Thirty Mobs Down
The morning after the Andras fishing job.
"Everything's prepared, just as you asked."
The call came in from the Academy Chairman.
"Even if you cause trouble for a while, there won't be a disciplinary committee. I'll handle everything on my end."
"As expected of the man who kept the Academy alive. That's some impressive speed."
"Flattery that thick starts sounding like sarcasm."
"I was being sincere, though..."
The Chairman's work was, as always, astonishingly swift. He'd made the decision and acted on the very day the subject came up. That kind of speed and nerve was something even X couldn't imitate.
"Anyway, I've more or less severed the connections with the Sword Rang nobles. We won't be dancing to their tune anymore. If it were up to me, I'd expel the whole lot of them right now..."
"Normalizing the Academy has to come first for now, doesn't it? I won't be summoned before a disciplinary committee for a while — but that goes for them too, right?"
"...You're awfully quick on the uptake for a student."
"Then I can start moving in earnest?"
"I promise you there won't be any penalties from the Academy's side. As Chairman, I ought to tell you to keep it reasonable, but..."
The Chairman let out a faint sigh.
"If you smash them to pieces, I'd honestly feel fantastic."
"Don't worry about that."
X slung his practice blade over his shoulder and made his guarantee.
"I'll make it thoroughly satisfying."
A deserted corner of the Academy's main building — a place where Sword Rang members naturally gathered. Four of them stood smoking right in front of him.
"It's my specialty, after all."
Early morning at the Academy. Three White Light Swords bloomed at X's back, and four screams tore through the air behind the main building.
That was how it began.
Around 7:30 in the morning, behind the campus amenities.
Three Sword Rang members were waiting on the rest of their group to show up.
"Hey, try the guys who were supposed to meet us."
"I've been calling. They're not picking up."
"What? Ah, shit, Gary's gonna lose it..."
The amenities crew was already getting a headache. They'd been waiting to link up with the main-building members before going after the guy from the rumors. But time kept passing, nobody showed, and nobody answered.
"Where the hell are these bastards hiding now..."
"You mean these guys?"
Four name tags landed at their feet. The names on them belonged to the members they'd been waiting for — and the way those tags had been ripped off meant only one thing.
"Wh-which bastard—!! Which bastard did this to us—!"
"Me, you son of a bitch."
The instant they snapped their heads up and looked, a solid lump of light smashed into a jaw with a sharp crack. The ambush was too fast to even register.
"Seven."
That was the last thing they heard before consciousness went out.
Around 8:10 in the morning. Class E, first year, Academy main building.
Bang—!
"Brief inspection."
Someone kicked the door in. The professor, who'd been about to start class, and every student in the room jumped and stared at the intruder. He paid their stares no mind at all, walking in as if he owned the place, and his footsteps stopped in front of a Sword Rang member slumped over a desk, dead asleep. The kid was snoring so deeply he showed no sign of waking.
Hhrrrk...
"You can't just sprawl out snoring through valuable class time."
The intruder planted himself in front of the sleeper, club in hand.
"Wake up, you bastard!"
Crack—!
He brought it down square on the back of the kid's head. The member took the blow dead-on, foamed at the mouth, and went out cold. The intruder slung him over one shoulder and headed for the door, bowing at the waist over and over to everyone around him.
"Sorry for the sudden disturbance. Professor, you can resume class now. And the rest of you — no dozing off. Pay attention."
A few students who'd been lying on their desks for no particular reason quietly sat up. The intruder muttered as he left.
"Eight."
The whole thing had taken less than a minute. And the raids kept coming.
"What the hell is going on!!"
Gary was dying from the sudden call. There was only one thing to say about the situation unfolding around him.
"I-I don't really know either, Lord Daniel!"
"You don't know? Yesterday you said you took the boys and worked him over for sure! You said he wouldn't dare step out of line for a while! So what the hell is this!!"
"I'll take the boys and go again—"
"Do you even grasp the situation?! Half our members have already been hit by that guy! We don't even know where they are!!"
"What?!"
All of this had happened in a mere four hours. Members had been getting jumped since first thing this morning — not just first-years, but second-years and third-years too. Outdoors, indoors, bathrooms, it didn't matter. The raids were relentless and methodical, and by the time word got around and the members tried to bunch up, it was already too late.
The attacker was X. One man.
"How did this even happen...!"
As if yesterday hadn't been bad enough. When Gary had reported to Daniel, he'd been chewed out for botching the job, and he'd barely talked his way out of it by promising to keep beating X until the guy signed a slave contract. Now the whole situation had flipped.
I didn't expect him to skip class...!
He'd been told X had never missed a single day. That was why they'd figured they could hound him without a break — on the assumption he wouldn't be absent, the way he was today.
And I never thought he'd pick us off one by one like this...!
Come to think of it, X had beaten thirteen out of fifteen people yesterday. The only reason he'd lost at the end was because his magic had run dry, not because of skill. Which meant that if he had time to recover his magic — and if he didn't have to fight a crowd — he won.
"L-Lord Daniel. Even so, if he's causing this much of a scene, a disciplinary committee will be convened. Expulsion, obviously. Once he's expelled from the Academy, then we can—"
"If that were happening he'd already be locked up! He's still out there working our people over — does that not tell you anything!!"
"What? Then you mean...?"
"The professors are looking the other way—!!!"
The worst possible news. The only reason they'd been able to run wild was that nobody ever sanctioned them. The professors knew that picking a fight with a bloc of nobles never ended well, so they stayed out of it. That tacit permission had been one of the privileges Sword Rang enjoyed.
And now X was the one receiving that privilege.
"How is that even possible?"
"I don't know either, you idiot!!!"
They had no way of knowing, but the years of thuggery they'd piled up had left more than a few professors perfectly happy to pretend they didn't see X beating Sword Rang members into the dirt. On top of that, an atmosphere had taken hold at the Chairman's level that amounted to quietly condoning X's raids.
In other words, they had become the Academy's public enemy overnight. All of it in a single day.
"I-I'll gather the boys right now and—"
"Too late! This isn't something you lot can handle anyway. This is a war, you understand? The decision's already been made at the executive meeting."
"The executive meeting...?"
"My 'brother' is going to take care of him personally."
"Ah...! Lord Gripork, the 5-Star warrior...!"
If it came to that, the guy was finished. Today happened to be a day with no martial-arts elective. All they had to do was take the remaining members, join up with Daniel's brother Gripork, and work X over. It looked like the whole thing would wrap up easier than expected.
If not for the door slamming open.
Bang—!!
"Holed up in a warehouse, putting on airs."
"H-how did you—!"
Gary scrambled to draw his sword, but he was already too late. Three streaks of white light flashed from beyond the door, shooting toward his forehead, his solar plexus, and his groin. Blocking them was a long way past possible.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Guaaah, aaagh...!"
The pain was too much to hold onto. Consciousness tore free. In the last fading scrap of sensation, he heard only one thing.
"Thirty. The mobs are done."
And that meant only one thing.
Thirty... not half. All of them...?
Every last Sword Rang member was already down. X dragged the unconscious Gary out by the collar.
"What's left are the executives."
"Hey, you! You went way too far with this!"
"What's the matter, Chairman? You were prepared for this."
"Nobody told me you were going to blow a hole this size in the place!!"
It was one in the afternoon, after lunch. From the railing of the Academy Main Building Rooftop, X looked down. The sprawling grounds, usually so busy, were unnaturally still. In his ear, the Chairman's shouting battered his eardrums.
"How am I supposed to contain this?! The complaints are already pouring in!"
"But you felt great, didn't you?"
"I feel so great I could burst, you little shit!"
"Give it a day and it'll be quiet as a grave."
The Chairman was struck speechless by X's bluster. Strangely, he believed it — for no reason he could name. He found himself nodding along without knowing why, and sighed.
"Did you really have to go this far? If you blow things up too big, you won't be able to handle the fallout. There's a limit to how much I can be your shield."
"I know. That's why I went for a blitz. The important thing is that they don't get a chance to put together a real defense."
"And did you get what you wanted?"
"Of course."
X looked at a new Observer's Perspective in the Synopsis.
"...Gripork received word that X was on the Academy Main Building Rooftop. He finished his preparations and headed there."
"Hooked him properly. Nice and fresh, too."
"Honestly, you leave a man with nothing to say..."
The Chairman sighed again and went on.
"Gripork is a 5-Star warrior. A fighter your level absolutely cannot handle. There's a reason he appointed himself Sword Rang's enforcer."
"I'm well aware."
"You know that and you're still doing this?! Do you have a brain in that head?! Even if you can use magic, you're only 3-Star — there's no way you beat him!"
The Chairman's point was airtight. Gripork was a 5-Star warrior — on par with the Academy's own professors. A 3-Star like X had no business winning that fight. Even the base stats alone made the gap obvious.
Vitality and Agility both sat close to 4. The stats of a thoroughly seasoned warrior. Under ordinary circumstances, the right move was to avoid the fight entirely. At X's current level, charging in would get him crushed without a prayer.
"Think it over again. Even in the worst case, the only decision the Academy can hand down is expulsion. That won't stop him. I'm telling you this is too dangerous."
"It's fine, Chairman. It's not as if I have no chance. And besides..."
Footsteps approached from behind. Time to hang up.
"It's already too late."
X ended the call. The final stage had arrived. The only thing left to fall back on was a cliff's edge.
"So you're X?"
The voice came from behind him. X turned, and there he was — the man he'd been waiting for. A young noble who looked every inch the heir of a count's house: blond hair falling to his shoulders, a gaze heavy with melancholy. Nothing about him suggested that his younger brother was a thug like Daniel. A stranger might well have been taken in by that air — if not for the vicious 1.8-meter greatsword strapped to his back.
"I present my greetings to Lord Gripork, next head of House Dremore. I am X."
X offered a proper bow. Daniel was a famous delinquent; this man was the heir of Dremore. Showing respect was only natural. That very naturalness sat poorly with Gripork.
"How fake. You leave my brother looking like that, then you come and bow to me."
"I simply showed courtesy to someone who warrants it."
"And my brother didn't?"
"To be honest... no. He didn't."
Killing intent crashed down on X — the pressure of a 5-Star warrior, and no ordinary weight. Gripork's eyes were ice as he delivered his warning.
"So it's true. A mere commoner looking down on our house. I never imagined even a worthless little brother of mine would be insulted like this."
"Well, I had no intention of insulting House Dremore. I simply happen to dislike a certain Daniel."
"Watch your mouth. My patience isn't that generous. If you think the Academy can protect you forever, you're badly mistaken."
"Because 'Sword Rang will have the Academy in its pocket soon enough'?"
The murder in Gripork's eyes went still. He was a man who could leash his emotions with some skill.
"You pick up a lot of scraps, I see."
"You need good ears to survive in a place like this."
"But you don't seem to know this."
Gripork lifted that monstrous two-handed sword in one hand.
"I could kill you right here and it wouldn't be a problem."
Gripork was, without question, a different animal from Daniel. Daniel was a first-year who'd only just enrolled. Getting expelled at this stage — when there was still so much to gain — would cost him dearly. He'd forfeit his education, and he'd lose any chance to network with high nobles. Gripork, though, was a fifth-year. He'd already taken everything he needed from this place. Withdrawal or expulsion, it no longer mattered.
And the fact that he's still here means the timing isn't right yet.
X swept a look around. This was the Academy Main Building Rooftop. There was no one else here. If Gripork wanted him dead, he could do it without a soul ever knowing.
Of course, X was the one who'd lured Gripork to this spot in the first place.
"Could you, though?"
X smiled a strange little smile. Gripork's brow furrowed; he couldn't read the meaning.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"The Academy no longer protects Sword Rang. You would have heard that news today, I assume?"
Gripork's eyes went wide. That was information only Sword Rang's executives were supposed to know.
"How do you—!"
The question spilled out of him on its own. X had been waiting for those words. He had all the ingredients he needed.
A faction held together by nothing but profit and power. The reign of terror inside Sword Rang. Rank-and-file members who followed orders and nothing else, bound by the weakest of loyalties. That would have been fine — the complete takeover of the Academy had been right in front of them. Then the situation flipped. The Chairman had suddenly cut the connection. A tower five years in the building had come down overnight. Everyone was in chaos, unable to understand why — and what happens when someone lets a single drop of suspicion fall into that?
"Think about it. Seize the Academy and you take hold of enormous profit and power. Even nobles with no real loyalty to each other, each with their own reasons, can be welded into one."
"What are you getting at."
"The Academy has nobles of count rank and higher, and even the occasional member of the royal family. It's a place where vast power is concentrated. Nowhere else like it exists."
It was true. Nowhere in the long stretch of history had so many people of power gathered in one place as a matter of course. That such a place had operated normally for fifty years without a major incident was a miracle of the goddess.
"So? Are you going to lecture me on history?"
"If you take the Academy, you get profit and power beyond anything you can imagine. But a question occurred to us."
"'Us'...?"
Gripork inferred a backer from that word. But there was no faction standing in opposition to them — they'd managed that point with great care. That assumption shattered the moment X opened his mouth.
"The knife that cuts the cake...?"
"I mean, who's going to sit as leader and divide up the spoils."
At that, Gripork thought he had X's identity. The man knew information only Sword Rang executives should know. He'd gone after Daniel — Gripork's own brother — first. And he'd spoken the forbidden words among the executives: the division of interests.
"...Who's the one behind you."
He had to be some other executive's man. Nothing else explained it.
"One of the people listening in on this conversation, I imagine."
"You— how do you even—!"
What X meant was the communicator Gripork had been keeping hidden. The executives had pressed it on him so they could follow the situation in real time. Gripork was the only one physically here — but in truth, every executive was eavesdropping on every word.
And that had just become a disaster. Right now, there was only one thought in the heads of Sword Rang's executives.
There's a traitor among us?
"With that in mind..."
While Gripork was still reeling, he sensed something flying at his face and snatched it out of the air.
"...A glove?"
A white dueling glove.
"A challenge to a duel. If you beat me, I'll tell you who's behind me. And if you lose..."
Then he dropped the one line that would split them from the inside.