You Think I'll Just Take It Lying Down?
You think I'll just take it lying down? Not a chance.
It had been a day of pure chaos. A bout with the princess, then escorting the Saintess all the way to the back gate.
Saying he was exhausted didn't even begin to cover it. His mind was completely blank.
Returning to the plaza, Kyle spotted Tisha sitting on a bench.
Even after the business at the dean's office had wrapped up, he hadn't come straight back. Escorting the Saintess to the rear gate had made him a little late.
Feeling apologetic, he was about to call her name with an exaggeratedly delighted expression when—
"Kyle."
Someone suddenly stepped in and stopped him.
As if telling him not to interfere, not to cut in.
"Leto? What are you doing here…?"
Only then did Kyle notice another young woman sitting beside Tisha.
A woman whose blazing red hair made a striking impression.
And the fact that Leto was nearby meant that woman had to be Elga.
"She's having a brief conversation with Miss Tisha at the moment."
"I see. Then why are you standing so far off, Leto?"
"Her Grace… that is, Lady Elga asked me to step aside for a moment. She said a man has no place in a conversation between women."
"…"
She probably just tossed that out once to see how you'd react.
Ian's problem is that he's too self-centered, and Leto's is that he's way too passive.
This is exactly why the male cast gets absolutely roasted.
How the hell did losers like these end up hogging the protagonist seats? The end times are upon us.
Clicking his tongue inwardly, Kyle gave Leto a light shove out of the way.
"K-Kyle!"
"I don't listen to anyone weaker than me."
"…Huh?"
What do you mean, huh? You deserve to hear stuff like that, you idiot.
"Tisha."
"…Ah, Kyle!"
Tisha sprang up from her seat and hurried over to his side.
Then, before Elga could even open her mouth, she took his hand.
As if declaring, We're this close, you know.
"…"
Elga was watching Tisha with a peculiar gaze.
And Tisha, for her part, met that look head-on without flinching.
…Something definitely went down here.
Kyle let out an internal sigh and decided to set his priorities first.
In this situation, should he look after Tisha, or Elga?
Honestly, there wasn't much to deliberate about.
The person he had planned to spend time with today was Tisha, not Elga.
So there was no need to overthink it. He just had to act.
"I didn't expect to find you with Lady Elga, Tisha."
After offering Elga nothing more than a brief greeting, he immediately turned his words to Tisha.
Elga looked faintly flustered, as if she had at least expected him to attempt a short conversation with her.
In contrast, Tisha simply nodded with a small smile.
He could tell that smile was directed at Elga rather than himself, but he pretended not to notice.
"Yes. I was waiting for you, and she came over and kept me company."
"Ah, I see. Thank you, Lady Elga. Looks like you stayed with her until I got here."
"…It was nothing. Well then, enjoy the rest of the festival. Both of you."
After that, Elga left the plaza with Leto.
The moment she turned, he felt her eyes on him—displeased, as if scolding him for blatantly favoring only Tisha in a situation like this.
But Kyle didn't care in the slightest. He truly had no thoughts about it at all.
Whoever he chose to look after was none of Elga's business.
If anything, looking at their current relationship alone, Tisha ranked above Elga.
Once Elga and Leto had vanished from sight, Kyle turned to Tisha.
"Well then, shall we get back to enjoying the festival?"
"Before that. What happened? What did the dean say?"
"The usual. Please just keep your head down and stay quiet."
"Even though Kyle didn't start anything, and you weren't even the one who caused it?"
"What can you do? My sister caused such a massive mess. It's enough to give the Empire a heart attack."
At the words "massive mess," Tisha recalled something Elga had told her earlier.
"…Kyle. Sit down for a moment."
"Huh?"
"There's something I need to tell you."
Kyle had been about to joke, Please don't tell me this is another profound discussion about shamanism, with a smile—
But the seriousness in Tisha's expression and atmosphere made him shut his mouth.
Acting as clueless as Ian at a moment like this would get him an earful for sure.
Sitting quietly on the bench, Kyle waited for Tisha to speak.
What could she possibly need to say that required this kind of atmosphere?
"You told me about it before. What your sister did."
"Yeah. The infamous Academy half-destruction incident."
"You said the legitimate heir of the Litorio Grand Duchy was injured back then, right? The older brother of Lady Elga, the one I just met."
"I did."
Up to that point, none of it particularly bothered him.
It was all true, but if you really dug into it, they had been the ones who started it.
For that reason, the Litorio side had officially decided to stay silent about the matter.
Which was why he was still attending the Academy without issue, for now.
"Apparently that heir's subordinates are targeting you, Kyle."
"…Excuse me?"
Targeting who? Me? Wow, this is… not even a little scary.
Even with Tisha's grave tone, Kyle's reaction was more or less a shrug.
He was the one who had blocked even Yulika—one of the Continent's Ten Strongest—without much difficulty.
It felt a bit awkward to say it himself, but he wasn't the kind of person who got targeted just because someone decided to target him.
If that were possible, would the John Nassens still be the John Nassens?
"For the record, when I say 'targeting,' I don't mean they're planning to use force."
"Then what?"
"They're trying to drag you into some unsavory incident by any means necessary and get you expelled from the Academy."
Oh. Shit. Hold on. That changes things a little.
Not trying to harm him, but to entangle him in an incident and force him out of the Academy?
This was a little—no, a pretty seriously big deal.
"Did you hear this from Lady Elga?"
"Yes. She said there are already people trying to pick fights with you to start something. And that they're relatives or children of the subordinates close to the Litorio heir."
"This… has gotten rather awkward."
Even if he wasn't the one who started anything, if he kept getting dragged into incidents, disciplinary action would eventually come up for discussion.
And if he actually received discipline, expulsion from the Academy was almost certain.
There were already far too many nobles who had a fit at the mere mention of "John Nassen."
Among them, some feared the John Nassens and wanted nothing more to do with them.
But a few others believed that what had been done to them needed to be paid back in kind.
Of course, that "payback" was absolutely not revenge through force.
Who in their right mind would try that? Their bones and flesh would be separated on the spot.
No—this was about socially humiliating him just enough, without crossing the line.
It seemed they intended to carry out what they called revenge through that kind of method.
"Did Lady Elga happen to tell you who they are?"
"She didn't go that far. But she looked like she had a rough idea."
That was enough to give him a clear picture of the situation.
Elga had probably arranged for this information to reach Kyle's ears through Tisha,
so that Kyle would come looking for her of his own accord.
As expected, she was nothing like the kind and pure-hearted women such as Tisha or the Saintess.
Unlike those two, Elga was a grand duchy's daughter who coveted the seat of Grand Duke.
She simply had a great deal of loneliness and hard-fought battles to endure along the way.
"What are you going to do, Kyle?"
"About what?"
"What do you mean, about what! There'll be people like that not just among the freshmen like us, but among the upperclassmen too! People who look at your family with disgust! They're too scared to face you with force, so they'll cowardly provoke and harass you some other way. All to drive Kyle—and the John Nassen barony—out of the Academy!"
It was certainly something to worry about. They would definitely scheme up something he couldn't help but get involved in.
But Kyle wasn't particularly worried. No—there was no reason to worry.
"It's fine, Tisha. Don't worry about it."
Schemes? Go ahead and scheme. I'll just track them down and have a private talk with them before they can pull anything.
My brothers and sisters always ignored the weak, saying they weren't worth their time—but I'm different.
There's a saying that the law is far and the fist is near.
Right now those people can't use their fists, so they're resorting to underhanded methods to harass me.
In that case, I'll just answer them with the thing I'm best at.
I'll go crush them with force before they can start any weird nonsense.
Handle them one by one, quietly. No noise, nice and clean.
Make sure they can't even raise the issue later—can't even open their mouths about what actually happened.
Elga probably has a vague sense of that, which is why she's calling for me.
It was true that he was trying to keep his strength hidden as much as possible.
But that didn't mean he had the slightest intention of becoming some powerless loser who hid his power.
If he had truly planned that, he never would have stepped into that duel in the first place.
He had long since abandoned any idea of intervening in each incident only passively.
If that had been his mindset, would he already be tangled up with all these women like this?
He didn't know. At this point, it was more of a "whatever happens, happens" attitude.
Besides, all he had ever read were the free chapters—he didn't even know the main story.
Which meant nothing was set in stone anymore.
They might have been the protagonists over there, but right now, he was the protagonist.
In that case, instead of riding the current, he needed to create it.
If he could no longer use the flow, he just had to make a new one and ride that instead.
Man, my fighting spirit's really firing up for the first time in a while.
If his family had seen this, they would have given him a standing ovation.
His parents, his brother, his sisters—always disappointed that he thought before he acted.
They had all been waiting for the day their little brother would lead with his fists instead of his words.
Of course, even now he had no intention of using his fists before speaking.
He figured using words and fists at the same time, in moderation, would be just about right.
"Shall we go grab a meal, Tisha? How about it?"
At Kyle's words, Tisha gave a small nod.
She had already scouted out a restaurant for lunch, after all.
It was a little late, which was a shame, but that wasn't a problem.
If anything, fewer people because the rush had passed would be even better.
"Sounds good. There's a place I checked out last time—want to try it?"
"Sure. Ah, before that. I've got a few questions."
"Questions? About what?"
"The main dishes… they're not like, completely drowned in oil and deep-fried, or insanely spicy and stimulating, are they? I mean, they wouldn't be, right?"
Kyle had come to the Academy grinning at the thought of grilled, fried, and intensely flavored food.
That had definitely been the plan—and yet the moment he actually arrived at the Academy, he couldn't do it.
They say blood doesn't lie. The will of the John Nassens had even locked down his taste buds.