Chapter 46
“A proposal…?”
Charlotte asked in return. I picked up a piece of chalk and stepped to the front of the blackboard.
“Now, if I heard you correctly, Charlotte and Kariya are one team, and Roxanna and Miriam are the other. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why you divided them this way?”
“Ah… well, the thing is.”
Charlotte hesitated, then answered while avoiding my gaze.
“Considering how Kariya underestimated Roxanna’s abilities during the last class-president selection match, I decided putting the two of them together wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because I thought we wouldn’t be able to make full use of Roxanna’s abilities….”
I nodded at Charlotte’s answer.
“I see.”
I spoke to Kariya, who had been growling at Miriam.
“Kariya?”
“Yes?”
I abruptly sprang a proposal on him.
“Sorry for springing this on you, but would you spar with Miss Roxanna?”
=
“I-Instructor…!”
Roxanna and Kariya stood facing each other on opposite sides of the sparring arena.
Looking back and forth between them, Charlotte fidgeted and kept speaking to me.
“A sparring match all of a sudden? Why on earth….”
“What’s the matter? It’ll be fun.”
Ignoring Miriam’s interjection beside us for the moment, I asked Charlotte in return.
“Miss Charlotte.”
“Yes?”
“Do you not trust Miss Roxanna?”
“Um….”
Charlotte hesitated, lowered her head, and let her voice trail off.
“…It’s not like that.”
“Then please watch.”
I turned back and spoke while looking at Roxanna, who was checking her musket.
“As you know, Miss Charlotte, Kariya can be rather stubborn and rough around the edges. Unless he has acknowledged someone, he refuses to accept them, no matter what.”
“Th-that’s right. That’s why we divided the teams….”
“But, Charlotte. He’s the only person who can lead the team in your absence… in other words, he’s in the position of vice class president, or perhaps a deputy commander. You understand that, right?”
“….”
“If he can’t trust a teammate and does nothing but protect them just because they don’t measure up in his eyes… then nothing will have changed from back then, or from the class-president selection match.”
The barrier stones surrounding the sparring arena began to glow.
“In the end, Kariya has to realize it himself. That Roxanna’s potential, the strength she possesses… far exceeds his assessment of her. And the fastest way to make him understand that is a spar.”
I watched them in silence and made her a suggestion.
“And besides, shouldn’t Roxanna be given at least a chance to prove herself?”
“…Yes.”
Charlotte hesitated, then nodded with a resolute expression, as though she had made up her mind.
“Mommy Charlotte, have you finally stopped being overprotective?”
“Ma…!”
Charlotte’s face flushed bright red.
“Who are you calling Mommy?!”
Leaving Charlotte, who had started grappling with the teasing Miriam, behind, I focused on the sparring match again.
“…I don’t know why we’re having this spar all of a sudden….”
Kariya scratched his head vigorously and sighed, then readied himself with his chain sword clanking.
“Sorry, but I don’t hold back in a spar, no matter who my opponent is. Keep that in mind.”
“….”
Clutching the specially made musket tightly in her hands, Roxanna shouted.
“I-I’m the same!”
-Click…!
Taking up a practiced firing stance, Roxanna shouted at Kariya.
“I’m not just going to sit there and take it, either!”
“…Huh.”
Kariya blinked, seeming slightly surprised, then twisted up the corner of his mouth.
“Is that so? Then….”
-Crackle…!
“Let’s see just where that confidence of yours comes from.”
‘Here it comes…!’
-Bang!!
Digging his toes into the ground and planting his feet firmly, Kariya kicked off and charged.
At the same time, the immense amount of mana pouring into Roxanna’s musket made me instinctively lean forward.
That day, all I could do was infer it from the fallen manticore’s corpse.
Only the skin of its face had remained intact on the corpse. The scalp, mane, skull, and everything that should have been behind it had all burned black and nearly evaporated; even now, I had no idea how that bizarre corpse had come to be.
And all I knew was that Roxanna had practiced day after day with Charlotte to adapt to her new magical equipment.
I didn’t know exactly how much Roxanna had actually grown.
‘But if she was strong enough to take down a mother manticore on her own…!’
I dared to assert that her growth was anything but modest.
To be honest, I was looking forward to seeing Roxanna after she had cast off one layer of the heavy cloak of hesitation and timidity.
-Thud.
“You’d better dodge!”
Taking a kneeling firing position, Roxanna shouted.
‘She still hasn’t completely gotten the recoil under control.’
“Thanks for the advice, but no!!”
Kariya shouted boldly and charged straight at her, whirling the swords in both hands.
-Rrrrr…!
And immediately afterward, flames began to spout from the muzzle of Roxanna’s musket.
“What’s that?”
“…It’s for recoil control.”
Charlotte answered Miriam’s question in a low voice.
And at the moment the mana gathered in the musket was compressed to its limit,
Roxanna pulled the trigger.
Before the sound could ring out, a beam of light cleaved through the air.
-Kwooooom!!!!!!!!
A thunderous roar followed. The flaming projectile exploded in midair, leaving behind an afterimage like a giant sun.
‘What kind of muzzle velocity is that…?’
I watched the scene, breaking into a cold sweat.
An attack faster than sound. Unless one was exceptionally skilled, it would be a formidable strike that was nearly impossible to dodge in the first place.
Even against a highly skilled opponent, it was just as threatening. If their focus slipped even a little, or they let their guard down for a single moment, they would surely be finished in an instant.
And Kariya, who had charged straight into that attack….
“…Heh. Heh, heh heh heh….”
Rolling around on the dirt, he was letting out hollow laughter like a half-mad man.
His animal instincts alone made him the best in Class E—or rather, one of the best in the entire academy. I had seen him throw himself to the side just before impact.
It was astonishing that he had avoided a direct hit despite that velocity, but even so, he hadn’t escaped completely unscathed. The clothes covering his shoulder had been completely burned and singed, one forearm had been charred black as coal, and even the hair nearby had been scorched and curled by the heat, leaving him in a ragged state.
Thanks to the barrier stones’ illusion magic, the severity of the injury would be greatly reduced, but… as long as the barrier existed, its illusion magic still recreated the extent of a real-world injury exactly as it was.
If he had suffered an injury that severe in reality….
‘His entire arm would be crippled.’
And that was despite completely avoiding a direct hit and only being grazed. That was how powerful it was. Even I nearly laughed.
It was absurd. What kind of monster had just popped out? Was the Gatling family perhaps a gathering of idiots? In all the years the family had survived and cultivated its secret magic, not one of them had thought of compressing magic and firing it….
“R-Roxy?!”
At that moment, Charlotte shot to her feet and shouted.
“Did you fire three Fireballs stacked on top of one another again?!”
…Three?
“I told you not to fire that unless absolutely necessary!!”
“B-but. It was designed to withstand that much… and there are barrier stones… and more than anything, I wanted to prove myself….”
“Even so….”
As I watched Charlotte stamping her feet, I belatedly realized.
‘That wasn’t a normal attack. It was her ultimate move.’
Well, if she was firing that off as a normal attack, she’d be at the level where she should immediately be inducted into the Rounds, student or no student.
Let’s set aside the assessment that the Gatling family was stupid… for now.
With Kariya having completely lost his will to fight, the barrier stones soon deactivated of their own accord.
Roxanna lowered the muzzle and awkwardly scratched her head, and only then did Kariya seem to come to his senses and rub his forearm, which was merely reddened.
“You should see a healer.”
I said as I approached him.
“You might have suffered internal burns.”
“…Yes.”
“And Miss Roxanna.”
I patted her shoulder and smiled awkwardly.
“Try to keep that ultimate move sealed unless it’s absolutely necessary, all right?”
“…Yes.”
Did she know just how vicious that attack was? Roxanna obediently nodded.
=
After the storm had passed.
At Kariya’s own request, the final teams were Kariya and Roxanna, and Charlotte and Miriam.
Not to mention that Kariya had gone beyond merely acknowledging Roxanna and now regarded her as something like the team’s ultimate weapon.
And three days later, Class E boarded the carriage bound for the Black Earthworm Forest.
No, they were only about to.
“…What?”
“I told you, you can’t go! The entire forest has been closed off so no one can even approach it!”
That was before the carriage owner uttered words that struck like a bolt from the blue.