So in the end, the four of us—Merlin included—were entered in the preliminaries.
And the method for ranking the top four teams that advance was, bluntly, target destruction.
I mean, why does the magic academy like destroying targets so much? It was the same back in my previous life, but why?
I asked Merlin about it once—she’s the headmaster, she’d know—and got shut down with a single line: “It is one of those things. Ancient tradition, a given. Every other magic academy does it too—every man and his dog destroys targets.”
Hmm… what in the world is ‘one of those things’ supposed to mean? The mystery only deepens.
Anyway. The venue was a super large field, as befitted a place gathering the entire student body.
And not just the student body—residents from the surrounding area had turned up too, and the whole thing had become something of a local event.
In any case it looked like a roaring success, and the gallery was in high spirits.
The short version is… picture a sports day at a modern Japanese high school, or a truly enormous elementary school field day. That’s more or less it.
The competition area was the middle of the field. The event: destroy the targets scattered radially out from the center, each competitor firing exactly one all-out area spell.
Victory was decided by the total number of targets destroyed by the whole team.
So that was us. Four players, Merlin included.
Except Merlin… I was honestly out of words at this point.
The swallowtail-butterfly mask was the same one I’d seen in the classroom the other day, but the clothes were a student uniform. The same uniform as Anastasia’s.
The cosplay energy is genuinely off the charts. Well—in terms of being recognized or not, she had the mask, plus she’d layered on the perception-blocking magic that assassins favor, so it was probably fine.
And so, with all that going on, we were under the sun-shade tent in the players’ waiting area, watching how each class representative was doing—
“Level 2: Fire Lance!”
“Level 2: Ice Edge!”
“Level 3: Ice Blizzard!”
“Level 2: Lightning!”
Hmm. I’d been watching the target destruction for a while now, and this was about the average standard for a second-year class representative.
Then, from the gallery behind the tent, a murmur went up.
“That’s a high level, all right. Using top-tier Level 2 like it’s nothing.”
“Level 3s are flying too. That’s the Thunder God Emperor Festival for you.”
So I turned to Anastasia beside me and asked.
“What do you think, Anastasia?”
“…Am I allowed to say it straight?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Um… well… I think… it’s low level.”
“Maria?”
“Same. No words other than ‘low level’ are coming out.”
At the training camp the other day these two had gotten Level 4 fully under control.
So in practical terms, from where these two were standing now… the scene in front of us must have looked like children playing.
Still… I made my voice deliberately heavy.
“That’s how it looks to you now. But from where I stand, you’re both plainly half-baked. There’s always someone above you. Never get complacent.”
The two of them nodded, and a great cheer went up from the gallery.
A group had begun walking out from the players’ waiting area toward the center of the field, shoulder to shoulder in a line.
Wait, I recognize one of them. One of the student council people who’d run the representative-selection assembly before the camp.
And so the student council, riding that enormous cheer, took their place at last and began destroying targets—
“Level 3: Ice Blizzard!”
“Level 3: Elder Lightning!”
“Level 4: Salamander!”
“Level 4: Wind Shelter!”
Top-tier Level 3 as their floor, up to mid-tier Level 4. That’s about the size of it.
From the gallery behind the tent came something other than a murmur this time—a swell of noise, and sounds of admiration.
“Hey, hey, Level 4 is teacher grade!?”
“That’s the student council for you… I can’t believe they’re our age.”
“Well, that settles the win for this year too!”
“Hey, hey, their target count’s… over two hundred!? All you can do is laugh.”
And so, to cheers and applause, the student council came back to the waiting area having posted a runaway score.
Or rather, they came back to Maria.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Maria-san? What is a bottom-year flat-chest doing in a place like this, I wonder?”
Irene-san, the one with the large chest… and, apparently, some history with Maria.
Then a giant of a man, pushing two meters, cracked his knuckles while glaring at me.
“Hey. Don’t get cocky just because Headmaster Merlin’s taken a liking to you.”
I have some idea what he’s referring to… but he really doesn’t need to bare that much hostility.
And then the man with the glasses nodded, deeply.
“Just so. A human inferior species and… an elf aborigine!”
Several veins stood out on Maria’s temple at once. I understand the feeling perfectly, knowing the circumstances. Still, that short fuse is a bad habit of hers.
I was about to step in when Irene-san held the man with the glasses back with one hand.
“Michael? Headmaster Merlin has said this before, but discriminatory remarks in public are forbidden. At the very least, restrain yourself in front of people. It reflects on your dignity, you know?”
“But, Vice President Irene—!”
“What? Do you mean to argue with me? Honestly… since when did you get so important…?”
This one might have the same instant-boiling-kettle temperament as Maria. She’s beautiful, but her angry face is genuinely frightening.
“M-M-My apologies, Vice President.”
Irene-san let out a huff through her nose, as if to say, well, so long as you understand.
And then Maria fixed her with a glare.
“Vice President Irene. How about you train your pet dog properly?”
Irene-san laughed at that. “Fufu.”
“Train? Well, quite. However—thanks to certain people basking in the headmaster’s reflected glory, our General Secretary has been confined to his room. Naturally, there isn’t a single person here who thinks well of you.”
Ah… right, that did happen. The General Secretary was this man with the glasses. He’d made discriminatory remarks about Maria and me, and Merlin had thrown her authority around and disciplined him for it.
“Besides, it’s a fact that you aren’t thought well of among the forest elves.”
“…”
“You know that, and you’re prepared to have people talk behind your back, and you still mean to step onto a public stage like the Thunder God Emperor Festival, don’t you? Then acknowledge reality first, show them your strength, and shut the peanut gallery up. If you can’t do that, you’ll be a loser forever. And I make it a rule never to recognize a loser as standing on the same stage as me—that’s simply my disposition. Personally, I’d recommend a loser live like a loser. Yelp, and keep your head down.”
Ah. This is bad. Maria was trembling, her eyes half-lidded and starting to roll back.
This isn’t five seconds from snapping. Her anger has broken through the ceiling and she can’t hold the thing back herself anymore.
“And you there, the black-haired one? It’s also a fact that, unlike we demons, you belong to the species called human—the ones called inferior. If you’re going to make it at this academy, choose your path early.”
“My path?”
“Whether you live in the shade with your head down and stay unnoticed, or shut the peanut gallery up with overwhelming ability. We—the student council—welcome anyone with real ability. Human or hated elf alike.”
Irene-san threw out her ample chest and smiled, challenging.
“Provided you can, of course. If you’d like to know the world above—the celestial world of magecraft, on a different stage from the one you live on—then force everything down by strength and crawl your way up to the student council’s territory.”
Hmm… having confidence is a good thing, I suppose.
And what she’s saying isn’t outrageous in itself. It’s an unpleasant piece of logic, but still.
It’s elitism founded on pure meritocracy, basically. Although… there were plenty of self-assured people among the first Four Emperors, but I don’t think any of us talked quite that big. Myself included.
At that, Maria shrugged, thoroughly fed up.
“So in the end you came over to be snide because your General Secretary got confined? That tells me the size of you, Student Council President.”
At the end of Maria’s line of sight stood a man with long blond hair.
His features were androgynous enough that if someone called him a beauty in men’s clothing, you’d find yourself nodding along.
“…”
And the blond man showed no reaction to Maria’s words at all. He simply gave all of us a single glance, as though we were scenery.
“Hey—why aren’t you saying anything?”
And there, finally, the blond man responded to Maria.
“We are… no, the Vice President and I are a chosen people who can handle Level 4 while still students. Which is to say, you lot are no more than pebbles on the roadside. Come now, think about it. Do you take an interest in pebbles? Do you go so far as to speak to them?”
“…Meaning what?”
“Meaning I hold no feelings toward you whatsoever. You asked me just now why I was silent, didn’t you? If you’d like me to speak with you properly, I’d appreciate it if you could at least manage top-tier Level 3 first. Even among the student council’s members, everyone but the Vice President refrains from speaking to me beyond the minimum.”
The Student Council President seems to have quite a lovely personality.
And then, waving a hand behind him as he went, the president said this on his way to the reserved seating.
“I’ve opened my mouth today as a special service, but time is finite. I don’t have a mouth to spend on people without value. Ah, and… the masked one over there has poor taste. A ridiculous outfit and a ridiculous name—I had a look at the entry list, and Anonymous Hope? That’s on the level of doubting your sanity.”
The president walked off, and the rest of the student council followed after him.
Some with contempt on their faces. Some with confident smiles. That was how the remaining four of them left.
Well, we’re being thoroughly looked down on and mocked. That’s the gist of it.
And this is absolutely going to become a problem, I thought, and looked at Maria, and I was right. She was shaking from head to foot, veins standing out all over her face. Eyes rolling back, gnawing at the thumbnail of her right hand.
Ah. This is definitely the bad one.
“Hmph… I always thought they were insufferable, but honestly—those people really do have lovely personalities.”
Well, everything you say is correct. Then Maria said “surely not, but,” and asked me:
“You’re not about to say something pointless like don’t use your real strength, are you? Not at this stage?”
Well… I agree with Maria’s thinking, honestly.
Obviously, making Merlin destroy targets would be cheating in every sense, so I can’t let her compete.
Which means… thinking it through, there are only three of us.
Doing with three what the other teams are doing with four is a serious handicap.
If the two of them can’t manage it, in the end I’ll have to do something about it myself, but obviously I can’t go firing off a Level 10 Thunder God Emperor, Ephthal, and even if I did there’d be limits.
These two, even going all out, stay within the bounds of common sense—so honestly, I want them to go all out.
“No. I’m not stopping you.”
“Good. Then let’s give them a shock, shall we. With mine and Anastasia’s Level 4.”