RATH 84

TL: Eevee

10. We came, we saw, we won (9)

#16 Their story: A certain student council president(2)’s story.

Yugrasia had gone insane.

“Die! Die, all of you!”

“Oi, you crazy little s.h.i.t! You have your allies here as well!”

“How is that my problem! All of you can go die! Getting knocked out by you lot is probably better for them than being done in by me either way!”

We were nowhere near an ocean, yet a giant tidal wave swept us all away, regardless of friend or foe.

“It’s a trap, idiots!”

When it seemed like they’d finally go down, they’d forcibly explode their remaining mana and take at least one other person with them.

“Die, die, die!”

“W, wait a second? We really are going to die?”

“Lady Aris? Lady Aris? Listen to people when they’re talking to you!”

Lady Aris swung her spear with emotionless eyes.

But a solid spear aura had formed on the tip of her spear.

If any of us were to get hit by that, we’re dead.

“Wh, what the heck is this… no… stop it! Nooo!”

“Heheheh, now. Despair, despair, and despair even more! Even though it’s nothing compared to what we have to suffer through!”

The Trickster even used mental attacks by pulling out all sorts of bizarre s.h.i.t and traumatising the female students.

“Just what the h.e.l.l do they all take the imperial festival for!”

No matter how important performance at the imperial festival was for the Four Great Academies, there were lines that you simply shouldn’t cross as a human.

And yet they were all crossing that line far too easily.

What was even scarier, though, was that they were actually staying within the rules of the imperial festival, albeit barely!

A judge had already come down to intervene several times, before eventually deciding that there had been no breaches of the rules.

We all felt that was so unfair that we combed through the rules of the imperial festival, but Yugrasia had never actually cheated.

Although each and every one of their cases were treading an extremely thin, borderline non-existent line!

“The next event is…”

Everyone looked away from me.

The first round of the next event had us up against Yugrasia from the very beginning.

Since none of them had any decent results against Yugrasia, no one wanted to go up against Yugrasia.

“Everyone has to go up against them in the team events tomorrow anyway.”

“I, I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“Yep, tomorrow.”

“So for today, let’s have someone else… ah! Let’s use the first years as a sacr…. I mean, the first years need experience, after all!”

“Yep! I’m a fourth year, so I’m gone next year! What about letting the first years get some experience since they have to partic.i.p.ate next year as well, pres?”

Was it because that there were very few first years on the student council.

These a.s.sholes without a conscience were wanting to sacrifice the first years.

“Will it be possible to win with the first years? The true beginning of our imperial festival isn’t too far off! If we get a lot of points on the final day, we could even win the whole thing!”

Bang!

I slammed my fist down onto the scoreboard in front of me, and everyone flinched at the sound.

Day 4 of the imperial festival. But the number of points we had didn’t change.

[Arucia: 0pt]

[Marcis: 7pt]

[Yugrasia: 34pt]

[Mercaria: 0pt]

“Do you lot still want to avoid fighting even with this ridiculous losing margin?”

At my words, everyone said at the same time.

“”””””””””””Yes.””””””””””””

“Yep, I get you.”

Even I partic.i.p.ated from Day 3.

And I lost to a nameless first year student.

“I don’t know whether they’ve all been doped up on something, their style of charging in without regard for their own safety is a problem, but their individual skills are just way better than us, President.”

“Yes, they’re all insane. Five G.o.d-cla.s.s summoners out of the first years alone? Does that even make any sense to you?

“G.o.d-cla.s.s summoners are hard to come by even in the imperial armies, but there are five of them among their first years!”

Starting with the G.o.ddess of war, Athena, the G.o.d of thunder, Thor.

The evil G.o.d Azi Dahaka, said to be able to use a thousand magics, the emissary of the G.o.ds, Hermes.

And even the G.o.d of fire Apollo!

What’s certain is that this amount of power can’t possibly be concentrated in just a single academy!

“They’ve gotten way too strong in a single year. Just what the heck happened?”

“Did the Yugrasia students really get that much stronger with the addition of just a single teacher, Professor Nicerwin?”

“No, their skills aside, isn’t it weird that their personalities all changed?”

“Yeah, Professor Nicerwin is someone even the elves, famous as they are for their n.o.ble-mindedness, took in. They’re learning from a person like him, there’s no way he could be the reason they all went insane.”

“True.”

Did that mean that Professor Nicerwin taught them the skills, and their personalities were raised by someone else?”

“Ah! Now that I think about it, I heard that they had some veteran army summoners go in to teach at Yugrasia.”

“That it! Then everything makes perfect sense!”

“As expected of the military, they can make people throw away their humanity for the sake of victory!”

One by one, the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.

Their skills were thanks to Professor Nicerwin’s knowledge of summoning, and their fighting strategies were taught by the veteran soldiers that even fought in the Great War.

If it were the imperial army’s soldiers, famous for being strong and merciless towards their enemies, the way they charged in as if their lives were on the line made sense.

“But, what’s this about a silver devil?”

“Did one of them make a contract with a devil or something? But that many people can’t all make a contract at once, can they?”

“Isn’t that the thing that the Yugrasia kids’re scared of?”

“Yeah, even against me they all stuck to me saying that death was better than the silver devil.”

“I heard even Lady Aris murmuring it, too.”

“Even Lady Aris? Even someone from the Ten Great Families is fearing it as well?”

It seemed that all the pieces were falling into place, bar that final piece.

We couldn’t understand just what the final keyword, the silver devil, was supposed to be.

“Fine, but still… we are Arucia! The first and foremost out of the Four Great Academies!”

“Although we’re in last place right now.”

“To be precise, 0 points. Tying with Mercaria, 7 points behind Marcis. And a whopping 34 points behind Yugrasia.”

“Wow, they’re almost five times ahead of 2nd place Marcis.”

“And even there it’s basically Young Lady Nermia basically winning everything by herself.”

As I looked at the other students lose motivation again, I sighed.

Unlike the beginning of the festival, everyone had no motivation at all.

But I am Arucia’s student council president.

It is my duty to lead the students to do our best in the imperial festival.

“Alright. I will take point in tomorrow’s matches! Is there anyone brave enough to face Yugrasia together with me?”

At my shout, the others students chose to reply with silence.

“No… one?”

Nod nod.

Everyone nodded their heads.

“Really?”

Nod nod.

Their expressions questioned why I was even asking.

“Oh, come on you guys!”

And in the end, in every match where Yugrasia was concerned, we chose the members by drawing straws.

#17 Their story: A certain villain’s story.

“d.a.m.n it…”

“I think the two of us are the only ones left.”

Even if it was the empire, there were still plenty of back alleyways where petty thieves did their work.

And in one of those alleyways, two men were breathing heavily as they talked, dressed in clothes that if a certain Yugrasia teacher saw them, would say “that’s definitely someone from an evil organization like Howling!”

“d.a.m.n it, it was a perfect plan…”

“To think the academy called Yugrasia would pull off something that insane…”

These two were members of the Anti-empire army, while not all that famous, still had a long and distinguished history behind them!

But right now, they were simply fugitives on the run from the imperial net.

Who knew the signal that would announce the beginning of our cause would be the signal that announced the empire of our existence…

“But thanks to that we got a useful piece of information.”

“What is it?”

“The Imperial Crown Prince is currently suffering from an unknown illness.”

“What?!”

At one man’s words, the other shouted loudly as if he had forgotten for a moment that he was a fugitive.

“My mistake. Is that true?”

“Yes, it is a highly credible rumour. Apparently when the Crown Prince found out about our existence, he jumped for joy saying that he would have more companions with him on the path to the underworld.”

“Is that so. It isn’t like that the Crown Prince of the empire could be killed off by someone, after all.”

“Yes.”

The men who knew nothing about the fact that the Crown Prince’s life was held at the whims of his older sister ingrained the fact that the Crown Prince was suffering from an unknown illness firmly into their heads.

“Then should we change our priority target from the Crown Prince, who’s going to die anyway, to the Ignel nel Karuan, Loser of the North?”

“It seems we will have to. But Ignel nel Karuan is currently away training his army in the north, so it seems that it will be hard for us to touch him right now.”

“Indeed. And since the one who wouldn’t give an inch to either of them, Atia nel Karuan, isn’t in the empire right now either…”

“It seems we will have to stick to our original target of a.s.sa.s.sinating the emperor.”

The two of them nodded, not realising that they were making a ma.s.sive misunderstanding.

“But to do that.”

“We need to escape the encirclement of the empire and contact headquarters.”

“We will split up here.”

“Yes, understood.”

The two people nodded and ran in opposite directions to each other.

“Kaaaagh!”

But one of them didn’t get very far before he was caught by his pursuers.

“D, d.a.m.n it. You imperial dog!”

“Dog? I’m not a dog?”

“You devils that would do anything and everything for your empire!”

“Empire…? I’m just earning my keep for tasty meals?”

The man thought this pet.i.te pursuer was not in their right mind.

But compared to how insane his opponent was, they were far too powerful.

“Anti-empire army, I am Marcis’s Haeel Reia. I’m going to have to borrow you, for my snacks this week.”

“Kgghh… do you think I’ll go down so easily, imperial dog!”

“I’m telling you… I’m not a dog.”

And thus, unbeknownst to anyone, a fight broke out in a back alleyway of the empire.

#18 Their story: A certain terminal patient’s story.

“You can lift your head.”

“No, elder sister. I always liked bowing my head down.”

Elder sister suddenly returned.

No, she’d given advance warning so it wasn’t really sudden, but my heart wasn’t ready for it!

“Can I take it to mean that you don’t want to look into my face?”

“No, elder sister. How would I dare to not face my heavenly elder sister’s countenance?”

“Then raise your head.”

I’m scared. In all honesty I am in no situation to look elder sister face to face directly.

“Yes!”

But it’s elder sister’s orders.

If I don’t obey, I die.

But I think I’m going to die even if I do.

I really do have no hope left.

“So, my brilliant little brother. Have you found Ast?”

What I saw when I lifted my head was elder sister smiling brightly, and Sir Reia turning her face slightly sideways as if she couldn’t bear to watch any more.

Ah, as I thought, I’m going to die.

“I… have not managed to find him yet.”

“Really?”

‘Then die.’

It felt like I could hear elder sister’s next words echo in my head.

“I found him.”

“Ye, yes?!”

Those words made me doubt my ears for a second.

“You found him?”

“Yes.”

Elder sister’s expression was that of someone who was very happy, and also very angry at the same time.

“And he was in a place where I’d never expected to find him, either.”

“Wh, where is it?”

Right now I had ample cause to mobilise all the soldiers under my command.

Right now, elder sister was like a dragon whose reverse scale had been touched.

If there was a way to get that dragon to slumber peacefully once again, I have to do everything I can to achieve it.

If I don’t, I worked so hard to become Crown Prince, but I’m going to die.

“There.”

“West?”

In the direction where elder sister’s finger was pointing towards, I thought of the cities within the empire and the nations beyond the empire’s borders.

“Nope, a bit closer.”

“Is he inside the empire?”

“Mm, but even closer than that.”

“Wh, where is he?”

Despite having an extremely bad premonition of what was about to happen, I asked anyway, and the answer I got back was outrageous.

“Yugrasia.”

“What the h.e.l.l?”

I heard many things about the man named Ast, and met him in person a few times as well, and he was a crazy motherf.u.c.ker more of a lunatic than rumours could ever hope to describe.

Not anyone else, but my elder sister of all people was chasing after him, and he chose to hide away in one of the Four Great Academies, right in the shadow of the imperial palace!

And he still hadn’t gotten caught, either!

“He was playing teacher. Under the name Nicerwin Ain.”

“Nicerwin Ain, is that man Ast!”

I can’t not be horrified at this.

Nicerwin Ain is a giant in the field of summoning, famous throughout the empire.

Even I’d heard the news that that person had gone into Yugrasia!

“That kind of person came to Yugrasia, and yet you didn’t bother to check?”

“I, I was kind of busy…”

More accurately, I was running circles everywhere looking for traces of Ast, the man himself, so all I did was send a messenger with a letter of thanks.

“As I thought, I can no longer trust my little brother.”

“Hiiik!”

Am I really going to die here?

Since I missed him right under my nose I’m really going to die?

For a moment all sorts of thoughts rushed through my head.

My father His Imperial Majesty was said to have become the emperor eating and drinking and making merry, I have no idea why my life must be at risk even despite becoming Crown Prince.

And so, as I was contemplating over my final regrets.

“So, I will deal with this myself.”

“Sister, are you going to spare me?”

“Who knows?”

At her expression that seemed to be genuinely deliberating, in the end I begged and pleaded and eventually convinced her to spare me on the grounds of my role in preventing Ast from noticing something amiss happening.

Hooray! I’m saved… I’m saved!