Battle Preparations
"A prank? Pranks only work when you're on the same level. Who the hell do you think you are, pulling that shit on me?"
As the man snarled, McDeras spoke.
"Granted, that crude mouth of yours hardly looks like it belongs anywhere near my level."
"Cael, you fucking bastard—"
The man charged at me. I twisted my body sideways and slipped his attack with ease.
His reactions weren't slow, though. The moment he realized the strike had missed, he spun and threw a punch in the same motion. A sluggish, crude line. An attack so overcommitted to raw force out of pure rage that even if I'd wanted to take the hit, I couldn't have managed it.
I lightly swatted aside the hand aimed at my face, then drove my foot into his solar plexus.
"Guh—!"
The people around us stared with blank, uncomprehending faces. A few of them, even now, kept running their mouths.
Mepiro. I filed the man's name away in my head and looked at him again.
A chest heaving violently. Cheeks flushed red. Hands and feet thrust forward as if to announce, by sheer posture alone, that he was going to land a hit no matter what.
There were so many things wrong with him I didn't even know where to start; a sigh almost escaped me. Even without reaching the level of other races, the knights of Caorel or the Fibron Empire would have been far beyond this idiot.
Obsessed with magic supremacy, huh.
Watching the man roughly draw mana into his hands, I could tell his control itself wasn't half bad. The mana thrashing wildly at his fingertips settled, refined itself, and took shape once more.
Being able to reshape it means he's trained reasonably hard. But he hasn't trained his body at all.
His mana became an ice dagger, and a chill began to settle through the air around us.
"If something gets cut off, I'm not taking responsibility. You're the one who started this, Cael."
"Choose your words carefully. You're the one who picked the fight first. Mepiro."
"Don't you dare say my name so freely, you inferior commoner trash!"
The instant Mepiro lunged at me—
Creak.
The door opened, and an instructor walked in.
"Sorry I'm late. We'll start class right away."
Come to think of it, I remembered hearing a strange bell during the fight. I looked at the instructor for a moment, eyes carrying a clear request: punish Mepiro, who was still using magic to torment a classmate even after class had begun.
That was when Tecas's voice drifted in from the back of the room.
"Instructor Arnius. Don't listen to useless talk—just move on with the lesson, yeah?"
The moment those words landed, Instructor Arnius shifted his gaze to the blackboard as if he had seen nothing at all.
"Today we'll pick up from where we left off last time. Anyone without a textbook, come talk to me separately."
Arnius was speaking, but Mepiro had no intention of stopping.
"You son of a bitch—instructor or not, you're dead to m—"
The moment the man started casting, I finished preparing to draw. But my sword never left its sheath.
"Mepiro. That's enough. Sit down."
The man sitting at the very back—Tecas, the same one who had just ordered the instructor around—spoke, and Mepiro shouted back.
"You didn't see this bastard shove rotten milk into my mouth? If I just let this slide, my face—"
"Did you just talk back to me?"
"Tecas, that's... not what I—I was talking about that guy—"
"Shut up and sit. We'll deal with that bastard after class. You know what day I've been waiting for. Play nice, yeah?"
"...Fine."
Mepiro. I burned the name of the man who'd been toying with me into my memory. Then I carved Tecas's name in right after it.
He's probably the ringleader.
Even at a glance, the thuggish attitude and speech, and the bizarre habit of planting his feet right on the desk in the back row, said everything about his character. The instructor carried on with the lesson as if none of it existed.
This place is anything but normal.
An instructor diligently teaching. Students listening. On the surface it looked fine—but the instructor's attitude was the problem.
The reek of spoiled milk still hung thick at the back of the classroom, and two students had been on the verge of a full brawl, spewing curses, yet he hadn't mediated or even tried to understand the situation. Worse still, he said nothing about the one sleeping with dirty shoes up on a desk, completely ignoring the lesson.
I wondered why Cael never asked for help. There was never anyone to ask.
At the academy, Cael had been singled out and oppressed simply for being a swordsman. He couldn't even form proper relationships with anyone else.
Even the instructors seemed to watch Tecas's mood. Once a man like that marked you, of course Cael's academy life had been hopeless. I was still sorting the situation when Instructor Arnius's voice cut in.
"You all know we have group work today, right? Form teams of six however you like and create a summon. The summons will duel each other, and first and second place get the prizes the academy has set aside, so give it your best."
The instructor looked at me, then spoke as if something had just occurred to him.
"Ah—since Cael can't use magic, anyone who takes him into their group will receive extra credit."
Being treated like leftover scraps wasn't ideal, but it wasn't the worst outcome either. Without that, I might have been shut out of group assignments entirely.
The group project gave me useful information. Watching people form teams in seconds let me see who was close to whom.
Mepiro, who had picked a fight with me for no reason, and Tecas, who treated him like a subordinate, were in the same group. I memorized the faces of the others who joined them.
Then I studied Tecas himself.
Interesting. I didn't think a guy like him would bother with class at all.
Throughout the theory lecture he had looked bored out of his mind with his legs up on the desk, but the moment practical work was mentioned, he stood, actively built a team, and started moving.
He planted his thuggish-looking teammates around him, then cast from the center as if performing a summoning rite. A summon mixed of fire and wind attributes took shape between them.
"See that? This is an A-Class Mage's summoning."
Mepiro and a few of the other men clapped and heaped praise on him.
"An A-Class Mage really is something else. A dual-attribute summon right from the start. Honestly, nobody in E-Class can handle magic like that."
Mepiro started crawling and flattering. Tecas looked satisfied and dismissed the summon.
That's A-Class?
It wasn't impressive enough to make a fuss over. Mixing attributes didn't require exceptional mana reserves or outstanding control.
You just needed to know the method. Adjust each attribute's path so they didn't pierce through each other, feed in a moderate amount of mana, and three attributes mixed easily enough.
Of course, packing multiple attributes into a summon was inefficient in the first place, so there was rarely a reason to bother.
Show-off magic.
That was the only thought Tecas's summon left me with.
While I was observing the man's magic, a girl approached and asked a question.
"Um... Cael... if you haven't found a group yet, do you want to join ours?"
Levia. The girl who went by WeepingWillow on the gallery, and FlyingMan's crush. When she made the offer, whispers rose from the students behind her.
I was curious about her motives. On the gallery she'd written about how uncomfortable he made her—so why help me? Or rather, why help Cael?
I wanted the reason, so I asked her straight.
"Levia. Weren't you uncomfortable around me?"
"...That's true, but... we made a promise... if you found the courage... I said I'd help you too."
Courage. I had no idea what she was talking about, but her eyes flicked between Mepiro and me.
Did she promise to help if he tried to break free of the bullying?
Whatever promise she'd made, it didn't matter.
"I see."
"J-just... please don't misunderstand. Me saying I'll help you doesn't mean I'm accepting the confessions you made before. I've told you plenty of times—I'm not thinking about dating, and honestly I don't even see you that way. You're just... a friend to me. But I'm not going to sit back and ignore the abuse happening in our class. If there's something you need, I'll help... and if you need a witness for the instructors, I can speak up."
"I don't need it."
"Why...?"
"Because I can overcome this alone."
"Did you learn self-defense after taking leave? Or swordsmanship? Your movement earlier was impressive, but even that won't be enough to settle things with Tecas's crew through physical retaliation. It'd be better if we talked to the instructor together—"
"Leave."
I was starting to get irritated. The girl claimed she wanted to help me, but the help she offered was anything but practical.
Even at a glance, Instructor Arnius was the type to look the other way while bullying happened.
If I dragged a witness to a man like that and said I'd been abused, would he take it seriously and fix the problem? No. Absolutely not. He'd either force some nauseating "just hold hands and make up" mediation, or pretend he never heard a thing.
I knew people like Mepiro and Tecas well. Men like them never changed no matter how much outsiders interfered. To stop them, you needed a greater evil—or someone with enough force to crush them under heel.
Cael had never had that power. Now he did. Because I was the one wearing his body.
I looked at Levia and spoke.
"I lost my memories in an accident. I don't know what it means that I liked you, and I don't remember any promise we made. So there's no need for you to worry, and no need for you to try. I can handle my own affairs alone."
"..."
Levia looked at me for a moment, then nodded.
"Alright..."
After she left, I sat alone and killed time. Not long after, the instructor approached and asked,
"Cael. You haven't joined any group?"
I answered him shortly.
"Did you really believe a little extra credit would get me into a group? I doubt it."
I rebuked him openly, as if to ask whether he truly didn't know I was being bullied and ostracized. The instructor cleared his throat.
"I-if you prefer being alone, I'll specially allow you to form a group by yourself. But since you can't use magic, you can't make a summon either, right? I'll exclude you from the matches so you can rest properly."
He was trying to push me to the sidelines and slip out of the situation again. Unfortunately for him, I had no intention of simply taking it. If they were going to ignore me, keep shutting me out and looking the other way, then I just had to make that impossible.
Whether they liked it or not, once my influence grew, they would have no choice but to acknowledge me.
Using magic would have been easy. Create a summon stronger than anyone else's, crush every other team's summon in the matches, and I'd become an academy celebrity overnight. But that wasn't the right way.
What Cael had wanted was to be recognized by everyone through the sword.
I asked the instructor,
"Since I can't create a summon, may I designate myself as the summon instead?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You said the summons each group creates will duel. I'm saying I'll be the summon myself."
"...There's nothing stopping you, but... you're not thinking you can kill the other kids' summons with a sword or something, are you?"
"That isn't important. I can't use magic, so is there a problem with me participating in place of a summon? I don't think anyone will raise an issue with fairness. Is there a problem with this?"
I pressed the point several times, and the instructor answered.
"Do as you like."
He left, and the mock summon duels began to take shape.
"Groups that have finished their summons—send one representative to register the summon as an avatar."
Each group registered its summon as an avatar. The registered summons were automatically transferred into the combat space.
On the screen, the summons the students had submitted by group appeared in giant scale. It looked like they intended to broadcast the duels in real time.
Then someone spotted a particular figure, and the room began to murmur.
"Yo, what the hell is that guy?"
"Who's the lunatic who walks in himself because he couldn't make a summon?"
"Wow... was the prize that tempting? Fighting a summon with just a sword?"
"Like he can win. Inferior swordsmanship, no matter how hard you try, loses to magic."
In the summon combat prep room the men were staring at, Cael stood alone.
Lightly swinging a sword like a knight stepping onto the battlefield.
The man who had walked straight into the summon waiting room—McDeras—looked at the summons around him and muttered,
"Every last one of them is pathetic."