Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 2===

The hallway was abuzz with chatter. The students in identical summer uniforms were staring down at their phones, perhaps waiting for the tournament’s official gambling service to go online. Even if it was officially sanctioned, they were oddly excited about being able to access the world of gambling through the convenience of their phones.

And the instant the opening ceremony was over, Utagai Karuta rushed to the student council room.

He was already soaked with sweat.

“What is this!? What did they do!?”

“I’m not sure either.”

The words had come from Omotesandou Kyouka’s mouth, but she shrugged like this had nothing to do with her. The gym had overpowered air conditioning to keep such a large place cool, so the weaker cooling of the student council room felt like something had malfunctioned in comparison. The president’s summer uniform blouse had sweaty see-through patches.

“I had the entire speech memorized, but I had to match what was being shown behind me, right?”

“~ ~ ~”

“Sacri-sama, that is just the kind of person Miss Kyouka is.”

He was curious about Aine’s response, but there was no point asking something like that at such a pressing time. Still, he wanted to know what kind of person the crystal girl thought the president was.

The upperclassman elegantly placed a hand on her cheek.

“It did not look like they were swapping out the video and text in real time, so was the data for the screen and prompter replaced in advance? If so, it must have been someone with direct access to the original event planning sheet stored on Second Grimnoah’s central computer.”

“Hm? Is that hard to get at?”

“Hard to say. The machine was set up by the teachers, not me. I’ve never been a fan of biometric authentication myself.”

Come to think of it, Karuta recalled Kyouka being shocked by the carelessness of the security on his phone. She looked like the old-fashioned and traditional type, but she was actually the kind of person who insisted on building her own computer. Karuta viewed her pickiness about graphics cards and memory as the computer version of the rich young wife who would only feed her child food she personally prepares using organic produce grown by a farmer she could meet herself.

But why did she bring up biometric authentication here?

“If you look at it, it must have been either me, you, or Marika-san. The lock uses our DNA and we couldn’t extract any from Aine-chan, so she can’t get past the lock screen herself.”

That last part was frightening, but it was not the point at the moment.

Did she say the only suspects were the three human members of the Four Living Gods?

“Are you suggesting I would go to the trouble of creating a ruleset that gets me slaughtered on a global livestream? I’m barely different from a normal high school boy without Aine!”

“I wouldn’t either. I assume you know me well enough to know I wouldn’t send you to your death like this.”

“Should I list the multiple past events that would lead him to think you would do just that?” asked Aine.

Kyouka shrugged that one off without protest.

She brushed her hair off her shoulder and continue speaking.

“Needless to say, none of us would benefit from doing this. That means someone found a vulnerability in our security and broke in. I don’t know how difficult that would be since I didn’t build this system myself. I intend to look into the hardware and software side of this, but I can’t guarantee you I will find the culprit and put a stop to this anytime soon.”

“Sacri-sama. If Miss Kyouka cannot do this, shouldn’t we assume no one can track them down?”

Some artificial means had set things in motion to make the Four Living Gods suffer. A strange weight bore down on Karuta’s shoulders.

“Could this be the human string-pullers?” he asked carefully.

“It’s too soon to say. It could be some country’s military cyber team or it could be a group of anonymous hackers. We’ve made ourselves such a conspicuous target that there are as many suspects across the world as there are stars in the sky. They could be motivated by a grudge, hoping to profit in some way, or just think it’s funny. For all we know, their reasons for targeting us aren’t even true. I just hope I can work out some personal characteristics while analyzing the method used for this ''prank''.”

“Also, who ever said the Threat can’t use human tools, Karuta? Aine-chan isn’t human either and she could play the piano or use a phone if you taught her how. Of course, you would need to know how to teach first,” cheerfully added Amaashi Marika.

But the two girls were only listing off possibilities and they were both focusing on the same thing Karuta was. They all knew the most likely suspect here.

The human string-pullers.

Letnahe Kurent had been sent to Second Grimnoah as their vanguard, but Kyouka had somehow managed to get her cooperation as a double agent. Thanks to that, Kyouka was supposed to have all the spoilers in advance, yet she had still been caught by surprise. Someone had slipped past their defenses even though they had a double agent in place. It was unlikely they could find the identity of this person by questioning Letnahe. This was a dangerous submarine of a person who could lurk under the surface until the time came to strike.

“Hello, hello, hello! Delane here with another announcement as the super cute Cinderella Queen.”

Someone was making a lot of noise on the video site displayed on the student council room’s computer monitor.

Cinderella Queen was a girl of about 10 with sky silver hair, but she called herself a free net idol. She wore a dress with a wide skirt just like a storybook princess, but the dangerous black and yellow colors and the bulky leather belts strapped all over it clashed with the fairy tale look. Her young age made the wide open back and plunging neckline seem a lot harsher than they would on a fully-grown idol still trying to act all pretty and pure. For that matter, the fishnet stockings just looked wrong on a 10-year-old. And at that age, heels that high weren’t so much sexy as they made you worry about the development of her bones.

Delane winked toward the camera before continuing.

“In this magic combat tournament, 15 magicians who passed the grueling preliminaries around the world will battle each other plus Utagai Karuta of the Four Living Gods, rumored to be the world’s strongest! A real magic show is just the thing to snap you out of the boredom of real life☆ Now, will someone drag the champion from his throne and claim the title of strongest for themselves, or will the world’s strongest mercilessly slaughter all of these insolent challengers? Only one way to find out!!”

The first round would include 8 one-on-one battles.

And the tournament bracket would narrow down like a house for cards from there.

But that crucial bracket remained entirely blank. No names or photos were displayed. Everyone knew Utagai Karuta was one of them and the staff had let him know he would be fighting in the first round’s seventh match, but he knew nothing at all about who his opponent would be.

He couldn’t imagine how he could win.

Plus, this tournament was officially allowing people to gamble. Not revealing who was fighting who until the very last second was bound to affect the online placing of bets, so why do this?

“Omotesandou-san, do you think this is one of the ‘accidents’ we heard always happen during the Catastrophe?”

“It’s probably a showbusiness thing. They know they’ll make the most money from your battles since you’re the current world’s strongest. So if word got out you would be fighting in Round 1 Match 1, most people wouldn’t bother buying viewership tickets for the other matches. So by hiding that information, anyone who wants to make sure they see your match is forced to buy tickets for all eight matches. I bet that’s their official reason, anyway.”

“You mean there’s a possibility of an ulterior motive there?”

“If you don’t need any evidence to back it up, then almost anything is a ''possibility''. Maybe the string-pullers are actually aliens wearing human skin and maybe Cinderella Queen is actually your long lost little sister.”

If they started blaming everything that didn’t go their way on the human string-pullers, all they had was a conspiracy theory. Karuta told himself to maintain the proper balance in his head. Because he knew about ''three sad and inexperienced avengers'' who had once destroyed themselves in a snowy hell by suspecting the people they should have trusted most.

He clapped his hands together.

“New topic. It looks like the only path forward is for me to fight and win this on my own. If I find an excuse to forfeit or we make a last-minute change from me to Marika, it would only breed unnecessary anxiety and speculation. Any doubts at all are dangerous right now. I don’t know who did this, but the most effective way to overcome their malice is to win this fair and square. …Cowards like us should understand that all too well, right?”

“What do you want?” asked Kyouka.

Karuta quickly formed a list in his mind.

The mysterious Threat were not the only foe they had fought. After taking on the Problem Solvers, they knew what dirty battles between humans were like.

After taking a deep breath to refocus his mind, he relayed the list to Kyouka.

“First, I want data on my opponent in the first round. The more the better. After all, I don’t even know their name or what they look like.”

That was the most basic and crucial of things. He had learned in the battles against Elicia and Yukino that information was the most powerful weapon. He had no chance at survival if he was thrown into the ring without knowing the first thing about his opponent.

Was digging up information in advance unfair? Karuta scoffed at the lingering speck of goodness inside himself.

He couldn’t forget that he was the famous world’s strongest. His opponent would have all the information they could want on him. Crystal magic might be enshrouded in mystery, but it had been captured on many a camera during the largescale battle near the Port of Kobe the other day. Humans were not so kind. If his opponent had strategic data on the Four Living Gods, it would be unfair if Karuta had to go in blind.

Plus…

“If I have to fight alone in a ring that makes trickery difficult, we need to boost my own skills. What can we do there? I want to know the specific rules…and use those to search for loopholes. For example, it sounds like you can bring in a magic wand or broom for these magic battles, but if you can bring your own weapons, what about a gun or bomb?”

“Only if that weapon is necessary for the activation of your magic,” smoothly explained Kyouka.

That answer scared him because it meant he might find himself up against just such an opponent. The most he could do was ''repair'' nonlethal wounds with crystal and there was no cover in the ring. A single bullet to the head would kill him just as much as an ordinary person.

“But you would have a hard time of claiming that yourself. This tournament is meant to put people at ease by demonstrating that the Four Living Gods really do possess the strongest power. Do you think the people watching in their living rooms will be put at ease if you just pull out a hidden handgun and fire a bullet into your opponent’s chest?”

“I’m not sure I can survive this at all and you want me to think about the effect on the viewer at home?”

This was a demand entirely separate from the battle itself.

When you discovered that professional wrestling was an independent system born in 19th century circuses, it gave you an idea of how difficult an act it was. Professional wrestlers put their lives at risk to entertain an audience, just like the trapeze artists and lion tamers. The wrestlers who had dedicated their lives to that field could not just go on a chaotic rampage; they had to demonstrate ''the beauty of combat'' for the audience. That was not something a high schooler could learn to do overnight.

Working to win beautifully was the opposite of an ugly struggle to survive. This was quite possibly the worst handicap for him.

But Kyouka did not sound remotely worried.

“If all you’re interested in doing is surviving, then you could call in a fake bomb threat and get the tournament canceled. But you won’t do that. You understand the danger of the social unrest running rampant across the world. You know the Threat aren’t the only ones that can kill humans.”

He had no rebuttal for that one.

He had already accepted that he had to win this despite being placed at a severe disadvantage. If he didn’t make that result convincing, it would only lead to unnecessary bloodshed.

Justice and fear were powerful explosives. And frustration was like oil dumped onto that small fire. The looting and riots rooted in the same anxieties as bulk-buying were a bad sign.

“Okay, you can be in charge of the electronic paperwork, Omotesandou-san. If they need to meet certain conditions to bring a weapon with them, then they must submit a request explaining that weapon and the magic that requires it, right?”

“''Yes, but that data could always have been altered.'' Still, it’s worth checking – just don’t place too much trust in it. It’s only a rough estimate.”

“Then Aine and Marika can scout out my opponent to make that information more reliable. Check with your own two eyes to see if anything contradicts the paperwork.”

“Understood, Sacri-sama.”

“…”

“Now, Marika? I’m only asking you to scout them out. Do not – I repeat, do ''not'' – put on a mask and attack them in their dressing room to injure them and force them to drop out of the fight. I’m serious here. I’m not winking and I’m not nodding, okay!?”

“I get it, childhood friend. Sheesh, you don’t trust me at all, do you? And are you sure you should put all three of us on intel duty? Don’t you need someone to train you?”

Aine and Marika had such absurd mobility that secret training from them would be entirely meaningless, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. His physical abilities were the same as an ordinary high schooler. He couldn’t fly and he couldn’t boost himself with what amounted to a powered suit of crystal armor. He couldn’t accomplish anything if his expectations were unrealistic, so he had to focus on what an indoorsy high schooler could manage on short notice.

His would be the 7th and penultimate match of the day, but that still gave him less than 6 hours to work with. Anything that wouldn’t bear fruit in that timespan was wasted effort. He readily admitted he was weak, so he would instead ask for a secret technique that even a powerless human could use.

“I guess I should either ask Natalena or Letnahe for help. That woman is from the military, isn’t she? She’s like a global online store where you can buy deadly techniques for ordinary people at the click of a button.”