14. As Expected, This Can't Go On. You Racist Bastards
14. As Expected, This Can't Go On. You Racist Bastards
Fists moved before words.
-Tukwang!!
A humanoid shape flew through the air.
Launched with tremendous force, it took several of the thugs standing in its trajectory as collateral, crashing into the wall with a thunderous clamor.
As the body hurtled through the air, the surroundings began to stir.
"Uwaaah!!"
"Kyaaahk!!"
"A... a person!!"
The one slammed into the wall was Edgar Remnos, who had just struck Riber.
Edgar was knocked out cold, his eyes rolled back and his face bruised and swollen—though, aside from his face being smashed, he seemed relatively fine.
Perhaps because of his intermediate Sword Expert skills, the students he crashed into on the way had suffered more severe injuries instead.
It seemed I'd been too careless and pulled my punches too much, thinking he was one of the so-called Five Pillars and underestimating his skill.
"He... he hit one of the Five Pillars..!"
"Who is it?? Who did that??"
Students crowded in to watch the fight unfolding in the hallway.
At the rumor that a lunatic who had struck one of the Five Pillars had appeared, everyone stopped to gather and watch the brawl.
When Remnos flew through the air like trash, the bewildered expressions on his thugs were unmistakable.
As if they had never imagined such a situation could occur, they just watched Remnos fly, gauging each other's reactions.
Coming with the intention of threatening one person and acting like that... This was why amateurs were useless.
"What, are you just going to stand there and watch? Shall I go first?"
"!!"
At my shout, the thugs from Edgar's gang who had been surrounding me drew the weapons they had strapped to their waists.
"Atlas... you..."
Riber, who had been knocked down by Remnos, was also looking at me in surprise.
Multiple emotions flickered across her expression.
Bewilderment, worry, sadness... and fear.
What kind of face was I making right now?
I couldn't tell without a mirror, but I was certain it was a horrifying one.
"Halfling..!! Do you have any idea what you've just done!!!"
A long-haired man standing to Remnos's right raised his longsword and shouted.
I didn't know which family he belonged to.
If I couldn't remember him, his family probably wasn't that great.
He seemed to be issuing a warning, but it was meaningless.
I knew very well how dangerous it was to antagonize the Five Pillars in the Empire.
But well... this bastard just called me a Halfling, right?
"Halfling? Did you just call me a Halfling?"
"Yes! I don't know how you got into the academy, but for a mere Halfling to make an enemy of the Five Pillars and expect to survive..."
-Ppaaaak!!!
The jaw of the long-haired man who had been spouting meaningless noise twisted.
Too focused on issuing threats to see the enemy right in front of him... What a waste of a fine longsword.
And he was disgustingly tall, forcing me to swing my fist in a wide arc over my head, which was so unpleasant that I put even more strength into it.
Along with a few teeth, the long-haired man also flew to a spot similar to where Remnos was.
Halfling? Me?
So they were calling me a Halfling just because I was a bit short?
Halflings were about half the height of an average human and not as stout as dwarves, but they were chubby all over.
Unlike dwarves, their beards didn't grow wildly, so they could outwardly look like just short people, but there was one significant difference between Halflings and humans.
Halflings have a unique foot structure and don't wear shoes.
Not even knowing that and just calling someone a Halfling outright?
It was still insufficient.
It would have been nice if words could have prevented the fight, but things had already headed toward catastrophe, so what was left to say?
Unpleasant emotions rose up to my chin.
It felt like my reason was about to fly away from the sticky, hot emotions that felt like boiling tar.
Though about half of it had already flown away.
"This... Uwaaaaah!!!!"
"Taaaat!!!"
"Kill him!!!"
Once the long-haired man was down, the rest of the gang must have thought there was no other way, as they all drew their weapons in unison and charged at me.
Attacking together without tangling and in coordination was a technique of considerable difficulty, and as expected, their movements were clumsy, as if they had never trained for such a thing.
The weapons swung from all directions totaled four: a hand axe, a short sword, a dagger, and a longsword. The longsword would reach me first.
Dodging here was amateurish.
One beat earlier, I reached out, grabbed the wrist thrusting the longsword, and pulled it toward my body.
"I am..!!"
"Euk?!!"
As his body was pulled, the longsword wielder lost his center of gravity and control, stumbling forward.
Having seized the longsword whose wielder had lost his footing and control, I pulled it straight through and stabbed the shoulder of the man charging from behind with a dagger.
"Gaaargh!!!"
As the longsword embedded deep into his right shoulder, the man screamed, his hand going limp and dropping the dagger.
Then, the hand axe and short sword charging from either side arrived right at my nose.
"I am a human born and raised in the Empire!!!!"
"!"
I grabbed the arm of the longsword wielder I was still holding and threw him like a judo throw toward the man with the short sword who was right in front of me.
By a hair's breadth, I confirmed that the hand axe behind my back hadn't reached me.
"Euk?!!"
The man with the short sword tried to stop upon suddenly seeing the longsword wielder thrown in front of his eyes, but it was already too late.
-Puuuk!
"Aaaargh!!!"
The short sword sheathed itself into the body of the man with the longsword.
Even though it was called a short sword, its shortness was relative.
Anything controllable with one hand and shorter than a longsword was called a short sword, so a blade at least 60cm long pierced through the longsword wielder's side.
"This d..!!"
Leaving behind the man who was at a loss as his short sword became sheathed in his companion's body, the man wielding the hand axe from the other side charged again, raising it high.
I read the trajectory of the hand axe swung toward my head, slipped into the man's right side, and threw a powerful punch with my left hand into his right flank.
"Uk..!!!"
I hit him so hard that his body lifted slightly in the direction of the blow.
I felt the satisfying sensation of a few ribs crumbling.
As his grip weakened, the man dropped the hand axe, which I caught and then sheathed into the shoulder of the fallen man who had been clutching his side.
-Peok!!
"A... Argh!!!"
With his collarbone cleanly broken, the man forgot the pain in his side, dropped to his knees, and just screamed, not knowing what to do about the hand axe lodged in his shoulder.
As the hand axe embedded in his shoulder, a little blood splattered onto my face.
With all three of the men who had charged with him down, the man holding the short sword turned deathly pale.
"You... do you think you'll be safe after this...?"
".....Th.."
Ah, that guy was still left.
He was raising his voice, but his complexion was ghastly pale.
His voice trembled, the hand pointing a finger at me trembled, and even his gaze wavered frantically.
"R... right now, you can still make amends..! I was against this kind of unethical behavior anyway.. I'll try to persuade them..!"
"..You dog-like racist bastards."
"Racist.. bastards?"
The man's head came to a halt.
He had a bewildered expression, as if wondering what this guy was suddenly talking about.
It was a natural reaction, since they had been carelessly spouting words without even realizing what they were saying.
"I am not a Halfling..!! I'm a perfectly normal human who hasn't finished growing yet!!"
"What?!!!!"
-Ppeok!!!!
My fist, descending in a wide arc, slammed the man's face into the floor.
"Huh.. he wasn't?"
In the now quiet hallway, a familiar voice tickled my ear from somewhere.
--------------------------------------------
I thought I could spend my time pleasantly at the academy... It was completely different from what I expected.
"Are you Russell?"
"..."
"Come outside this evening. It's a duel."
"... My duels are prohibited."
"Don't be such a bore. Who will be the pinnacle of this generation's Five Pillars? You... or me?"
"I won't duel."
An unpleasant person I encountered from the very first day..
I had been educated on what the Five Pillars were and knew about them.
I was fully aware that Russell was one of them, and how important a role our family played...
I had also heard from my father that maintaining an appropriate relationship with peers from the Five Pillars would be helpful.
So I had expectations.
Because I had only ever received education at home, this was the first time meeting peers in a similar situation.
But the Five Pillars I actually met were all nothing but strange people.
Remnos, who rudely challenged me to a duel every time we met; Albion, who always brought his subordinates to the lounge and treated me condescendingly;
Perda, who smiled on the surface and pretended to have a good personality but used verbal tactics to drag my weaknesses to the surface, which was unpleasant;
Phrygia, the only one of the same gender and a fellow girl, and though beautiful in appearance, completely incomprehensible in what she said... Not a single one of them was normal.
Probably, in their eyes, I looked the same.
I never wanted to run into them again, but since it was my father's orders first and foremost, I couldn't make an enemy of them.
That didn't mean things were comfortable in class either.
As the students who kept noisily crowding around me buzzed, my mind went blank.
I had never experienced drawing this much attention from so many people, so I didn't even know what to say and was simply bewildered.
It seemed they wanted me to lead them, but having only ever swung a sword up to this age, all I could do was feel bewildered by such expectations.
The one saving grace was that I ended up in the same class as the Halfling... Atlas, whom I had met on the first day.
I was glad to be in the same class as Atlas, but because of the people swarming every day, we hadn't even been able to talk properly.
'I wanted to get closer..'
But fortunately, it seemed he didn't have such bad feelings toward me.
When we ran into each other, he didn't seem to be in a bad mood...
Just watching him toddle around from afar felt like it relieved my stress.
Relationships at the academy were incredibly difficult, but just seeing him wander around nearby felt like I could endure it.
I never imagined that Remnos saw that as my weakness.
One day, as usual, I was watching Atlas when someone intentionally bumped into him and passed by.
It wasn't just once or twice. That day alone, five times, different students all targeted Atlas and poked at him slightly.
'Those guys... aren't they Remnos's gang...?'
They were the thugs of Edgar Remnos who sometimes frequented the lounge.
I went straight to Remnos to talk to him, but he didn't listen at all.
I didn't know what to do.
If I dueled as he wanted... would he stop?
'But dueling is.. forbidden by father...'
While I was agonizing all day between the family's orders and Atlas's safety...
"Hey hey, they say a fight broke out between Remnos and the Halfling!!"
The very next day, the incident happened.
The impatient Remnos had immediately taken action.
'Atlas is in danger!!'
Remnos should have at least intermediate Expert-level skills himself.
Considering the skill Atlas had shown on the first day, he was probably at least Expert level too... but against Remnos, it would be difficult for him.
But upon arriving at the hallway, I realized all of that was my misconception.
In the hallway, students were crawling on the floor like grubs.
"S... save...."
Someone collapsed, letting out their death throes.
One foot of the one who had fallen miserably was about halfway severed, hanging in shreds.
"This is why you lose when you carry around crap like this as weapons, you morons."
"Aaaah, run away!!"
"Let you run after hitting me first? Absolutely not!!"
Atlas was butchering Remnos's gang with a short sword he had picked up from somewhere.
With his short stature and a short blade, attacking the upper body was inefficient, so instead he lowered his stance and persistently targeted the 'lower body'.
"M... my leg!!!"
"Gaaargh!!!!"
Another person's calf was cut.
Every single one of Remnos's gang who had their legs attacked was strewn across the hallway like corpses.
At some point, the onlookers couldn't surround Atlas or do anything else.
The students, feeling terror at the mechanical task Atlas was performing, slowly retreated backward and just watched the task he was performing from the end of the hallway, holding their breath.
Thus, the wide hallway was filled solely with Atlas and Remnos's gang.
Remnos, fallen in a miserable state, was unconscious, and among the students groaning with their own weapons embedded in their bodies or their ankles severed, he stood tall and confident.
Despite causing such a major incident, he stood there brazenly as if nothing was wrong, wiping the blood off the short sword with the uniform of a fallen student.
In the hallway where Remnos's entire gang was crawling on the floor, Atlas, standing alone, looked incredibly huge despite being so small, perhaps because of his confident attitude.
"How...."
How can you be so confident?
———————————————————————
I was confident.
I was in the right.
I acted a bit out of anger, but I was the victim.
Remnos picked the fight first,
Remnos drew his weapon first,
Remnos's gang attacked first,
Though I sucker-punched Edgar first, it was those bastards who charged at me with weapons first.
And when they surrounded me with weapons and were about to lynch me, not hitting them would make me a pushover!
Yes, indeed!
This was strictly me being the victim!!
"Wha... what kind of bastard is this!!! You're expelled! Expelled!!!!"
Uh, that's not how this is supposed to go.