Come to Your Senses?
Come to Your Senses?
Watching the prince being carried away on a stretcher, Vermel let out a low sigh.
'It's over.'
Things had to go well from now on. Vermel rose from his seat.
"Where are you going?"
"I have something to take care of."
Tailing Prince Clion was what he had to do. Pretending to stop by the restroom, Vermel headed toward the nurse's office.
Vermel Horde. He was the male elf student who received a commendation for leading the students alongside the faculty during the Magic Beast incident at the entrance ceremony, minimizing casualties. His extraordinary deeds even reached the ears of Chairman Robespierre.
To commend his achievements, the Chairman invited Vermel to his office at the beginning of the semester.
─ What do you desire?
Vermel had fallen into thought for a moment at the Chairman's question.
His wallet was in decent shape. He had more than enough funds. The money he had earned in Kaurelia was sufficient to live without issue until graduation.
Vermel wanted something else.
─ You want that? How do you even know of it?
What Vermel requested from the Chairman was the Inscription Formula for a scroll containing Supreme Unique Magic. It was a rare item that veteran players sometimes picked up when optimizing their routes in the game.
With the situation escalating to a duel event, Clion was an existence that didn't particularly matter whether he lived or died. He wasn't a character critical to the game's ending in the first place.
In fact, players with low patience often tossed Clion as food for Magic Beasts for the sole reason that they couldn't stand seeing him pester the female characters.
'But the scenario has changed.'
In most routes, the one who duels Clion is either Irka or the protagonist. Especially if the protagonist's stats were similar to Clion's, the protagonist would fight a Proxy Battle against him. After crushing the insolent Second Prince there, Irka's salvation narrative would begin.
However, since Vermel had already obtained most of the Fortuitous Encounters from Kaurelia, things had been shaping up so that Clion would avoid confronting him by any means necessary.
'According to the earlier progression, Irka should have been the one to fight the Second Prince, but....'
A variable had appeared once again.
'Aether.... Is she a real Possessor?'
He wasn't sure. Her behavior patterns were strange for someone who was supposedly a game player like himself.
Still, one thing was certain. She had read his expression before accepting Clion's duel.
'She might be acting while watching my reactions.'
A chill ran down his spine.
Vermel shook his head vigorously and then focused on the task at hand. It was to execute the strategy build he had personally designed.
When he opened the door to the nurse's office and entered, he saw Clion with bandages wrapped around his head. The school healer dressed in a lab coat was sitting next to him. Like himself, she had long ears and green-toned eyes.
An elf.
'Sepia Gliston. Search the whole world, and you won't find anyone more skilled in Healing Magic than she is.'
Unique Healing Magic wasn't common. If it had been, the Empire would have shoveled Combat Mages into the Northern Front like zombies and pushed right through it.
'The fact that Teacher Sepia is at Tillet is only because she is an elf from Kaurelia. If she had been born an Imperial citizen, she would have toiled away her whole life in the north.'
Of course, Kaurelia was also desperate to capture her and deploy her to the Southern Sea Front. Sepia had skillfully walked a tightrope between the two countries, reaching a compromise where she worked as a school healer at Tillet.
'In terms of game settings.'
In reality, it was just a convenient device to help the protagonist's party.
"Oh, a friend?"
"Is the prince's condition okay?"
"I've administered the necessary treatment. He'll wake up soon. Ah, looks like that's now."
No sooner had Teacher Sepia spoken, Clion sat up while clutching his head.
"Ugh."
'He took a hit to the head from a giant pair of calipers and survived... That just goes to show how top-notch Teacher Sepia's Healing Magic is.'
Vermel decided not to dwell on Sepia's abilities any further. More than that, checking the prince's condition was the priority right now.
Clion opened his eyes narrowly and stared at Vermel. Judging by his somewhat vacant expression, he seemed to be back to normal.
"Then I'll step out for a moment. Call me if you need anything."
As soon as Teacher Sepia left her seat, Vermel took a scroll out of his chest pocket and rolled it up in one hand.
"Do you remember what happened earlier?"
"No.... Why am I here? Ugh, my head...!"
Seeing the prince's reaction, Vermel felt relieved.
'The brainwashing has been undone.'
People freed from mind-controlling magic shared a common trait. They couldn't remember anything from the past few hours.
Clion probably wouldn't remember challenging Irka to a duel, nor getting struck on the head and knocked unconscious while fighting Aether.
"Just a little while ago, you had a Schoolyard Duel with another female student. You lost there, got injured, and came here."
"Is that true? I can't remember a thing.... Could it be that I drank and committed some rudeness?"
"Yeah, you caused quite a big scene."
At Vermel's words, Prince Clion let out a deep sigh. Clion needed some time to calm down.
After exploring his own head for several minutes, Clion soon shook his head.
"Still, nothing remains in my memory. I think I remember up to the point where Duke Blanton told me to do something about Viscount Eliyev's daughter.... Could that be the reason?"
"That's right."
A short groan crawled up the wall of the nurse's office. Clion's complexion darkened even further.
"The trouble in life always comes from liquor. This is why you shouldn't drink too much recklessly...."
"No, it wasn't because of alcohol."
"Hmm, then what was the problem? Are you saying I went around doing things while perfectly sober?"
"Yes."
It was a long story if he were to tell it. Convincing him might take all day.
Still, he had to do it. It was a tedious and difficult route, but if he succeeded, the probability of clearing the game could dramatically rise.
A golden opportunity to strip away the shells of the Magic Beasts that had spread their roots into the Imperial Household all at once.
That opportunity was only possible if Clion survived until the mid-game.
**
"Is that true?"
"I'm serious."
The discussion progressed dramatically.
"Duke Blanton is an Extinction-class Magic Beast?"
"Yeah."
"And I was brainwashed by that person and went around doing awful things?"
"Correct."
Prince Clion looked as if he found Vermel's words hard to believe entirely, but for now, he showed an attitude of nodding in agreement. After piecing together Vermel's words, Clion let out a deliberate groan.
"If that's true, it means the entire Imperial Household has fallen into the clutches of the demons."
"Not yet. The Empire hasn't completely gone over to the Magic Beasts' side yet."
"And you believe there is a way to respond, even while believing your words to be true?"
"Prince, if you play your part well."
As he said that, Vermel held out a scroll that boasted a length of several dozen inches. Inside the scroll, geometric patterns intersected with each other, reinforcing the solidity between topologies.
The complexity of the Inscription Formula engraved on the Magic Paper signified how high the grade of the magic was.
"What is this?"
"A countermeasure to prevent brainwashing."
[Supreme Unique Magic ─ Disobedience]
It was the Inscription Formula engraved on the scroll that Vermel had commissioned from the Chairman.
The completed 'Disobedience' formula was an exceedingly difficult thing to obtain. Nevertheless, because Vermel knew what identity the Chairman of Tillet Academy was hiding, he was able to specifically request and obtain this Inscription Formula from him.
"Once every 24 hours, you channel mana into this and inhale the dust that comes out. Then you can avoid Duke Blanton's brainwashing."
"...I shall try it."
Clion still seemed half-doubtful, but that alone was enough. If he could just notice that something absurd was happening in the Imperial Palace, he might be able to entice the Second Prince away from being a villain and into the role of an ally.
Since ancient times, they'd said turning an enemy into a friend was the best tactic. Clion had the power of a prince, so if he could be won over as a comrade, he would at least be of some minimal help.
'It's too early to be relieved.'
It was merely stepping onto stage 1. Vermel's mid-to-long-term goal was to have Clion drag down Duke Blanton and fill that vacant spot with another figure.
As Vermel was having such thoughts, Clion suddenly bowed his head.
"What are you doing?"
"I am sorry. For bearing the name of the imperial family and behaving disgracefully in front of the people."
"No, you're not the one who should be apologizing. The one we need to catch is Duke Blanton."
"Even without memory, what I did to my classmates does not change. If I, born a prince, cannot bear even that much responsibility, then I am not timber fit to lead the Empire. Either way, it is mostly my fault for failing to resist the brainwashing."
Clion bowed his head once more. He soon argued that he had to apologize to the other students for his rudeness and straightened his back.
"No, you can't do that just yet."
"...Ah, you're right."
The prince seemed to have instantly caught on to the implication of what Vermel meant.
"If I display abnormal behavior, Duke Blanton might eliminate me."
"So for the time being, you have to keep acting like a scoundrel prince. Can you do it?"
"I dislike being cursed at by ladies, but I have no choice."
'Come to think of it, this guy was still a womanizer even before he got brainwashed.'
He just didn't cross the line, but Clion was the type to hit on virtually any beautiful woman. So much so that if you undid Clion's brainwashing and took the rehabilitation route, he would fall to the status of a gag character whose daily life consisted of confessing to people around him and getting rejected—a character who was that crazy about women.
It seemed Clion was destined to get hit by Aether again. Vermel packed up his things and exited the nurse's office.
There was no time.
The next step was rescuing the First Prince.