RATH 103
TL: Eevee

The beginning of what’s functionally the last part of the Yugrasia arc. After this is the epilogue of the Yugrasia arc before we get back to Ast’s (mis)adventures with the princess.

12. It’s not over til it’s over (1)

#1 Their story: Aris ril Letia’s story.

“Welcome, all of you.”

This was a place off to the side of Yugrasia’s main base.

As I looked over the 100 people gathered there, the vice-president had a determined face, different from the usual.

“We have all had extremely challenging times up til now.”

Very slowly, and making eye contact with each and every person, the vice-president spoke to the gathered hundred with a slow yet powerful voice.

“Now, what was our academy life like?”
“It was hell!”
“It was horrifying to just imagine that we have to stay next year as well!”
“We are pinning all our hopes on this one imperial festival.”

The first condition the vice-pres had in his request for reinforcements.

That they would still be at Yugrasia for at least one more year.

And ideally, not just a single year, but preferably those who still had two, or three years left, that is, the first and second years.

“Yes, yes. However, Nerkia betrayed us! Yugrasia’s president, the one who should have thought of the school’s future more than any other student in this school, betrayed us just for his girlfriend!”
“That kind of asshole is our president!”
“We still have to do night study for another two years!”
“I have three years!”
“So he’s saying he doesn’t give a crap just because he doesn’t even have a full year left?”

The enmity against Pres piled on greater and greater.

“Yes, indeed. The one who abandoned us for his own benefit is none other than Nerkia! The very fact that that type of person is Yugrasia’s student council president is an insult to us all!”
“Hear, hear!”
“We have no reason to call a traitor our president!”
“Asshole! He needs to be beaten by the silver devil for three days straight to see some sense!”

A hundred people were spouting vitriol and curses.

And the person who instigated all that, our vice-president, looked down at the people cursing the president with a satisfied expression on his face.

“And… Nerkia has another unforgivable secret. He… has a total of five lovers!”

And the second condition that vice-pres had set for our reinforcements.

All of them must be solos who had never known a lover.

“F, five…”
“Is that number even possible?”

The hundred people that had been yelling curses instantly fell silent.

For them who had never known a lover in their entire lives, the thought of having five lovers at once would be like a tale from a legend.

“Grrr…”
“Damn him…”

But that shock soon turned to anger.

“Five all by himself?”
“That immoral asshole. He betrayed the academy, and he betrayed all men as well.”
“Four more solos were made just because of him, hasn’t he?”

Each and every one of the individuals assembled here had fit the vice-president’s criteria.

And the final condition of the vice-president that these people had to meet.

“You’re all elementalists as well, do you not think that the difference is too great?”

That they must all be elementalists.

“Kuhk…”
“Damn it, someone’s collapsed because he couldn’t take the brutal truth!”
“I can’t help him… I think I’m going to fall as well…”
“What’s different between me and the president?”
“Your face.”
“Your skill.”
“Your face.”
“Your fame.”
“Your face.”
“The rank of elementals you control.”
“Your face.”
“Who the hell keeps bringing up my face? Then what about you? Are you more handsome than the president?!”

The unity that had barely been brought about by anger was destroyed.

“Make them all angry, and surpass the strengths of an individual. Was that not the goal?”

It was said that one of the strategies used in ancient times was the use of a berserker brigade by means of berserk spells.

A spell that would make men lose their fear with their rationality, and bring forth a superhuman power beyond their limits!

But just one use could cripple the person the spell was casted on, and if things went wrong, they berserkers would even attack their allies, so this tactic was no longer used in the modern day.

So I thought that if it was Loki’s contractor, the vice-president who had escaped all sorts of different dangers with nothing but a few words, he could create berserkers without even using any magic?

Was this not what he meant by sedition and lies?

“Hm… Lady Aris. I prepared this moment for the purpose of winning the imperial festival.”

To win?

Right now they’re over there grabbing each other by the lapels arguing who’s uglier than who?

“Now, do you see, Lady Aris? This is my new ultimate move Professor Nicerwin taught me! Sedition and Lies!”

It sounded nothing like a name of an ultimate one could be proud of, but I might as well listen on.

“Now, losers of life like myself! Shall I tell you an even more exciting truth! I will tell you all who are the girls that Nerkia is dating!”

At that moment, each and every pair of eyes there were focused straight onto vice-pres.

“Well, you all know this from the public confession, but we have one of the greatest beauties in Arucia, Arietta rul Meirae!”
“Damn, I’ve lost here.”
“That’s not a class of girl I could ever hope to meet in my life?”
“And her family’s a higher rank than Pres as well. She’s from a Count House, a god damn Count.”

The students turned listless with just a single person.

“And another named beauty of Arucia! Renya ti Silgran!”
“The famous angel of Arucia?”
“Damn it, it’s another Count family!”
“Damn it all! Are we going to get a Ducal house or something as well?”

Names that even I’d heard of were coming out.

Renya ti Silgran.

Arucia’s Holy Maiden, who treated everyone kindly irrespective of class or rank.

“Is, is the president really going out with her?”
“I told you, didn’t I, Sedition… and lies! Right now I can just say whatever the hell I need to!”

It was a fake?!

“Yugrasia’s student council president has already claimed the greatest beauties of Arucia. Now will Nerkia’s evil hands have stopped there?”
“Could, could it be… even in other academies?”
“Yes, that ‘could’ was the truth! One of the Four Beauties of Marcis, Lady Julia, and the Queen of Mercaria, Lady Rudratian!”
“Is, is that even possible?”
“Pres… what kind of man…”

Names which we wouldn’t be able to handle started to pop up now.

The name of the eldest daughter of the Rudratian family was mentioned. Although her family only held the title of viscount, she was the granddaughter of the current Head of the Magic Tower, and her family was an important name in international diplomacy.

‘This is being broadcasted live through the entire empire, isn’t it?’

Sedition aside, if you were going to lie, at least stick to what you can handle.

How shocked would the families of the girls mentioned be if they saw this scene right now?

Their daughters, were currently in a romantic affair with Yugrasia’s student council president?

“Stop it, it’s dangerous. Think about what will happen after the imperial festival!”

High society of the wives of nobility were always thirsty for fresh gosisp.

And a topic which was always a drought-breaking rain was the love affairs of our peers!

Countless rumours enter that place and come out grossly exaggerated.

Even if they are nothing more than false rumours, those rumours that spread discreetly could be fatal weaknesses for women.

Someone’s lover, or fiancee was actually meeting another man.

The moment those rumours began to circulate, whether those rumours were true or not, the man cannot afford to not take notice of them.

But… to say those things at the greatest event in the imperial calender?

And the president’s closest confidant, the vice-president saying these things, taken without context?

The validity of everything here is way too high!

I could already imagine the noble wives discussing this scene amongst each other.

“Sometimes… there are things a man must do even though he knows he may die in the process.”
“Sure that’s a cool line, but if know what’s being said then it isn’t cool at all! And the fact that we can actually get killed here makes it even scarier!”

If things went wrong here, the people mentioned just now might not be able to get engaged.

Although all their families were extremely influential so it might not matter as much, but they liked another man, and all five of them liked the same man to boot.

…Wait a second?

“There’s… There’s still one more!”
“Yes, there is. I have not said the names of all five!”

Just who else is he bringing into this?

All the famous beauties of Arucia, Marcis and Mercaria have all come out.

Since we were students of the same school, the name of a Yugrasia student couldn’t come out.

That meant that the only possibility was an external one…

“And finally… of the family that guards the borders of the empire, the youngest daughter of the Terecia family!”
“S, stop…”

Ignoring my face which was turning whiter by the second, the vice-president went and crossed the line he should never have stepped beyond.

‘We’re done for…’

He went and brought in a marquis family.

And a margrave at that!(1)

Why were the Ten Great Families called by that name?

It was because even among the high-ranking nobles, they worked very close to the imperial family, and their political influence was extremely powerful.

But not all of the noble families ranked marquis or higher were part of the Ten Great Families.

On the borders of the empire, there not very many, but nor were just a few, Houses that held the rank of marquis or higher, and among them, the margraves were the ones that protected the border.

Their political influence wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as the Ten Great Families, but their military prowess was at least as strong as Father’s, who was the commander of an army in his own right.

But Risen had gone and involved one of these families into this.

And a margrave House whose territory was suspiciously close to Pres’s own family!

“We’re done for…”

It felt like this imperial festival would be, for many different ways, a special moment in the history of the imperial festival.

There would probably be a lot of changes to the rules.

For example, regulations preventing blatant lies.

And something else I could guarantee.

Before those rules were even written down, we Yugrasia were completely and utterly doomed.

Unless Yugrasia was secretly harbouring a bastard child of the imperial family, or the rumoured secret lover of the imperial princess, nothing could stop Yugrasia from closing its doors!

-Aris, isn’t that a good thing?
-Huh?

But one sentence from the goddess overturned everything.

‘Hang on…?’

To sum up the situation.

[Vice-president’s lies = margrave, head of the Magic Tower, Foreign Affairs, assorted heads of various Count Houses all angered = Yugrasia closed down = no more need to meet with the silver devil from now on = hooray!]

-That’s our goddess! There was a reason you were called the goddess of wisdom!
-Ahem!

Even if the night study disappeared, there was no guarantee that the silver devil wouldn’t.

He could use the school rules to threaten us like before.

And therefore vice-pres’s actions was the perfect way to thoroughly root out the root of all our evils!

“Very good, vice-president. Just like this, keep it up!”

A still silence continued to hold.

One hundred people looked up towards the sky with dead eyes.

Anger, despair, anger, gloom, anger, lament, anger, regret, anger…

The fires of anger were swallowed up by the absurdity of what they had been told.

But the embers of rage did not die.

They simply hid themselves momentarily among different emotions.

But vice-president, was a specialist in pouring oil onto those emotions.

He was a talent that even Professor Nicerwin would keep a special eye on to teach him personally.

“You poor sops, who including me, have never got to meet a woman.”

A dark space filled with naught but despair.

They themselves may not know, but their blank faces were visibly dark and gloomy.

Because senior Reedan’s darkness elemental was casting darkness on the surroundings!

“Do you know why Nerkia betrayed us?”

In the middle of that dark space.

In a scene orchestrated by Reedan, our vice-president stood in the middle of a single beam of light with both arms raised high, and looked as he was receiving a divine oracle as he announced.

“If Arucia wins in this imperial festival, Nerkia will officially, with those five girls… become engaged to them.”

There was a lot one could retort to that announcement.

Why the hell would one demand an Arucia victory from the Yugrasia student council president.

Moreover, there were students from Marcis and Mercaria mixed in those ranks as well!

“Aah…”

But the ones who were already in despair could not think of that, and could only blindly stare up at Risen like the faithful receiving their god’s orders.

“I, do not want that to happen.”
“I… don’t… want… that… either…”
“Engagement with five beautiful girls…”
“And… marriage?”

One by one, reason began to restore itself to them.

But that reason was but a false rationality swallowed up by the emotion named anger.

“If there are any that wish judgement upon the traitor Nerkia… raise your hands and shout out loud!”
“Judgement!”
“Judgement upon the traitor!”
“May the curse of the silver devil come down on Nerkia!”
“Sentence him to death!”

I looked at the zealots howling to be the first to raise their hands in assent, and as I wondered whether or not I should deal with vice-pres for the future of the world, the vice-president took out a small book from his pocket.

“The way to sentence judgment down on Nerkia is written right here. And the that honourable role, is something only you can do! Only you can sentence judgement against Nerkia!”
“”””””Uwooooooooooooohh!””””””
“Huh?”

Everyone was fanatically howling.

But I, standing beside the vice-president, was horrified at something else entirely.

The words written on the battered old cover of that book.

It was…

[The Book of Summoning, Volume 12.
Author – Nicerwin Ain]

It was none other than the book that had sent shivers throughout the empire during our enrolment period, Professor Nicerwin’s legendary book.