Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter1

Chapter 1

Part 1

So, what exactly was going on at Second Grimnoah as it floated in the equatorial ocean on June 13? Take a look back in time and that will become clear enough.

“A martial arts tournament with magic allowed, huh?”

Amaashi Marika, the childhood friend with her curly twintails dyed a bright strawberry blonde, sounded skeptical. She was wearing a brand-new short-sleeved blouse of a summer uniform. She was the generally cheerful and extroverted gyaru type (while actually being extremely dangerous, obsessive, and vengeful), but unlike Karuta, she actually tied her tie.

“We never got a chance to do this on the first ship.”

“So it’s this year’s Catastrophe? It sounds a lot more friendly than the rumors I heard on the first ship.”

Kazamuki Gekiha and the other 700 students and teachers of the first ship were preserved as unspeaking crystal statues at the bottom of this ship, but Karuta did not see anything inappropriate about this conversation. They were talking about a dream those students never had a chance to live out.

They were inside the air-conditioned gym early in the morning, but it still felt hot and stuffy with all the Sub Category and Main Category students gathered there. The waxed floor and the stage at one end perfectly reproduced the look of a school gymnasium and it was large enough to play two volleyball games at once or to play a regulation basketball game. With that size, it was easy to forget this was all on a ship. But this gathering looked too fancy to be a simple student assembly. Countless cameras were filming everything from the stands on the second floor. Traditional TV cameras were carried on cameramen’s shoulders and swiveling webcams were affixed to the metal railings. All in all, there had to be more than 10 thousand lenses.

This assembly doubled as an audienceless opening ceremony.

Wheelchair spokes creaked up on the stage.

When she remained silent, no one would suspect Student Council President Omotesandou Kyouka was anything more than a busty black-haired beauty, but she was in fact the Four Living Gods’ black-hearted strategist. She barely seemed to notice all the eyes on her as she spoke. She did have a transparent prompter in front of her, providing her with the text of her speech, but Karuta suspected she didn’t really need it.

“We at Second Grimnoah have had the good fortune to claim the position of world’s strongest with our cutting-edge crystal magic. But growth is not possible if we fail to look outwards. So to establish an effective exchange of knowledge, we ask for assistance from other types of magicians. We hope that you will participate in order to assist our fight against the mysterious Threat and to help bring peace to our world.”

Colorful images danced on the screen covering the wall behind her. This used a special projector that arranged its scan lines so the image would remain crisp and clear even through the mechanical lenses. It was clearly designed to be world-class entertainment. The artificial depth given to the video was so well done it was hard to tell whether the images seen in front of the screen or behind it were the fake ones.

The Four Living Gods referred specifically to Utagai Karuta, Aine, Amaashi Marika, and Omotesandou Kyouka, but Karuta and Marika had not been given seats of honor as members of the world’s strongest. They sat with the other students in their class, which gave them a chance to whisper to each other.

Karuta spoke to Marika while keeping his eyes on Kyouka shining up on the stage.

“The Four Living Gods must remain the strongest no matter what happens.”

“And?”

“Frankly, we keep getting our asses handed to us. At the Port of Kobe and here on Second Grimnoah, ordinary people saw us fighting the Threat. We managed to cover up most of the information about what happened at the Crystal Beach, but we couldn’t stop people online from speculating that we were caught up in some kind tragedy there. Which is true, but we can’t let people know that. We aren’t allowed to lose or even draw like ordinary humans.”

“Because if we aren’t perfect, people will be worried we can’t defeat the Threat?”

“You should know with all the online news alerts that get automatically pushed to that phone in your hand. There are protests verging on riots in several cities out there.”

“Justice and fear and frustration, huh?”

“The usual recipe for a witch hunt. Looting doesn’t happen because people see a chance to steal – it happens because people are afraid they won’t be able to defend themselves if they don’t. It’s the same impulse as bulk-buying during a disaster, so the people doing it don’t even think they’re doing anything wrong. Humans can steal and kill as long as they can give themselves a benevolent justification for doing it, like feeding their family or protecting the weak. That’s just how we work.”

Karuta’s tone of voice tended to drop when he was discussing matters of morality.

He had thrown out such lies after his “baptism” aboard the first ship.

“The fear market has people making a bundle remodeling people’s bathrooms into panic rooms or selling family shelters buried in the backyard. Not to mention self-sufficiency products like rooftop solar panels or herb planters that can be installed on a balcony. There are even services to manage your possessions or to fully erase your search history or hard disk after your death. Hell, we’re even seeing apocalyptic cults and cold sleep services. This event is needed to put an end to those things.”

Simply put, crystal magic had to be powerful. And that did not necessarily mean they needed some secret training regimen to actually increase its power. In fact, that sort of power boost was too subtle a flavor, so it would mostly go over the public’s heads.

Instead, they needed some strongly-flavored junk food that everyone could appreciate.

The Catastrophe was the perfect candidate there.

“Just like we used our crystal magic to battle against the god-worshiping magic, there are plenty more forms of magic out there. According to Omotesandou-san, Letnahe Kurent of the human string-pullers used Indian mythology magic.”

“So we just have to kick all their asses on camera? Sounds pretty immature.”

“The point is to prevent any riots by showing the world that crystal magic really is the strongest in the world. We don’t actually need to get any stronger to do that. As long as we defeat the competition in the Catastrophe tournament, the world will see that we’re a step above everyone else.”

Besides, if wanting to get stronger was enough to do so, they would already be as strong as they needed to be. As pathetic as it might sound, they had already hit their upper limit. Their power wasn’t going to suddenly level up just because they had run into a new problem.

Instead, they would con the world.

Solving these social problems was where Omotesandou Kyouka’s cunning mind came into play. Her idea had been to invite different magic systems from around the world to participate in a martial arts tournament. This wasn’t a subtle secret ingredient requiring in-depth culinary knowledge to identify; it was omurice smothered in ketchup.

“Marika.”

“Yes?”

“Given the point of tournament, all four of us should be automatically entered. I’m sure you get this already, but this event is only using the Catastrophe name. I’ll say this as many times as it takes for it to stick, but the entire point of the tournament is to bring peace of mind to the nervous people around the world. So don’t take things too far. Or to spell it out for you: don’t kill anyone. Please, Marika, I’m begging you.”

“Is that any way to talk to your cute and heroic childhood friend?”

Unfortunately, that was exactly how he had to talk to God of Destruction Marika. What would happen if she carried out a gruesome execution on a global livestream? This entire event was meaningless if people walked away thinking crystal magic was an even greater monster than the Threat.

Then Karuta felt small fingers tugging on his short-sleeve dress shirt.

The white figure seated on the other side of him from Marika was the only person not wearing a Second Grimnoah summer uniform. That pure white dress with large slits for ease of movement stood out like a sore thumb in the sea of purple uniforms.

She was Crystal Girl Aine.

She seemed upset that Karuta was only speaking with Marika, so she started whispering to him to draw his attention.

“Sacri-sama, Sacri-sama.”

“Huh? I mean that’s cute and all, but since when does Aine-chan get so blatantly jealous over Karuta?”

“Sacri-tama.”

“Again, since when is this a thing!? She hasn’t been infected with – I don’t know – crystal malware or something, has she!?”

Karuta himself slapped a hand against his forehead.

A lot had happened while they were retaking Second Grimnoah near the Port of Kobe. How had the crystal girl interpreted things when he fought for her against the armored warrior Threat in this very gym? That was something only she could know. And once the battle was over, he had sensed a subtle change in how Aine acted around him. It was a weird sensation, like one side of his headphones was intermittently going out, and Karuta himself was unsure how to process it.

“Anyway, Aine, I’m counting on you. There’s nowhere to hide in the limited field of a tournament ring, so my usual trickery isn’t going to work. I imagine most of my fights are going to come down to sending you in as the vanguard the instant the battle begins.”

“Roger that, Sacri-tama. You can count on me.”

“Playful answers like that only make me more worried, you know?”

Their exchange made it clear Karuta was not really all that worried. The entire event was meaningless if the crystal magic users didn’t win. In a way, it was a major gamble with no redos, but he couldn’t imagine how Aine or Marika could possibly lose to an ordinary magician. He didn’t mean to insult all the participants who had gathered from around the world, but he did not sense the same skin-crawling pressure he had felt from simply being near the Problem Solvers or the Threat. Karuta himself could not use any real magic and might only get in the way, but Aine could easily defeat any challenger even with him weighing her down. In fact, he was more worried that she wouldn’t be able to make nonlethal strikes with her crystal sword.

“Aine. If anyone other than us wins, they earn the title of world’s strongest plus a large sum of prize money. That money comes from all the money people lose betting on the tournament – in other words, the jackpot. Omotesandou-san says that should reach more than 2 billion. You can’t take human greed lightly. It’s a powerful motivator different again from the vengeance that drove us. It’s best not to underestimate something just because you don’t have it yourself.”

However.

A subtle change happened then.

So subtle only Karuta and Marika could notice it thanks to the time they had spent with the sexy Student Council President after the destruction of the first ship.

Images of the four world’s strongests were displayed on the wall behind her.

And then the photos of Aine, Amaashi Marika, and Omotesandou Kyouka were removed one by one.

“The primary objective of this year’s Catastrophe Magic Combat Tournament is the exchange of valuable magic, so we can’t have people skipping it because they assume the world’s strongest are guaranteed to win. That is why we will be accepting a few handicaps.”

Omotesandou Kyouka’s eyes blinked at an odd moment. It was the look she made when something caught her by surprise but she was working hard to not let it show.

“We are the current world’s strongest, but we could not learn anything new if the four of us all took part and immediately crushed the competition. These handicaps were our own idea to make this a more valuable experience, so do not feel like you are being given an unfair advantage. If your opponent has a weakness, do not hesitate to attack it. As the four who must always defeat the Threat, we know that greedy ambition very well.”

“What the hell?” muttered Karuta.

They had shifted to another set of rails. What in the world was being displayed on the transparent prompter in front of Kyouka?

“You didn’t hear anything about this either, did you, Karuta?”

Kyouka herself looked uncertain whether or not she should go along with it.

But the footage was already being played on the screen behind her. Any discrepancy between that footage and her explanation would prove to everyone that something was wrong. The entire event was meant to prevent the people from worrying, so Kyouka must have decided she could not allow any hint of trouble to enter the global livestream of this opening ceremony.

They were in the middle of a fear market where even half a second of unnatural silence could cause a stock price to crash and start riots. To avoid any unnecessary damage to the entire world’s crowd psychology, she ended up saying exactly what she was told. The screen behind her displayed each item as she said it.

“1. Utagai Karuta shall be Second Grimnoah’s only contestant.

“2. The Four Living Gods are considered a group of four, so Aine is considered her own independent person despite being his crystal magic. Thus, Utagai Karuta is forbidden from ‘using’ her during the tournament.

“3. If Utagai Karuta is killed in an accident during the tournament, his opponent will not be charged with a crime regardless of how it happens. And to fill the gap his death would create, any contestant who kills him and wins the tournament shall become a new member of the Four Living Gods.”

This is really bad, realized Karuta.

He hadn’t heard anything about this. Weren’t they motivating people to participate by awarding them the betting jackpot as prize money?

Something was happening here. They had switched over to the most dangerous set of rails for the Four Living Gods. He did not have many good memories of Grimnoah’s gym – on the first or second ship.

“Or to put it another way, if you can kill Utagai Karuta – good luck, by the way – then feel free. If you are willing to risk your life and pride on it, then this is your chance to steal the title of strongest for yourself. Now, everyone, do you think you can kill Utagai Karuta? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so do not expect it to come again. Drag out the musty-old magic of a bygone era and join the fight. If what I just said pissed you off, then maybe you have the fighting spirit needed to join us in the fight against the Threat.”

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.”

Part 3

With that, we arrive back at the present.

Utagai Karuta hesitantly looked up at the bottom of the giant heliport being used as the tournament stage.

The people couldn’t be allowed to see the world’s strongest working so hard, but no one would expect to find anything hidden so close to the action. Tightly locking up the gym and training there would have roused much more suspicion. According to the president, the best hiding places were also the easiest to guess, which was why everyone always checked below the bed or in the attic. He really wished she wouldn’t grin and ask him if he knew what she meant, though.

The beam that had blasted a desert island and an ocean wind power plant was burned into his retinas as an afterimage. Was the audience safe? If something like that hit Karuta head on, he would be vaporized before the regeneration could even begin.

“Whoa, now who saw that coming?” said the commentator.

But it wasn’t the great power of the magic that scared him.

It was how everyone accepted it as normal.

“Eikele Tir-na-Nog was not in fact vaporized! She used her magic to blend into the background while the bright beam hid her from view and she just got a solid hit in on the back of the Valkyrie’s head when her guard was dowwwwwwwwn!!!!!!!”

The crowd cheered, shaking the entire 600m triple hull ship.

No one seemed bothered by the bloodshed.

They were simply boiling over with this new form of excitement.

“Yikes. What is this, Ancient Greece? The fighters and the audience aren’t remotely bothered by the killing, are they?”

“Magical battle already don’t feel real to most people, they’re officially allowed to bet on the matches, and this is a big festival separated from their everyday lives. It isn’t uncommon for bloodshed and property damage to be accepted on special days, like Spain’s running of the bulls or Japan’s cart-pulling festival,” explained Letnahe with a composed expression.

“Is that how it works?”

“I know Japan dives into the frigid midwinter ocean or rolls down a hill on giant logs, but India has its fair share of bizarre festivals too.”

She grabbed the chest of her baggy t-shirt to wipe the sweat from her face, but she also kept her arms and legs gently moving during her break so her breathing rhythm never left combat mode. She was probably also intentionally controlling the movements of her internal organs, but Karuta couldn’t see that part. The watch synced with her phone was beeping to alert her of an error.

“You must face them with almost no magic and then win the entire Catastrophe. Once in the ring, no one can help you. Fortunately, your round one match is #7, which puts it near the end of the afternoon matches, so you still have time. Repeat this training and prove just how much someone can accomplish if they truly want to win. The more you know, the more you can respond to.”

“Um, Letnahe-san? Are you enjoying this by any chance?”

“I can’t deny I have some pent-up frustrations and humiliation regarding crystal magic. Mostly thanks to a certain Student Council President I could mention.”

She really did beat him up.

He sparred with her for about two hours until lunchtime, but she was a professional soldier. He had never stood a chance in a direct one-on-one fight. It ended without him ever getting a real counterattack in. All he had learned was that his paper-thin barrier was entirely useless.

He had received the very un-teacherly comment that the regeneration was useful “because I can punch you in the face over and over and never leave any blood or bruises.” But since he was going to be livestreamed around the world as the world’s strongest it probably was best that he didn’t show up with a split lip and a black eye.

And Letnahe had not given him a break at lunchtime because she was hungry.

“Senpai.”

A small girl approached him while he was sprawled out on his back.

Her name was Natalena Blast.

The 12-year-old middle school girl had fluffy blonde hair cut at shoulder length. The arrival of the underclassman girl here meant the rhythm of the outside world was changing, for better or for worse. The four morning matches must have ended, so most of the audience had left their seats to grab some lunch.

The ship had the energy of a disturbed hornet’s nest. The random flow of people made them harder to predict. Letnahe had given him a break because the crowds could not be allowed to see the world’s strongest working so hard because he was terrified of death and defeat. So once the afternoon matches began, the frustrated wife would once more be beating up with her military skill.

“Natalena,” Karuta groaned from the floor.

“Um, what is it, Senpai?”

“Why are you dressed up as a maid?”

“Let me ask you this: um, do you think I wanted to dress this way? Our class chose to run a maid café. And by ‘chose’, I mean the boys formed a strong pro-maid voting bloc.”

Approaching a high school boy sprawled out on his back while she wore a short maid uniform gave him a very good look at her cute panties, but she didn’t seem to have thought through the viewing angles that well. And once she did notice, he was pretty sure she would deliver a finishing blow to the center of his face with the heel of her enamel shoe, so he forced his aching body to sit up sooner than he would have liked.

“Also, there’s something wrong with Japan’s laws if they can force middle schoolers to work as long as they call it a ‘school event’.”

“Oh? Natalena, what makes you think this ship is bound by Japanese law now that we’re out in international waters?”

“Why did I ever trust this Panama-registered ship!!”

He was pretty sure the ship was not actually registered in Panama and he doubted middle schoolers were allowed to work in Panama either.

For Karuta, this crazy tournament had him one step away from death at any moment, but the rest of the students, who didn’t have to fight in it, were rejoicing at having all their classes canceled throughout. Nothing excited a student more than a weekday without classes. At times, that excitement could win out over the fear of a typhoon or blizzard. And with the large crowd out and about, there was a large demand for food. They would also want to take a look around Second Grimnoah, since they wouldn’t normally be allowed onboard. Since the students didn’t have classes, it was unsurprising they had decided to earn some extra money by having each class open restaurants and such like this was a cultural festival.

Karuta’s 12-year-old underclassman sat directly on the floor and placed a small basket on her lap. She would have been very mad and argued with him if he said so out loud, but she was a natural at this maid thing.

“Here, I brought you some lunch. Um, it’s only a simple sandwich and a drink, though.”

“Thanks.”

When Karuta neatly grabbed the sandwich with a paper napkin, Natalena held a hand to her mouth and laughed. That may not have looked like the action of the arrogant and condescending world’s strongest.

Was this off the maid café’s menu? The sandwich was of unexpectedly high quality. Not only did it have some excellent honey chicken inside, but it was given an extra kick with some whole grain mustard and it contained stir-fried vegetables chopped up finely enough to not be noticeable. It provided an excellent balance of meat, vegetable, and grain in something that was pleasant to eat. You didn’t often see a product with such care in its design even in the professional food service industry.

On the other hand…

“Munch, munch. But if you give people everything they need in one simple package, you’re basically killing any chance at further sales, aren’t you? A maid café isn’t about getting customers in and out as quickly as possible like a stand-up soba stall, so don’t you make your money by having people stay a while and continue to order more food? Like a cake that’s so sweet they need to order a drink, or omurice that’s so greasy they start craving a salad. The key to success is for each item on the menu to be somewhat imperfect.”

“Ugh. I-I don’t care. Um, uh, the maid café was the result of a stupid conspiracy by the dumb boys. We girls wanted nothing to do with it. Anyway, Senpai, can I ask you something that just occurred to me?”

“Sure.”

“Does this mean the Utagai Karuta – world’s strongest, bane of the Threat, and guardian of the world – has visited maid cafes? And based on how opinionated you are on the topic, I get the feeling it wasn’t just once or twice.”

“Bff!?”

He just about spat out the sandwich.

That was a perfectly legitimate part of the service industry and the employees there took pride in their work. Karuta had done nothing wrong by going there, but for some reason he found himself unable to look the 12-year-old in the eye.

“…”

He withered under the pressure of her gaze.

It didn’t look like this was something he could escape by shrouding himself in the veil of manly mystery. The underclassman’s silent gaze was quickly turning into the look she would give an insect.

“Um, Senpai? Is this why your crystal magic takes the form of a girl who obeys your every command?”

“Natalena, let’s not get carried away with groundless speculation here! And I take issue with comparing her to a maid. She goes and hides somewhere cramped if you get after her about anything, she carries around a sword, and she eats pure gold! I would be offended if someone pointed at her and called her – her – the ideal maid!!”

“Oh, god. You really are opinionated about this, aren’t you? I barely said anything and you went on a long rant about it.”

What could he do but look away and clear his throat?

Utagai Karuta needed more training if he would fall for a 12-year-old’s feint.

“Sigh…is every single boy an idiot?”

“Probably, but did you bring me lunch just so you could ask me that?”

“Um, be honest with me. How does it look?” The small maid sighed and refocused her mind. “Can you survive this?”

She did not ask if he could win.

Natalena Blast knew the real Utagai Karuta, not just his title. He slowly shrugged.

“Well, it can’t be as bad as fighting the real Threat.”

“That’s not what I asked.” She bluntly rejected his answer. “I’ve seen a wicker man and I’ve seen Futhark runes, but none of the people here seem like they could defeat my sister and the rest of the Problem Solvers. But that’s not the real issue. Karuta-senpai, you became the world’s strongest after defeating Anastasia Blast and her Anubis, but, um, you didn’t defeat her in a one-on-one battle, did you?”

“…”

This girl was watching him carefully.

Which wasn’t too surprising when she had started out hunting him down to avenge her sister.

“You only defeated those much-more-powerful opponents by observing them, making careful preparations, and using trickery and the element of surprise. And it’s not like that always worked. But with the Problem Solvers and the Threat, your starting point and basic stance has always been assassination. In other words, you never let them use their real power against you. …So, um, are you really going to be okay? You can’t run or hide in the ring, so your usual tricks won’t work. Both sides will be going full throttle as soon as the bell rings, so you can’t defeat them before they can attack. The spotlight removes all the shadows and the many cameras will see everything that happens. You can’t hide your true abilities in this fight, Senpai.”

The rules had been reset.

Other than his ability to rapidly heal any nonlethal wound, he was more or less an ordinary high school boy, but he had to defeat magicians gathered from around the world without surprise attacks as an option. If he lost and died or if he won in an ugly way, the world would be disappointed in him and the social unrest leading to riots and looting would spread.

That expectation weighed heavily on him. Even if that was a fairly ordinary concern to have.

The boy who had been made into the world’s strongest exhaled and spoke.

“I’ll win.”

“…”

“We’re the ones that made the world this way. This only happened because we followed our desire for revenge and killed your sister without even considering what it would do to the world. So we’re responsible for what happens now. None of this will have been worth it if we can’t at least make the world a happier place than it was under the Problem Solvers. We didn’t like how the world was run and now unrest is running rampant and there’s a real threat of riots and looting. So we need to create a better world ourselves.”

There had been no morality in that battle.

It was true Anastasia and the other four had sunk the first ship and slaughtered most of the students and teachers, but that was no justification for Karuta’s group to hunt them down for revenge without ever considering the possibility of letting the police and the courts resolve the issue.

Two wrongs did not make a right, so now everything had sunken into a thick bog. But the sun still rose in the mornings and set in the evenings as it had before.

The strongests’ battles were nothing but a great farce full of hypocrisy and deception, but he did know that most of the people living in this same world had done nothing wrong. So he couldn’t just give up because the world had gone wrong. If he did that, he wouldn’t just be crushed below the contradictions of morality – he would have fallen to the level of pure evil.

“So my basic policy remains the same: I’ll do whatever I can. It’s just that ‘whatever I can’ is going to look different this time.”

“Senpai…”

“And, Natalena, you know how greedily stubborn I can get when I have my mind set on something, don’t you? So I’ll be fine. If I say I’ll win, then I swear to you I’ll win. No matter what it takes. Maybe I’m not the best fit for this job, but that just means I have to make myself fit.”

Part 4

After returning from wherever she had gone, Mama Letnahe Kurent beat Karuta up even more for a post-lunch workout. His arms and legs could not keep up, but he did manage to follow her punches and kicks with his eyes. However, the difficulty of predicting her actions shot up when she added grappling to the mix. His instincts told him to protect his face and gut…but that manifested itself as his reflexes curling him up in a ball out of fear. It was also strange how the hem and collar of his short-sleeved dress shirt or the belt of his slacks counted as weak points now. Since he had to engage his brain to remember why it was dangerous to let her reach those parts, his reactions were unavoidably slower.

How much harder would it be to respond when one-shot-kill weapons and magic came into play?

If he froze up because he had never seen something before, he would lose his life immediately.

“We’re running out of time. Have you learned anything at all from this?”

“Ugh, this has at least gotten me accustomed to pain before the real fight,” replied Karuta, standing up on unsteady legs.

Yes. He now had it in him to get up under his own power instead of lying sprawled out on the floor.

“Also, those two ideas show some promise.”

“Glad to hear it. This would have been awkward if it only served to let me blow off some steam.”

But he could not just relax this afternoon. This was not like a soccer or basketball game with a set starting time. Just now, the fifth match came to an end and the crowd erupted into an earth-rattling cheer.

After going through some fairly kinky training where he was unilaterally beaten by a lovely mother of two, Karuta chose to meet up with Marika and Kyouka in the student council room. Due to the unexplained security breach with their electronics, they were reluctant to exchange detailed information over their phones.

“Karuta.”

Just as he passed by a manga club girl carrying several booklets at her chest, someone called out to him and he turned back to find Marika approaching. Aine was waiting by her side.

Marika did not look directly at them, but she glanced over at the reflection of a newspaper club member in the window.

“We can talk in the student council room. That way you only have to explain it once and this open space isn’t great for a private conversation anyway.”

“Sacri-sama, why are you in such a good mood?”

“I feel like I made some real progress. I-I assure you it isn’t that I like getting beat up by women.”

The three of them walked along the side deck together.

Marika placed a hand on the side of her head to hold her hair down against the sea breeze while she glanced past the side deck railing.

“Looks like they’ve added some more new ships. I hear their composite armor makes them surprisingly light for their size. These two are a drone carrier and an electric warship, right?”

“The Radioquartz and the Chrisbart.”

“Oh, do you know a lot about that stuff, Karuta? You really are a boy, huh?”

“Hey, don’t assume the world’s strongest don’t have to take their final exams. Those are both names you’ll find in our history textbook.”

Modern warships tended to be named after historical scientists. And due to the modern age, the names of a magician and a crystal magic researcher could be found right alongside Galileo and Einstein.

“Who knows, we might eventually see a Karuta aircraft carrier or a Marika-class submarine.”

“Please no!” protested Marika. “I can’t imagine having a warship named after me. It has to be even more embarrassing than a statue of yourself in the schoolyard.”

The ordinary visitors could not spend the night on Second Grimnoah. Because there were too many of them. So separate cruise ships had been brought along for lodging. Add in the escort ships (which had been heavily reinforced after what happened near the Port of Kobe), and there had to be at least a hundred thousand people here. It was like an entire city’s population traveling across the sea.

“I just hope Second Grimnoah doesn’t tip over from all the weight,” said Karuta.

“But it’s a 600m triple hull ship. Eh? You’re not serious are you? Surely a bunch of people isn’t enough to sink it.”

He could not let his guard down even while holding this silly conversation with Marika.

Sure, he still had the 6th match to go, but that could always end in a one-hit KO immediately after the bell, so he could not predict how much time he actually had. So he needed to complete his preparations for the 7th match.

Those three met up with Kyouka in the student council room. The Four Living Gods were all together.

Training himself as much as he could was not enough.

He wanted information on the opponent he would be facing.

But the ordinary people could not be allowed to see the world’s strongest working so hard to avoid defeat. Asking for help on social media would only make him a laughing stock for all the anonymous people out there.

The redheaded buns secretary was standing guard in front of the student council room. She reluctantly moved out of the way when she saw Karuta and the others. Then she moved to stop the newspaper club member who tried to sneak in after them.

“I need results!” shouted Karuta as soon as he was inside their other hangout.

“Your opponent in the 7th match is Hetepheres Men-Nefer. Age: 15. Sex: Female. As you can probably guess from her name, she uses Egyptian mythology magic. She is supposedly a descendent of a sinful tomb keeper family that, fearing European invaders would discover it, stole the mummy of Pharaoh Khufu from the world’s largest pyramid and hid it where no one would ever find it.”

Omotesandou Kyouka listed out the basic data. It meant a lot to have the help of the student council president who could view all of the documents submitted to Second Grimnoah.

“Egypt…”

He didn’t know all that much about it, but that mythology kept turning up around him. Or maybe the Blast Sisters and Anubis had just left a strong impression on him.

Kyouka continued in front of her large desk.

“Egyptian mythology is polytheistic, just like Japanese mythology. You can assume that everything in the world, from the flowing of water to the growing of crops in the field, has a god assigned to it. But you can largely divide the gods into two groups, one led by Ra, god of the sun, and the other led by Osiris, god of death and resurrection. Keep that in mind first and foremost.”

Marika threw herself into the leather sofa and Aine took up her usual motionless position standing in the corner. Those two had approached Hetepheres herself and observed her directly.

“Our observations didn’t show any taboos related to food or drink and, even if she is a priestess or whatever, she doesn’t seem to be a vegetarian. I was surprised at what I saw, but apparently they ate a lot of bread in ancient Egypt. She wears a loose-fitting white garment with tons of pure gold accessories. Gold is soft, but it has a high relative density, making it heavy. Those things could do some real damage if she swung them around. I don’t know what kind of mythological meaning any of it has, but you could probably use all the frilly parts of her outfit to grab her.”

“To add to that, if she is a priestess with a solid sense of purpose, she would not attempt to borrow the power of a god or monster that goes against her faith. For example, Set is the enemy of both Ra and Osiris, so you can rule him out as a possibility right away.”

It could be confusing, but it was not as simple as Ra, god of heaven, being good and Osiris, god of the underworld, being evil. Even in Asia, Yama, king of the underworld, was the one who judged the dead, so he was not actually evil himself.

In Egyptian mythology, it was generally the righteous gods who ruled heaven and earth. The ones considered to be evil were not allowed in either camp.

After hearing everything they had to say, Karuta slowly inhaled on his feet.

And…

“That’s all?”

That was his response.

“Hold on. That’s all just general information on Egyptian mythology and their priests! None of it’s specific to Hetepheres at all! Elicia of the Problem Solvers used the power of Vishnu from Indian mythology, but that alone isn’t enough to know she attacked using a dinosaur. This leaves so many unknowns I can’t even put together a plan. Didn’t you find any more personal traits or idiosyncrasies!?”

Magic was not the only thing to fear here.

Ancient Egypt was a large and highly developed culture. They would have needed to take up weapons as a group and defend themselves against the surrounding civilizations, so they had to have their own military strategies and martial arts. Karuta honestly couldn’t picture it at all. Greek gods wielded double-edged swords and tridents and Buddhist ogres wielded metal clubs. He had a general idea of what kind of weapons those cultures used, but with the Egyptian gods, he could only think of musical instruments and scales – neither of which were weapons. If he didn’t even know that, he could be defeated by ordinary brute force before she even got to her magic.

He also didn’t know if Hetepheres would insist on using some mysterious ancient Egyptian martial art. It was always possible she could surprise him by suddenly using jujutsu or systema.

Simply put, he didn’t know anything solid.

But he couldn’t blame Marika, Kyouka, and Aine for that. They had only had 6 hours. How much could he have accomplished in their position? None of them had expected the magical tournament to be altered in this way.

When they were up against Elicia “Saurus” Luxverg of the Problem Solvers, they had spent days taking turns watching her every move. They had been so nervous they had even investigated her favorite brand of lip balm. He should have known there was only so much data they could gather when adlibbing on such a short time schedule.

The entire 600m ship shook.

Something big must have happened in the current match. He got the feeling that energy blast was not something someone would get back up from. And he himself would be thrown out in that same ring with nothing to defend himself.

His phone received a message before they could check the student council room’s TV.

He took a deep breath to calm his irritation and opened the message app.

“Stardust (for tournament staff only): Afternoon Message 2 – Round 1 Match 6 has ended sooner than expected. We intend to keep the audience busy with the cheerleaders and the commentator, but Match 7 could still begin ahead of schedule. Mr. Utagai, please report to the contestant waiting room so you may begin at any time.”

“…”

There was no escape now.

His chance to prepare had come to an end.

He pulled the modified military flashlight from the belt on the side of his pants. It had the perfect weight and length to work as a club and it contained an IR laser emitter that could dazzle an opponent’s eyes.

“One last thing, Omotesandou-san. I know I can’t use Aine, but what about this thing?”

“That won’t be a problem. If your opponent can’t defeat you with your Threat-fighting equipment, they can’t exactly say they defeated one of the world’s strongest, can they?”

With a dull sound, Aine pulled a crystal katana out of thin air and held it out toward him, but Kyouka shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but that won’t be allowed. It counts as part of you, Aine-chan.”

“But isn’t everything from her sword to her heart part of my crystal magic?”

“Yes, but good luck convincing the other 5.5 billion people out there that’s true when she has to lend it to you.”

He was really wishing he normally armed himself with an assault rifle and grenades while wearing a full-body blast-resistant suit. He got the feeling the entire world was out to get him, but he had never imagined his everyday clothing choices would come back to bite him so badly.

He was horribly underprepared. He was more or less defenseless once Aine, his greatest trump card, was taken from him. Being called the world’s strongest on paper did nothing at all to protect him. The mysterious rule change had dragged him down nearly to the same level as an ordinary person.

“No Aine this time. I have to do it all on my own.”

“Hmph.”

The crystal girl did not like this any more than he did and she puffed out her cheeks from within, but no one was going to listen to her complaints either.

One of the basic crystal magic presets was a protective barrier, but Karuta’s was as flimsy as paper and he doubted it could block a real sword or bullet. Similarly, he couldn’t use the flight preset at all. The only preset he did have was the regeneration, but that only rapidly healed nonlethal wounds. It wouldn’t do a thing to keep him from being killed instantly. If he took a bullet between the eyes, his entire body would become a crystal statue before he could even begin to heal.

And when he barely knew anything about his opponent, that was almost certainly what was going to happen against Egyptian tomb keeper Hetepheres Men-Nefer.

Aine silently tilted her head and whispered in a cold voice from where she stood in the corner like a potted plant.

“What will you do?”

“I’ll make it work. No matter what it takes.”

Part 5

It was time to think.

The first day of the Catastrophe covered the 8 matches of the first round. That meant the tournament had 16 contestants in all. In a straightforward tournament with no seeding, the winner had to fight in four matches. Trying to win them all fair and square was exactly what the unseen string-pullers wanted. Because they had set things up so Karuta would die in the attempt.

But he didn’t need to do things their way. As long as he demonstrated that the Four Living Gods were in fact the world’s strongest, they could eliminate the social unrest around the world. For example, if something even more powerful than the tournament opponents – like the Decoy Threat that turned out to be simple machines – were to attack Second Grimnoah and those four protected the other contestants and the audience in front of all the cameras.

“No, that wouldn’t work.”

A chair bolted to the floor creaked.

A trick like that could turn into a long-lasting Achilles heel. The instant the truth came out, the social unrest would be back with a vengeance, so it wasn’t a real solution.

He had to win this.

Karuta smiled in self-deprecation after reaching that conclusion all alone in the contestant waiting room.

And the person on his mind now…was not one of the people he held dear.

(Warrior Doll.)

That armored warrior had towered over Karuta and fought with a plasma jet sword. That Threat had sought human goodness more than anyone and occupied Second Grimnoah to learn about crystal magic. His many companions had been mercilessly slaughtered while trying to learn, but he had still sought a fair duel, so what would he think if he saw Karuta still trying to come up with some kind of trick here?

(Sorry. I can’t resign myself to my fate like you. I’m an ugly person deep down, so I can’t help but cling to life. And that’s what makes me want to protect the people I hold dear and the world as a whole.)

So.

No matter how much he was spat on or how many stones were thrown at him, Utagai Karuta would still seek victory.

A female voice left the speaker in the tiny space.

“Round 1 Match 7 will begin shortly. Mr. Utagai Karuta, please step out into the ring.”

He sighed and pulled the modified military flashlight from the side of his purple slacks. He slowly rose from the bolted-down chair and walked to the metal double doors.

He pushed them open.

A thick wall of cheering voices slammed into his face.

Evening had fallen.

The powerful film lights were more for the TV broadcasts than for the contestants, so they were already hurting his eyes, forcing him to squint.

The next thing happened before he could hold his hand up and let his eyes adjust.

“Hello, hello, hello! I’m Cinderella Queen Delane, the shining new child star with an edge, and I will be providing commentary for this match. But I will be sharing that duty with a special guest! If you want to know about crystal magic, look no further than Student Council President Omotesandou Kyouka!! …I get the feeling we’ll need an expert’s commentary to even hope to follow along here.”

“Thank you for having me. I will remind you that I am still a student, though.”

The concert band’s music and the deluge of cheers were like a booming explosion, but the large concert speakers played the commentary at an even greater volume.

The vortex of noise gave Karuta a pounding headache as he noticed a gondola supported from above by a crane. Was that the commentator’s booth? Kyouka had been invited in as a guest, but she wouldn’t be able to help him while in the public mode she used when addressing the world. She couldn’t help him even if she wanted to. If anyone thought they were cheating, the public wouldn’t accept their display of superiority and definitive cracks would form in the people’s already-shaken faith in the world’s strongest. Then the social unrest would spread like wildfire.

He had to protect this world, so he had to fight.

(They’re somewhere out there.)

So many eyes were focused on him.

The tension of standing up on stage clutched at his heart.

(Some of the eyes out there carry malice. Someone forced these new conditions on us in order to have me killed while the world watches on.)

The tiered stands surrounded him in all 360 degrees, but only so many people could fit. The horizontal safety bars in front of the seats on each level were covered with webcams and aerial drones buzzed around overhead. They were like a flock of starlings blotting out the sky. They were generally manually controlled, but they used invisible IR sensors to measure the distance between each other and automatically adjusted their positions accordingly. Still, he could hardly believe they managed to avoid colliding while packed together so tightly.

(They sold more than a million viewing tickets, right? And those aren’t just to watch the livestream on the official site. That only covers the people who wanted to control their own swiveling camera to enjoy the live event as much as possible. Thanks to that, this empty area of ocean has an EM density as high as New York.)

Remote viewers would buy the usage rights for a swiveling webcam and watch the matches that way.

Those who wanted to watch in person were required to sign a document waiving the tournament’s liability if they were killed by a stray shot of magic or something. Surprisingly, they had still received tens of thousands of times as many applicants as they had available seats. All ten thousand seats split across three levels were full. Were people just that eager to witness a legend? They had the full surface of the 600m ship to work with, but they had gathered all ten thousand people on the heliport.

Karuta heard a dull metallic thud behind him.

The waiting room he had been in was actually an oblong metal container. It was dangling from a cutting-edge tiltrotor by thick wires and it was swiftly removed from the heliport.

He had nowhere to run or hide now.

An excited little girl’s voice echoed through this hellish evening where murder was allowed.

“Our first contestant in Round 1 Match 7 needs no introduction! He’s the current world’s strongest and the eye of the storm who absorbs all the envy and grudges of the world’s 5.5 billion people!! His victory is assured, so how the hell are we supposed to make any money off your bets this time!? This boy can use cutting-edge crystal magic and he’s protected the world from the Threat. He’s here to represent the whole Four Living Gods – it’s Utagaiii Karutaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!”

On the other side of the 20m square ring, an identical oblong metal container was dangling down for his opponent.

Cheers erupted from all around. The thick wall of noise slammed into him and threatened to crush him.

He was trapped in a deadly cage with the entire world watching.

“And then there’s our challenger hoping for a shortcut to the good life!! If you need a new title, why not just steal it!? She refuses to believe anyone’s stronger than her! And she promises to charm us with a show put on with Egyptian mythology – a mythology so important we’ve all heard of it☆ This priestess is hoping to tear crystal magic down from its throne – it’s Hetepheres Men-Neferrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!”

After shouting her lungs out, the small girl named Delane turned to ask the guest commentator her opinion.

“So what’s your opinion of this matchup, Miss Expert? Who has the upper hand here?”

“Hard to say. But the priests and priestesses of Egyptian mythology are important enough to get quite a few mentions in our crystal magic classes. They are the representative example of someone who could read the occult high and low pressure fronts and determine their effect on crops and sailing in order to support a large populace.”

“I see, I see.”

“You could say this is a showdown between the classic original and the latest update. We should see the oldest form of magic clashing with the newest.”

“Hm, so you’re saying it’s hard to say which way this will go!? That’s a relief. This event won’t be very exciting if Mr. Karuta doesn’t die!!”

He had expected this even if he didn’t like it.

Omotesandou Kyouka was not going to take his side while in public mode. Still, her long explanation was not only directed at the crowd.

Yes, she was giving Karuta information as well.

(She’s as crafty as ever.)

His opponent had long black hair and brown skin.

She appeared to be around his age and she wore an ethnic white priestess outfit with golden decorations all over her body.

“Utagai Karuta.”

Their gazes collided while the girl lifted the four thick and highly elastic ropes and climbed into the ring situated a level above everything else.

She spoke in Japanese, so she clearly wanted him to understand her.

“I know you are powerless.”

“…”

She probably wanted to apply pressure before the match began to throw him off his game.

She hoped to prevent him from fighting at his best so she could crush him with ease. Karuta was impressed because that idea hadn’t occurred to him. It was an unimaginable tactic with the Problem Solvers or the Threat who would kill you if you tried it.

So he did not bat an eye and whispered back so only she could hear him.

“Would you prefer this ends with you unconscious or dead?”

“You can’t trick me. You can’t do anything without that crystal girl of yours.”

No hesitation from her.

Was that a sign of confidence or of nerves? He had never met her before, so he had no way of making that judgment.

Cinderella Queen began an explanation of the rules, probably a formality required for the TV broadcast.

“The match has no time limit, but both contestants will be disqualified if it is determined they are working together to intentionally extend the match. The match continues until one or the other of them loses consciousness. Oh, and dead counts there! That also means the match keeps going no matter how badly they’re hurt as long as they’re still conscious, so they’ll need to keep that in mind☆”

Karuta sighed without letting it show on his face.

Crystal magic provided a regeneration power. Any nonlethal injury would be healed in thirty seconds. That made it incredibly difficult to knock him unconscious with a physical blow. In fact, it was very nearly impossible without using a chokehold like Letnahe had done, a special witch potion, or causing a lightning strike with a weather manipulation power.

In other words…

(They’ve set up the rules so it’s easier to kill me. Who is this asshole who secretly changed the rules Omotesandou-san worked so hard to put together?)

With a deep thrum, the poles in the four corners of the ring glowed red.

“Also, they need to watch out for the ring’s ropes. They’re what we call detonating cords, which means they’re packed full of explosives. Touching one of them will cause more damage than a jammed gun blowing up your hand, if you’re curious. They detonate the instant either contestant touches the ropes and a composite explosive made with everything from smokeless powder to penthrite will blast the offender to smithereens with a burning velocity of 5km/s, so they’re gonna want to be verrrrry careful out there.”

The red glow of the poles signaled that the ropes had been activated. This was worse than an electric deathmatch. Karuta glanced up at Kyouka, but she only winked down at him.

This was just like the introduction in the gym.

She looked calm, but something she didn’t understand was at work here. She must have only been called in as a guest commentator for the match with Crystal Magician Karuta, so she had not seen the other matches. And that was coming back to bite them now.

The unseen person who had changed the rules had altered everything with obvious malicious intent.

“Simply put, if they touch the rope, they’ll have their body torn apart for their trouble!! …Ugh, explaining the same damn thing 7 times in one day is a real pain. You’d better have the basic rules down pat by the next round cause I’m not doing this again tomorrow☆”

Karuta and Hetepheres faced each other in the center of the ring with about 5m between them.

Standing in front of an enemy was always terrifying.

He had nothing to shield him here and he could not escape outside the ring. If she “accidentally” jumped the gun and shot some powerful magic at him, he would have no way to avoid being reduced to ashes.

That was the world he lived in now.

In fact, someone who would actually wait for the bell seemed like an oddity to him.

An accident would be good enough.

Hetepheres might be disqualified for jumping the gun, but she would still hold the title of the person who won a flawless victory over one of the world’s strongests. She didn’t need Second Grimnoah’s help after that. As long as she had that title, she could milk it for all it was worth, like a martial artist known for killing a bear with his bare hands, and live however she liked in the world of magic. Really, she had no reason not to do it. The loss by technicality would be a temporary blot on her record and a small price to pay for the fame it would bring her. All of the contestants were risking their lives in a major gamble, so why actually wait for the starting bell?

Something worked its way into his ear along with the growing cheers.

He heard some whispered non-Japanese words. This was something Hetepheres would prefer did not reach him. But Egyptian hieroglyphs were a fully decoded language. Karuta had learned the basics in his magic classes. Translated into Japanese, this is what he heard.

“…ction – Ho…s – 1/1…4…”

Or was he overthinking this?

Utagai Karuta had gotten his start in bloody revenge, so maybe he had a bad habit of viewing everything in as noncharitable a light as possible. It was possible that Hetepheres Men-Nefer had come here carrying the pride of the many generations that had passed down her Egyptian magic and thought this only counted if she fought fair and square. This all came down to what was in her mind. That was not something that could be measured with logic or numbers. Karuta had no way of seeing what was going on inside Hetepheres’s head.

In this tournament, they had to fight one-on-one in accordance with the rules until one side or the other emerged victorious.

If she had agreed to those rules, then she may have viewed the world in a more favorable light than Karuta did.

She grinned and extended her right hand. Almost like she was asking for a handshake.

“I hope my trash talk didn’t offend you.” She switched back to Japanese for his benefit. “Let’s enjoy this, okay? Let’s do this fair and square so we can both accept the result, whatever it might be.”

Karuta smiled a little too. Or he thought he did.

Her gentle expression made him glad he had fought to protect this world. He felt ashamed of himself for assuming an ulterior motive and tensing up instead of shaking her proffered hand. He and the others had gotten rid of that sort of malicious world when they had defeated the Problem Solvers. They had created a pure and just world. He was so glad he had clenched his teeth and fought for this!! This girl here proved to him that he had done the right thing.

He wanted to make this an enjoyable match.

If at all possible.

Cinderella Queen raised her voice with her finger on the button for the bell.

“Now, let’s get this match started! Join me in the countdown, everyone! Threeee, twoooo, o-”

“You’re dead meat, Utagai Karuta.”

Some Ancient Egyptian words proved he had been right the first time.

Humans were trash after all.

Part 6

The tournament stadium shook violently.

Something had clearly exploded.

No one had time to protest that someone had jumped the gun. The audience was having trouble deciding what to make of this, so they raised their voices in shouts that weren’t quite cheers and weren’t quite screams. Sword-wielding tournament staff was positioned around the stands to erect barriers to protect against stray shots, so they activated their pointy and translucent crystal armor, floated up into the air with their magic, and adjusted their viewing angle to try and see inside the cloud of dust.

“What happened to Karuta!?” shouted Amaashi Marika on the second-level aisle after pushing past the cheerleading squad that had reflexively stopped their dancing.

The match had already begun, but that did not mean she had no way at all of passing information on to Karuta. Transmissions made through their crystal blossoms were likely being monitored, but there were still plenty of ways of sending him data on Hetepheres, like a flashing light or rhythmic clapping.

But she couldn’t even do that now.

After all, there had been an explosion in the ring. There was nowhere to hide there and Karuta couldn’t use the preset barrier very well, so he would have been hit by the brunt of the blast.

“…”

Was it possible?

Could it be over already?

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Marika felt a weight in the pit of her stomach.

It had all happened so fast her feelings couldn’t keep up.

No, she was already in denial. Her mind was full of unreasonably optimistic ideas like “the world’s strongest wouldn’t die that easily” or “the Utagai Karuta couldn’t be killed like that”.

In a tear-jerking success story, he would have made it well into the tournament. He might not actually win, but he would at least meet a shocking loss or die in some dramatic way in the final round.

But reality didn’t work that way.

She knew all too well how cruelly unpredictable reality could be.

The strongest would be safe?

Who made that a rule? Who was it that had looked up from the bottom, thrown the established rules into chaos, and ultimately killed all five of the previous strongests?

They had known the surprise rule change had been implemented maliciously, so why had they just gone along with it? Why had they just assumed that he would get through at least the first round safely!?

“Miss Marika.”

“Hm? What do you want?”

“Miss Marika, we need to complete the task Sacri-sama left with us. You cannot obtain any valuable information on Hetepheres Men-Nefer by standing here. Weren’t we planning to sneak into her waiting room container? There is no one there now.”

“And what good is that information if Karuta is gone!? He was right in front of her when she blasted him with magic ahead of the bell!”

“Perhaps so.” The inhuman crystal girl tilted her head in confusion and smoothly provided an explanation. “Yet I am still functioning as normal.”

“…Wait.”

Yes. That was right.

Aine looked like a skinny girl, but she was not an independent being. She was a variation on the crystal armor used by crystal magicians, so she could not exist if her magician were gone.

Which meant…

Part 7

Hetepheres Men-Nefer felt a burning sensation in her temples.

The ring had exploded.

She had attacked the world’s strongest before the bell rang.

But.

“That wasn’t me.” Her right hand was still held out, palm forward. “That initial explosion wasn’t me!! That threw off my magic’s aim!”

“You should probably shut up and make your next move,” whispered Utagai Karuta, already making his next move.

One of his leather shoes was missing. He had swiftly removed and chucked it backwards with a snap of his wrist. Right into the detonating cord ropes that were set to explode if anything touched them.

That had caused an explosion just before Hetepheres’s Egyptian magic had activated. It hadn’t been enough to be lethal, but it had shaken her physically and mentally, throwing off her aim just enough.

And so he had survived.

Utagai Karuta rushed straight toward her holding the modified military flashlight he could use as a club.

He didn’t know what her specialty was, but he had no choice but to get close. His killing range was the range of that club.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on there!! I haven’t rung the bell yet, you two!!”

“Are you volunteering to pull them apart and start this over from the beginning? When the crowd is going wild like this? Why would you want to be such a wet blanket, Delane?”

His strike was rejected with a dull clang.

His flashlight was forcibly held back by an empty patch of air. He grimaced at the pain in his wrist bones and forced himself to make careful observations.

“Jackal – Connection – Anubis – 1/96.”

A bluish-white light spread from her outstretched palm like an opening umbrella and that blocked his blunt weapon.

“The judgment of the dead is permanent and there is no false second judgment for the sinful souls. Your judgment has been made. If you cannot accept it, then leave this place!!”

“I’ve torn your mask away now.”

“You aren’t surprised?”

“Sorry, but I’m not naïve enough to be surprised by a simple supernatural barrier. That’s one of the standards for crystal magic!!”

(But am I really up against Anubis again!?)

If she could cover her entire body with that barrier at all times, she would have done so from the beginning. She had only tried to cheat and kill him with her first attack because she was worried about something.

There was a downside.

And not just that it didn’t last long.

The smoke and dust from the detonating cord blast had gotten in her black hair. That meant the barrier didn’t provide 360-degree protection.

It was a shield, not armor. So if he didn’t attack from head on, he could hit her!

“Ibis – Connection – Thoth – 1/96.”

Her right palm turned to face him, her shoulder moving in a way the joint shouldn’t have allowed.

He dodged out of the way and made a feint, but his flashlight was still deflected by the shield of bluish-white light. He tried a second and third time, but he could not slip past that swiveling shield.

(Is she predicting my moves!? But if she could always do this, that first attack wouldn’t have caught her by surprise.)

“Bull – Connection – Apis – 1/8.”

The shield swelled out.

No, she took a forceful step toward him with the glowing shield still held out in front. It was like a dump truck’s bumper crashing into a human.

Shields were generally considered defensive tools, but there were techniques that struck with the edge or tackled with the full front surface. Based on this, he guessed Ancient Egypt had some kind of specialized shield techniques.

His own thin barrier was breached immediately and he fell backwards. If he had tried to stand his ground, she would have snatched his only weapon from his hand.

“Gah!?”

“Utagai Karuta, you are powerless.”

He heard a high-pitched clink as a thumb-sized clear vial dropped to Hetepheres’s feet. The action was reminiscent of an empty cartridge, but it wasn’t empty.

Karuta watched as dry brown sand crumbled away, but he had seen the true identity of the vial’s contents first.

(A…mummy?)

“And a powerless boy can never defeat me.”

But this mummy was not the preserved remains of a pharaoh. It looked like an animal. That stout livestock was a cow, but it didn’t look like a fetus. Somehow, it had been dried down to the point that it could fit in a vial no larger than a size-D battery.

(But more than that…)

Where had it come from?

He did not know what it was, but if it was necessary for her magic, he could stop her from using her magic by preventing her from pulling those things out.

He had been distracted.

He had not seen the moment when she pulled it out. Her loose-fitting Egyptian priestess outfit looked perfect for hiding small objects, but she had not actually reached into a pocket or something. And she wasn’t wearing long sleeves, so it couldn’t be hidden at her wrists. So when had she pulled it out and from where!?

“Falcon – Connection – Horus – 1/144.”

He had seen this one before.

The bluish-white shield vanished and a compressed ball of fire appeared in her hand instead. This was the bomb she had attempted to throw at him before the bell.

He also saw another vial in her hand. But he had again missed precisely when she pulled it out.

“Now it is my turn to tear your mask away. Die like the powerless fool you are!!”

Part 8

Hetepheres Men-Nefer was an efficient person.

Karuta wasn’t about to call her a good person, but he had to admit that much. So if she thought a method was effective, she would repeat it as many times as it took.

Her initial attack had only missed because of Karuta’s trick.

And the fact that he had used a trick essentially told her that he would have been in trouble had he not used it. So if she had the chance, she was sure to try that explosion again.

Also, Karuta only understood that part of her so well because he was the same kind of person.

So when he saw that explosion, he knew exactly what to do.

He removed his remaining shoe and threw it.

But this time, he threw it toward her fireball instead of the exploding ropes behind him.

“Ah.”

Once she threw that fireball, it would explode.

So instead of waiting for her to throw it, he could trigger it himself.

Now, that explosion was designed to be thrown first – which meant she needed to move it away from herself before it detonated – so would she escape unscathed if it detonated in her hand?

“Gahhhhh!!!???” she screamed, swallowed up by her own explosion.

Karuta did not let his guard down while he gripped his flashlight and stood back up. He wanted to rush in and ensure she stayed down, but the blows from his blunt weapon would be blocked by her bluish-white barrier shield.

That swiveling defense blocked his attacks automatically.

He gathered strength in his arms and sent his eyes racing around.

(What could I use to make that malfunction?)

“Fuck off, you powerless frauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuud!!!!!”

She interrupted his thoughts.

She shouted at him while the explosive flames burst like a balloon. And a white tornado emerged from within.

No, that wasn’t accurate.

He heard the rustling of cloth because these were long bandage-like strips of fabric. And not even her expertise in Egyptian magic allowed her to create something from nothing.

Her loose-fitting white priestess outfit was coming apart into those bandage-like strips.

The strips were curled up like an old phone cord and each loop contained a small vial.

“Papyrus,” said Utagai Karuta with a grin.

She had been pushed far enough to let her clothing fall apart and reveal the majority of her brown skin so she could access those vials more quickly. She trembled and blushed in the humiliation of having her methods revealed, but the boy continued the verbal assault.

Words could be used as a weapon to throw people off their game and keep them from fighting to their full potential.

She had taught him that herself.

“Most people think of papyrus as the water plant used to make Ancient Egyptian paper, but it was actually an all-purpose material with so many more applications, wasn’t it? It was used for carpets, tableware, boats, and buildings. The pith could even be eaten. But most importantly, it was used to make clothing. You didn’t just have a secret pocket or two. You could open slits anywhere you wanted to pull out your weapon.”

“Don’t…don’t think you have me all figured out.”

“But.”

“You don’t know ANythIng aBOUt mE!!!!!!!”

“Now that I know where you get those vials from, I can throw off your timing. I can stop your magic.”

A small light flashed at the edge of Karuta’s vision.

That had to be Aine or Marika. Did they assume contacting him with their crystal blossom transmissions would count as assisting him with their magic? They were using a pen light to send him a signal from the stands. He mentally converted the message to Japanese.

(Hetepheres is a priestess of the Osiris line of Egyptian mythology. She specializes in mummification. Egyptian mythology has divine beasts that correspond to the gods and mummified birds or cattle worshiped as divine incarnations have been discovered in the ruins much like the mummies of the human pharaohs.)

“…”

(She uses this by indirectly drawing on a god’s power through a mummified version of an animal corresponding to that god, such as a falcon or jackal. They are so small because, after the life-size mummy is made, each part is boiled down and concentrated into something like a soup stock, making them portable.)

The information was valuable, but not enough to give him an actual plan.

Since those were real mummies, he felt like they would have a weakness to moisture, but that wasn’t much help when they were sealed inside airtight vials.

“Why do you assign different ratios to each power?”

“?”

“Is it because reworking the power back to life size takes too long, so you’ve found shortcuts that make that method viable in combat? So the greater the denominator, the more shortcuts you use. That would also explain why you can use some of the powers simultaneously and not others. Our crystal magic seals the name of a god in our crystal blossom, so we aren’t using the god directly. Of course your way would be trickier to use.”

She did not respond.

But tensing her face to avoid letting anything show in her expression was as good as a confirmation.

Hetepheres Men-Nefer looked furious as she held a vial containing a miniature mummy. Karuta squeezed his modified military flashlight in return.

He could not defeat this Egyptian priestess with a head-on strike.

But that was not his only weapon. He had replaced the ordinary light with a powerful IR laser emitter.

“Wha-?”

Only after reflexively moving to cover her eyes did the doubt enter her mind.

He had aimed his flashlight straight up instead of at her.

Then his malice bared its fangs.

A hammer dropped down from heaven to earth.

But this hammer was made of an aluminum frame, plastic, and silicon chips and it dropped because the IR scrambled its image-processing-based attitude control sensors.

“A drone!!!???”

It was only a toy, but it still weighed two or three kilograms. That was about the same as a small plant pot filled with soil. Dropped from a height, that was plenty deadly.

Hetepheres moved to protect herself, but then she noticed the invisible web she was trapped in.

Yes, something wasn’t right.

She had nothing to fear from a head-on blow by a blunt weapon heavier than a bat and she had plenty of mummy vials left. She only had to calmly draw on Anubis’s power and knock Karuta away with her bluish-white shield to solve this problem.

Yet she couldn’t do it.

The signals from her mind to her body seemed awfully slow, like her body’s gears were jammed.

“Your reflexes kick in for weak points your instincts know about.”

That was a solid rule.

Nothing was more reliable than information that came from painful experiences.

“But when you need your mind to recognize the threat posed by an attack, your reactions slow.”

Bringing down drones through malfunctioning sensors wasn’t actually going to hit her when they had no targeting or homing function.

Instead, he threw his heavy flashlight straight at her.

She gasped and moved, like her bonds had been broken.

She immediately held a brown palm out in front of her, activating the bluish-white shield to deflect the attack aimed at her face.

But had she noticed that this was exactly the reaction Karuta had wanted? The falling drones had needed her mind to recognize the threat, but her instincts were enough with the projectile toward her face.

Her defenses were a shield she held out in front of her, not enveloping armor.

As soon as she activated that shield to deflect the flashlight, Karuta stepped diagonally outwards and then sharply back in to move behind her. Then he wrapped his entire arm around her neck. He held her from behind and then let himself fall backwards.

Both of them landed face up.

“Gah!?”

On top, Hetepheres’s back was arched like she was performing a bridge, except her feet were lifted from the floor. Karuta raised one knee to lift her hips from behind. She tried to swing her elbow back into him, but it only found air. The more her back was arched, the less she could move her elbow like that. While nearly in the bridge position, it was next to impossible for her to attack behind herself.

“Oh, has he got her in a chokehold!?” shouted Delane. “Damn, chokeholds and joint locks are basically a win since they’re nearly impossible to break free from. Where’s the drama we all crave!!”

“Not only does this keep Miss Hetepheres from reaching the tool she uses for her magic, but the pressure to her carotid artery will keep her from thinking at all. That is two ways this prevents her magic,” explained Kyouka.

Karuta knew just how agonizing this was after Letnahe did it to him.

It took several minutes to pass out if you simply couldn’t breathe, but constricting the carotid artery changed that. A human would pass out in less than 30 seconds.

With so little time to work with, he had not managed to learn much from Letnahe Kurent and she mostly just beat him up, but this was one of the few things he had learned. From all the innumerable forms of violence out there, Karuta’s interest had been piqued by how this was nearly impossible to escape while also preventing any resistance or even screaming once it was in place. But that wasn’t the only reason.

He had also wondered if he could have avoided bloodying his hands if he had learned some nonlethal methods of knocking people unconscious at an earlier stage.

(No, it’s not worth thinking about that.)

“Also, Hetepheres, since you tried to elbow me instead of using magic, can I assume you have nothing else left?”

“!?”

“In real street fighting, there is no escaping chokeholds and joint locks. The fight is as good as over once one is in place. It’s time you lost. You don’t have to lose everything in this fight against the world’s strongest!!”

“Who, gh, gives you the right, ugh, to talk down to me, ah, like that!?”

She had foam leaking from the corners of her mouth, but she managed to free her trembling fingers form their meaningless instinctive movements.

A hand reaching for her throat instead stretched slowly to the side.

She reached for something that shouldn’t have been there.

It was one of the ropes meant to surround the ring. The initial explosion triggered by Karuta had left an unignited detonating cord lying out on the floor.

Black powder had spilled from where it had broken away. That was apparently a mixture of smokeless powder, penthrite, and other explosives to get the speed and power just right.

The rope had not been ignited yet, so it would explode if touched!

“This…this isn’t over yet. Agh, as long as I can reach this…”

“Hetepheres!”

“It’ll detonate when I touch it, but I just have to make sure the blast reaches you. Maybe my elbow can’t reach, but I can swing this soft rope around to hit you.”

It would never be that easy. That thing had a burning velocity of 5km/s, so it would almost certainly blow her hand off before she could swing it.

But almost certainly wasn’t certainly.

There was a chance she could swing the rope around before it exploded, or her blown-off fingers or bones could stab deep into his head through his eyes. There were no 100% guarantees in combat. Karuta had learned the hard way how terrifying malicious coincidences could be.

(What do I do?)

He could not stop her slowly-moving arm with his knee up and his arm around her neck. And chokeholds took time to knock people out no matter how much force you used. Squeeze any harder and he would only break her neck.

He would have to wait until later to feel good about the inefficient decision to reject that idea outright.

Because as things were, that decision wouldn’t even matter. He only needed the one arm to hold her neck in his elbow like a finger caught in a door’s hinge, so what could he accomplish with his other arm?

(What do I do!?)

Part 9

Efficient people would reuse a method any number of times once they knew it was effective.

He already had his answer.

What had he done to defend against an explosion from her Egyptian magic earlier?

He had triggered his own explosion first.

In other words, he only had to reach out his hand and grab the rope snaking across the floor.

With a muffled explosion, the effect was immediately evident.

He doubted she would have had time to swing it around after grabbing it. The instant the detonating cord received the pressure of his grip, it provided an electric shock to ignite the explosives. The flammable gas’s volume instantly expanded several hundredfold, blowing away the boy’s clenched hand from within. His paper-thin barrier was meaningless here. Instead of expanding in a sphere from a single point, this was more like a line of destruction used to burn through a thick metal door. The hunks of flesh blasted across the mat rapidly crystallized.

“Kah…”

With her last-ditch counterattack – her final hope – snuffed out, she finally hit her limit.

“Huh?”

Hetepheres’s hand dropped to the floor. This time, she really did appear to have passed out.

But Karuta could not just sit around.

His felt woozy and the lack of pain actually scared him.

Even a child knew that slitting your wrist was enough to kill you. His crystal magic would help him regenerate, but only with nonlethal injuries. He helped himself to one of the bandage-like strips of cloth wrapped around Hetepheres and used his right hand and mouth to tie it tight just below his mutilated hand. That didn’t fully stop the bleeding, but it didn’t have to. It only had to get the wound deemed nonlethal.

He heard several high-pitched cracking sounds.

Sharp pieces of crystal were covering his incomplete hand.

He raised that hand overhead.

With an especially loud noise, the crystal shattered away, revealing his clenched fist to be as good as new. Glittering crystal dust reflected the bright film lights, illuminating him in his raised-fist pose.

“Oh!” shouted Cinderella Queen. “Ohhhhhhh!! I-I don’t believe it! Did he protect her? He didn’t just defeat her Egyptian magic! Utagai Karuta grabbed the detonating cord rope himself to protect Hetepheres against her own last-ditch suicide attack!!!!!!”

After a short pause, the crowd erupted into cheers.

“The guy’s a legit monster! Was I the only one that thought his life was ever at risk here?”

“Damn, I guess the strongest really does look at the world differently.”

“Why didn’t he kill her!? Cause she’s a girl?”

The deluge of voices pushed in at him from all sides. Karuta’s victory meant all the money bet against the world’s strongest went right into Second Grimnoah’s pockets, but no one sounded angry.

But Karuta felt any icy chill himself.

The odds had been low, but there had been a chance she could have turned that detonating cord into a win. To prevent that small but very real possibility, he had rationally sacrificed his hand to save his life. His biggest fear had been her fingers or bones stabbing into his brain through his eyes, so he had prevented Hetepheres’s unpredictable action, chosen where he would take his damage, and turned his face away from the blast to protect his eyes from the pieces of his own hand.

That was the real reason for his decision.

But the people in the audience had chosen to dramatize the action.

“I only did it for myself,” he said just the once.

His confession was picked up by a distant shotgun microphone, but it only led to more cheers. They only saw this as the modesty of a saint.

Eat shit, silently spat the ordinary boy.

He was afraid how they would interpret that one if he said it out loud.

Part 10

Somehow, he had made it through the first round of the deadly Catastrophe.

Night had fallen and he wanted to get away from anywhere as public as the arena. But he wanted to get some advice for his future plans before he climbed into bed and slept like a log. After using his phone to say as much, Kyouka gave him a location to meet up at. It was near the gym.

“They say that is the Southern Cross Meteor Shower.” The student council president was looking out the window. “It should continue for a while. The first wave alone has more than ten thousand and the total amount is supposed to be over 300 million. Most of them will burn up in the thermosphere, though.”

“Where has all that stardust been floating?”

“Maybe further out than Pluto but closer than the Oort cloud. And since it will continue for a while, this should be the top night event since there aren’t any matches to watch. Well, it technically continues through the day, but we can’t see it thanks to the sunlight. Ha ha. Woof, woof.”

“?”

Omotesandou Kyouka was acting weird.

Come to think of it, wasn’t she the one who had been the most excited about the decoy astronomical observations they used to sneak into the outskirts of Silicon Valley for their battle against Anastasia?

However, the ship itself had no light restrictions, so this did not make for a proper astronomy event. The deck had to be covered with couples waving around penlights meant for concerts. Karuta’s only thought on the matter was “Oh, so that’s why those timelapse apps are trending in the app store.” Ordinary videos didn’t get good images of the starry sky.

“Your life could really use more romance, Karuta-kun.”

“Hey, don’t diss my entire life just because I’m not into your hobby. …Anyway, what did you want to talk about?”

“They lost it,” said Omotesandou Kyouka in her wheelchair.

His wounds had all been regenerated, but he still felt like something was straining inside his body. He clenched and unclenched his fist and rolled his shoulder around.

“Who lost what?”

“Her family lost Pharaoh Khufu’s mummy after removing it from his pyramid long ago. They apparently hid it a little too well and its location never made it to the current generation. That’s why she wanted the authority of the world’s strongest to perform a largescale search in secret.”

“…”

Hetepheres had called him powerless and a fraud.

Maybe that was a reflection of how she felt about herself. Maybe she had been relieved to find someone so much like herself.

She had been willing to sacrifice her life in her struggle to acquire the title of world’s strongest. Every single contestant had their own reason for that and Karuta had to crush those hopes and dreams if he was to survive.

He scratched his head which felt much heavier than usual.

“I want to take a shower and get to bed. At least the regeneration means I can relax without fearing any muscle pain or lasting effects from my injuries.”

“Oh? But you still have several jobs left as one of the world’s strongest.”

He put on a “what now?” look as someone approached him.

It was the toxic little girl named Cinderella Queen (which was obviously only a stage name). She looked even less developed than Natalena. A high schooler like him was bad at judging the ages of kids more than a few years younger than him, but he guessed she was around 10.

She moved with the air of someone accustomed to making herself look nice. First, she bowed with the meteor shower out the window acting as a backdrop.

“Hee hee hee. Nice to meet you, Mr. Strongest. Congratulations on clearing the first round. And you have my personal thanks for that as well. I know what I said during the match, but if you lost in the first round, we’d have trouble keeping people interested for the rest of the tournament.”

“You’re welcome, I guess.”

“Still, it would be pretty boring if you went on to win the whole thing. It’d be a lot more dramatic if the jackpot built up from the 5.5 billion people betting against you all of a sudden paid out, so I’d appreciate it if you could cough up some blood and lose in a shocking upset.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” cut in a new voice.

A beautiful woman maybe a little older than Kyouka approached, but this young woman in glasses had a puppyish vibe to her.

“She doesn’t mean any harm when she says these things. She’s still just a child, so I would greatly appreciate it if you would forgive her.”

“Hold it, assistant!! This is the crucial scene where I overpower this talentless fighter with my powerful entertainment aura, so don’t ruin the whole thing by interrupting. My fans will be discussing this moment for years to come and I’d just feel bad for them if they had to see your sad face every single time they revisit it!”

“Is that any way to speak to your own sister? You’re the one whose constant problematic statements, unplanned adlibs during live broadcasts, and attacks on the program sponsors got you fired by your entertainment agency, forcing you to work as a free net idol. And you could never keep this up without me working as your manager, so I would appreciate some thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m thankful or whatever.” Cinderella Queen grinned in a way that looked much too mean for such a small child and then she turned back toward Karuta. “Now, you, Karuta, you I really am thankful for. You see, I pushed the envelope in ways the bigshots in the TV industry weren’t comfortable with and they canceled me for it, forcing me onto the internet instead. But now that you murdered the old strongests, I’m actually making a comeback in the TV industry. Remember how you destroyed that giant TV station when you killed Elicia in Southeast Asia? The losers who thought they could keep me down got the boot after that☆”

“…”

Karuta’s group had been very careful to avoid any civilian deaths during that dinosaur battle, but it sounded like some important people had lost their jobs over it. …And at least one person had made a comeback.

People’s interests tended to gather around the world’s strongest.

Still, he couldn’t believe such a small child was caught up in all that.

This Cinderella wasn’t just a storybook princess who found happiness. If necessary, she was willing to throw her Prince Charming under the bus to get ahead. Cinderella Queen winked and grabbed her black and yellow leather skirt to perform a perfect curtsy, but when she spoke, her tone was too provocative to just call it mischievous.

“I’m counting on you in the second round as well, Karuta. I need you to win it and give me unprecedented stream viewership numbers.”

“Is that all you wanted to say?”

“Oh, and this is more than just a magic combat tournament. Well, the students are including some aspects of a sports festival and cultural festival, but that isn’t my point.”

“?”

“My point is the tournament is only during the day, so we’re holding a dance party tonight and that girl over there got all dressed up for it. Heh heh heh. Yeah, you want to look your best if you’re going to step out into the spotlight☆”

He looked over to see the crystal girl not looking her usual self.

This was not her usual combat outfit, which was technically a dress but eliminated any sleeves or collars that an opponent could grab onto, was formfitting, and had bold slits in the skirt for easier movement. Her one-night-only party dress had the long skirt of a fairy tale princess. She also wore her hair up, which showed off the nape of her neck and made her look quite a bit different.

“Sacri-sama,” whispered Aine.

He wasn’t sure what nuance that “Sacri-sama” was meant to carry, but she did seem to be waiting for a response.

If Cinderella Queen had set this up to take the initiative against him, then she was cleverer than he had given her credit for. She made things difficult in a way different from the Problem Solvers.

Aine held out her small hand, so he saw no choice but to take it.

Cinderella Queen laughed and sent them off into the gym.

“Hmm, I know this was a surprise and you didn’t have time to change, but it doesn’t look right for the guy to still be in his school uniform. Or does a school uniform count as all-purpose formal wear? Well, either way, have fuuuun☆”

They stepped through the door to find dazzling lights.

It was well done for something thrown together so quickly. The floor was covered with low pile carpet and heavy chandeliers hung from the ceiling, giving the place a very different look. The main dance floor was in the center and tables of food were lined up along the walls. The concert band that had been playing during the match was up on the stage.

This was not a mandatory event, but there were still a lot of people in attendance. It helped that there was no strict dress code and people could use the free food as an excuse if they were too embarrassed to actually ask anyone to dance. Some middle school girls were shrieking in delight and pointing at Karuta and Aine, so he had to hope they weren’t the type to spread rumors to the entire school overnight.

The two of them began dancing to the soft classical music like a needle placed on a record.

“I didn’t know you knew how to ballroom dance,” he said to Aine.

“When it comes to coordinated movement, the two of us are second to none. Also, I just have to follow your lead.”

“Sorry. I’ll apologize in advance for when we inevitably fall down together. I swear I was born with two left feet. I will do my best not to step on your skirt, but I doubt I can do much more than that.”

“Activating relaxation mode: <Hee hee hee. Now, boy, you need to relax your shoulders more. I’m not going anywhere, so just take your time while I give you some hands-on lessons.>”

“Hey, the monotone voice kind of ruins that, you know? You really have been acting weird all day. But in this case, I get the feeling you were basing that dialogue on something.”

“I prefer to crawl into small spaces when I sleep, so three days ago on June 10 12:34 local time, I crawled under your bed and discovered-”

“Huhhhhhh!? N-no, that’s not possible. There couldn’t have been anything there! I tend to use the internet for that these days, so unless that’s been there for a while, I don’t see how…ah!?”

“…”

He realized how badly he had put his foot in his mouth when Aine glared at him with her cold, emotionless eyes. But that had also eliminated the pressure of having to ballroom dance. But instead of removing a weight from his shoulders, it was more like he had cut out a hunk of flesh with a knife to get rid of the pain from a simple scrape.

Two of the world’s strongests held each other close as they continued their private whispered discussion.

“Do not worry. I have studied up on human biological functions, so I am aware humans have an abnormal fixation on viewing the surface area of the opposite sex.”

“I’ll admit we like it when they take off their clothes so we can see everything, but it’s not the surface area that matters. I mean, I’m not about to start skinning girls and creating a collection of their flayed skin. Oh, crap, thinking up that idea only makes me sound worse, doesn’t it!?”

“?”

Come to think of it, hadn’t Aine started showing embarrassment about being seen undressed or in a swimsuit ever since the Crystal Beach incident? But he still felt like there was something off about what she was learning.

Karuta was famous(?) for moving like a cursed doll in dance class, but trying to match the rhythm of classical music was unusual for him since he normally listened to rock or techno on his phone. But if he focused too much on keeping the rhythm, he felt like he would bump into one of the other dancing couples.

While he was struggling with that, Aine whispered to him with no emotion on her face or in her voice.

“Today was full of surprises.”

“Yeah, we were focused on that one match all day long. Who set this up? If we don’t find them soon, they’re going to end up strangling us somewhere down the line.”

“…I was worried.”

“?”

He just about came to a stop with confusion on his face.

Aine, the girl who would sever his arm without a moment’s hesitation if he ordered it, had been worried?

“I could not let my guard down for a moment all day because I never knew when Miss Marika would go on a rampage. If you had lost or died, we might have seen a deadly early summer laser light show.”

“Aine, excellent work keeping her under control. You can never predict what Marika will do when she’s about to snap, so restraining her with nothing but your words might just be the most superhuman thing you’ve ever done.”

“Well, I am not human in the first place,” she replied. “You will be fighting alone again tomorrow, won’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Next time…”

Just as he pulled her crystal hips toward him, she pressed her forehead against his chest. Those horns(?) kind of hurt.

“Next time, I will make myself useful. Even if I cannot be by your side.”

“…I see.”

He smiled a little.

Evidently, she wasn’t aware that she had already accomplished that goal.

Karuta would again be the only one risking his life in the ring tomorrow, but he knew he wouldn’t be alone.

Between the Lines 1

“Would this be the best option for today?” muttered Amaashi Marika.

She wore a short red dress glittering with sequins and high heels. She also wore a transparently thin silk shawl around her shoulders and back. She of course had plenty of accessories around her neck and wrists as well. While Aine appeared to have stepped out of an old picture book, Marika wore a modern dress that would look perfect with a small brand-name bag. But she had let the crystal girl have Karuta for tonight, so she would not get to be the star of the dance hall.

Instead of the dance floor, she was interested in the buffet lined up along the wall. Specifically, the cakes. They let you place takeout orders, so she had a few cake slices that caught her interest boxed up for her.

After leaving the dance hall, she made her way to her true destination. She walked down a hallway decorated with chains of streamers and viewed a starry sky different from Japan’s outside a window covered in cellophane cut into stars and hearts. There was also a meteor shower tonight. She glanced restlessly down at her phone to see excitement on the sports livestream channel of an online TV station.

“This is Cinderella Queen with the night’s final news report straight from Second Grimnoah, the hottest place in the world right now☆ Now…just to spice things up for this stream, I’ve actually stripped off all my clothes under that table you see on your screens right now. Tah dah!!”

“Ehh? You didn’t mention anything about that to me!?”

“Shut up, assistant! No interrupting! Now, being timely is everything for the live news, so if I fail to get through my script before I run out of time, then my cameraman will be shoving his massive camera right into my hiding place under the table. Are you ready, everyone? Make sure you have a nice, firm grip on your, uh, stopwatch and don’t you dare blink while I give you the latest news!!”

Marika walked down the school hallway and smiled bitterly at the terrible ways that show was trying to get views. She was honestly not all that worried. She had lived with Karuta ever since they had started their revenge against the Problem Solvers, but she may have seen him more like family than a friend.

If she was thinking about a friend she could completely open up around, this was who came to mind first.

“Imi, are you there?”

She knocked gently and announced her presence before opening the infirmary door.

The person seated in the stool was not who she was looking for.

“Oh?”

The silver-haired, brown-skinned magician was wearing the white officer’s uniform of the Indian navy.

It was Letnahe Kurent.

“This is a surprise. I didn’t think you were capable of this sort of kindness.”

“Oh, shut up. And aren’t you a gym teacher?”

“Technically, yes. But those skills can be used for medicine as well. I’m a specialist in the human body. The question is whether I am attempting to destroy it or heal it.”

So was she like a judo therapist? It made sense that a professional soldier would have studied the workings of the human body. But Marika was not here to chat with the new teacher.

“Where’s Imi?”

“In the back. But I don’t know if you’re going to like what you find. Oh, and if you will excuse me, I have to get started on my nighttime rounds. Tonight that means checking on Miss Hetepheres who is recovering in her room.”

With that, Letnahe stood from the stool, patted Marika on the shoulder, and left the infirmary. She may have been giving Marika privacy for what was about to happen.

“…”

Left alone, Marika walked toward the curtain. She knew there were a few beds past that partition.

“Imi,” she whispered while grabbing the curtain.

She found a large lump in one of the bed’s blankets. But she could not see the pillow. The blanket was pulled up over the occupant’s head, closing them in like a turtle shell.

She had heard this girl refused to leave the infirmary while at school, but she had not heard it was this bad. Marika’s visit must have reopened her unseen wounds. Just because Imi had made some kind of decision on the inside didn’t mean she would be making any major progress right away.

Yes, Marika had done this to her. It had been necessary to save her friend from bleeding out, but Matsuda Imi had ended up this way after Marika used her laser beam to cauterize the wound from a Threat severing her leg.

“…”

“I don’t think she’s ready yet.”

That gentle comment came from Hashizaki Tayori who was seated in a folding chair near the bed. She had been watching over her friend the entire time Karuta and the others were out there fighting for their lives.

Those three had once been the center of their class.

And Marika refused to accept that was a thing of the past.

She placed the box of cakes on the bedside table.

“I’ll be back later.”

“Please do. Keep this up and she should get used to it, little by little. She’s fighting too. Remember that and can you stay strong too, right?”

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