Afternoon Class (2)
Philip and Edger.
Names that gave off a Dumb and Dumber vibe, the kind that made you seriously wonder who on earth had come up with them.
"Isn't that right, Philip?"
"I think so too, Edger."
The owners of those names were none other than the two standing right there.
Names the original fans had personally stuck on those two, who always showed up together.
When fans bothered to invent names for characters who weren't main cast, it usually came down to one of two reasons.
…Either they carried main-character-level presence, or there were just that many people who hated their guts.
Philip and Edger, of course, belonged squarely to the latter.
Every single time they appeared, they used their seniority to pick fights with the protagonist over the smallest things.
Naturally, given the genre, the protagonist always put them through a thorough re-education.
But from the perspective of fans who were fully immersed in the protagonist, their arrival was never a pleasant event.
And that was something I agreed with completely.
Considering my current situation, those two were more than annoying enough for me as well.
It hadn't always been this way.
In the original, Rian Tryce hadn't been on bad terms with them at all—he'd been practically best friends.
They'd drunk together in an academy where alcohol was banned.
Skipped classes without permission for seven hours straight.
Problem children of the academy who took genuine pleasure in causing trouble side by side.
In the original, Rian Tryce should still have been one of them.
— I'm leaving this place as of today.
— What? What's this all of a sudden…
It was simply that I had transmigrated into Rian's body.
The moment I took the name Rian Tryce, the first thing I did was walk out of that circle.
With the relationship ending that way, there was no need to spell out how things stood afterward.
"Isn't this bastard ignoring us again right now?"
"Exactly. When he's the one every student ignores."
They saw me as a cowardly traitor who had run away.
I was doing everything I could to avoid getting tangled up with them so I could shed the scoundrel image.
That was the current state of our relationship.
A relationship where both sides knew that the slightest contact would shatter everything like glass.
And here was the real problem.
"Rian Tryce. Stop ignoring us and answer."
"…"
"Ha, this bastard's at it again."
I stuck to pure silence, doing everything possible to keep that glass from breaking.
But those damn problem children had nothing in their heads except the urge to punish the "traitor," glass be damned.
When they failed to get a reaction out of me, Edger's gaze naturally shifted to Elice sitting beside me.
"Elice Axstra, what about you?"
"Hmm. I have no idea why the sparks are suddenly flying my way when I was just sitting here quietly, but what seems to be the matter?"
"Why the hell are you sitting next to this scoundrel bastard?"
"Oh my, me sitting next to this person? You should say there was nowhere else left to sit. That would be accurate."
As always, Elice used that flexible way of speaking to lightly prove she had nothing whatsoever to do with me.
It felt extremely like her.
The way she pulled her feet out faster than anyone the moment it looked like she might get dragged into unnecessary trouble.
…I'm never consoling her again.
Of course, from the perspective of the person who had just been comforting her moments earlier, the whole thing was absurd.
I go out of my way to help her and this is what I get.
Just watch if I ever sit and listen to her again.
While I was firmly resolving that in my heart, Edger's gaze had already swung back to me.
"Is that so? Then there's no need to pay you any attention."
"…"
"Rian Tryce. How long are you planning to keep ignoring me like this?"
"Exactly. This despicable coward."
"Is accepting my proposal really that difficult? My proposal to man up, spar once, and settle it."
Edger stared at me as if he genuinely couldn't understand.
In truth, this had been going on for quite a while.
Unable to swallow his anger, Edger had challenged me to a spar.
Until now, I had met even that with pure indifference.
The reason was simple.
I figured that getting mixed up in that kind of gossip when I hadn't even finished washing off the scoundrel image would do me no good at all.
If I had accepted, win or lose, I probably would have heard things like this:
People never change.
Now he's brawling with the same problem children he used to hang out with.
Rian Tryce never changes.
That was why I had refused.
Because until now, I had been someone who believed that with enough effort, anything could be changed.
"Anyway, what a coward. A guy whose only redeeming feature is having one pretty little sister."
"Right, Edger. Did you see it this morning? This guy's little sister running down the hallway crying?"
"Ha. No way I would have missed that. No chance I'd let a show that good slip by."
"…What on earth are you two talking about right now?"
"What do you mean what? That the only good thing about the guy sitting next to you is that pretty little sister of his."
"…Edger Tristan."
But that was no longer true.
I was no longer someone who cared enough about image to sit still and take insults like that right in front of my face.
— …At best, it's one year.
More precisely, I was someone who no longer needed to care.
"I accept your proposal. We spar right now."
"…"
"What are you waiting for? Grab your sword and get out here."
With those words, I closed my hand around the sparring sword that had always been little more than decoration.
It was an afternoon class like any other, students sparring as usual.
The sudden new wind that began to blow through that ordinary afternoon class filled the students—worn out by boredom—with anticipation.
"Who's going to win?"
"You don't know? Obviously Edger. Even if they're both problem children, you think that scoundrel who never even sparred because he had no one to practice with is going to win?"
Students debated heatedly over who would come out on top.
Watching them quietly, Elice muttered a single sentence under her breath.
"…What wind suddenly blew for that guy."
Elice knew better than anyone that the usual Rian hated becoming the subject of gossip more than anything.
To shed the scoundrel image.
She knew very well how hard he had worked—even going so far as to get information from her—to wash that image clean.
"For someone like that to suddenly agree to a spar."
Because she knew him that well, the situation unfolding in front of her felt even more absurd.
Of course, it was true that the man named Edger had crossed the line first.
That sentence she had overheard earlier was enough to make even her—someone largely immune to personal attacks and harassment—flinch.
What kind of person brought up a little sister at that level of crudeness right in front of the older brother listening?
It was lucky only the people present had heard it.
If those words had been spoken publicly, it wouldn't have been strange for him to be buried alive for them.
"Elice Axstra. So you were here."
"…Your Highness the Princess."
As she watched the two of them gradually preparing for the spar, Princess Laila had approached before she realized it.
"May I sit beside you?"
"…Of course."
After asking permission, Laila sat the moment the answer left Elice's mouth.
"Who do you think will win?"
"Well. I've never actually seen that person fight, so I really couldn't say who would come out on top."
"Hmm. For Elice Axstra, who supposedly knows everything, not to know… This truly will be an interesting spar."
As expected.
The princess already knew exactly what kind of person she was.
"…Your Highness, you flatter me."
"Flattery? I simply made my judgment based on what I myself have seen and heard."
"…I see."
She found Princess Laila uncomfortable.
More precisely, she felt inferiority.
Inferiority.
A word that someone whose pride ran deeper than anyone else's found nearly impossible to accept.
And yet a word she had acknowledged faster than anyone.
Talent and effort.
The difference between the two was crystal clear.
An ordinary person's effort could push them into the top ten percent.
A genius's effort lifted that genius to a height so far above that it became invisible.
The gap between Elice and Laila felt exactly like that.
…Come to think of it, that person actually went out of his way to comfort me earlier.
Because she understood that difference better than anyone, Rian Tryce's earlier words of comfort had settled deeper than they should have.
If it had been any other day, she probably would have just laughed once and moved on.
That a man still making meaningless efforts to shed a scoundrel image would offer her comfort.
— Thank you.
But earlier, she had been different.
Perhaps because she had just lost her spar against the princess, she had accepted Rian Tryce's comfort with complete sincerity.
And because of that—
She had reacted to the words of the man named Edger, words she would never have answered under normal circumstances if she were thinking about her image.
…Maybe it isn't that person who's become strange. Maybe it's me.
The thought rose unbidden.
To push away the feeling that her face might flush, she turned the question back on the princess.
"Who do you think will win, Your Highness?"
"You're asking me a question even you claim not to know the answer to?"
"Of course. Every student in the academy knows Your Highness is better at reading people than I am."
"Elice, you are the one offering flattery. My ability is nowhere near that remarkable."
"Hmm. Is that so?"
"…Even so, I can at least dare to make a prediction."
Laila drew a quiet breath, her sapphire eyes gleaming brighter than any jewel, and spoke.
"Rian Tryce."
"…"
"I somehow feel that Rian Tryce will be the winner of that spar."
She wanted to ask on what grounds, but Elice couldn't bring herself to speak.
Eyes filled with absolute conviction.
Though her mouth claimed uncertainty, the princess's gaze—already certain of the outcome—kept Elice's lips sealed.