User:Shrysha

Original Light Novel: Attempt 1

Foreword:

An excerpt appearing at the start of my novel is a bit silly.

But I suppose that now, rather than later, is a good time to talk about the contents of it. Just to let you know what you should expect.

This is a story about the knight rescuing the princess from the bad guys.

This seems to be a traditional plot chock-full of overused clichés and tropes.

Except that the knight wasn’t one of those typical knights in shining armor. Perhaps he could be considered one of those bad guys. Maybe a villain. Wait, could he even be called a knight at this point? I think if I asked him, he would probably reject the “knight” designation.

And this story didn’t just have one princess. Actually there are seven. And did they even need rescuing?

Well there has to be bad guys in the story, right? Well, I’m not even sure if the bad guys could even be called bad guys. I mean, their intentions were good. Probably better than those of Mr. Knight. I suppose it is just a matter of perspective.

So, this is a story about the knight who wasn’t really a knight rescuing the princesses who didn’t need to be rescued from the bad guys who weren’t really bad guys.

I think I did a decent job with my summary.

Enjoy!

 

Prologue:

“Strong…”

These were the only words that the frail young white-haired slave child could mutter. Or rather a former slave. Despite lying collapsed on the ground and with skin covered with filth and body malnourished, and despite having watched the scene of carnage unfold before him, there was no fear in this child’s eyes.

Before the child was the back of a lone dark figure standing on crimson field. With a midnight-black cloak concealing his entire body and a similarly colored long curved sword, he looked like the grim reaper himself. This would seem to be a rather fitting name, as he was the one responsible for having single-handedly stained this battlefield with the blood of hundreds of men.

Hundreds killed with only a single swing of his blade.

Perhaps instead of a battle, it would be better to have described what had transpired as a massacre, or perhaps a mass execution. The reaper was the sole judge, jury, and executioner.

But at the moment, he was the only truth in this part of the world where power was the only law.

Despite the reaper’s imposing presence, the child still did not fear him. To the child, this reaper was a savior, having killed his now former slave merchant owners and their bodyguards.

Perhaps this was too much of a biased view; it was truly a matter of perspective.

Contrary to the reaper’s expectations, the child slowly crawled and reached for the hem of his cloak.

Perhaps having had his interest piqued, the reaper unexpectedly patiently waited for the child’s next actions.

“… Stronger.”

The child continued to speak while struggling to stand up.

“Please make me stronger!”

(Are you not scared?)

Suddenly a voice reverberated inside the child’s head. The intensity of the atmosphere suddenly rose, and the reaper’s presence suddenly seemed to quickly expand, seemingly swallowing up the existence of the surroundings. But the child who was no longer a stranger to death’s doors only stared unwaveringly back.

(Those are good eyes. How amusing… however I cannot save you.)

The child was not deterred and continued to glare back. The voice continued.

(But power is indeed something I can offer you. And the price…)

Without hesitation:

“My soul.”

 

Chapter 1:

Chapter 1: Part 1:

Such a clichéd development.

A child’s soul offered to the devil in exchange for power.

But an unexpected response like, “It had already been paid forward,” or something anti-climatic like that had been the immediate response. It left the child a bit speechless, which was to be expected.

To be prepared to sacrifice everything, not that it was much, only to be told that someone else already paid the bill.

This was an eight-year-old memory that he hadn’t remembered for quite some time. Could this be what people commonly called a premonition?

Perhaps a destined reunion was near…

“Uhmm Shry, are you alright?”

A cute high-pitched voice interrupted him from his thoughts.

When was the last time he had a dream? Having been shown resurfaced memories during last night’s sleep, Shry had been distracted the entire morning making attempts to decipher its meaning, assuming there was any.

While buying time to find a suitable excuse, Shry absent-mindedly used his hands to scratch the back of his head, messing up his already messy head of white hair, an unusual color for an eighteen year-old student.

Actually, his entire appearance was actually rather uncommon.

His standard-issue school uniform was ordinary enough: a white blazer, shirt and pants with the school insignia on each. Although Shry felt uncomfortable wearing it, let alone it was a bit too flashy for his taste, it couldn’t be helped; as one of the most prestigious academic institutions worldwide, it was expected there would be an excess of unnecessary rules and regulations to maintain its lofty image to the rest of the world.

It couldn’t hurt to also keep its alumnus happy as well.

Asides from the uniform, Shry also had wrapped an elastic bandage around the entire length of his left arm, most of which was hidden underneath the sleeve of his uniform. His left eye was covered with an eyepatch, mostly obscured by the bangs of his hair, which were grown purposely on the left side. And when combined with the pair of rectangular glasses on his face, the eyepatch was almost unnoticeable without taking a closer look. Overall, Shry’s appearance seemed to be one of a particularly unlucky accident-prone or bullied student. If he had claimed to have been involved in a horrific vehicle accident, most people would unquestionably believe him.

Standing facing Shry was Professor Ruegger a comically petite teacher wearing an oversized white laboratory coat over her simple teaching attire, which only seemed to reinforce her rather child-like appearance. Contrary to how she looked, most students would unequivocally agree that she was an extremely knowledgeable well-liked teacher, always putting forth her best efforts for the sake of her students. Professor Reugger was looking up sternly at Shry with her large orange-hued eyes, but it was rather difficult for him to take her seriously when she had the face of an innocent child pouting. If asked to guess her age, which was one of the greatest mysteries within this academy, Shry would decline to comment.

In the end Shry just settled for a simple apology, which he thought would suffice.

“I apologize. I’m just a little tired this morning, thanks.”

Professor Ruegger smiled and, as expected, quickly accepted this apology. She turned back around and stated cheerfully, “Now please introduce yourself to the class.”

That’s right.

Shry and Professor Ruegger were now standing at the front of a small lecture hall, or rather what looked like a mini-theatre, in front of twenty or so seated students. Although it wasn’t particularly necessary, she thought it a good idea for Shry to take the opportunity to introduce himself as a new transfer student. There was quite a bit of whispering and murmuring in the classroom, which quieted down as Professor Ruegger took a step forward towards her students.

“So if you could, please introduce yourself.”

As Professor Reugger turned her head at back at Shry, he could feel the curious stares of the students being redirected at him.

“My name is Shry Zei. Nice to meet everyone.”

With a glance at the teacher, Shry gave her a looking that said he was done with his introduction. Apparently she, nor the rest of the class, was satisfied with such a short, information-lacking introduction.

Shry sighed before stating, “I’m sorry but I’m quite terrible at this introduction thing. If anyone has any questions…”

Ms. Ru’s face suddenly paled. This was certainly the wrong approach for someone trying to maintain order within the classroom, not that Shry actually cared though.

As to be expected, the class erupted with noise and he was bombarded with questions and comments from all directions, without any opening for him to answer.

“Hey hey, where did you come from?”

“Why did you transfer? Did you get into an accident?”

“What was your former school?”

“You look pretty cute, do you have a girlfriend?”

“Say something about your hobbies or favorite activities!”

“Why did you transfer into our class? I thought that you couldn’t become an A-rank without ranking up.”

“Are the rumors true? Is it true you got top scores on the transfer exam?”

“Apparently he completely aced the written portion.”

“No way, that’s impossible!”

“How were his practical results?”

“Wait, I heard you beat an exam-proctor in a fight. Is that true?”

“Seriously?”

“Unless he’s at the level of the valkyrie sisters…”

“Yeah, he doesn’t look that strong at all.”

“Did you get into an accident?”

It was complete chaos.

Shry made zero attempts to answer any of the questions or rumors being wildly thrown around. Not that he had the chance to. On the other hand, there was one person in the class valiantly trying to rein in this disorder.

“Enough, everyone! Can everyone please quiet down!”

Professor Ruegger tried to tame the growing ruckus, but to no avail. It seemed that she had very little control over her own students. Even though she was a very well-liked teacher, her competence in being able to direct her class was in question. Many teachers were brought in by this school primarily for magical research whereas others were hired for their outstanding combat abilities; teaching students, although still a core focus of any academic institution, seemed to have a backseat role here.

“Sniff…”

As Professor Ruegger started tearing up and looked like she was going to cry, the students stopped their questioning session and started to reprimand each other.

“Everyone quiet down!” a student called out to the rest of the class

“Stop bullying Ms. Ru guys!”

“Hey! Ms. Ru, don’t cry!”

“We’re sorry! We’ll promise to stop!”

Shry could only observe this strange phenomenon with silence. It seemed that the class didn’t see Professor Ruegger, or rather Ms. Ru, as a teacher but rather as a young child. But it was somewhat sadistic of the students to initially force her to the brink of tears before consoling her. Well, it looked like Ms. Ru did the ability to control and direct her class, but not via traditional methods.

“H-Hmph. A-As long as you understand, then I’ll forgive you,” Ms. Ru stuttered a little as she wiped her eyes with her sleeves. She then glanced in Shry’s direction. “So again, let’s do this properly. If anyone has any questions, please raise your hand…”

“Yo, transfer student. So I heard you are strong.”

Shry turned his gaze to the student standing up, who had earlier been sitting in the back of the classroom. Despite the uniform requirement at this school, it seemed that students were free to do what they wanted with their physical appearance. This spiky blond-haired student had a particularly noticeable appearance with the multiple piercings in both ears as well as a few facial tattoos on the side of his eyes. He wore his uniform very informally, with blazer taken off and placed on his desk, his shirt untucked, and sleeves rolled-up; it was difficult to picture him as anything other than a school delinquent or gangster. Without question, this person had the most imposing presence in the classroom.

“Uhmm…”

Ms. Ru tried to interject, but the delinquent was focused solely on Shry and ignored her.

“To get to our class, your transfer exam scores must have been pretty good. I also heard that you beat the examiner during the practical test as well, is that right?”

For someone who looked and acted like a gangster, Shry found him to be pretty eloquent.

Shry hesitated about how to answer before simply replying, “I was lucky.”

“Hahahaha!”

The delinquent laughed as he ran his hand through his hair before grinning widely at him.

“Name is Zyoi, and I am the strongest in this room at Rank 14! And with my rank on the line, I challenge you to a duel!”

What a lame line. To Shry, it sounded like some kid challenging to a children’s card game, or something similar. It wasn’t really in his personality to accept such a troublesome duel proposal. But such opportunities, like the one presented now before him, didn’t come very often. There could only be one response.

“Where and when?”

“Someone who doesn’t mince words, that’s great. Are you prepared? How does here and now sound?”

This delinquent was surprisingly considerate as well, showing the most basic of etiquettes of giving Shry time to find a weapon or determine an alternative time or place to have the duel. Ms. Ru looked like she wanted to make an objection to the fight taking place in the middle of a classroom, but both of them seemed to have completely ignored her presence at this time.

Shry raise both hands to show that he didn’t have, or need, any weapons.

“I accept, whenever you’re ready.”

At these words, the two badges pinned on each of the students’ shirts quickly flashed with light, which signified the school’s acknowledgement of the legitimacy of this duel.

“Haha! Don’t go disappointing me!”

Without warning, Zyoi with a single motion threw aside the small bag tied around his waist-side and leapt from his seat over the heads of his fellow students. To traverse the classroom in one step without magic assistance while also launching a heavy punch was actually quite the considerable physical feat.

Screams could be heard… only from Ms. Ru.

In this school, it was not uncommon to see fights, or rather these “duels”, breaking out randomly across the campus. Thus the rest of the class was already quite accustomed to this type of scene. However, most students would agree that Zyoi’s choice of interrupting Ms. Ru’s class with a duel without asking permission first was quite rude.

But Ms. Ru, no matter how many times she witnessed these duels, was never a big proponent of fighting and violence.

Despite this powerful preemptive attack, Shry foresaw this kind of development to a certain extent. With the vast amount of accumulated experience he had gained fighting on multiple battlefields, to him an attack coming from the front was not much of a surprise, and dealing with it was mere child’s play.

Upon sidestepping the first attack, Shry was immediately met with another attack: a roundhouse kick to the face. This beautiful follow-up was met and easily deflected with Shry’s right hand.

Zyoi brought his leg down and grinned ferociously as Shry retreated by jumped back a meter or two.

“So you are the real deal! Let’s see how you handle this!”

His right arm was suddenly ignited with bright red flames. Some of the classroom’s students show a little more wariness. Despite the duel taking place in the front of the classroom away from where the students were seated, there was no barrier or alternative protection in place to prevent the collateral damage from the fight should it come their way. But most of them were quite entertained at skipping a class lecture, and instead were treated to watching this relatively high-level fight between this classroom’s strongest and the mysterious transfer student.

Shry probably wasn’t aware of it, but there was the corners of his mouth were slightly curled upwards into a small smile. This stint of being a high school student was a little more interesting than he first originally thought.

“Are you prepared to give up your rank?”

“Rank, something uninteresting like that? I’m more than willing to give it up, but that’s only if you can entertain and defeat me!”

Zyoi then quickly charged, again closing the gap between the two combatants.

 

Chapter 1: Part 2:

As the two students continued to clash with each other, Ms. Ru could only scrunch into a ball and pout. She was now sitting in the front row of her classroom, after having been brought over by some of her students. A few of the female students were still by her side actively comfort the poor teacher. Although her skills and knowledge as a professor were real, she had neither authority nor respect in her own classroom. Rather than being looked up to as an older mentor, she was instead treated as an adorable younger sister to be teased and played with.

Unfortunately for Ms. Ru, with the exception of the authority from higher up, unless there was mutual consent between the two dueling parties, no one was permitted to stop a duel once underway. Not even the teacher of her two students was allowed to interfere, which was why she had made multiple earlier, yet futile, attempts to stop the duel from starting.

Shry vaguely remembered seeing the duel rules in his online handbook as part of his cursory research prior to entering the school. He recalled that a duel had three fundamental conditions.

First, there must be mutual consent, implicit or explicit, between the two dueling parties. Consent did not refer just to the duel itself, but also extended to the details and conditions attached to it as well. Forced duels were the only exception.

Second, duels will only be recognized on the academy grounds. The badges given to each student upon enrollment allowed the academy to track and monitor each duel participant. This was especially important to resolve possible conflicts regarding the two parties should the duel’s conclusion be unclear.

Lastly, a duel is won once the opposing party has conceded defeat or is left unconscious. Killing the other party, however, is considered forbidden and is harshly punished, with very few outliers.

Asides from those three rules, everything was essentially unrestricted or fair game.

Power is the only truth.

With duels capable of deciding and resolving almost every matter in the school, power was indeed the absolute truth of this academy, or the International Combat Academy.

Despite the school’s name, this was a privately-run institution located on an exclusive island not belonging to any nation, independent from all international pressures. This academy was founded just only five years ago by a group of the most powerful people in the world and funded by a mysterious yet very wealthy backer. Despite all initial doubts, it had since then become the most famous and prestigious institution for producing the strongest warriors, magicians, and combatants.

As a result, and largely in part due to its strict international neutrality, nations worldwide sent many of their promising talents there to be raised and cultivated.

There are two types ranking systems at this school.

The first type of rank, and most important rank as a professional in the industry, was the worldwide ranking system.

With combat talent and abilities highly valued worldwide, there was a growing necessity to be able to rank people objectively and holistically on an international basis. The International Ranking Commission, comprised by a committee of professors and other highly qualified professionals, was set up to fulfill that informational requirement.

The vast majority of the students at the International Combat Academy were not ranked under the international system, and they would not be expected to have been assigned a rank until after graduation.

The second type of rank, and far more relevant rank as a student, was the in-school ranking system.

The in-school ranking was the method how students at this academy were assessed, which are similar to grades from a more traditional institution. Exemplary written and practical exams results were indeed important to achieving a higher rank. But ranking duels were the much more influential method of determining school-wide ranks. With ranking duels, one could fight another higher-ranking student and, if victorious, swap for their higher ranks.

Normally higher ranked students would not allow lower rankers to challenge them due to risks of accidentally losing and having their rank drop significantly, but there are a few exceptions.

The first and most common exception is that there exists an academy rule permitting those with lower ranks to “force” a duel from a slightly higher ranked, the methodology not stated here, with the purpose of encouraging more school-wide competition, thus the “forced duel” rule.

A second common scenario where a higher ranker will voluntarily accept a duel from a lower-ranked student is when another “prize” or condition is offered by the lower ranker as an additional compensation for the risk the higher ranker assumes.

There was also a rare third scenario. There are people in this academy who have enrolled for no other purpose other than to fight other powerful students, without care for his or her ranking. Ranks were just a means to an end. Such students in the academy were very few in number, and such a person was currently in front of Shry.

Having been on the receiving end of a few attacks, Shry had assessed Zyoi to be one of the strongest students in the academy, which was in line with his current rank. According to the ranking system, Zyoi should be the 14th strongest student in this academy. However, that strength was not enough.

Shry had earlier dodged Zyoi’s initial punch and blocked his following kick. As Zyoi dashed in with a flame-filled fist, Shry this time around decided to take this attack head on. Zyoi did not expect such a response, and his blood-red eyes widened in surprise as his fist was caught with a single bare hand.

He started laughing in enjoyment again.

“It doesn’t seem that you tree-lovers burn as easily as I thought!”

Shry stared back at Zyoi with his only visible violet-colored eye and smiled back wryly, understanding the deeper meaning of his words.

Each person born with a certain level of talent for magic also had affinity to at least one of the seven elements that exist in this world. And a person’s primary elemental affinity was directly correlated with the color of his or her eyes. A person with red eyes, like Zyoi, was someone who excelled with fire magic. Likewise, a person with purple eyes was more skilled with wood and plant manipulation.

Additionally, certain elements were more “effective” than other elements in certain confrontations. In this case, to fight fire, wood was the absolute worst element to use.

In theory by just comparing their elemental affinities, Zyoi should have had a significant advantage in this matchup.

But by concentrating mana into his right arm, Shry was able to easily withstand Zyoi’s flame-infused punch. Mana, the source of power used by all magic and spells, in its natural state was neutral, or void of any elemental attributes.

“Oh? Your hand is still fine, but are you sure you’re fine with only using one?”

Zyoi had quickly glanced down at Shry’s bandaged left hand, which had largely remained motionless since the beginning of the fight. This could have been seen as a considerate gesture had he not ignited flames in his other hand and threw another punch. This action prompted Shry to quickly release Zyoi’s fist and sidestep the attack.

“One arm should be more than enough. No need to go easy on me.”

“Haha, that’s a great response!”

For several moments, Shry and Zyoi continued to trade blows. Or rather, it was Zyoi throwing an increasingly complex combination of punches and kicks whereas Shry was continually on the defensive, forced to dodge or deflect incoming attacks.

From the surrounding student spectators’ perspective, it seemed that Shry was continued being pressed back, and only being able to use one arm was a crippling disadvantage to Shry in close quarters combat. It looked like only a matter of time before Shry’s impressive defense would show an opening and Zyoi would land a decisive blow to end the fight.

But this was not the same view that Zyoi held. Zyoi prided himself in his strength, but he was quick to acknowledge and assess the strength of others with almost a beast-like instinct. After Shry effortlessly dodged his first punch at the start of the fight, he was made immediately aware that Shry’s was pretty skilled. His mana levels were nothing incredibly special, and neither were his physical speed in strength; in fact it can be said that his stats were almost too average. However this one armed opponent was actually able to easily maneuver around Zyoi’s aggression with only the most basic of attacks or movements, which required an almost ridiculous amount of real combat experience and knowledge.

With each attack that was deflected or dodged, Zyoi’s belief in his estimation of Shry’s strength only rose. Where the seemingly increasing gap in power may have deterred other students, this only fueled Zyoi’s fighting appetite, as it wasn’t very often that he could battle against this caliber of opponent. However, he felt that Shry was only testing him and his strength to get a general feel of the combat strength of this academy’s students.

“So it’s more than just luck! Haha, how annoying!”

It wasn’t just luck that Shry was able to beat his transfer exam proctor was what Zyoi was referring to

“What is?”

“I know you’re stronger than you’re letting on. It’s just annoying that I can’t make you fight seriously unless I do so first.”

For just a moment, Shry was caught off guard at Zyoi’s words. During his limited exchange of blows and words, he had expected Zyoi to be an all-brawn-no-brains type of character, as many of the student spectators had. But Zyoi was much sharper than everyone gave him credit for, and his hot-headed idiot personality was perhaps merely a calculated façade to lower the enemy’s guard. Whatever was the case, Shry mentally upgraded his evaluation of the opponent before him.

With a huge grin, Zyoi suddenly stepped back away from Shry and released an enormous wave of pressure and heat, blowing away the air in his vicinity before enveloping his entire body in raging red flames. These flames were on a much higher level than the smaller ones used when he was using them to enhance his punches earlier.

Although the sprinkler system was activated, it did absolutely nothing to mitigate the intensity of these flames. However this did awaken the student spectators from their trance-like state, having been bewitched just by watching this high level fight.

With this much higher level of fire magic being contained in such a relatively small classroom, the spectators started murmur with worry, and some even were on the verge of panicking. A few of the more prepared students cast makeshift magic barriers to minimize the collateral damage that could possibly result from the seemingly inevitable clash. It was extremely rare that such a fight between such high-ranked students should occur so informally inside a classroom. Usually they were schedule beforehand and fought in an appropriately-sized spectator-filled stadium, as it was very likely that larger scaled magic abilities were going to be used. Only low level attacks had been used so far in Zyoi and Shry’s, but it looked like that would soon quickly change.

As a side note, Ms. Ru admirably tried to go forward to make a few last ditch attempts to interfere with and stop the fight. But as expected she was quickly stopped and carried off by her own students to safety.

Shry was actually reasonably impressed with the quality and durability of the academy-issue combat-ready uniforms, as Zyoi’s clothing were largely unaffected by his flames. However, the uniform is no substitute battle-armor: its defensive properties were actually quite minimal. The material of the uniform was made to let magical and elemental attacks go through the cloth unobstructed rather than to block them, and sharp objects could easily cut through it as well.

On another note, Shry was somewhat disappointed at the level of Zyoi’s flames. Although it was without a doubt far beyond the average strength of the average magic user, this academy was supposed to boast the strongest and most talented students in the world. He had expected to see something a little more powerful. In all fairness, as he had fought countless fights against even more powerful enemies, his expectations could be considered unreasonably high from an objective point of view.

There was nothing much more to be learned from this fight and it was about time to end it. These were the thoughts of Shry as he inwardly sighed. Well he had more fun than he expected, of course while it lasted. Shry returned his right hand to his side and started to gather mana.

Noticing that Shry was preparing to go on the offensive for the first time this battle, Zyoi, who was about to launch headlong into an all-out attack, suddenly stopped.

Dangerous.

His instincts, which have rarely failed him and have helped him win fights time and time again, were loudly screaming at him that Shry was indeed extremely dangerous. If he made just a single mistake, the fight could be completely over in one strike.

Zyoi had fought his fair share of opponents, and only a handful had alerted his instincts as powefully as Shry had. And none of them had been around his age, until now.

“Damn, just who exactly are you?”

In sharp contrast to Zyoi’s animal-like grin, Shry only responded with a light smile.

Both combatants, with just a few meters separating each other, waited for the other to make an opening. Or rather, it was Shry that waited for Zyoi to make the first move. Although Shry felt that his opponent had many openings that he could exploit and that the fight was all but decided, he felt lenient enough to let the fight end on Zyoi’s terms.

Wild flames on one side on the classroom. Zen-like calmness on the other.

Everyone in the classroom was silent. The tension created by not only the combatants, but also by the student spectators, could be said to be thick enough to cut with a knife.

Inching ever closer, the two opponents…

…were rudely interrupted.

 

Chapter 1: Part 3:

“What is the meaning of this?!”

The classroom door was loudly slammed wide open, completely disrupting the fight.

Zyoi instantly extinguished his flames. Similarly Shry dispersed the mana concentrated in his right arm.

At the door of the entrance were two female students. Apparently they were either very popular or well known within the student body, or very likely both, as suddenly the classroom once again erupted into chatter and noise. It was highly likely that they held a position of authority, whether either part of the student council or disciplinary committee, given their current confidence. Shry also couldn’t help but mentally note that this classroom really was a chatterbox.

The first girl, presumably the one who had interrupted their fight, ignored the noise coming from the student spectators and confidently walked forward within inches to Zyoi. She quickly turned back and glanced first at Shry before returning her accusing glare at Zyoi. With fiery red hair matching her similarly colored eyes, it would be terribly stereotypical if she had a similarly fiery personality as well.

And unfortunately it seemed like Shry guessed correctly.

“As expected of you Zyoi, of course it would be your doing!”

“Huh?”

Zyoi aggressively stared back, of course with a fearless smile. I seemed that they shared some history together given their current familiarity, although the relationship was probably not particularly amicable. Rather, as an ironic comparison since they were both fire element users, Zyoi and this female student had the compatibility of oil and water.

“I’ve done nothing. Aren’t you in the wrong interrupting this duel?”

She put a hand up to her head as if she was having a headache.

“I have many things to say about your lack of duel etiquette, especially in the middle of Ms. Ru, I mean Professor Ruegger’s class.”

“Yeah, it’s allowed, right? And he had no problems with any of the duel conditions.”

Zyoi glanced in Shry’s direction and got a shrug in response. Shry apparently didn’t care much for details of the duel, such as the time, place, or any other conditions in regards to the duel.

“I wasn’t talking about that!”

“Then?”

“So you don’t know what you have done wrong?”

“Nope, so speak up!”

“Who thought it was a good idea to set off the sprinklers?”

Ah.

Zyoi raised his head at the sprinklers, which were still raining water down in the classroom. He had not noticed it going off while the fight was breaking out, which was somewhat reasonable since the water immediately evaporated upon touching his flames and there was no traditional fire alarm system in the school to alert him.

Stopping the sprinkler system and cleaning the classroom was a trivial issue. However, it was quite an annoying addition to the student council and the disciplinary committee’s work, whose members had to assess and deal with the issue personally. Although not required, the proper etiquette in declaring a duel is to choose a location where it would cause minimal trouble for the school and its students. Using higher-level fire magic inside a classroom apparently didn’t qualify.

With nothing else to say in his defense, Zyoi quickly pleaded with his eyes at Shry to see if he could somehow help him out to mitigate the situation.

Apparently this red-haired girl was pretty scary to reduce such a prideful man to such a state.

Shry couldn’t do anything but shrug helplessly once more in response.

“Okay, okay, it’s my fault. So what now?”

Resigned to his fate, Zyoi held both his hands in the air as a sign of surrender. Although normally rude and intimidating, he made no attempts of making an excuse and was willing to take the blame. Surprisingly Zyoi was quite the well-behaved student. Well if one were to overlook his external appearance and his bad habit in always eagerly seeking for fights. Looks and first impressions are indeed quite a bit deceiving.

While Zyoi was receiving a stern lecture from Ms. Red-hair, the other student who had entered quietly walked up to me and spoke.

“My name is Sylvia, Vice Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee. You are Zyoi, I presume?”

With a pretty peach-shaped face with waste-length raven-black hair tied behind her rather slim body in a single ponytail, this girl had quite the delicate appearance for someone who spoke with such with such confidence and authority. It didn’t seem like she was particularly quiet for the reason of being shy, but rather she was quiet because she felt it wasn’t necessary to waste words when only a few, if not silence, would do.

Straight and to the point. And her steel-colored eyes sharp like a blade.

Speaking of blades, Shry couldn’t help but be somewhat cautious of her sheathed one-handed longsword tied to a belt on her waist. Although it was quite common to see students carry weapons within the school grounds, Shry felt that she was prepared to unsheathe and use it anytime at a moment’s notice. It was just a feeling, but Shry assessed that she was undoubtedly stronger than Zyoi.

“Yes, nice to meet you.”

Sylvia nodded satisfactorily at this rather common response.

It looks like she’ll be introducing you to the school and the rules.

Wasn’t the teacher supposed to do so?

I can’t force everything on to Ms. R- I mean Professor Ruegger.