CH 90

“Ah, ow.”

After feeling a moment of weightlessness, I slammed onto the ground.

I casually checked my body, but there weren’t any serious injuries.

It must not have been that deep a hole.

Besides, I was somehow able to control my fall and managed to not hurt myself.

The vanguard tends to get blown away on occasion, so Lain made me train on how to break my fall.

That seems to have helped out unintentionally.

“Hey! Leesha? What did you do that for?”

I yelled out loud to Leesha, who stood at the edge of the hole.

She was looking down on me with cold eyes.

“Ku ku.”

She started laughing in a weird way.

Her eyes appeared cloudy with jet-black malice.

“W-what’s so funny?”

“My name is not Leesha.”

“Eh?”

For a moment, I couldn’t figure out what she meant.

After all, we had only introduced ourselves a while back.

She had definitely called herself Leesha.

“Th-then, who are you?”

Ruko stopped giggling and gave me a look of disdain.

“Yes. Everything I told you until now was a lie.”

“Th-then, father wanting to meet me as well…”

“Was a lie, of course. There’s no way the Patriarch would want to meet a failure such as you, is there?”

“Wha-!?”

I got set up.

I finally realized this fact.

The plan was to lure me out by saying something that would make me jump in joy.

“Why would you do this?”

“Let me explain that.”

“Rigul-sama.”

As Ruko steps aside, a man comes out from behind her.

A man with blonde hair stood by the hole.

“…Rigul.”

Standing next to Ruko was my elder half-brother.

Rigul was the son of a concubine.

I didn’t see him much as a child because of that, but we met each other several times after turning 10 due to magic training and such.

Ever since I was declared a failure, he gained father’s favor and clearly started looking down on me.

“Looks like you couldn’t forget my face, despite being a failure.”

“Did you plan all this?”

Hearing me refer to him so casually, his grinning expression turned into that of anger.

“…Watch your tongue, failure. Unlike before, I’m the aristocrat now while you’re just a failure.”

Rigul looked at me as if he was looking at filth.

I couldn’t say anything back.

What he said was the truth after all.

I was a failure who couldn’t use magic.

He was a candidate to succeed Flemia house now.

As frustration crept up my face, Rigul smiled in satisfaction.

“Hmph. Regardless, you’re going to die here.”

What did he mean by that?

I’m, going to, die here?

It’s true that I won’t be able to participate in tomorrow’s match if I don’t get out of here.

Even if I were rescued, they might execute me on account of defiling the game.

They probably won’t take the opinion of a failure like me into account.

However, that’s only if I’m unable to get out of here.

I glare at Rigul in order to cheer myself up.

“…Such a place! I’ll definitely escape it in time for tomorrow’s match!”

Even though the hole was deep, it was only about 3-4 times my height.

I should be able climb out somehow, if that was the extent of it.

“Fu fu fu.” “Ku ku.”

At my declaration, the two started giggling.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing, it just seems like you’re not aware where this is.”

“Where?”

I picked up the torch that had fallen nearby and looked around.

It wasn’t that wide.

Was the air damp here because it was underground?

No, come to think of it, the royal capital was built on top of a huge ruin.

Because of that, I heard there was a sewer system dating back to the ancient magician civilization under it.

Could this be that place?

I needed as much information right now as I could get.

Anything that could serve as a hint to lead me outside.

“…Could this be that sewer place?”

“Ho. So even failures know of it; as expected of the great royal capital.”

“So what if this is the sewer?”

“…Hmph. I shouldn’t have expected much of a failure. Let me teach you. No, I suppose that’s unnecessary.”

From one of the two passageways came a guzzling sound, as if something was being dragged.

That noise steadily kept getting closer.

It finally appeared at the end of the hallway.

No, I don’t think I put that correctly.

Its body was translucent, and its surface had a glossy sheen.

Its existence was as if it was clogged into the semi-circular passageway which had a radius double my height.

However, it wasn’t really clogged.

Slowly, but surely, it made its way towards me.

It seems that the guzzling I heard earlier was it dragging itself through the passageway.

(That thing’s, strong)

I knew I should run.

Yet I didn’t move from where I was.

Having fought graywolves many times till now, I had a grasp on monsters’ strength, even if only a little.

If I were to believe those instincts, that thing is incomparably stronger than a graywolf.

I don’t know if I would be able to outrun it.

It might assault me as soon as I showed it my back.

I continued glaring at the translucent blob.

Finally, the translucent blob made its way to me.