13. Genius
13. Genius
"Hey, did you hear? A duel broke out on the very first day of school."
"What? Who's fighting who?"
"They say it's the youngest-ever elder of the Golden Magic Tower and the Madman of the Price Family."
"Whoa, those two? How is this not the biggest match ever?"
"You going to watch?"
"Obviously, I'm there!"
Lunch break for the Political Science Department.
The students surged en masse in a single direction.
That direction was where the Hero Department's dueling arena stood.
What about afternoon classes, weren't they headed the opposite way across the island?
The Political Science Department had no afternoon classes today.
The academy's Political Science Department took on Hetairo Academy's administrative tasks for practical training.
However, since they had only just enrolled, they hadn't yet been assigned any tasks—or even placed in a department.
So the Political Science Department got out of class far earlier than the other departments.
That said, dismissal didn't mean the day was over for the Political Science students.
The Political Science Department was for people who aspired to politics.
And in the medieval era, politicians were synonymous with nobles.
In other words, over ninety percent of the Political Science Department consisted of nobles.
A noble's day didn't end at dismissal.
They still had social engagements to attend to.
Normally, some would have headed to the cinema and others to tea parties for those social engagements.
But today, of all days, a major event perfectly suited for socializing happened to fall right at lunchtime.
The young lords and ladies, at an age bursting with energy, hurried to the training grounds.
Still, they could not forget to attend to their own social superiors.
The duel was indeed a damn entertaining event, but at its core, it was a social affair.
While everyone else attended to their superiors, the Imperial Prince and Princess at the apex of the noble hierarchy did not follow them.
They were the ones who did the deciding.
They weren't participants in social engagements; they occupied a position where nobles had to humbly petition them.
Fully embodying that at their age might be a tall order.
Even so, there were those among them who put it into practice.
"Your Highness. You should make haste."
"Mm. And you are?"
"Ah, my apologies. I am Ron Flamebell, third son of Viscount Flamebell. I had the audacity to debate with Your Highness during today's lecture."
"Oh, goodness, my fault entirely. I'm sorry. It's the first day of school, so things have been hectic. I apologize."
"I am the one who should be sorry."
"Right, you said we were off to watch the sparring match? I'm not particularly interested in going."
"Pardon? Your Highness?"
Caught off guard by Leon's baffling response, Ron inadvertently questioned him back.
An Imperial Prince was not as absolute as the Emperor, but neither was the hierarchy so loose that a low-ranking noble could question one.
"My apologies, Your Highness. I misspoke..."
"Worry not. I'll consider that unsaid. Your reaction was understandable."
"Not at all, Your Highness. How could I possibly dare question your will?"
"What do you mean, not at all? Your thoughts are obvious. Didn't you think that even an Imperial Prince, the highest authority here, couldn't afford to neglect social obligations this badly?"
"No, Your Highness. I never harbored such insolent thoughts."
"I prefer an honest subject over one who pays me lip service. You can tell just by the fact that the Madman of the Price Family is my best friend, can't you?"
"..."
At Ron's reaction, Leon smiled.
Ron's response was a failure by noble standards.
Even if it wasn't in his heart, he should have denied Leon's words to the very end and flattered him by insisting his best friend was no madman.
But had he done so, Leon would have lost all interest in him.
Because, as he had just said, he had little use for sycophants who only told him what he wanted to hear.
Ron's lack of noble polish, ironically, etched his name into Leon's mind.
Remembering the individual called Ron Flamebell, Leon explained to him why he wasn't heading to the arena.
"Rather than wait hours at the arena to watch a duel that won't last even a few seconds, wouldn't it be more conducive to camaraderie to go watch a film?"
Leon fluttered the tickets before Ron's eyes.
Ron bowed deeply and accepted them.
*
While Leon took Ron and several other young lords to the cinema, Pia was surrounded by young ladies.
As it happened, her reaction differed little from Leon's.
And so, she simply led the young ladies to a café she had scouted beforehand.
The reason the imperial family could be this resolute—unlike the other nobles—was information those other nobles had no access to.
Publicly, Allen Price was known as Leon's milk-brother and sworn friend, but in reality, he was Leon's personal bodyguard.
A so-called secret warrior.
Up until Allen left to film the John Armstrong Series, Leon had never once been exposed to an assassination threat, nor had his cover ever been blown.
Among the nobles, thinking Leon lacked an escort, there was a flood of young lords and knights volunteering to be his guard, but none of them ever caught the imperial household's eye.
In both loyalty and skill, Allen was, beyond question, the finest asset.
Pia Parma, as a member of the imperial household, also knew Allen's identity, and she merely found it regrettable that he wasn't her own personal bodyguard.
At any rate, he was skilled enough to be the personal bodyguard of the Emperor's eldest legitimate son.
And a duel between him and a mere student...
'It's unreasonable.'
'It was unreasonable.'
There wouldn't be much spectacle to it.
And just as the imperial siblings expected, the duel was settled in a flash.
*
The arena's revival chamber.
Ailey looked around, utterly dumbfounded.
Just moments ago, she had definitely walked out into the arena and faced Allen.
And the very instant the referee blew the whistle, she had formed dozens of cannons...
'I lost.'
It was too instantaneous.
Until the cannonballs reached the charging Allen: zero-point-one seconds.
For Allen to snatch the incoming cannonballs mid-air and form a pistol and a sword from them: zero-point-two seconds.
To cut through the cannonballs with the sword while guiding Ailey's barrier with the pistol: zero-point-two seconds.
To reach her: zero-point-four seconds.
Finally, to decompose her firewall, shatter her barrier, and snap her neck: zero-point-two seconds.
A combined total of one-point-one seconds.
That was the amount of time she could stand against him.
By the time she came to her senses, she was inside the stone casket of the revival chamber.
The thought occurred to her—what if she had started the duel with more distance between them?—but it didn't really matter.
It would have only drawn out the time it took him to close the gap; he would have crossed the distance without fail.
It wasn't for nothing that he was called the Golden Devourer.
He was the one who had discovered bio-sorcery, elastic-modulus alchemy, and cross-alchemy.
To him, the techniques of any alchemist were nothing more than things to decompose, re-form, and neutralize at will.
When he dragged off the wizards who had tormented her under the name of Mak'gora, it wasn't for nothing that they hadn't even been able to resist.
Faced with such an overwhelmingly lopsided disparity in power, Ailey had no choice but to accept the outcome cleanly.
Perhaps it was the aftereffect of revival—she couldn't easily rise from the stone casket—but someone approached the casket.
When she lifted her head slightly, there was Allen, waving his hand.
"Allen?"
"Uh... you okay?"
"Yes. I'm really okay! That was a magnificent duel!"
Hadn't they sworn to each other before the duel began to give it their all?
Since she herself had proposed it, Ailey bore no resentment whatsoever.
If anything, realizing how far ahead the man she admired remained only strengthened her desire to improve.
Allen, however, didn't feel the same way.
With the Sanctuary's convenient means of resurrection available, Allen had held nothing back.
But now that he had actually won... it felt a bit crass.
Like an uncle going all-out to beat his niece...
Notably, while he was a man who paid no regard to gender when beating someone up, that was when the opponent was a villain; beating a woman who had done nothing wrong without any mercy was something his American macho soul could not tolerate.
(For the record, Allen in his previous life was a pure-blooded Korean.)
Ailey giggled, finding the fidgeting, self-conscious Allen rather adorable.
"Allen, you really don't need to do that. This was what I wanted. Set that aside for now. You won the bet, so tell me what you want."
"Even so, bringing that up right now is a little..."
"Hurry, before I change my mind."
This was Ailey's ploy.
If she tried to force repayment of the debt, he'd obviously refuse and grow distant.
So, it was better to steadily pay it back naturally, through bets and agreements like this.
Moreover, the more such exchanges repeated, the thicker their bond would grow, making it easier to repay the debt.
Unaware that the junior concocting this quasi-scheme was wearing a sly smile, Allen shut his eyes and pondered.
Then, as if he had hit upon a request, his eyes snapped open.
"Have you thought of something?"
"Yeah. As it happens, there was something I wanted to ask you."
With a pounding heart, she listened intently for his request.
What on earth would he ask for?
Would he ask her to buy him lunch?
Or maybe he'd ask to spar often?
No. She was an elder-rank wizard, so maybe he'd ask her to teach him one or two of her secret magic techniques?
Had someone peered into her head, they would have marveled at how a brain utterly devoid of any slyness indeed belonged to an excellent magic-tower wizard.
The request Prau finally made was so guileless that it proved upperclassman and underclassman were cut from the same cloth.
"Well then, join my Hero Party."
"What? But I'm the one who should be asking you..."
"It's my request to make. I can't imagine anyone but you fitting the wizard spot in our Hero Party."
"You think that highly of me...! All right! I'll do my best!"
Still lying in the stone casket, Ailey eagerly accepted his request with sparkling eyes.
Seeing her so happy, Allen was satisfied as well.
'Right. Ailey loved movies that much too.'
Unfortunately, Hero Party (the film crew) and Hero Party (the special forces unit) were homonyms.
The time it would take for her to realize that the position she had been assigned was for the props and production team...
Four days.