—
"Found him!"
There was Simon, lying unconscious in the grass.
"Well, if it isn't a windfall...! Huh?"
Haren stumbled backward. Someone had beaten him there.
A tall man with broad, jutting shoulders.
'H-Hector!'
No doubt about it—Hector Moore of Class A.
Swish.
As Hector turned his head to look back at him, Haren swallowed hard.
Come to think of it, he'd heard a rumor that this guy had his own designs on Simon. If that were true, there was room to negotiate.
"Ahaha! Hey there! Do you have business with Simon too?"
"...".
Hector merely stared down at him with a blank expression, giving no answer.
"Then here's a proposal."
The corner of Haren's mouth curled up.
"Let me be the one to finish that guy off. Grant me just that one thing, and you can take all of Simon's Tongue Pad points for yourself."
"...".
"Or what, do you want the glory of having taken down Special Admission No. 1? Sure, sure. Go ahead and spread the word. Just let me do the finishing—"
Hector began trudging straight toward him. Haren backed away, sensing something deeply wrong in the air.
"N-no! Wait! I'll give you everything, all of it!"
Hector's body lunged forward with startling agility. Desperate, Haren summoned the Black Hand to shield himself.
CRACK!
Hector's fist drove straight into it, and a heavy, bone-rattling impact burst outward.
Haren staggered back from the shock, dropping to one knee with a strangled retch. A deep dent had been left in the very center of the Black Hand.
"...Filthy little worm."
Beside Hector, a subspace tore open, and slick, foul-smelling scales began wrapping themselves around his right arm.
From Haren's perspective, it was nothing short of baffling.
Why on earth was this happening? Weren't Hector and Simon supposed to hate each other?
"No, hey! Hold on a second! Do you even know who sent me—"
Hector's mouth curled into a smirk.
"Don't need to."
Hector's fist, now sheathed in black scales, shot out with a shockwave in its wake.
That single blow earlier had already shattered Haren's fighting spirit. The moment he realized he was hopelessly outmatched, he spun on his heel and ran.
"Tch."
Once Haren vanished into the forest, Hector didn't bother giving chase. His gaze turned instead to Simon, sprawled out in the grass.
'Like I'd ever let that bastard end things this way.'
Hector ground his teeth.
"Simon!"
Just then, Lorraine appeared in the sky, riding a skeletal horse.
She leapt from the saddle and scrambled over to him, dropping to her knees at his side to check his condition. He was merely exhausted and unconscious—thankfully, there didn't appear to be a single wound on him.
"...!"
Then she spotted Hector, standing a short distance away. Her eyes sharpened with wariness as she pulled Simon closer to her.
'This is bad.'
Straight off the battle with Serne, without a moment's rest, she'd had to face Big Kroom. With both her stamina and her jet-black drained to their absolute limits, even Lorraine couldn't guarantee victory against an opponent like Hector. Her eyes fixed on Hector's transformed right arm.
"...".
But.
Hector, who had been glaring at the two of them in silence, soon turned his back and disappeared.
'He's just... leaving?'
As a flustered Lorraine stood blinking in disbelief, Simon groaned and stirred.
"Simon! Simon! Can you hear me? Simon!"
Lorraine shook him awake, then pulled a potion from her subspace and pressed it to his lips.
* * *
"Hah! Hah! Dammit! Dammit!"
Haren was running for his life, blindly fleeing Hector.
'I can't give up like this! No way!'
Simon was just lying there, ripe for the taking—one poke away from capture. He was really going to lose this chance because of one person getting in his way?
Unacceptable.
If he couldn't take on Hector alone, he'd just have to rally whatever teammates he could find.
He drew one of the feathers from his breast pocket. Only two remained. The last one had to be saved for Simon.
'Anyone, anyone at all...?'
As Haren pushed frantically through the underbrush, scanning his surroundings, his foot caught on something.
'...Ah, crap! You scared me!'
It was a monster's corpse.
No wonder no monsters had shown up—the carcasses of the island's creatures were piled up like mountains here.
Even Grade 3 monsters, the apex of this island's food chain, lay strewn about limply. Bloated masses of flesh, beaten so one-sidedly that it was hard to tell what they'd once been.
And right in the middle of that carnage, a male student in a Kizen uniform sat perched on a rock, taking a rest.
'...Th-that's it! An opportunity!'
He couldn't fathom why anyone would refuse a teleport and stay on the southern island, but the guy looked reasonably strong.
Haren drew a deep breath, measured the distance, and hurled Serne's feather. It landed squarely on the male student's back.
Haren cheered inwardly and stepped into view.
"Hey! Get ready!"
At Haren's shout, the male student slowly turned around.
Sun-faded grey hair, and a scar slicing clean through his bloodshot right eye. A man radiating danger from every pore.
'Yikes, he looks terrifying. Was there a guy like this among the first-years?'
The man rubbed the wound near his eye with a finger, lazily.
"What do you want?"
"Who are you? Your name."
"Kajhan Edvalt."
Kajhan Edvalt? Never heard of him.
"Good, Kajhan. You and I are about to go capture Simon Polentia."
"...".
"He's unconscious right now, but Hector Moore is guarding him and getting in the way. You distract Hector's attention, and I'll circle around behind and finish Simon off. Any questions?"
Kajhan rose to his feet in one smooth motion.
"You're targeting Simon Polentia?"
"Yeah, that's right! And no more questions from here on! From now on, you follow my orders, no exceptions—"
Kajhan began trudging straight toward Haren. Unbidden, cold sweat trickled down Haren's spine.
What was this?
Why did this feel exactly like déjà vu?
"W-wait! Stop! Stop right there!"
But Kajhan paid his commands no mind. The hair on the back of Haren's neck stood on end.
'Oh, crap! Why isn't it working? That woman! If she's mixed in cheap knockoff feathers, then I swear—'
"Relying on *this* to get bold, are you?"
Kajhan reached back and plucked the feather off with a flick. Then he hurled it at a Grade 2 monster lurking in the underbrush nearby—a Wrecker.
Thwack!
The feather sank squarely into the Wrecker's body. It wheezed, flopped over onto its back, and—of all things—exposed its belly to Kajhan in total submission.
'What? The effects work just fine...!'
Haren's jaw dropped in stunned horror. Someone immune to Serne's mental abilities actually existed?
"W-wait, just hear me out!"
Haren flailed his hands as he shouted.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry! That was my fault! Let's make a deal! You've clearly been hunting hard—you need points too, right? All you have to do is help me grab Simon! Then I'll give you not just Simon's points, but half of mine—"
"That premise is wrong from the start."
Kajhan clenched his fist. A sinister-hued jet-black began to swirl in his palm.
"If you're after Simon, I can't just stand by and watch."
"...!!"
Haren flinched and stumbled backward—then suddenly, a wave of frustration surged up, and he screamed.
"Damn it all! Not you too!"
"?"
"What the hell is it about Simon that makes everyone go this far? Professor Bahil! Serne! Hector! What in the world makes that guy so special that everyone loses their minds over him?!"
Kajhan replied with utter indifference.
"He's my roommate."
"Your... roommate?"
"First guy I've actually liked in a long time. Never sticks his nose in my business, and stays quiet until the moment he falls asleep. But."
A thick, suffocating bloodlust seeped out of Kajhan's body.
"If Simon leaves Kizen, some other noisy bastard might end up in my room."
"What kind of bullcrap have you been spouting this whole tiiiiiime!"
Haren let out a rough roar and charged, swinging the Black Hand.
But.
Tap.
It stopped dead against Kajhan's raised index finger—a single finger, blocking it effortlessly.
"...Huh?"
Kajhan seized the Black Hand and wrenched it toward himself with crushing force. Haren's body was dragged helplessly toward him.
Haren's eyes flooded with raw, primal terror.
"Don't touch that guy. Trash."
BOOOOOOOM!
Then, a headbutt. Kajhan's skull slammed into Haren's forehead like a nail driven home, and Haren's face cratered straight into the ground.
The blow obliterated his defensive barrier entirely, damaging even the emergency layer beneath it until it sputtered with crackling sparks.
Watching the unconscious Haren force-teleport away, Kajhan turned his back without a shred of regret.