RATH 60

TL: Eevee

7. Is your backside safe? (12)

#14 Their story: Karen rel Regrena’s story.

“I’m gonna kill him, I’m gonna kill him. This time I’m definitely gonna kill him.”

There were things you should do as a person, and things you shouldn’t.

And Risen always, kept on doing the things you shouldn’t.

Despite this, as an old friend of his I always left it at the line of leaving him alive.

But this time, even if he overstepped the line, he took it much too far.

Escape? Escape alone? And moreover, he’d been eating the food supplies alone to bolster his own strength?

When Professor Nicerwin came and told us of Risen’s escape stories, for a moment, no one could say anything.

Because none of us had even thought of the possibility that our camaraderie was so shallow to betray each other like that.

And that trust was shattered.

Even if this year’s academy had turned into a place where no one could trust anyone, where yesterday’s ally could be today’s enemy, and yesterday’s enemy could be today’s ally.

To think he’d betray us even in this situation.

Because of that, our total food supplies decreased by one.

Even if that difference was irrelevant due to the disappearance of one who always ate a lunchbox by himself unbeknown to the rest of us.

Even so, that doesn’t erase this feeling of betrayal.

After everyone finished their breakfast of anger, we all hardened our resolves.

There was no way someone with the ‘right’ to come to school would wag school to end up here again.

And so of course he would take cla.s.ses, and of course there would be a war to go homel.

That was our opportunity.

We were feeling slightly apologetic to the other students, because no one would deny that Risen was a highly important piece in our strategies.

But, to quell our anger, it demanded Risen’s blood.

“It’s time!”

“Eighth floor, everyone to the eighth floor now!”

“Faster than Risen! If anyone finds him then hold tight onto him, don’t anyone dare let him get away!”

“Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. ”

Everyone was energetic.

Risen would know fully well of our state right now so he’d most certainly run for his life.

No, he might instead use some cheap trick to dig another trap for us.

But contrary to my expectations, Risen was sitting at his seat in the cla.s.sroom, in a perfectly normal way.

“Huh, vice-pres?”

Just who the h.e.l.l was that boy waving his hand cheerfully at me from his seat?

Did he forget that he betrayed us yesterday?

Or was our shock so big that we didn’t realise how many months had pa.s.sed by?

Right? That had to be it, right? Otherwise him approaching with a smile as if nothing was wrong would be weird, right?

“Mm, Risen.”

“Iyahh, thank goodness the first person I met was vice-pres.”

As he came to me with an actually glad expression I didn’t even think of bringing out my summon.

Because I was too shocked? Or lost for words?

No.

My summon is a drake, said to be a descendant of dragons.

If he smashed Risen with his forelegs, Risen will die.

Of course Risen dying isn’t what I’m worried about.

Risen’s going to die anyway.

But, killing him in one hit is much too peaceful, no?

And besides, rather than my drake, I want to kill him with my own two hands.

But since I should at least hear out his last words, I will talk with him.

As he came up to right in front of me he smiled and said.

“Sniff sniff. Yep, you smell like I thought.”

The words that would hasten his death.

“Mm. yep, now then. Die.”

Flashing a smile of my own that wouldn’t lose to Risen’s, I raised a hand.

I never formally learned how to fight barehanded, but at this moment, I could throw a stronger punch than anyone.

Like I sent my mana to my summon, I imbued magic power into my fists.

Although concentrating mana into a single part of my body was quite hard, perhaps due to be powerful desire to beat the c.r.a.p out of Risen, just as my two fists began to blaze with the blue light of mana.

“And so, tada?”

“And so what, exactly?”

He took something out of his dimensional pouch.

And that something was unfamiliar, yet at the same time very familiar to me.

Well of course.

It was something I used to see every day, but hadn’t seen since I lost the ‘right to go to school.’

It was my uniform.

“Why do you have that?”

“Because, I got it from your room!”

Now just what manner of bulls.h.i.t does this little s.h.i.t keep barking at me?

Considering how he’d been acting like a dog on a daily basis, had he finally learned to bark like a dog with human speech?

“I’m pretty sure the dormitories, especially the girls’ dormitories should be under heavy security?”

“When I opened my eyes after I cracked it it was the academy after all? It was actually pretty easy when I tried.”

At Risen’s gestures the skirt on my uniform began to make flapping noises.

Alright then. As I thought, this little s.h.i.t must die. This is unrecyclable trash that shouldn’t exist in society.

“Die.”

“W, wait a second!”

With a ‘shwik!’ noise the silver devil would bring up much too often, my fists cleaved through the air after Risen but he dodged easily.

“Very good, very good. There’s no way you would get hit that easily. This’ll be fun?”

“Hang on, vice-pres wasn’t that type of character? I understand you were hot-tempered, but making that evil smile was my character trait?”

“The student council already erased all records of your existence. Your character, I’ll make good use of it.”

Although it was a bit uncomfortable in pyjamas, but I warmed up my body with light steps of footwork.

Although I didn’t learn unarmed combat, I did learn self-defence fencing at home.

Let’s use the footwork I learned then together with this.

“Wait, can you still say that after seeing this?”

Tok. Tok. As he saw me start lightly jumping on the spot, he hurriedly took something else out of his pouch.

Two small pieces of cloth.

Coloured black, and again very familiar items.

“Now, take a… kuuhk?”

“Alright, today we settle this.”

I smashed my fist into the solar plexus of the a.s.shole who casually took out my underwear.

“Tch.”

Because he very quickly backstepped, the attack didn’t connect properly.

At the light impact I revved up with the intention to kill him for sure this time, and just then.

“You really stink, you know? Be honest. How long have you worn that uniform? It’s been a week since we’d all been trapped in there, are you even changing your underwear?”

“Yeah, and so what.”

I smell? I know that.

Even if there are showers at the academy I don’t have a change of clothes.

Even if I want to wash them I only have the one set of clothes so I can’t even wash them.

Although put in a complaint to Professor Nicerwin, all we got was the inhuman answer to escape faster, and so due to all the subsequent fights in our attempts to escape our pyjamas were in tatters.

“Hang on a sec, I don’t think you get it, but I’m telling you that your uniform and underwear is in here?”

“What’s that… eh?”

Just as I was about to ask what that had to do with me, my rage against Risen evaporated and reason replaced it.

Inside there was a fresh pair of underwear to change into.

And as a bonus there was also a fresh uniform to change into.

I can get rid of these filthy pyjamas, and wear a clean set of underwear and uniform.

As my blank stare turned to the clothes in Risen’s hands, he made a relieved face.

“Now, now, think about it? The pleasure of washing with warm water and having a clean set of clothes to change into afterwards. If you put your fist down, you can say bye bye to your dusty and sweaty pyjamas.”

The moment my attack stopped, the devil’s whispers came instead.

My body was telling me to hurry up and kill that little s.h.i.t, but my head was already imagining something different.

The pleasure of taking off these pyjamas, taking a hot shower, and changing into that clean uniform.

“Y, you think I’d fall for th…”

But my anger was still stronger, and just when I was about to…

“Tahdah! Take a look at this!”

Refuse…

“It’s your favourite, best in the empire, no best in the continent, the 100-a-day limited strawberry cake from your favourite cake store!”

The other thing he took out from his pouch.

The 100-a-day limited cake.

Talking about its rarity would make one’s mouth hurt, and n.o.ble, grand merchant or whatever your status was, the only way you could get it was purely by first come first served, it’s a mirage of a cake you could never get otherwise no matter how much extra you paid.

That cake was an such an incredible item that when it was being sold, there were even reports of thieves attacking people specifically to steal those cakes.

Because of that, there were even rumours that the imperial court attempted to stop the sale of the cake because of the adverse effect it was having on public order, but it was overturned due to sheer number of people opposing the proposal.

The cake of mirages that I had only ever managed to eat three times was right here…

“Th, that’s a lie, isn’t it? There’s no way you could ever have managed to get your hands on one of those!”

Thinking logically, the kid who’d half-a.s.s most aspects of life aside from the times where’d do something pointless would never have something like that in his hands.

Risen, the one who’d prefer to eat at a nearby stall with no lines rather than a tasty restaurant, would never buy something that you’d ordinarily have to wait at least four hours for just the chance to get one, wouldn’t he?

“Really? Do you really think that, vice-pres? Don’t you see this seal on the packaging?”

“Kuukh… there’s, there’s no way.”

But the seal that shined into my eyes even from far away was indeed, that legendary seal inscribed only on the packaging of the cake that I dreamed of daily, yet could only have on my birthday, and only very rarely at that.

“Now, vice-pres should know more than anyone else that this is the real deal. Think about it. You can wash off in hot water, change into a clean uniform, and then eat the best cake afterwards.”

“Ahhh…”

Is the devil’s disciple also a devil.

Right now, Risen was pouring out the sweet honeyed words that not even Professor Nicerwin could beat.

“And what if in addition to the cake… this was added on top?”

“Ahhhh!”

And what he skilfully pulled out from his pouch was a packet of tea leaves from the greatest tea company in the empire, one where in our family, we would only serve to very esteemed guests.

“Now if you put that cake together with this tea…”

I can’t win.

As a woman, no, anyone who liked desserts, this was the devil’s combination that no one could defeat.

As my anger cooled and the seed that the devil’s whispers planted in its place spread quickly, dying my entire heart in its colours.

“I want to give this to someone, you see, but her fists are just too scary.”

“M, hmm?”

And as if to worm its way through the gap in my heart, Risen’s grumbling voice accompanied his hand which enveloped my own, that had unconsciously risen up.

“Ri, Risen? You know…”

“Really, I honestly had all of you in mind when I ran away with my life on the line. To fetch clothes for all of you, food to feed you with, I didn’t even sleep at the crack of dawn, encountered the silver devil and ran away risking my life, I don’t think you guys understand me.”

What he said as he cut me off could be heard as nothing but lies no matter who was listening.

I wanted to yell at him to cut the bulls.h.i.t, but my mouth was saying something else entirely.

“Re, really?”

Why was I doing this?

Why was my heart that had been consumed by bloodl.u.s.t only seconds ago, now filled with a different type of greed?

“Mm, even now I want to hand these over to vice-pres.”

I wanted to yell at him to hand over the goods right this instant, but my mouth refused to move.

“Vice-pres is on my side, right?”

“M, mm. y, yes. We’re both vice-presidents, aren’t we?”

In his gently wiggling hands, I also saw the cake wiggling from side to side in time with his movements.

“Yes, I was believing in vice-pres, and vice-pres was also believing in me too? I’m so happy.”

“Yeah, who else would believe in you if not me?”

Although the majority of the time I believe in him with very bad implications, there was no reason for me to say that now, was there?

“Really, there’s no one else for me but the vice-pres, right?”

It’s getting closer. My clothes and cake are getting closer.

One step, and another.

And just as Risen came close enough that I could touch them if I reached my hand out, he stopped as if realising something and said wide-eyed,

“Ah, that’s right!”

“What!”

An irritated noise instinctively burst out from my mouth.

“Ah, are you angry, right now? Scary.”

I wanted to kill Risen who was acting scared and taking a step back so badly right now, but it couldn’t be helped.

“There’s, there’s no reason for me to be mad at you, right? I’ve just been locked up for way too long in the academy.”

I pushed down on my anger, and said to Risen with a smile.

“Risen? Why are you so far away between us?”

“Mm? Because Karen’s too scary.”

With an expression that did not look at all scared, using my name that he almost never normally used, I faced him while forcing down my anger.

“No, I’m not scary.”

“You’re not going to hit me?”

“Of course.”

“You’re not going to say that you’re not going to hit me but kill me instead or something like that, right?”

“Nah, there’s no way I’d do something like that to my beloved Risen, right?”

“Really?”

With a satisfied smile Risen came and handed over the goods in his hands.

“Ah, and I also brought over some of the toiletries and towels that you had in your room. Ah, and these looked like makeup, so I brought a few of them as well. They are makeup, right?”

“Sob… you’re right…”

The familiar yet unnoticed, but the items I had missed the most when I had to live without them appeared one after another in front of my eyes.

“Sob… I love you, Risen.”

The anger that had piled and piled within me melted down in an instant.

And so despite myself, I pulled Risen into an embrace and said so…

Clack.

“Uh… um… sorry for interfering.”

At that moment the cla.s.sroom door opened and another member of the student council saw the two of us, said that and quickly closed the door again.

Interfering? With what?

And as if to answer my question, the voice of the person who just shut the door echoed throughout the corridor.

“Vice-president Karen just confessed to vice-president Riseeeeeennn!”

…Eh?