RATH 96

TL: Eevee

11. Not a myth, but a legend (9)

#9 Their story: Ria el Nermia’s story.

A giant scythe parried away the sword of fire.

I destroyed the elementals’ attacks that came at me from five different direction with my own magic, and threw out two more attacks in retaliation, but they were torn apart by a summoned beast in the shape of a giant dog.

“How troublesome.”

“That’s what we want to say?”

As I scowled and grumbled, the enemy also scowled and grumbled in a similar way. We’d been exchanging attacks for over 10 minutes but neither of us could inflict a critical wound on the other.

If a chance had presented itself, both of us would have taken the risk and gone on the offensive, but as both of us knew the extent of the other’s skills, we couldn’t move rashly.

“Do you know what my presence here entails?”

“Well, Arucia and Marcis made an alliance. We’d all predicted something like that would happen before the imperial festival even started, so we don’t really care?”

The Trickster shrugged as if it wasn’t anything much.

Not only the Trickster, but when I looked at the other Yugrasia students in black robes, it felt like that all of them had a.s.sumed that Arucia and Marcis would create an alliance.

“In that case, you should know that our students have gone over to fight against your swordsmaster?”

It was a taunt to bait them into attacking, but it was also the truth.

Starting with No.1000, the other Marcis students that came with me had left to support the Yugrasia student council president.

Even if Aris was a swordsmaster, even she would crumble under the a.s.sault of a Spirit King, magical support as well as Arucia’s swordsmen.

“Ha, there’s no way we’d send our strongest card all alone, now would we? Everyone else except the people here are probably dealing with the hindrances?”

But the Trickster replied with a carefree expression as if he’d predicted that as well, and as I looked at his face I bit my lip hard enough for it to creak.

“d.a.m.n it, so is that how it is?”

“Heheheh, as I thought, you’re the same as one of us, no? Don’t put on airs or use polite language like a n.o.ble, and come at us properly.”

As I saw the Trickster snicker at me, I inwardly a.s.sured myself of my victory.

‘No matter what kind of weird concept of a character he’s playing… No.1000 said she’d come here to earn her feed!’

There would not be that many people from Yugrasia sent to help Aris.

In that case, I didn’t think that they would be able to beat No.1000.

Because as long as her meals were on the line, No.1000 was one of the strongest people I knew!

Even if her opponent was a swordsmaster, she wouldn’t be able to deal with No.1000 that easily!

“Alright then… I suppose I should get serious now?”

But if I revealed that to them, they could pull away people here and send them to support Aris, so I tried not to let it show.

It was then.

Shudder.

“What the…?”

I felt something dark pa.s.s through my body.

The moment that something went past, I felt a sense of irritation boil up from the recesses of my mind.

‘A mental attack?’

I instantly used the magic circulation method I learned back in Howling to check the flow of my mana.

Something similar to mana, yet far more primeval was stuck to my body.

‘What’s this?’

I tried to dislodge it with my magic, but it wouldn’t fall off.

“An opening!”

And taking the opportunity of my disturbed magic, the Trickster began to attack.

“Surtr!”

Evasion was impossible. If I chose to defend, then it would make it extremely difficult to dislodge this black thing, so my choice was to use my always-trustable and discardable, the greatest shield, Surtr!

“Come at me, children!”

Swinging around his giant fire whip, Surtr forced the Trickster back.

“You know where you stand! I am… Gaah?!”

“It’s big so it’s nice and easy to hit.”

“I saw this summon in a video before, it looks pretty awesome. It looked tanky enough that it could last a couple of hits from the silver devil?”

“Kegh!”

“Even if it could, it’d only last a couple of hits. Where the heck could you use something like that?”

“Cough…”

“It’s big, isn’t it? The devil might say it feels good to hit and hit it a bit more slowly. Then it can help buy a tiny bit more time for us to run.”

“Th, these brats gukh…”

“That sounds like a plan.”

And as I predicted, Surtr went forward confidently and got the stuffing beaten out of him, while I managed to successfully pull off the dark things that had adhered to my body.

-Owner, weren’t you going to help?!

-There was something wrong with my body, so I brought you out to use as a shield?

-Gaagh! Then should you not have told me in advance!

-Sorry, sorry~

-Is what you always say but owner you never show me any sign of sincerity whatsoever!

As I ignored Surtr’s grumblings as I always did, I stared down my enemies.

‘Why are they perfectly fine?’

That dark something that had stuck to my body had all adhered to them as well.

But, they didn’t look any different than they had before.

“So it was controllable to not affect allieaaagh?!”

Snick.

While I was focusing directly in front of me, a freezing chill ran down my spine, causing me to instinctively throw my body to the ground and dodge something.

As if to say my choice wasn’t wrong, I saw my brown hair fall to the ground as I felt a cold sweat run down my back.

“Why… did you do that?”

While thinking that if I hadn’t dodged, it would have been my head rolling on the ground instead of just my hair, I turned back to the person who had just sliced off a part of my body.

“That’s…”

And, said person looked at me with dead eyes and said.

“Because you stole my food with No.1?”

“You tried to kill me for something that was how long agooooo!”

I screeched as I dodged her follow up attacks.

Since we were both taught by the same master, no, instructor, we both knew perfectly well.

Whether you were the one talking or your opponent was the one talking, never stop attacking!

“Wait a second, you’re strong, aren’t you? You said Haeel Reia is weak!”

“Mirua is strong.”

“Why the heck are you throwing away the character you were trying to keep until now just to knife me?!”

This was no joke. The sword ki that she was nonchalantly throwing around felt scarier than Aris’s sword aura.

“No.17… stole… my food…”

“And like I’m saying, why the heck are you pulling up something from that long ago! And it was just one time!”

“It was an important one time for me… sniffle.”

“If you’re going to make sniveling noises with your mouth then at least pretend to cry!”

As I continued to dodge the sword ki, I turned my attention to where the Yugrasia students were for a split second.

“As I thought, not there?”

“Where are you looking.”

“Uuugh?!”

As I saw my brown hair being flung around again, I gnashed down on my lower lip as I glared forward.

“Alright, since it seems like everything’s gone to h.e.l.l in a handbasket… let’s do this.”

The fact that the Yugrasia students, including the Trickster had disappeared meant that they might as well all have gone off to attack their president.

It was simply not possible for me to catch up to the Trickster in a contest of speed. Moveover, considering the state of No.1000, I found it unlikely that she’d let me go anytime soon.

“We’ve never actually fought properly against each other, without No.1 getting in our way, have we?”

“Nn.”

As I saw No.1000 nod, clutching her sword, I swallowed dryly.

The reason that No.1000 was like that, was most likely due to that black something that was sticking to her body.

If I just got rid of that, No.1000 would come back to normal.

Plus, as she was wielding a single longsword instead of her usual two short swords, her stance was slightly awkward.

If it was now, then it was a fight worth taking!

Clang!

“And of course it wouldn’t be easy, would it?”

No.1000 snapped her sword in half, and clutched the broken blade in her free left hand.

Perhaps due to the glove covering her left hand, it didn’t spill a single drop of blood.

“Then… here I go?”

“You’re already come!”

As No.1000 drove into my blind spot, I defended against her attack and soundlessly screamed.

‘Why the h.e.l.l is nothing going the way I expected this imperial festival!’

And so started my fight with No.1000, who I’d thought would be my most trustworthy ally.

#10 Their story: A certain student council president’s story.

I felt something spread through the s.p.a.ce around me.

But no matter how much I prepared to defend, I didn’t feel the signs of anything happening.

“Just what on earth did you make a contract with?”

I gulped as I faced off against Reedan, who normally had extremely little presence.

Perhaps it was because he’d contracted a darkness elemental, but the boy who’d always liked being alone in dark places was suddenly emitting a fearsome presence.

The aura he was giving off was dark enough that he fit perfectly with the nickname Risen jokingly gave him, ‘the darkness of the student council,’ no, it wouldn’t be surprising at this stage if it went even further beyond and got a new nickname called ‘the underbelly of the empire.’

-The one in front of you has contracted a Spirit King. And a Spirit King of emotion, at that!

-What kind of spirit is that?

A Spirit King of emotion, this was the first time I’d ever heard that they existed.

A spirit that not even Professor Nicerwin had told me anything about?

-There are spirits in the world that live within emotions. As they appear wherever emotions of people are, even if they are the literal embodiment of emotion, they are few in number. And even high-ranking emotion spirits have an extremely low sense of self, similar to that of most lowest-ranking spirits…

-Are Spirit Kings different?

-Indeed. Because they’re called kings, of course they’re different. They can surpa.s.s normal standards, and manipulate emotion itself.

-Manipulate emotion… could it be!

-Yes, that ‘could’ is the reality. They can use the mental attacks that you all are aware of, albeit with limits. However, within those limits, they can use those mental attacks as much as they want.

“Stop it, Reedan!”

“Stop what. I’m simply doing my best to help Yugrasia win, you traitor.”

All I got from trying to stop him were frigid dismissals.

But since he was right, I had nothing to say back.

“Senior… just what did you do?”

“It’s simple, Lady Aris. I simply used my newly contracted Spirit King of Wrath… and spread wrath out into the surroundings.”

“Spread wrath out?”

“Well, it’s simple. Just as I am morbidly p.i.s.sed off, I am making everyone else in this area as enraged as I am. Waging mutiny against a senior that tormented them, backstabbing people they normally thought poorly of…”

“That’s such an evil!”

“Hm? Have you forgotten what we learned at the academy?”

“That’s…”

I found myself at a loss for words again.

The truth of war we learned at the academy. Actions that are evil to your enemies are heroic to your allies.

“When at a numerical disadvantage, there is no better strategy than causing internal strife between your enemies. I have the ability to cause that at will, and I used it. What is the problem?”

“That’s…”

“Shut up, traitor. Traitors have no right to speak.”

He made me talk, and he told me to shut up immediately afterwards.

This was too drastic of a sudden personality change.

Just what on earth had turned that quiet Reedan into this?

I just couldn’t understand.

“But, spreading wrath into the surroundings. If you do that, Risen won’t be unaffected, either?”

“Hooh, so you know Risen is coming?”

“There’s no way he wouldn’t be here for something as insane as this.”

If there was one thing that hadn’t changed before or after the appearance of Professor Nicerwin, it would be the existence named Risen.

As the center of all things insane within Yugrasia, and upgraded even more with the arrival of Professor Nicerwin, knowing Risen, he would have run right here to kill me.

No, considering the state of Lady Aris as she charged in to kill me, it was almost certain that Risen had a hand in it.

“Indeed, he was the one that led us here. But traitor. You know one, but not the other.”

“What?”

As Reedan said with an evil expression, all of a sudden it felt like he was going to say something incredibly horrifying.

“What I’m scattering is rage. And… what is the target of that boy’s rage?”

“You mean… me?”

As he looked at my rigid face, Reedan smirked diabolically as if he was the demon king himself.

“Correct.”

“Die, Nerkiaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

And at the same time, from far away came Risen’s bloodthirsty scream.

Ssssheeew!

Together with the G.o.d-killing spear!