You Like Plan, Don't You?
You Like Plan, Don't You?
Ela, the female knight who once led the Four Siblings in the Knight Department, sat slumped against a nameless ruin.
"Heh."
A low, mocking laugh echoed from above. Ela slowly lifted her head.
An uncanny blend of white and blonde hair.
It was braided in an antique style without a single strand out of place, elegantly exposing a pale nape.
And the goat emblem carved into the cloak. Ela knew that was the symbol of a Maine.
"You've wandered far. This is the south, you know."
"You are... ngh..."
A headache blared as knowledge forcibly injected itself into her mind.
Entirely against her will, she understood: the woman before her, an embodiment of a Great Witch, was the Witch of Jealousy.
The Witch of Jealousy continued, utterly unhurried.
"You killed everyone you ran into... twenty? Thirty? Fufufu, being that conspicuous won't do you any favors."
"..."
Ela held her silence a moment, then parted her lips.
"Reason."
"Hm?"
"What's the reason. Your reason for... giving me this power."
"Pff. No, wrong. I'll be the one asking questions."
The witch lowered her posture slightly. Her grey eyes met Ela's heavy-lidded gaze.
"How was it? That power I gave you?"
"Power..."
Ela quietly retraced the events that had unfolded.
Wandering aimlessly, she had faced thirty adventurers in succession, and Ela had not lost a single bout.
That was thanks entirely to the power received from this Maine.
"Strong. Unbelievably so."
For now, that was the only way she could express it. The witch's lips curved into a faint, knowing smile.
"I'm glad it pleases you. So then, as you are now... could you take revenge?"
"..."
Ela bit down on her lower lip.
Plan.
How was she supposed to describe him? That absurd man.
She could list her impressions of that mage endlessly, but in the end, the words that left Ela's mouth were brutally simple.
"...I'm not confident."
The witch, who had been listening quietly, narrowed her eyes sharply.
"This power I've been given is obviously strong. But Plan, that bastard... he existed in a different dimension. An insurmountable wall. That's what it felt like."
"Hmm~"
The Witch of Jealousy tilted her head to one side.
'That strong, is he...'
Ela's response was foreign to her. No human she'd handed power to had ever responded like this.
Humans always gave the same cookie-cutter reactions.
Frenzied glee at their sudden power, or being devoured by it and running wild... simple amusements at best. This, though, was a first.
'It wasn't exactly a small amount of power either.'
Yet even wielding such power, this girl still felt an absolute wall.
'...Interesting. Or no, perhaps I should call this jealousy?'
Even having received the Witch of Jealousy's own strength, Ela remained utterly fixated on the existence known as Plan.
And precisely because of that, the Witch of Jealousy felt both jealousy and interest simmering toward Plan.
"Ela."
"What."
"I'll give you more power. I'm saying I'll bestow a curse upon you. Then will you be able to take revenge?"
Ela's head snapped up.
"A curse...?"
The inherent power of a Maine. A curse.
An infinitely selfish power, one that devours the happiness and life force of others and claims it solely for one's own gain.
"Yes. Of course, I'm not giving it to you for free. You'll need to retrieve an object from Berkel."
"An object..."
"Right. An object. You don't need to know what it is. Don't even let yourself grow curious."
Ela made her decision swiftly.
If she could meet Plan again and find the answer from that day... if she could have revenge on the Celestial Axis Knight Order that looked down on her like a worm...
One little errand was more than doable.
"Give me power. Quickly."
"I wasn't finished speaking. Ela."
The witch pressed her heel hard onto Ela's hand.
"...!"
At the same instant, a violent spasm seized Ela's entire body. Her vision went pitch-black, and her consciousness receded into a distant, hazy blur.
"Keuh... hak..."
She coughed blood in the end. Clutching her chest, she heard the Witch of Jealousy's even colder voice claw into her ear.
"If you fail, I'm going to erase your entire existence."
Ela nodded willingly. She was a dead woman walking anyway, no different from having died once already.
"Good. The one you just received... is the Curse of Absorption."
"Ugh..."
Ela drew a deep breath. She clenched and unclenched her fist, focusing intently on sensing the changes in her body.
It felt as if she'd been born an entirely different being. Every strand of energy in her body was impossibly vivid and light.
"From now on, whenever you snuff out someone's breath, it will be fully absorbed as your own power."
"Fully... my own power...?"
"Conveniently, the Subjugation Festival is underway at Berkel right now, isn't it? Plan will be there too."
"Yeah."
"Berkel gets blanketed with thick fog once night falls. Which means not even the journalists can tell what happens inside."
A shudder ran through Ela's body.
She was already beginning to dimly understand what the Witch of Jealousy was implying.
"What do you think, Ela? Isn't this a feast laid out just for you?"
Ela clenched her fist tightly.
"Revenge, the mission..."
And then, at last, she opened her eyes. They were grey — exactly the same shade as the Witch of Jealousy's.
"I'll complete them both without fail."
◈
Berkel, the stage of the Subjugation Festival. The academy was a considerable distance from here.
This was pure common sense. You couldn't exactly build a cradle of learning next to a place teeming with demon beasts. Therefore, it was standard practice for the Subjugation Festival delegates to travel by train.
"I wish you fine results at the Subjugation Festival!"
In the train station of Zerun, a city not far from Berkel. The count's personal guards saluted the knight cadets.
Janetz, the representative cadet of the Celestial Axis Knight Order, tucked her rose-red hair behind her ear and answered with a smile.
"Thank you. We'll give it our all."
"Yes, my lady!"
The delegates had just been provided a meal by the Count of Zerun. The Subjugation Festival was a matter of intense public interest regardless of region.
Zerun was merely a brief stop for that meal. The knight cadets boarded the train once more, one by one.
The VIP compartments prepared for them were grandiose.
A bed, a sofa, refreshments, reading material... practically a rolling hotel occupying an entire carriage.
The seat opposite Janetz was assigned to Ivan. Across the table, Ivan bowed her head first in greeting.
"For the journey to Berkel. I look forward to working with you."
"There's no need to make a formal affair of it. It's only a four-hour ride."
"Four hours..."
Ivan tilted her head slightly.
"Speaking of which, I was wondering. Why must we deliberately switch trains three times at scheduled stops?"
The VIP train they rode proceeded to Berkel on its own.
Meaning there was no practical reason to change trains, so Ivan was curious about the point of the transfers.
"To avoid danger, obviously. But then... it's only natural a first-year like you wouldn't know."
Janetz answered flatly as she placed a sword blade and a handkerchief on the table.
A miracle of a sword that had cost a staggering thirty thousand gold coins. The sword blade, Surt, in practically mint condition.
Confirming the elegant lines of that blade, a smile naturally bloomed on Janetz's lips.
The shock of missing it at the auction house had been considerable, but some anonymous party reselling it secondhand let her put those worries to rest. No — she was utterly delighted.
"Serious danger...?"
"Right. Demon beasts, things like that. Or Maine, if your luck's bad."
Ivan immediately scanned the compartment from corner to corner. Unsurprisingly, the Magic Department delegates were nowhere to be seen.
Her eyes soon went round.
"You did not inform the Magic Department?"
"We have no obligation to. In the first place, switching trains three times is a trick only known to those in the know. Isn't that part of being capable?"
Ivan's expression was still far from convinced. Janetz added more as she polished the blade.
"That's how the Subjugation Festival works, Ivan. You do know why so many people go mad for it, don't you?"
"I would like to hear your thoughts, senior."
"First: because the delegates face actual demon beasts, not illusions."
There wasn't a soul, at least not among humankind, who did not detest the extermination of demon beasts. Thus, the festival's prestige and popularity rose with every passing year.
The strong support from the citizens of Berkel goes without saying. From their perspective, a "pest cleanup" took place right in their backyard annually.
"And second: you signed a waiver too, didn't you? With your own two hands."
"...I did."
—The delegate has fully acknowledged the dangers of the Subjugation Festival. Furthermore, they assume all responsibility for any unforeseen accidents that may occur.
"Exactly that. The fact they're putting their own lives on the line. More than enough reason for the spectators to go wild."
"Hmm..."
"Ivan. Then answer me this. What method exists to drop the other teams without directly fighting them?"
"..."
Ivan grasped Janetz's meaning instantly.
"...That strikes me as profoundly underhanded."
"Tch."
Janetz couldn't hold back her laugh.
Watching Ivan push her ideals and sense of justice so aggressively, her first thought was that this girl was still naive and immature.
Of course, Janetz had once gone through such a phase herself.
In the end, Ivan too would change as she gained experience.
"Who knows? Who on earth could possibly condemn us as underhanded."
Janetz shrugged her shoulders.
"We haven't done a single thing that violates the regulations. The Magic Department simply lacked know-how, that's all. Ah, there's a saying for that, isn't there: if the brain is dull, the body suffers."
Janetz continued polishing her blade. She didn't spare Ivan a single glance as she kept speaking.
"This is wisdom that every senior learns by going through it themselves. The Magic Department's only just set foot in the main tournament, so what can you do? They'll just have to get beaten and pick up the know-how like everyone else."
"..."
"And in a way, it's not entirely bad either. If they manage to defeat all the demon beasts anyway, that'll be counted toward their score as well. Don't you think?"
Hah—
Janetz blew a breath over the polished blade. Surt's edge refracted light like a prism.
"Still, it's a surprise. Ivan."
"What is."
"I half expected you to jump off the train in a panic, worrying yourself sick. You like Plan, don't you?"
Ivan turned her head away without a word.
'You like Plan.' It wasn't a statement she meant to deny. After all, she admired Plan as her teacher.
Chhh-chhhh—
The train began to move at that very moment, and the conversation between the two knights was cut short. Janetz too simply cast her gaze out the window.
Quietly closing her eyes, Ivan began to sketch something silently upon the dark canvas of her mind, one figure after another.
Scenes from her training with Plan.
The strange power and movements he had shown her. She mentally retraced them, assiduously running through the images in her head.
Deeper and deeper, she sank into thought.
Within her imagination, she unfurled an impossibly brilliant sword path. And that path, at some point, took on the shape of a magic circle even she did not recognize.
"I simply do not worry, because I believe."
The female knight murmured quietly.
◈
I was seated in the train's private cabin, inspecting the items.
A pocket watch imbued with Surt's element, a conical hat to assist with calculations, a cloak to raise durability... Items I'd won at auction and modified to my taste.
They weren't for me, of course. Their purpose was to keep the delegates from getting swept up in unexpected accidents.
Compared to knights accustomed to armor and assorted protective gear, the defensive equipment mages could wear was pathetically lacking, so I had no choice but to fix them up myself.
"Tch..."
I clicked my tongue. I'm not their parent, so why am I stuck babysitting these kids...
I fully intend to train them properly and put them to solid use. It was just as I was having that thought.
Knock knock—
"Who is it."
Instead of an answer, the door swung wide open. The private cabin immediately filled with the scent of jasmine.
Trixie, without even needing to look.
"I have something to ask."
"What."
"Why did you do it."
Throwing out the words in a curt tone, Trixie sat down across from me.
"Do what."
"The handkerchief."
Tap, tap, tap. She began to drum the table with the tips of her neatly groomed nails.
"Why didn't you hand it over? To the Teaching Auction client."
"I did hand it over."
"Liar."
Why was she being so deathly serious about this random accusation?
As soon as I had that thought, Trixie added more.
"Don't get the wrong idea. It's not as if I went and compared the scent of the handkerchief to yours. I was merely... curious whether you properly kept your promise to me..."
"I won't say it a third time. I handed it over."
"If you didn't follow through, I absolutely will not let this slide... huh?"
Trixie's eyebrows twitched before she could finish her sentence. Then she pursed her lips and asked again.
"You said you handed it over?"
"Yes."
"...Really?"
"Why not contact them directly and ask."
A brief silence passed through the cabin.
"Hm-hmm..."
Then, for a moment, the corner of Trixie's lips lifted — but she quickly faked a cough.
She composed her face into a stern expression and started to speak again.
"Then change your perfume. It's annoying."
Whatever she said, I took hold of her hand.
The elemental power contained within this pocket watch was far from negligible, and I was concerned it might inadvertently damage Trixie's circuits.
Can't have my assistant breaking down.
"...!"
Trixie's eyes flew wide open a beat later.
My calculations confirmed it: this pocket watch suited Trixie best. It should provide considerable assistance in turning her flames an even deeper blue.
The contact didn't last long.
I simply secured the watch on her and immediately withdrew my hand. The sensation of touching another person is hardly pleasant for me either.
"Wear this watch from now on."
"You, again...!"
Trixie yanked her hand back toward her chest.
Her face flushed bright red, her eyes glaring fiercely as she snapped her gaze rapidly back and forth between her hand and me.
But she didn't get a single moment to question me. The door swung open once again, and Becky and Louis stepped inside.
Trixie shot a glare at Becky. Specifically at Becky, of all people.
"And what are you doing here."
"What do you mean 'suddenly'? I am a first-year Magic Department student of Märchen Academy..."
"Shut up."
"Okay."
Huffing with apparent displeasure, Trixie continued to stew for a moment before she let out exactly two more words through her clenched lips.
"...I'm telling the Teaching Auction client everything. Be prepared for excommunication."
With that, Trixie strode out. Becky and Louis blinked their eyes and sat down across from me.
"What was that, Plan... Did something happen between you two?"
"Never mind. You two take one each as well."
I handed out one piece of equipment to each of them. The conical hat to Becky, the cloak to Louis.
The originals alone were already high-end luxury auction items, and with my magic applied on top, their value had only soared further.
"P-, P-, Plan... for me... you're giving me something like this...?"
Sensing that, Becky's eyes welled up with tears.
"Don't make a fuss."
"Ah, y-, yeah! Hic...!"
Becky pulled the conical hat down to her chin. If she'd meant to amuse me, it worked, in its own way.
Louis also was genuinely moved. He draped the sleekly designed cloak over himself, and his mouth fell slightly open.
"Both of you, go on back out now."
After shooing Becky and Louis from the room, I examined the enormous list of train routes. As always, I had plenty to do.
「Train Routes Avoiding Demon Beasts」
Documentation personally prepared for me by Maeve.
The title proudly proclaimed it was for 'avoiding demon beasts,' but Maeve had meticulously listed only the routes with the highest probabilities of encountering them.
If one followed the reverse, identifying only the routes that actually avoided demon beasts was child's play.
Child's play, and I could travel very safely — but.
"There's no need for that."
I plotted a course using only the dangerous routes.
Actually, even calling them 'dangerous' is a misnomer.
"Put more accurately, I've arranged a route composed solely of the interesting ones."
I gazed out the window, nodding quietly to myself.