Emilia's Scheme
Emilia's Scheme
Meanwhile.
In a physical conditioning chamber on the outermost edge of Lichten Academy.
Emilia Raymond strode across the room, a dozen sweat-slicked gazes trailing her every step.
In one corner of the chamber stood an immense iron door.
— Creeeak.
A rough metallic groan rang out as she pushed it open, revealing a dark staircase descending underground.
— Click-clack. Click-clack.
Emilia started straight down without hesitation.
Soot and grime clung to her white blouse, but she paid it no mind. It was a familiar routine by now.
After descending for a while, a sudden red light bled into the edges of her vision.
Two full floors had been forcibly hollowed out to form a cavernous, ruin-like space, the building's bare structural bones exposed.
— Click.
At the sound of her step, a massive silhouette hunched in one corner stirred and rose to its full height.
"... The hell do you want, wench?"
Predatory yellow eyes, unique to those born of barbarian bloodlines.
The giant, Yan Victor.
"Are you the giant freshman Yan Victor?"
"Every time your mouth opens, the stench of female fills my nose."
"I have something I'd like to discuss with you."
"I don't listen to women. Maybe if you were a female beast, but not a woman."
— Whoom!
He closed the distance in an instant, pinning her against the wall.
But Emilia's expression remained utterly composed.
"Is that so? I doubt someone at your level could reduce me to just any 'female beast.'"
"... Huh! You're no sheltered little noble miss, contrary to what I've heard."
"I'm flattered that you know of me. More to the point, I'm gathering people for the promotion battle. I heard there's no better tank than you."
"Don't throw around the name Aether like you own it. You honestly think I'd put myself under someone else that easily?"
"I know, I know. You deliberately didn't join Aether yourself."
"What are you talking about?"
Emilia's eyes curved into crescents at his words.
"I was just wondering how your pharmaceutical business is doing."
— CRAASH!
Emilia tilted her head to the side.
A vein like a writhing serpent throbbed on his arm.
Follow its length and—
— Fwoosh!
Rough smoke billowed as a fist the size of a pot lid smashed into one of the building's support pillars.
"Next one goes straight into your gut. You'll answer fast if you don't want your innards turned to pulp. Where the hell did you hear that bullshit rumor?"
Yan Victor snarled.
But Emilia only let out a dry, humorless laugh, as if threats like this were nothing new.
"How do you think that product gets imported?"
"... Don't tell me you—?"
Shock flickered in Yan Victor's eyes.
Seeing it, Emilia allowed a thin smile to slip free.
"Come now. Do you really think the Raymond Trading Company would openly import narcotics? Well, I do receive reports here and there."
— Thud-thud-thud.
Yan Victor pulled his fist out of the pillar and dusted off his hand.
"Fine. Go. I'll pretend I didn't hear anything."
"What if I don't want to?"
"What?"
Emilia stepped forward and lightly stroked his pillar-like arm.
"I've also heard that you dislike Ian Blackangus quite a bit."
That much was true.
Because that bastard had taken away his closest comrade.
But Victor's question lay elsewhere.
"... Where in the world did you hear that?"
"Because I feel the same way."
Emilia's voice was sweet, but Yan Victor felt himself flinch regardless.
She parted her lips, smooth as silk.
"The promotion battle. Shall we sit down and discuss how we ought to handle it?"
◆
The academy's atmosphere grew heated the moment the promotion battle was officially announced.
Wherever two or more students gathered, the subject was always the promotion battle, and the campus buzzed with noise.
"... S-so, is it really okay for someone like me to join, meow?"
Danya's voice was thick with emotion, on the verge of tears.
Her reaction made me smile without realizing it.
"Of course. Why wouldn't we team up?"
"Y-you mean it's natural?"
"You thought it wasn't?"
Danya's cheeks flushed slightly.
"N-no. That's not what I meant..."
She fidgeted with her fingers for a moment before speaking again.
"I-I'm always at the bottom of the rankings, and my HP is probably gonna be low..."
HP. Or more precisely, barrier HP, was one of the key mechanics of this promotion battle.
Every student dropped onto the uninhabited island would be issued a protective barrier.
The device itself was similar in concept to the emergency escape tools we'd used back in the Shadow Forest at the start of the semester.
If a student wearing the device took magic or physical damage exceeding a preset threshold, they would instantly be launched skyward and disqualified from the promotion battle.
In other words, the amount of damage that the emergency escape device could absorb was effectively the barrier's HP.
This HP was distributed unequally—the criteria being the student's academy ranking.
You could call it a reward for high achievers, more or less.
The system was the academy's clever way of satisfying the Aether promotion criteria by factoring in both prior grades and actual combat capability.
"Danya, even if your barrier HP gets completely shaved off, the team doesn't get eliminated. There's no need to worry so much. The whole concept of a team is mostly just a label we use for convenience. It's just a group of people who've agreed to stick together."
Inside the promotion battle zone, defeating monsters or dangerous species would cause them to drop items called cores. The examinees' goal was to collect as many cores as possible.
Evaluation was based on the number of cores each individual acquired, so you could think of a team as a partnership whose members had agreed on how to split the spoils.
"I know that much. But if a team we put together beforehand falls apart, and you have to join a different team in the middle of things, wouldn't that mean taking a loss...?"
"You're worrying about mountains that aren't even here yet. And you're making a mistaken assumption. My grades aren't high either. We've built up our coordination over time, so teaming up with you actually lets me make the most of my attributes."
"So, Ian, you're saying you'd bring me along even though I'm weak?"
"That's right."
Danya ducked her head and tapped the ground with her foot.
Her tail swayed gently, flicking side to side.
Then she lifted her head with a coy little flourish and declared,
"Th-then I, the great Danya, shall specially grant you the honor of teaming up with me!"
The corners of her mouth were twitching ever so slightly into a smirk.
'...Don't tell me she was playing hard to get just to fish for compliments?'
"Wh-what are you looking at like that, nyaa? I absolutely wasn't thinking anything sketchy, meow!"
Right. If she says so, I suppose I'll believe her.
"Who else are you thinking of bringing, meow? Even if we have a little time left, we should recruit fast or the decent ones will get poached."
She was right, her tail still swishing idly as she asked.
Now that the official notice was out, we had to move fast to secure good teammates.
I fell into thought for a moment.
I wanted to form a team at the highest possible power level, but if we did that, the other members might demand a bigger cut of the cores.
After all, there was an objective ability metric in play—the barrier HP.
And we had to account for betrayal, too.
Acquired cores could be stolen at any time, by design.
Which meant building a team around people you could trust was the safer move.
"For now I'm thinking of adding Rina and Sylvia. Sylvia's already in Aether, so there's a chance the Aether members might just team up among themselves."
Putting it together that way gave us a solid core of trust, but—
"Isn't it a bit too heavy on the mage side?"
Danya had a point.
A classic team composition balanced a knight, a priest, a scout, and a mage working in harmony.
That was especially true given the island was stocked with tricky, dangerous species.
But still...
"We don't need to get too hung up on ideal team comp."
"Huh?"
"For one thing, Danya, you can act as a pathfinder too. Your senses have gotten sharper."
Her ability to locate bodies back in the north had been proven. I could trust it.
On top of that, the island we'd be dropped on was a jungle environment, which would only amplify Danya's strengths. She'd be way more effective than most scouting department students.
"I'll be our tank."
At this point, I'd just accepted that as a given.
"It'd be nice to have someone who could do some off-tanking and healing though..."
That was undeniably a job only a priest could perform.
Suddenly, bad memories of Yulansici surfaced.
"For now, Danya, could you contact the others and ask if they want in?"
Danya, who had been staring up at me blankly, answered in a fluster.
"Ah, got it, meow! You're going somewhere?"
"I'm going to drop by the Order."
◆
The Deus Order was the most overwhelmingly dominant religion on the continent.
Centered around the Holy State of Saint Constantine and the Papal Court, this faith was divided into two major factions.
There was the Saintess Faction, which orthodoxly acknowledged the existence of the Saintesses and held them as sacred beings meant to spread the will of the divine.
And there was the Anti-Saintess Faction, which refused to recognize their existence.
The clashes and conflict between these two factions were far from minor, to the point that each faction had its own designated name.
The Saintess Faction was called the Celeste Sect, named after the first Saintess.
The Anti-Saintess Faction took its name, the Numina Sect, from the figure who had codified its doctrine and embodied the meaning of "sanctity" itself.
The place Ian was heading to was the academy outskirts where the Numina Sect had set up its encampment.
"Is this where one can hear the teachings of Numina?"
A large tent.
A priest who had been praying inside rose to greet Ian.
"You've come to the right place, brother! To know the name of Numina makes you an honored guest indeed. Please, come inside!"
The interior of the tent was clean but shabby.
Beyond the cloth walls that fluttered every time the wind blew, far in the distance, a single girl knelt deep in prayer.
Other than her, the scene was rather barren.
That was to be expected, given the Numina Sect's weak influence.
Compared to the Celeste Sect, which had the mascot-like figure of a Saintess at its forefront, the Numina Sect had always occupied a minority position.
No followers, no money. They couldn't afford a proper church, let alone anything more than a tent.
'That doesn't mean their ability is lacking, though.'
From the start, the idea of Ian—who was already in the Saintess Faction's bad graces—recruiting a Saintess Faction priest while risking Aria finding out was out of the question.
There was no guarantee he'd be able to get a priest from the Numina Sect either.
"Impossible" was honestly the safer assumption.
After all, Ian could think of no connection whatsoever between himself and the Numina Sect.
But he didn't exactly have bargaining chips to offer; the Numina Sect's priests leaned heavily toward asceticism.
Still, he'd come here grasping at straws—
"Hmm."
The priest who had been giving Ian a brief rundown suddenly widened his eyes.
"Brother... don't tell me you're Brother Ian?"
"Yes, that's me."
"Ahh! It's an honor, brother."
The priest's eyes were filled with reverence.