Chapter 42

Mightiest Melee Magician

Chapter 42

Irene Prius had dissolved the standoff between me and Doom Prime.

“……”

Seemingly not wanting to do anything more, Doom quietly left the scene.

I gestured towards Doom as he walked away and asked Irene,

“Was he always someone who acted however he wanted?”

“No. Usually, it’s hard to even hear him talk. Of course, there are some exceptions.”

“Exceptions?”

“He becomes sensitive if it’s in regard to Sir Teron. He wants to be the one most recognized by Teron, more so than anyone else.”

“……”

So that was why.

Teron’s recognition.

Attention that only he himself should receive.

And jealousy that stemmed from that insecurity. That someone else might steal this attention.

However,

“I still can’t understand it. Isn’t he getting enough attention? I heard that Doom Prime is ranked 1st among the next generation magicians.”

“Who knows? I don’t know what he’s thinking either, but one thing for certain is that the things you did today were quite unprecedented.”

“Me?”

“I heard you had a private interview with Sir Teron?”

“We weren’t alone. The director of my school was there too.”

“Even that level of private conversation is what I mean by unprecedented. Even we have a hard time meeting him in a public setting.”

The ‘we’ she meant here was about the 11 Children that were chosen by Teron.

Hearing her talk, there were ‘public’ conversations where all 11 met up with Teron at once.

But there weren’t any cases where he would have a private meal individually.

After hearing this, I started to understand why Doom was so sensitive about this matter.

“So he thinks I’m getting special attention from the Fire King.”

“Probably.”

“……”

So it was like that.

As I nodded after starting to understand it, Irene gave me a warning.

“He’s strong. He won’t ever give mercy to his opponents. He might be plotting against you, using today as an excuse.”

However, I just shrugged my shoulders as if it was no big deal.

“Won’t I have to verse him at some point anyways? It doesn’t really bother me.”

“……Can I ask you one thing?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Just then, when you two were alone. Were you really thinking of fighting?”

Was I really thinking of fighting him?

I snickered.

“There’s no way. I don’t want to get disqualified. Doom probably also didn’t want to fight. He only wanted to scare me.”

“How was it?”

“Eh? How was what?”

“When you were in a standoff against Doom Prime, how did you feel? Were you scared?”

“……”

She was asking about my emotional state after nearly fighting against the genius of the next generation.

I looked back to just before, when it was just me and Doom in that standoff.

The magic sword had fumed out stale mana in an instant and saturated the surrounding air.

It was a dangerous situation where, if he wanted to, the magic sword could be aimed at my vitals before I could even blink.

Yeah.

“If I’m being honest, he was like a wall. A thick and dense wall that wouldn’t be pierced by any ordinary attack.”

He was strong.

However,

“Even then, I was never thinking that I would lose. No matter how thick the wall is, it’ll break if I hit it 10 times or so. I’m stronger than I look.”

“……Pft.”

As I joked about it, Irene smiled, looking done.

Then, she asked,

“You… What’s your real identity?”

“What do you mean?”

“A magic I had never seen before and even a private talk with the Fire King. Now you’re even hailed as a winning candidate, but you don’t look phased by it. I guessed from the first time we met that you weren’t an ordinary person but the more I look……”

“The more you look…?”

Irene’s words trailed off a bit as she thought of what she should say next, but after a bit, she spoke with a smile.

“…you’re a suspicious person.”

Eh? What’s that supposed to mean.

Saying I’m a suspicious person…

Well, sure.

I couldn’t really deny it either.

If you asked anyone to pick the most ‘suspicious person’ in this whole festival, I would be picked without contest.

I jokingly asked Irene,

“Anyways, Irene. You seem to be quite interested in this ‘suspicious person’.”

“It seems you’re so suspicious, I can’t help but look at you. Do you know how much attention you’re attracting from everyone?”

“Of course. That’s all intentional.”

“Ah, so you’re someone who likes attention to begin with. Well…”

Of course, Irene responded in kind with another joke.

“Pft! Do I really look like that?”

“Em…… What do you think?”

We both burst out laughing.

* * *

It had already been four days since the start of the Grand Festival.

During that period, there were two ‘group competitions’ without the representatives.

“Ah, we lost. We really lost……”

“Hey, it’s fine! We all tried our best, didn’t we?”

We won one event and lost the other.

With this, the miraculous win streak of the ‘Acadummies’ had ended.

Our rank was tied for 4th place.

Even though we were unfortunately pushed from the race for 1st,

“That’s right. It’s already a miracle that we were able to maintain our rank like this.”

Just like they said.

The performance we showed really was a miracle.

Yeah.

If it was this much, we properly showed last place’s fierce uproar.

I lightly patted Jason on his shoulder as he was sitting there discouraged.

“It’s fine. You did great.”

“Y-yeah. Sorry… Even though you gave us those perfect strategies…”

“Nah, don’t worry. We just need to do better in the future.”

We held our position for the group competitions.

“How about you?”

“Me? I’m winning.”

“Of course! You need to keep winning, Ruin!”

And I would secure the individual competitions.

The initial scuffles slowly faded out from the Grand Festival and the ranks started to take shape.

Currently, I was tied for 1st place in the individual competitions.

There were 5 other students with the same score as me.

All prominent winning candidates.

The encouraging thing was that, apart from me, they were all part of the ‘11 Children’.

Anyhow, seeing that, unless a major event occurred, your scores from the initial events carried till the end…

The next game was especially important.

“I can’t just win normally……

The individual competition event that was on tomorrow.

‘Battle Survival.’

A lawless battle royale between the 32 school representatives that happened on top of the man-made island.

There was another reason you had to have a good performance for the event.

The scores weren’t just divided between the winners and losers.

It was distributed based on how long you survived.

1st place was 32 points.

Last place was 1 point.

Meaning,

“……I need to survive till the end.”

* * *

* * *

After this event, there would be a definite change in the rankings.

The tie for 1st would disappear and everyone’s rank would become obvious.

As the event to distinguish everyone’s ranks, you needed to be in the last few to survive to have a chance at winning the festival.

Then, Hankus spoke up.

“Ruin. I definitely trust that you will do well tomorrow… but shouldn’t you at least prepare like the other guys?”

“Prepare?”

“I know you know, but the other representatives are forming alliances right now.”

“……Ah.”

Naturally, I knew about it.

Since the event was a survival game between 32 people in one place, it was a standard ‘free-for-all’.

However, the real charm of this event was that it was actually a ‘group competition’ in the guise of a free-for-all.

The 32 students would congregate in groups with the common goal of ‘survival’ and survive together.

Distinguishing if someone’s an ally or an enemy and forming powerful groups was recognized as a valid tactic.

As they formed groups, their chance of survival shot up.

“Ruin, all those guys are going to be moving as a group. It’ll be impossible to face them alone.”

“I know.”

I was one of the exceptions.

“Are you even thinking of making a group?”

“I am thinking about it.”

Naturally, it wasn’t as if I’d never thought about it either.

The first person I thought of was Irene.

We’d gotten pretty close in the last few days, and since she was a strong contender for 1st place, she would be of great help in boosting our battle strength.

However, I hadn’t asked her yet.

‘Other than her……’

There wasn’t anyone that especially came to mind.

The reason was simple.

You couldn’t trust anyone.

Even if you said you would all survive together till the end, when the time came, everyone was still an opponent you must fight.

There was always a chance that you could get backstabbed.

Rather than moving with untrustworthy people, it could be better to be alone.

“How about that guy from Collum? They look at us pretty favourably after that ‘Arrow Ball’ game…”

It was then,

“Ruin!”

“……”

The door to the inn slammed open and a lad with a huge frame stomped in.

He was someone I knew pretty well.

“Seta?”

Seta Malkiri.

The representative of Oyota smiled after having found me.

Then,

“Ruin, let’s team up tomorrow.”

“……”

Suggested to form a ‘team’ with me.

Oh ho…

Right.

This guy was here.

* * *

My relationship with Seta Malkiri was initially pretty bad.

But that bad relationship had since become a friendship.

After going through this irregular path with someone, you could understand them far deeper than normal.

This guy, from what I could tell…

“Ruin, you can’t betray me until the end.”

“You should check yourself first.”

“Hehe. Don’t worry about that. Betrayal isn’t even in my dictionary. We will survive till the end. And when it’s just us two left? Then we’ll have our rematch.”

He wasn’t the type to say one thing and do another.

His emotions were complete and honest.

That was why, even though we were initially enemies, we could rapidly form our friendship.

Compared to those guys who kept their intentions hidden, he was a very trustworthy team member.

“But Ruin, from what I heard, there are some groups with 10 people in it. Are we ok with just the two of us?”

“No. We’re lacking.”

“Then, do you have someone in mind?”

“Yeah.”

However, we were lacking.

The students from the middle ranks formed a huge group with more than 10 people.

Even if they were individually weak, they were all still people who represented their school.

If 10 of them were to come together, even Doom Prime, who was known as the strongest, wouldn’t be able to do anything.

That was why we needed more capable allies.

“Who is it?”

“Follow me for now.”

I opened the door to the inn and stopped outside the building right next to ours.

This was the lodging for “Seiki Women’s Residential College”.

Looking at this, Seta’s eyes went wide.

“You… No way… Are you going to recruit Irene Prius?”

“Yeah.”

Right.

I had come to find Irene.

Seta asked again, still surprised,

“Irene Prius! Isn’t she a super-strong winning candidate? You… Do you guys know each other?”

“Well, kinda.”

“H-how? Are you close? That’s insane! Are you saying I’ll be in a team with Irene Prius?”

“Calm down. I haven’t even asked her yet.”

Right.

It was too early to be sure.

The 1st-floor restaurant I could see through the window was already filled with students trying to recruit Irene into their group.

‘What would I do if she’s already in a team?’

Perhaps, I was already too late.

Thinking like this, I couldn’t hesitate any longer.

I walked up fearlessly and knocked on the door.

Knock knock.

“I came to meet Irene Prius.”

The door soon opened,

“Hm. Are you looking for me?”

“……”

Irene looked up at me with a joking smile.

“Come in. You stand out too much. The reason you came to find me. Should I try to guess?”

——