52. This Won't Do, Let's Fire
52. This Won't Do, Let's Fire
Knock knock.
The duel had barely begun when someone knocked at the door.
I opened it, curious who would visit at a time like this, and found the last person I'd expected.
It was the exceedingly rare student shorter than Atlas—Shahra Phrygia.
"Russell, did you perhaps..."
Phrygia started to speak to Lucia, then stopped short.
"...Never mind."
"...What's the matter?"
"It's nothing. My apologies for barging in so suddenly."
Phrygia promptly shut the door and left.
'What could that have been...?'
I couldn't fathom what she had come for.
She had clearly come all the way to the dorm room to say something, but I had no idea what.
After the unexpected visitor had come and gone... Amy, who had been watching the hologram, hurriedly rose to her feet.
"I... I'll step out for a moment...!!"
"Amy?? Where are you going!"
"Uh.... B-Bathroom!!"
Amy's face flushed bright red, as if even she knew how absurd her excuse sounded.
"Ugh... I'll be right back!!"
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Amy chased after Phrygia.
At the academy, she never carried the weapons she used for hunting demons,
but now she had produced them from seemingly nowhere—twin pistols holstered inside her jacket.
-Someone has clearly tampered with the control room. Phrygia seems to know something, so let's find her.
"How could anyone do such a thing..!"
Atlas's condition was strange.
Liber had worried that Atlas was struggling because he'd stayed up all night, but Amy, who knew he was a Master, knew that was nonsense.
Could a Master, a superhuman among superhumans, really have his condition deteriorate just from losing a single night's sleep—especially someone who had been perfectly fine until morning?
As Amy dashed with swift strides, a long, flowing mane of golden hair came into view, so long one might worry it would sweep the floor.
Unusually, its owner was running somewhere in great haste.
"Miss Phrygia!"
"Hah... hah... Exam admission student...? I am rather busy at the moment. What business do you have with me?"
Phrygia's expression soured the moment she saw Amy.
With her angelic face, her panting breath, flushed cheeks, and a few strands of gold-thread hair clinging to her sweat, she looked provocative.
But the expression she wore was the exact opposite.
She openly displayed a mixture of deep irritation and disgust toward Amy, completely unfiltered.
Amy didn't shrink back from it.
It was a common occurrence, living at the academy as an exam admission student.
"When you came in just now... is there some kind of device set up in the arena?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Phrygia ignored Amy's words and turned to leave again.
Perhaps because her body, smaller even than Atlas's, lacked stamina, she was already out of breath despite having run so little.
She claimed it was nothing, yet here she was, running and burning through what little stamina she had. Watching her contradictory behavior, Companion analyzed her coldly.
-She ran all the way here yet means to say nothing... It is also concerning that she came all the way to Russell's doorstep only to retreat.
-Then there is a high probability the issue is tied to families or interests. Phrygia was in a state of submission to Atlas, so if I tie it to Atlas, she will speak.
"Is this related to Atlas?"
"...!"
Her small shoulders flinched.
"If it's about helping Atlas, I'll help too. You don't need to go into detail—just tell me the situation."
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She steadied her ragged breath.
The exam admission student with the tomato-red bob cut, Amy, went sprinting down the corridor at a speed Shahra could not hope to match.
When she had heard the hypothesis from Pergia, the moment had been so urgent she hadn't even thought of asking someone else to handle it.
The classmates she usually ordered around like her own hands and feet were far too untrustworthy for a task like this,
and contacting subordinates she could rely on—the ones actually worth using—would have taken time.
Unless someone held a direct title like the Newspaper Club President, Count Malcolm, students were forbidden from even bringing their families' retainers, so moments like this were terribly inconvenient.
She had originally intended to ask Lucia Russell about Albion's whereabouts and request her help.
Since she was a definite ally of Atlas's, Shahra felt certain she would cooperate if the situation were explained.
But the moment she actually looked up at her, that thought vanished.
Her mind, emotional because it concerned Atlas, turned cold in an instant.
'If I tell Russell... a war will break out..'
Albion, who served Lemnos, had frequent disputes with Russell.
Lemnos and Russell themselves got along well enough, but Albion had a peculiar habit of picking fights with Russell.
The fact that numerous vicious verbal battles had erupted between the two families recently was a secret known only among the Five Pillars.
An internal pact forbade conflict among the Five Pillars, keeping them in check—but if this became the spark...?
'Albion attacked Lord Atlas, whom they swore to protect... If Russell uses that as a pretext to start a war against Albion...'
She had to verify the facts first.
Besides, they couldn't even be sure yet that Albion had committed the act.
After confirming that... she could contact them separately.
If Albion truly had played a trick, she had no intention of letting it slide either.
For they had dared scheme against Atlas.
Since the VIP room and the underground control room were only about five floors apart, with her physical abilities, she could get there quickly enough anyway.
Rather than causing a commotion by spreading unconfirmed information... she needed accurate intel first.
That was when Amy approached Shahra.
Her expression soured the moment she saw her.
Amy was one of the people Atlas often kept by his side.
Shahra barely managed proper meetings with him because of the crowd around him, but that exam admission student, being in the same class, could spend nearly the entire day with Atlas.
'A nameless country bumpkin from the frontier, not even worthy of a recommendation letter, and yet...'
She thought it, but couldn't voice it aloud.
Because she knew Atlas would absolutely despise it.
Still, Shahra also found Amy intensely loathsome.
There was no need to keep something she despised right in front of her... She was about to ignore her and move on, but Amy said she wanted to help Atlas.
The offer of no need for a full briefing swayed her, just slightly.
'Her skills... are unknown, but an exam admission student will at least be above average..
And since it's for Lord Atlas's sake, she's more trustworthy than the others. She has no background, so nothing can go wrong...
If necessary, I can cut her off.'
If she simply did as she was told, there was nothing holding her back in the current situation.
When Shahra mentioned suspected tampering, the girl dashed off at high speed.
Watching her figure recede into the distance, Shahra thought:
"Not even attaching an honorific to Lord Atlas's name, just calling him 'Atlas'... How insolent for a mere exam admission student..."
It seemed that no matter what, a person's nature couldn't change so drastically in a single night.
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Though it couldn't be precisely grasped through the hologram alone, inside the subspace, something invisible was clearly hindering Atlas.
If it had turned out that way due to the randomly generated environment with no tampering involved... that would be unavoidable, but Companion was certain that was absolutely not the case.
-No matter how random the special arena's subspace may be, a 'pattern' still exists. If everything were truly random with no rules at all, the subspace might not even hold together.
The moment she parted from Phrygia, Amy began running toward a single precise destination.
Somehow, Companion possessed an extremely high understanding of the special arena's design.
The special arena had five control rooms.
Five rooms separately configured the elements of the subspace: the central one compiled everything, while the other four, corresponding to the four cardinal directions, handled terrain, creatures, penalties, and buffs respectively.
The first place Amy ran to was the room for setting creatures.
-Simple process of elimination. First, if someone had tampered with the central control that governs everything, the Headmaster would have noticed first.
The terrain was not a forest but an open volcanic area, and no creatures besides the two of them could be seen.
It wasn't buffs or debuffs either. If a debuff strong enough to stagger a Master like that had been in play—that is, a magical effect—the innate magic resistance of a Master would have resisted it, sending sparks erupting all over his body.
The highest probability was that the creature settings had been tampered with.
"...The door's open."
-Seems we were right.
The door to the creature-setting control room was open.
Normally, it should have been locked, but it sat wide open without any locking mechanism engaged.
As she stepped cautiously inside, she saw someone there.
A handsome man with long blue hair... Zeke Albion.
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"Why... didn't he collapse after inhaling that much gas...? Did it not take effect properly...?"
Zeke Albion was also watching the duel through the hologram in the control room.
Edgar Lemnos was attacking wildly, and though Atlas seemed to be struggling... somehow he could be seen slipping out of the way.
Every time Edgar's attacks missed, Sieg's fists clenched.
In one corner of the hologram, a gigantic plant-type monster could be seen lurking beneath the ground.
That monster was clearly the one assailing Atlas.
'That talisman... right?'
-Yes, it appears to be a talisman that sets the directionality of the creatures being generated...
A glance confirmed it: a blue talisman was affixed to the box that projected the hologram.
Sieg was so focused that even though she had walked in openly, he didn't once glance back, wholly absorbed in the duel.
-It seems he's changing the settings after generation is complete... That means removing the talisman can restore things to normal.
Right now, with him utterly defenseless... she could end it in one blow.
She gripped the automatic pistols she had drawn from her holsters in both hands.
-Cheolkeok.
The slides pulled back, a cold metallic friction ringing out, but Sieg's attention was entirely fixed on the hologram before him.
Now was the moment.
"!!!"
-Tang!!!
Amy's pistol, aimed at Sieg, spat fire.