Last Class Standing - 9
When a match has no chance of victory, the smartest move is to give up fast. Distinguishing the merely difficult from the outright impossible is one of the most important skills in life.
So the moment the announcement named the advisor, I surrendered cleanly. Against Ryutis my odds would have been fifty-fifty. Against the advisor they were zero. Not “close to zero.” Just zero.
This lineup doesn’t stand a chance.
Even if my team and Ryutis’s—eight people total—charged him at once, it wouldn’t be enough. Did anyone seriously think a hastily thrown-together academy squad of eight could face the man who killed Kagan?
Back home we had gathered every scrap of intelligence we could on Kagan. The conclusion had been that the entire Royal Mage Corps would have to engage him just to reach a stalemate—and that was only after running the most optimistic simulations possible.
Assuming Kagan was alone without his army. Assuming we discarded every report that sounded too absurd. Assuming his durability was merely that of an ordinary superhuman. Only after piling on condition after condition did the models finally spit out “stalemate.”
And Ryutis looked ready to throw himself at that same advisor.
The man is completely unhinged.
I clicked my tongue at the incomprehensible behavior. Still, he couldn’t actually be hoping to win. He was simply thrilled at the chance to face someone stronger.
This was exactly why sword-obsessed types made no sense to me. A strong opponent was fine, but there had to be limits. What was the point of a gap this enormous?
The moment Ryutis went down, I would surrender. My pride would take a hit, sure—but I was the prince who had fled the throne. If anything, it worked in my favor.
—KRAAAAAANG!
That judgment proved wise.
Holy hell.
The distance between the advisor and Ryutis had been considerable—several seconds even for a trained knight at a full sprint.
Yet the advisor simply appeared in front of Ryutis in an instant and slammed him straight into the ground. The impact cracked the arena floor with a thunderous roar.
That wasn’t ordinary stone.
I glanced down without thinking. This was the Empire’s finest educational institution; even the most minor facilities were never half-managed.
The academy itself was a legacy of Apels, said to have been the wealthiest civilization in continental history. I had heard the arena was built from a material that ordinary sword aura or magic could not even scratch.
I looked back up at the crater where Ryutis lay. The floor around him had been reduced to rubble, stone fragments rolling free.
…Is he still alive?
The worry was genuine. Being driven into the ground hard enough to shatter that floor should not leave anyone in one piece.
“I surrender.”
I tucked my staff into my belt and raised both hands. This was the advisor who had closed the distance faster than the eye could follow. Hesitate even a second and I might end up lying next to Ryutis before I could finish the words.
No thank you. Unlike Ryutis, I had never trained my body. If that hit landed on me, I would die on the spot.
The final winner of the four-person match is First-Year Class 3!
The announcement rang out the instant I declared my surrender.
Life doesn’t usually amount to much. Things tend to work out somehow.
Fuck.
Apparently life does amount to something. Things were very much not working out.
Later’s lightning-fast surrender, the announcement that followed as if it had been waiting for the cue, the healers already sprinting onto the field—
Watching it all, my attempt at reality denial collapsed. No matter how I spun it, this was completely fucked.
“O-Oppa? Ryutis is going to be okay, right?”
Luise came scrambling over, her face deathly pale.
Someone she knew had just put another someone she knew into critical condition—an unprecedented disaster. From her perspective she had no idea how to react.
“He’s fine. Even if he’s hurt, good healers will have him back on his feet in no time.”
That much was true. Coughing up blood? In a world where they could reattach severed limbs without breaking a sweat, that was a light scratch. A few heals and he would be up and walking home under his own power.
The real problem was that I had drawn blood from a royal—not even a noble, a royal.
Fuck.
No matter how many times I turned it over, the only word that fit was “fuck.”
I had excuses ready. It was an academy event. Swords and magic flying around—injuries were inevitable. And Ryutis was not the type to get angry over something like this.
Even after weighing all three of those points, the absolute minimum sentence was still house arrest. Even if Ryutis himself stood up and said, “I’m fine, really,” it would still be house arrest.
“Hyung, that was too much.”
This little shit.
Erich’s single muttered line as he trudged over made my hand twitch. If he hadn’t been my little brother I would have laid him out next to Ryutis.
I couldn’t actually dump the full torrent of curses on him, though. Even I had to admit it had been excessive.
I should have just flicked him on the forehead.
He would have been thrilled enough with that and rolled around happy.
I sighed—and locked eyes with Villar sitting among the spectators.
His gaze held shock, resentment, and the faintest trace of envy.
Yeah… it did feel good.
I was fucked, but for a brief moment I had been happy…
The inter-class tournament ended with First-Year Class 5—Later’s class—lifting the championship trophy.
I had taken the four-person match, so Ryutis’s class and Later’s class finished with the same score. Joint champions were not allowed, however, so the judges applied the logic of “Ryutis’s class went down before Later’s, therefore Later’s class wins.”
Must have felt pretty unfair from the perspective of the guy who charged in first and got knocked out cold. Still, second place is nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t let it get you down.
“They say he’s recovered without any complications.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Yes. A relief indeed.”
Except now I was the one who felt like collapsing.
After the awards ceremony and closing speech, the headmaster marched me straight to his office. I felt like a delinquent student—except at this point I was less “delinquent” and more “assault case.”
The headmaster set down the communication orb, rubbing his forehead as if it ached, and I quietly lowered my gaze. In this situation I was nothing more than a treasonous bastard who had no right to open his mouth even if he still had one.
“I’ll be counting on you, Audit Department Chief.”
The words the headmaster had spoken right before I stepped onto the arena floor came back to me. Now I had even less to say.
I didn’t think one hit would do it.
I still felt a little wronged. Of course I had been careful. No matter how much frustration had piled up, who in their right mind would actually beat a royal hard enough to draw blood?
But intent didn’t matter. The result was the result. Failing to control my strength was a very large crime.
“…I understand you were in a difficult position as Audit Department Chief.”
After a long silence the headmaster finally spoke.
“If you had gone easy on him in that situation, it would only have wounded his pride more.”
I found myself nodding before I could stop. Armein was a kingdom of knights, and its royalty stood at the absolute peak of that culture. As a result, Ryutis’s combativeness and pride had both reached extreme levels.
Facing him bare-handed could be spun as a master showing consideration for a junior. But if I had openly held back or deliberately lost? He would have flipped his lid demanding to know what I took him for. That would have been even messier.
“He said injuries during a match are only natural. He told us not to worry about it.”
The subject went unnamed, but it was obvious. Ryutis had come to and asked for leniency on my behalf.
Hearing the word “leniency” made me feel like a real criminal. Well—technically I was one.
“Fortunately the Armein side has no intention of making a large issue of it. They say they’ll simply report that the healers examined him after the match.”
The fact that the headmaster called it fortunate meant the situation had already been smoothed over. From Armein’s perspective, admitting that the prince they were supposed to protect had coughed up blood was something they would rather avoid.
They had probably coordinated stories with the other two nations and sent home a report that was as vague and minimized as possible.
“However, the academy will be reporting the full truth to the Ministry of Education. I hope you understand.”
“Of course. I’m sorry for causing a disturbance.”
I bowed my head. He had said “understand,” but the headmaster had already shown me every possible consideration.
Containing the incident as an internal academy matter so it never became a diplomatic crisis was already the best he could do. Asking him not to report upward at all would have been shameless.
I thanked him and apologized several more times before I was finally allowed to leave the office.
Damn it.
Armein had shut the whole thing down to avoid the title of “failed to properly protect their charge.” Villar would walk away without any real damage either.
I, on the other hand, could not escape responsibility. The fact that Ryutis had been injured was true, so someone had to take the fall.
I had a feeling a certain communication orb was going to start glowing beautifully very soon…
A day that felt like my blood was drying up finally ended.
Apparently the Ministry of Education had been so stunned by the sudden “royal assault” incident that it took them a full day to react. This should not have taken a day.
Life, huh.
Yesterday I had moved quickly, bracing for an immediate summons. The moment I flew to the Imperial Capital it would be house arrest for sure. I might not be able to return to the academy for a while, so I needed to take care of everything first.
My first stop had been Ryutis’s sickbed—part get-well visit, part apology.
“I was the one who asked you to teach me, so getting injured was only natural, wasn’t it? Please do it again next time!”
He said the most horrifying things with complete sincerity. Because I was the guilty party, I couldn’t even tell him to shut the hell up.
After that I showed my face to the club members.
“Oppa, Ryutis says he’s fine, so please don’t worry too much.”
“Ryutis brought it on himself. If he had just surrendered like I did, none of this would have happened.”
They were the ones who comforted me first. Maybe we had built up some real camaraderie after all. I was a little moved.
Last of all I met Margeta—and the distant, aching look in her eyes made it impossible to open my mouth.
It was the expression of a mother who had just watched her trusted son reach into her purse. The face of someone who had never imagined I would cause a disaster this large.
“Karl, no matter what happens, I’m on your side.”
Even so, she spoke with a gentle smile, and that only made my heart hurt more. I was the sinner. I was the sinner.
I sighed and turned my eyes to the communication orb. This sinner now had a long road ahead of him.
Exactly one day after the royal-assault incident that would go down in academy legend, a direct text from the Crown Prince arrived.
Was it just my imagination that I could feel his fury radiating in inverse proportion to the length of the message?