…And so, time passed. It was now after school, in the classroom.
“Maria? What is this ‘secret plan’ of yours?”
“Well, our classmates are a bunch of cowards who are too scared of the upperclassmen to compete, right? I checked the rules, and apparently, this has happened before. This is a school for rich kids, after all. It’s rare, but sometimes a class does only have three or four people who are actually willing to fight… And if you have people in the match who have no fighting spirit from the get-go, it just kills the mood for the audience, doesn’t it?”
“That’s true. Imagine a super-hyped finals match, and right at the bell, someone just says, ‘I forfeit.’ It would be a total buzzkill.”
“Exactly. So, to prevent that, they made a rule. In the finals, for example, you have to stay in the arena for at least one minute after the match starts.”
“Meaning, if you’re going to stand there as a class representative, you have to be prepared to take a hit.”
“That’s part of what’s scaring them off. But anyway, whether you get beaten to a pulp, run around like crazy… or just stand there like a statue. As long as you’re in the arena for one minute… you’re considered to have ‘participated,’ and then you’re allowed to forfeit.”
“So, what’s your point, Maria?”
“My point is, we just need people who can withstand a fierce assault for one minute! That’s all they have to do! In other words… this! Now, come in! My ultimate weapon!”
Maria confirmed that the three of us were alone in the classroom, and then snapped her fingers.
Sure enough, the front door of the classroom rumbled open, and the person who entered was—
—A masked woman.
She wore a swallowtail butterfly masquerade mask, and her lips were a glossy red. Silver hair, a large chest… wait a minute. That outfit… her outfit is completely identical to her usual one… Th-This is…!
“What are you doing!?”
“R-Right now, I am Ephthal’s classmate, ‘Anonymous Hope’.“
As Merlin floundered, Maria leaned in and whispered to me.
“Merlin-sama is totally into this, so don’t ruin her fun, Ephthal.”
“H-How did this happen?”
“At first, she wouldn’t give me the time of day, but the moment I mentioned the word ‘mask,’ she got weirdly excited. After that, all I had to do was flatter her a bit, like ‘Oh, Merlin-sama, your mask is… so wonderful!’… and, well, here we are.”
Then Maria took a deep breath and shouted—
“It’s wonderful! And I can’t tell who you are at all!”
“Fuhaha! Of course it is! It’s marvelous, isn’t it! As expected, I look good in absolutely anything!”
That’s right… I sighed. Merlin always loved masks and costumes, even back in the day. She was always… abnormally passionate… about the Halloween parties I came up with in my past life. I remember thinking back then that if Merlin ever ended up on modern-day Earth, she would absolutely get addicted to cosplay.
“Come on, Ephthal.”
Maria nudged me with her elbow. She clearly wanted me to play along. So, with no other choice, I said in a deadpan monotone,
“Wow… ‘Anonymous Hope’… I wonder who it could possibly be. I mistakenly said ‘Merlin’ earlier, but it’s totally not her.”
“Fufu, so you can’t tell either, Ephthal? However, I suppose I must tell you the truth. The fact is… I introduced myself as ‘Anonymous Hope,’ but—”
Merlin paused dramatically. And after taking a huge, deep breath, she declared,
“—It is I, Merlin!”
Yeah, I know.
Just then, Anastasia, her jaw dropped in utter shock, gasped out loud,
“What!? ‘Anonymous Hope’ was Merlin-sama!? I couldn’t tell at all!”
Eeeeeh!? Are you being serious, Anastasia!?
“A-A-And that mask… it’s so cool!”
Receiving a look of pure, sparkling-eyed admiration, Merlin puffed her chest out as far as it would go.
“Fufu, Anastasia, you have a discerning eye. For this… I shall have to consider upgrading your rank from ‘useless mongrel’ to ‘useless wolf’.”
“Yay! I’m so happy!”
‘Useless wolf’… Are you really happy with that, Anastasia…? Good grief… They’re all, without exception, a bunch of idiots.
Feeling completely drained, I slumped and said to Merlin.
“Look, Merlin? Let’s at least… do something about the clothes. If you wear your usual outfit, I’m pretty sure you’ll be recognized.”
“Hmm, that is true. This lacks artistry. In other words, you are telling me to engage in further cosplay? Very well! This Merlin shall pour all her skill into crafting a costume!”
Oh, she’s making it herself. But why does she look so incredibly happy about this…?
Okay, this nonsense was escalating, so I put my foot down.
“Merlin? You are not participating in the tournament.”
“What!?”
“That’s just going too far, isn’t it? Even stupidity needs a break, or I’m actually going to get angry.”
At that, Merlin made a face as if she had just witnessed the end of the world.
“N-N…o… My perfect plan… to be of service to Ephthal… is…”
She hung her head, utterly dejected.
Anastasia, by the way, just froze in place as if to say, “But why not?” while Maria just shrugged. “Well, figures.”
“So, what’s the plan, Maria?”
“Oh, you see right through me, don’t you? I didn’t think you’d realized I had another card to play.”
Of course I did. When Maria is feeling confident, her elf ears twitch happily. She kept glancing toward the door, her ears twitching, so it wasn’t hard to guess she had something else lined up besides the Merlin plan.
“Alright then, come in! My true ultimate weapon!”
And with that—Maria snapped her fingers.
The classroom’s front door rumbled open again, and a pair of guys walked in.
“And so, I’ve prepared our new members. I really didn’t want to have to resort to this, though.”
It was a duo, one with blond hair and one with a shaved head. I definitely recognized them from our class.
“Are you two really going to participate?”
The two of them nodded in response to my question.
“Wait, but Maria? Why did they agree? This morning, everyone was so dead set against it…”
“I used a little… ‘seduction’ to make a deal.”
Seduction? For some reason, that word made me think of Sheryl. Right… she was trying to sell her underwear, wasn’t she?
Hmm. Is it possible Maria lured them with something like that? Like promising a date, or… showing them her underwear?
For me, Maria is so similar to my wife from my past life, Bridget, that I sometimes wonder if she’s her reincarnation. Because of that, I have strong feelings about this.
In fact, I’m starting to think Maria and Bridget can’t be total strangers. They’re from the same branch-tribe in the same elven village, and they look this much alike.
It’s only natural to assume they’re strongly related by blood somewhere down the line. Because of that… I really, really don’t want Maria to be doing… that…
“J-Just out of curiosity, Maria… when you say ‘seduction,’ what kind of deal did you make, exactly?”
I asked, swallowing hard.
To be honest, part of me didn’t want to know… or rather, I was almost afraid to ask.
“…I promised the two of them I’d make them a home-cooked meal if they listened to me.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Maria looked extremely awkward and explained,
“Well, the thing is, Ephthal… I’m… I’m actually, like, secretly really popular. My personality is so impulsive and aggressive that nobody will openly say they like me, but…”
Ah, so she is self-aware about that part.
“But, as a matter of fact, it’s an undeniable truth that I’m cute, right? I mean, I’m practically a genius beauty. And because of that, there’s a certain number of guys who are interested in me just for my looks and my ‘specs’…”
“Well, I won’t deny that.”
I really do think she’s cute. In fact, she’s exactly my type.
‘Genius’ might be an exaggeration, but she has a talent for magic, and more than anything, she’s a hard worker.
“Wait? You’re not-denying that I’m cute?”
“Like I said, I’m not denying it.”
“…”
“…”
“…Tee-hee♪”
Wait, Maria-san… where exactly did you learn to strike a cutesy pose like that?
Setting aside the fact that Maria looked incredibly happy despite her slight embarrassment…
“Anyway, those two have been pestering me for ages. Asking me to be their girlfriend, asking me to go out with them… No matter how many times I turned them down, they’d come back to life and attack again like zombies…”
“Okay, and?”
“So, when I made the announcement to the class this morning, right? Afterward, the two of them proposed a deal. They said they’d give up on me and agree to be class representatives… but in exchange, for one last memory, they wanted me to eat a meal with them just once. Or if I wouldn’t do that, they wanted me to make them a homemade bento.”
Maria sighed, looking exhausted from the bottom of her heart.
I don’t have any experience with it, but I guess being good-looking comes with its own set of hardships.
“So that’s how those two ended up becoming class representatives?”
“Well, I was having trouble with how persistent they were, anyway. Since they said they’d finally give up, it wasn’t a bad deal… But I really didn’t want you to think of me as some ‘bad woman’ who uses men for her own gain… That’s why I didn’t want to use this card.”
“…?”
“No, I mean… I didn’t want you to have a bad impression of me. Especially when it comes to relationships… I absolutely didn’t want you, of all people, to think of me that way.”
For the time being, how exactly was I supposed to interpret that?
As I looked confused, she continued.
“In short, the point is… I didn’t want you to think I was that kind of woman. Right… I didn’t want you to think that.”
She wasn’t stumbling over her words, but she certainly wasn’t summarizing anything clearly. And for some reason, Maria was directing a heated gaze toward me. How was I supposed to react to this? Honestly, I was at a loss.
“So, with that, we have our five members.”
And so… it seemed we would be challenging the festival with this group of five.
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