RATH 93
TL: Eevee
11. Not a myth, but a legend (6)
#6 Their story: Aris ril Letia’s story.
The imperial festival was all but Yugrasia’s to win.
Although we failed in our initial objective of total victory, that was only due to the unexpected fortune for Marcis named Ria el Nermia.
Coming into the final day, Yugrasia was in first place at 114 points.
Arucia, one of the strongest contenders to win was on 0 points, in joint third with Mercaria, also on 0 points.
Realistically, none of the other schools could catch up to Yugrasia.
Even if the final event was worth 80 points, the greatest number of points in imperial festival history, and even if, somehow, just somehow, we managed to lose that!
Even if the school who won that event was Marcis, in second place, Yugrasia would still have an overwhelming victory of 114 to 87.
Yes, that’s what it should normally be…
“The maximum number of points… 4000?”
An unbelievably ridiculous rule was revealed to us on the morning of the event.
[Each academy will be in charge of defending 10 castles. And every time one is stolen, 100 points to the taking school.]
That meant that the maximum number of points a school could earn was 3000.
Although of course this was on the a.s.sumption that all the other schools were defeated within the time limit, but in the worst case scenario where Yugrasia failed to capture a single castle with everyone getting out, then we could finish this imperial festival in last place.
The favouritism of the administrators had far overstepped their boundaries here.
In order to lodge a complaint about this, officially, the student council, and the student council president, in particular, needed to make a move.
And so I went to find our stuco president but…
“Is that a problem?”
The most important president was taking this catastrophe far too lightly.
“Is that a problem? This is an unprecedented situation in the history of the imperial festival! This is a rule made purely to target us!”
“So?”
“What do you mean, so?! Our night study is on the line here! We can’t get tied down because of a stupid rule like this!”
I yelled at Pres hard enough for me to turn red, but Pres only smiled gently.
“Lady Aris. What was our objective?”
“Of course that was to end this h.e.l.l-like night study!”
“Yes, but we also had a secondary objective. To show how much we grew in the depths of that h.e.l.l… the objective of total victory.”
“That’s…”
I wasn’t going to deny that the total victory was one of our goals coming into the imperial festival.
But two defeats had already made that an impossible goal.
“This is our opportunity. A chance for us who lost to those children who barely play for a few hours at their schools, to revive our pride!”
As Pres looked at me with a determined face, he quietly, yet clearly said.
“By taking all of their castles, and not allowing a single one of ours to fall.”
And thirty minutes after the start of the event.
“The f*ck?”
I swore like you’d expect from some third-rate back alley thug.
[Come at me, Yugrasia!]
What was happening, the man who just this morning, personally said that we would not lose a single castle in our victory to uphold our pride, was personally annihilating one of Yugrasia’s castles and declaring war on us.
If that had been all, then it could have ended as just a slip of the tongue on my part.
“Were we too harsh during yesterday’s event?”
“That probably was a bit too far.”
“But you can’t say that Nerkia is blameless either, can you?”
As the student council and a number of other students that had gathered to stop the invasion of the other schools said things as if they’d known of the president’s betrayal in advance.
“Haa, this stupid as h.e.l.l academy.”
If it were me from just a year ago, I would be in chaos if I were thrown into a scenario as ridiculous as this.
But having been dyed in Yugrasia’s colours, I could calmly make an a.s.sessment of the situation.
‘Yesterday’s match… if I recall right, Pres used his lover the Arucia vice-president to secure victory…’
When I looked back at the magic video tool again, the students standing behind Pres were definitely Arucia students.
Seeing as the Arucia students would never trust our Pres that betrayed their vice-pres unless they’d gone insane…
‘It was a misunderstanding.’
A clear misunderstanding, and judging by what I could hear around me, this was a misunderstanding created by our allies.
And to clear up that misunderstanding… and to punish the Yugrasia students that created said misunderstanding to begin with, the Pres had betrayed Yugrasia.
Mm. fine. I can totally.
“How the h.e.l.l am I supposed to understannnd thiiiiiiiissss!”
“L, Lady Aris?”
“Milady?”
Ignoring the shocked looks of everyone else around me, I clutched my head and screamed.
“Just what the h.e.l.l did you do to the Pres for him to do that?!”
“Hiik!”
Everyone around me was doing their best to avoid meeting my livid glare.
Most of them are seniors… but now’s not the time to care about that.
“Just what manner of insanity did you guys do, that our Pres betrayed us and is fighting for the other side? Ahh? If you have mouths then could you speak?”
“Uh… Lady Aris? We’re still your seniors…”
“Ahhnnn?”
“I’m sorry!”
After I glared at and shut down one of my seniors who put up his hand with something to say, I started looking around at everyone else.
“Honestly, seriously, normally I’d never say this sort of thing, but right now we can actually lose at the last minute? Although some people are going home next year, I have to stay here for another three years… you want me to do this f***ing night study for another three years? Isn’t this just humanely not right?”
As I grit my teeth and glared at everyone, one by one their gazes aligned to a single point.
Very well, just what did I expect. The situation we found ourselves in being what it was, if that human wasn’t around I might actually have missed him.
And as everyone’s eyes fell onto him, the person suspected of causing all this, the vice-president, Risen proudly puffed out his chest and said.
“That a.s.shole was p.i.s.sing us all off with his flirting so I simply made them break up?”
“What kind of r.e.t.a.r.ded…”
“Understandable.”
I tried to deny the cause of this nonsensical stupidity, but I heard a voice beside me actually accept that excuse.
“Siir?”
Siir whose character had been slowly changing lately, and in a very bad direction as well, was looking at me with a serious expression.
“Lady Aris, no, Aris.”
“Mm?”
Even when I’d kept telling her to speak casually with me as friends, she’d kept using polite language again and again, and yet here she was speaking casually to me.
“It couldn’t be helped. No, on the contrary, the people who got I the way of the Pres’s love affairs yesterday were brave enough that they could be called heroes.”
“Siir? Just what on earth are you saying?”
I had no clue just why interfering with the Pres’s love life was worth calling people a hero for, but Siir was serious.
“Think about it, Aris. Have you… ever had a boyfriend?”
“N, no, I haven’t?”
I hesitated slightly at the unexpected question.
There was no talk about an arranged marriage as of yet, and it wasn’t like there was a boy I liked, either.
“Indeed, not even Lady Aris, daughter of the Letia marquisate had a lover, and yet just Pres dares to…”
“Siir? I don’t think that’s a proper reason…”
Siir really was being ruined.
Lately I’d heard that the vice-pres Risen had been making contact with Siir, and something finally blew up.
Siir had always maintained a demure and elegant appearance as you’d expect of someone from a Count household, and yet her eyes were darkened as she emitted an incredible aura of rage.
“And yet he’s flirting so openly in public, and moreover turning traitor for Yugrasia’s enemies…”
“Siir, you’re weird right now. Really weird! You weren’t this type of character!”
“Characters and whatnot are irrelevant right now, Aris! As a solo, I… am burning with anger!”
“That’s it, that’s the att.i.tude! That sort of att.i.tude is perfect for my successor!”
Off to the side, I saw the vice-president nodding his head in satisfaction.
So it was that human who ruined Siir after all.
“Just what the h.e.l.l have you been bulls.h.i.tting to our Siir, you d.a.m.n vice-president?!”
And successor? That human’s successor?
It wouldn’t have been weird if Siir had cut ties with me after she followed me to Yugrasia to experience the silver devil.
And if she became that weird vice-president’s successor, then I would be facing the resentment of the Reia family for the rest of my days.
Anything but that!
“You’re popular, Siir! If you want you can take anyone you want as your lover!”
Siir is actually very popular.
As the eldest daughter of a high-ranking n.o.ble, unlike me, she was quiet and elegant, the perfect ideal of men!
“…Aris. Is that claim one confirmed by the boys?”
“N, no, but…”
The problem was that all these conclusions were things that I’d heard from other n.o.ble ladies in the same faction… None of us had much to do with male n.o.bles after all.
“Yes, that’s it Aris. We were simply comforting each other… Have any of us ever been confessed to since we enrolled into Yugrasia?”
“No, but…”
Despite starting academy life where it was countless confessions were said to be exchanged, neither of us had been confessed to.
“But wasn’t that because of the night study?”
Even if there was none of the love letters in s...o...b..xes or desks, or boys waiting for you after school that we’d only ever heard about from high society gatherings!
But we had the night study.
We trained and strategized purely for the sake of surviving against the silver devil, none of us even had the s.p.a.ce of mind to confess to anyone!
“But what about Pres? Even while Pres was doing the night study… he had a lover?”
“Th, that’s…”
But Siir’s counterattack shut my mouth up once again.
“Aris, don’t try to make excuses for him. Even in that chaos… Pres had a lover. No matter how much he couldn’t leave the academy, even if he couldn’t so much as get a glimpse of her face during the holidays. Pres still had a lover!”
“Kghhh…”
“How do you feel right now, Aris? Annoyed? Do you feel something burning raw from deep within? Yes, that is what you should be feeling. We did our best purely for the academy, yet in that time the man we called out student council president wasted time on a relationship, and moreover betrayed us at this crucial moment where our night study is on the line.”
“He did…”
I could slowly feel something burning deep within me.
“Now, think about it. Right now, Pres betrayed us under the excuse of his lover. He fooled you, Aris, he fooled us… he fooled the academy and he chose his lover.”
“Yes, Pres had fooled us all…”
I nodded to Siir’s words.
It was true. Whatever the cause, the fact that Pres had betrayed us hadn’t changed.
“Now, think about it, Aris. What is it that you have to do? Is it admonishing our allies that gave Pres an excuse to betray us, or execute the traitor that abandoned our trust, became the slave of a girl from a different academy and raised his blade against us?”
Well of course, it was.
“Execute the traitor!”
“Yes, yes, that’s it, Aris!”
Siir’s expression brightened as she embraced me, and whispered into my ear.
“The only person that can punish the Pres that betrayed us… the only one that can punish our student council president, the Elemental Army, is you, our swordsmaster, Aris.”
“Yes… Something only I can do…”
“We need to end the night study, right? We’ve got our second year, third year, fourth year ahead of us, right? You don’t want to keep doing the night study, do you?”
“No. I don’t want to get hit anymore. I don’t wanna fight the silver devil anymore…”
I hated it. I wanted to just quit this academy and transfer to a different school but Father wasn’t letting me.
That meant I would have to attend Yugrasia until I graduated… and I had to keep doing the night study the entire time?
“Yes, end it. With your own hands, Aris. The night study… and the life of the traitor.”
“Mm. I’ll end it. I will… the night study… and the Pres’s life!”
I realised afterwards that something had gone wrong, but that was only something that happened ‘afterwards.’
And much later on, when the imperial festival had ended, when I looked back at this particular scene through the recordings of the magic video tools…
To be precise, when I saw Siir, exchanging thumbs up with the vice-president Risen with an evil grin on her face, even while she was embracing me, I realised.
I… had been playing perfectly into Siir’s hands the entire time!