RATH 115

13. The others’ stories (1)

#1 Their story: A certain villain’s story.

-Owner, when we dun! I’m tired!
“I’m more tired!”

I diligently rotated the silver drill in my hands.

Back when I was little, a golden hammer was the symbol of the mecha genre, but as time went on, the drill became the new symbol.(1)

Although of course once I was conscripted I realised that the shovel was the strongest.

-If ya got time to say dumb things then turn th’ dwill more!

I listened to the metal bat’s very snippy voice as I continued to turn the drill.

If you were to ask where this was… this was somewhere under the ground not even I knew the location of!

To avoid the princess I abandoned all the existing escape routes, and was drilling my way through an unfinished tunnel that I’d previously abandoned when it collapsed.

-Uwiit! It’s wock again! Lez give up and dig somewhea else! It’s too hard here!

“All the paths where the ground is soft is already linked to existing escape tunnels.”

I don’t know how many days have passed.

I don’t know how far the encirclement spreads to.

So all I can do is do my best to move underground.

-Impossible, impossible, impossible, impossible!

“Fool! Tunnels advance, beyond the tunnel it were a minute before. Little by little, it advances with each turn. That’s how a drill works!(2) This drill is the drill that will pierce the earth with my tunnel!(3) This tunnel… is my escape route from the princess!”(4)
-No, no, that drill is me! Owner’s cuwwently digging a hole wifa goddess’s head!
“Hold on just a little longer. The dreams of those who flee and the hopes of those who escape. Those two sets of dreams weave together into a double helix, and drill a path towards freedom. This is tunnel escape, this is Gurren… I mean, Naruan’s escape!”(5)
-Enuff wifa bullshieeeeet!

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

A line that was very familiar to me and the metal bat’s scream.

As earth before me began to crumble, I continued to dig.

#2 Their story: Ria el Nermia’s story.

The first day of school after the imperial festival.

It was my first day back since I’d sent the school a message that I’d be taking some time off.

“What were you doing!”
“We could more than have been victorious!”

Victorious? What nonsense is that supposed to be.

They’re trying to pin all the blame of the failure of the comeback that only came about because of Yugrasia’s betrayal in the first place back onto me.

“Just what reason did you have to betray us, Lady Nermia!”

At the president’s words, all the surrounding eyes were focused on me, but I ignored them all.

“Reason… is it?”
“Yes!”

The president answered, and if a look alone could pierce through people, the look he was giving me now would have pierced me hundreds of times over.

“I was scared.”
“Scared? Of fighting against Yugrasia?”
“Yes.”

I was scared.

Of the fact that I had dared to get in the way of the instructor.

And the fact that I’d gotten in the way of the instructor’s bat… no, the instructor when he was using the metal bat, the higher rank weapon of the wooden bat!

How scared was I when heard the news from No.1000.

I couldn’t even sleep peacefully, as I feared that the instructor might suddenly show up with the metal bat in hand.

“How… how was it that you, who worked the hardest out of anyone here for Marcis’s victory!”

Well, I’d fought more for my own sake than Marcis’s, but apparently the president didn’t see it that way.

Well, not that I needed to correct him.

“Why? You fought tooth and nail all alone for so long… and yet you were scared despite being on the cusp of victory!”
“It is the difference between knowing the truth and not. ”

Yugrasia’s students?

They were troublesome but I did not fear them.

At least they had the bare minimum of standards.

Unlike my fellow disciples who cuffed a person that came to help him to eat breakfast, or came running at me with sword ki ablaze because I stole her food, they were much, much more normal people.

But once I realised that the one controlling them from the shadows was the instructor, I started fearing that everything might have been playing into the instructor’s hands.

He might even be reading my mind right this instant, so I should address him as Sir Instructor.

-Wait, no, I don’t think he can go that far……

No. The instructor knows all. Even when I was fresh out of the organization, I didn’t recognize the instructor despite the fact he was smiling right beside me.

Even though his face was still the same!

-If he disguised his face and hid… would I be able to recognise him?
-That’s… even I can’t guarantee that, owner.

See. So awake or asleep, beware of the instructor, double check the passersby, beware the instructor.

“Young Lady!”

As the president admonished me noisily he started fuming again.

“Even if you are a member of House Nermia, as a Marcis student and a member of the student council, this incident cannot be overlooked! There will most certainly be a punishment… eh?”

To the noisy president, I handed him the paper which I’d been preparing since the festival ended.

The contents were complicated, but the three words at the head of the document explained everything.

[Notice of Withdrawal.]

“I’m going to quit the academy?”
“Eh?”
“I’m quitting.”

According to No.1000, the instructor managed to escape from Her Imperial Highness’s hands and fled the empire, but one never knew.

Just last time I thought he’d done the exact same thing, too, and he ended up right beside us, no?

He might even still be active as a hidden teacher of Yugrasia, and I did not have the courage to remain at Marcis as an enemy of that Yugrasia.

“I’m transferring.”

I bowed my head once, turned around and walked briskly out of the academy.

I’d finished all the relevant discussions with the school anyway, and I’d only come into school to hand him the withdrawal letter, so it was good that I found him quickly.

“Young lady? Milady? Milady!”

I started hearing sounds that almost seemed like screams, but I ignored them and kept going.

-So where’re you going now, owner?
-Where… of course it’s……

Yugrasia.

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

“This… is peace.”
“Peace is good.”

A loose smile spread across my face as I dug into the café’s cakes.

It was tasty. And I was happy.

“We hadn’t known the meaning of happiness all along.”
“You’re right, Aris. These small things were happiness… yet we lived without knowing that this was happiness all along…… it makes me reflect on my past self.”

I sipped on the warm tea as I looked outside the café’s window.

It was light.

The sun was still in the sky.

It was a weekday. And the sun was still in the sky!

And yet I wasn’t in the academy, but having tea with Siir in a café!

“Sniffle… this is so good.”

I think I’ve become a bit too emotional lately.

Born into the Letia family, ever since I was little I never cried no matter how much it hurt.

But tears threatened to come out simply because of the warm sunshine and a warm cup of tea.

“This is……”
“School life without night study……”

This was the true school life where students lived like students.

“But still… Professor Nicerwin isn’t coming back, right?”
“I hope so…”

When Siir said so almost as an afterthought, I replied back with a slight scowl.

The day after the end of the imperial festival.

The entire student body was shocked at the news that Professor Nicerwin had vanished.

“What? He’s gone?”
“Why? Why is he missing! Surely he’s not going to say that since it was a promise with him, that promise is null if he’s gone!”
“Holy shit, th, that can’t be!”
“This is Nicerwin we’re talking about! He can’t have quit leaving only the devil behind, could he?”
“What for!”
“To torment us!”
“Aaaaarrrgh! This is Nicerwin… Nicerwin’s trap!”

When we came back, chins high in the air at our victory and heard that Professor Nicerwin had vanished.

Everyone was gripped by fear as our imaginations ran wild.

And the one who brought us salvation was the one with little presence, but the highest rank in Yugrasia, one of only 36 elders of education in the entire empire, our Headmaster.

“I received news from the empire that they would be taking Professor Nicerwin. Although it is an unfortunate event for our academy…”

Although our Headmaster said that as if it were an unfortunate thing with all the students gathered.

“Woohoo!”
“Freedom!”
“No… no more night study!”

The students let out jubilant cheers as they declared today the true day of liberation.

That was just a few days ago.

“He might return and start night study again to celebrate his return……”
“Since they’re new teachers, they’re going to start up night study again……”

Although each and every one of those theories were completely outlandish, the moment the name Professor Nicerwin attached itself to any of those theories, they sounded awfully plausible.

“Hoo… it’s still probably not it, Aris. From what I heard from the vice-president, the empire’s sending us new teachers in exchange for taking away Professor Nicerwin.”
“Really?”
“Mm, it’s probably accurate because I heard it from the student council.”

Siir was currently receiving direct teachings of vice-presidency from the vice-president.

Although I had a feeling that these direct teachings had very little to do with the actual running of the academy, but as we were dealing with Risen who none of us had any idea what he did, it couldn’t be helped.

I could only hope that Siir maintained her innocence and didn’t end up like vice-president.

…Although I had a feeling it would only end as a hope.

“Aris? Aris?”
“Huh?”
“What, were you talking with your goddess again?”
“Mm.”

For some reason Siir’s wide smile seemed evil to me, but I didn’t do the stupid thing of saying that out loud.

“Really, Aris is on really good terms with Athena. But have you given it another thought?”
“Oh, that?”

Siir’s words reminded me of the thing she had recommended.

“Presidential elections…… would it be possible?”

The student council president elections.

Soon the new student council would form, and so would the training required for those positions.

And Siir asked me to join the student council with her to make a better academy life.

Although of course Siir hadn’t been selected for the student council either… but if it were the power of the vice-president’s hidden customers… I mean some shady powers that be, would her election be all but certain?

“Mm. Come on, Aris. Hm? We can’t create another incident like the silver devil! I’ve already made the campaign materials!”
“That’s true, but……”

At Siir’s continual requests as she sidled beside me, cake and teacup and all, in the end I allowed myself to be nominated for student council president.

And.

“I… got elected?”
“I’m telling you there’s no one else other than you to become president, Aris?”

I stared blankly at Siir beside me, who had also been elected as female vice-president.

No matter how well-known I was, I would have thought that having two first years in important positions of the student council where there were already more than enough third years that could take the position was a bit…

“It’s alright, Aris. It might not have been okay at the old Yugrasia, but in today’s Yugrasia, skill means everything!”
“S, Siir? I definitely thought that to myself just now? I definitely never said it out loud so how did you know!”
“It’s the skill of the student council vice-president.”
“Just what kind of job is the student council vice-president!”

And moreover she wasn’t even the successor of the proper leader Karen, but the traitor Risen!

“Fufu, even though he acts like that, senior Risen has a lot of good points to him, too?”
“Like that!”

Siir who had gained an astounding power to read minds was scary.

Although many people had changed since I arrived at this academy, the only person that had not been changed by Professor Nicerwin, but a different person, was Siir.

“Fufufu, I’m the same Siir that Aris always knew?”
“That’s scary so please stop!”

And so after I felt the greatest fear this year since the silver devil.

The second semester where the night study was gone, Professor Nicerwin was gone, and the silver devil was gone came and went, and on the day of the fourth years’ graduation.

“Huh? What’s this?”

In a corner of the student council meeting room, which was now my office after the pres… I mean, the (former) president handed over all executive power to me, I discovered a suspicious-looking safe.

“I don’t have much time……”

The graduation ceremony would be starting soon.

The only reason I was still here at all was to fix up my speech to the student body as much as I could in the little time I had.

“But what is this feeling of unease?”

Like an apostle receiving a god’s orders, some great will was telling me that I must open that vault.

If I didn’t open that, I would regret it. Right now!

“Goddess.”
-Mm.

I requested the goddess and brought out a spear.

And sword aura formed on it naturally.

Even if it were a steel safe, it would not be able to hold up to sword aura.

“Is this… a document?”
In the cleanly cut safe, there was a single piece of paper.

“…Huh?”

A paper on which was written the (former) president’s act of unspeakable atrocity.