Club Experience (2)
Tap-tap-tap-tap—
Footsteps echoed through the ruins.
The first to enter was Dorothea.
She stepped inside as if she knew the place by heart and immediately claimed the high ground. A low hum of mana flared beneath her feet, drawing a perfect circle that launched her body skyward in an instant. From the crown of a towering pillar, she looked down over the chamber.
Her eyes catalogued the ruins' treasures faster and more precisely than anyone else's could have.
…That's a painting modeled after the Hero!
That's a statue of the Hero!!
That's a mural of the Hero!!!
And in the corner—doodles of the Hero scratched right onto the wall!!!!
In a heartbeat she had mapped every item worth taking. She flicked a hand through the empty air, and the relics rose as one and shot toward her, vanishing straight into the bag she had brought along.
They clearly did not fit. They went in anyway, sliding home as smoothly as if the bag were glitching—and the sight of it was nothing short of spectacular.
Elapsed time: one minute flat.
Anyone watching might have sworn she was not a great mage at all, but a legendary phantom thief. The performance was that flawless.
Gladia and Aiolet watched the whole thing from the base of the pillar.
Kruse, for the record, had already been left in the dust. Dorothea's sprint had been so blistering that only someone on Gladia's level could have kept pace. The moment Gladia realized what was happening, she had scooped Aiolet into her arms and carried her the rest of the way. Poor Kruse had no maid of her own to do the same.
The seamless way Aiolet and Gladia had fused into a single unit left Kruse staring blankly for a second. By the time she snapped out of it and wailed not to be abandoned, no one was listening.
Thud!
"Heh… heh heh… Did you see that…? Th-this is how you grab only what you need and move on to the next section…!"
Having roughly secured her haul, Dorothea gave her bag a proud little pat and preened. Surely her juniors were dazzled by the display. That swaggering confidence rang loud and clear in her voice.
Aiolet's reaction, however, was nothing like what Dorothea had imagined.
"You're just a thief."
"A-a thief?! How could you—?!"
Aiolet's straight pitch left Dorothea sputtering in wounded indignation.
"What else would you call it? We broke into ruins the principal stashed away for herself and we're making off with everything that isn't nailed down."
Strictly speaking, Aiolet wasn't wrong. This place might as well have been Rustiel's private property. She had even layered magic over it to keep people out—and they had smashed that barrier to pieces and started looting.
Anyone would be furious, not just Rustiel.
"Th-this isn't stealing…!"
"Then what is it?"
"I-it's… relocating the items to a safer place… A change of address, if you will…."
Even she seemed to feel the sting of that excuse; her voice had lost all conviction.
"B-but the principal just leaves the Hero's treasures lying around without understanding their value, so… i-isn't it better overall if I take them…?"
The shameless self-justification grew quieter with every word. Aiolet wasn't even threatening her, yet Dorothea's voice made it painfully obvious she was terrified of the girl.
In raw power, Dorothea was certainly the stronger of the two. But people had hierarchies that pure strength could not overturn—the way magma simply eats fire. To a born shut-in like Senior Dorothea, a natural-born delinquent like Aiolet was a suffocating natural enemy.
A frog before a snake. A doughnut before magma.
So magma really does burn fire….
While Gladia wasted a moment on that useless meditation on hierarchy, the pecking order between Aiolet and Dorothea was settling itself at lightning speed. Aiolet's casually tossed fact-bombs battered Dorothea without a shred of malice. She wasn't trying to bully her senior; she was simply saying whatever she saw. Her face just happened to look vicious enough that the atmosphere turned… unpleasant.
Looks like a delinquent shaking down a nerd….
Was a delinquent who was kind to otakus something that existed only in fantasy?
Either way, Gladia had no desire to see the relationship between Aiolet and Dorothea sour.
"There, there, my lady. Don't scold her too hard."
"I'm not scolding her. I'm just kind of speechless."
"I know, I know. But if we keep this up, the principal will be here."
Rustiel would already be racing this way the moment she sensed her barrier had been cracked.
If we waste any more time, we'll get caught before we grab a single thing.
In Saintess Hero, entering the Hero Research Club's domain triggered a mini-game built exactly like this: a timed rush to snatch items and escape before Rustiel caught you. And Gladia knew precisely how to bring Aiolet around.
She put on her most shameless smile and continued.
"Besides, at Stella Academy, as long as you have the ability, you're free to do anything—except commit crimes."
"And this isn't a crime?"
Aiolet threw the question back at the sheer audacity of that logic. Gladia only smiled wider.
"Oh, my lady. It isn't a crime if you don't get caught."
"…."
Ohhh, I get it!
Aiolet was convinced.
With Principal Rustiel liable to burst in at any second, this was a powder-keg time attack. We decided to grab only what we needed and move fast.
Of course, one of us still hadn't arrived….
Kruse, where on earth are you and what are you doing?
Saintess or not, this was taking far too long.
The universe must have taken pity, because right then I sensed her in the distance, barreling toward us in a full panic.
"Hah… hah… D-don't leave meee…."
Kruse had clearly run herself ragged. She was a mess of sweat and tears.
And the moment I saw her coming, I understood exactly why she was so slow.
"Hah… hah…."
Bounce. Bounce.
Every ragged breath sent the full weight of her life choices shaking the air around her. If simply gasping for breath produced that much movement, sprinting must have been pure chaos.
Damn it…!
I had been carrying my lady during the run and missed the entire show. The regret would haunt me to my grave.
Ah—don't get the wrong idea. I was not looking at Kruse in any strange way. It was more like wanting to admire a work of art that draws involuntary awe just by existing.
Honestly, every time she did that, my resentment toward the World's Trial swelled like a rising tide.
I really need to deal with this thing already.
Having to draw a blade every single time I want to look at something is ridiculous.
Thankfully the Mind's Eye, reinforced by the Hero's Blood, kept daily life from being too much of a hardship… but how long was I supposed to live like this?
If I had been born blind, maybe I could have accepted it. But I used to see just fine—then got dumped here out of nowhere, and I'm supposed to what? Just take it?
Of course I hate it!! Being the First Hero doesn't give you the right!!
Hoo. Calm down.
Following that train of thought had accidentally summoned the First Hero in my head, and now I was seething. Moments like these called for fiddling with my lady until the irritation drained away….
Unfortunately, my personal comfort doll—Lady Aiolet—was not at my side.
Why?
Because the instant Kruse caught up, I had used the need to cover the ruins quickly as an excuse, smoothly peeled my lady off me, and split us into teams.
My lady had wanted to go with me, of course. But what could she do when the lots said otherwise?
She was surprisingly good at accepting results like that.
Ah—and yes, the drawing had been completely rigged. A light application of my Mind's Eye made drawing whatever lot I wanted trivially easy.
The only reason I went to the trouble of separating even my lady was simple: this time, I absolutely had to pair up alone with Senior Dorothea.
More precisely, I had questions about the First Hero I needed to pry out of her.
I needed to find traces of the First Hero—and I couldn't find anything if I knew nothing to begin with.
As a veteran player of Saintess Hero, it was a little embarrassing to admit… but the truth was I knew jack about the First Hero.
And why would I? In the main game he was nothing but background lore—a few lines of text, a glorified set piece that got name-dropped and forgotten!
Even my game knowledge barely touched anything related to him.
Which made Senior Dorothea the single most informed person I could currently reach. Years of solo Hero Research Club work counted for something.
Having reached that conclusion, I sidled up beside Senior Dorothea as she swept relics into her bag at high speed and gave her a light poke in the ribs.
"Senior. You've been in the Hero Research Club for a long time, so you must know a lot about the Hero, right? I honestly don't know much about him. What kind of person was he?"
A casual question.
In that instant, Senior Dorothea's furiously moving shoulders locked rigid. Then she closed the distance between us with the fastest movement I had ever seen from her.
…!
A speed even my Mind's Eye couldn't track?!
As if she had teleported, Senior Dorothea stood directly in front of me. While the first genuine jolt of disorientation I had felt since gaining the Mind's Eye washed over me, she answered in a voice thick with pure, unfiltered delight.
"Y-you're interested in the Hero?!?!"
"Uh… yeah. A little…?"
"Waaaaaah!!"
She sounded like someone reunited with family after a lifetime apart. I had, it seemed, slammed the otaku meltdown button with both hands.
Senior Dorothea's mouth opened and words began machine-gunning out without a single breath.
"It'safamousfactthatwhentheHerofelledtheDemonKingathousandyearsagohispartyhadfivemembersbutthere'salsoahypothesisthatitwasn'tfivebutsixandthataporterfollowedthemasevidencedbytheoccasionalunrecordedfemalefigureappearinginmuralsanddoodlesfoundintheHero'stempleswhichclearlymeanstherewasapersonintentionallyerasedfromhistoryandperhapsEventheprincipalhasbeendestroyingruinslikethistohidethatverytruthaccordingtotheacademicsconsensus…!"
Uwaaah. This was the first time I had ever heard Senior speak without stuttering.
I finally understood what people meant when they said their ears were going to bleed. And mine were especially sensitive!
Ah.
Somewhere, a certain sixty-five-point explanation-dump prince flickered through my mind.
Asking an otaku about her ultimate bias… that was my mistake.
Cutting her off mid-stream looked impossible; the momentum rolling off Senior Dorothea was genuinely alarming. I was going to have to listen until she burned herself out….
"And beyond that, even the hypothesis that the Hero was actually a woman rocked the entire field…!"
I miss my lady.