Chapter 11
The next day.
Victor appeared in the classroom aboard something.
“Good morning. It's nice to see you all.”
A smiling mask.
An even fresher morning greeting.
However, the students of Class E were utterly unable to return the greeting.
They could only stare at the clown with awkward expressions.
““······?””
Expressions of utter bewilderment.
Eyes that seemed to ask whether they were really seeing what they thought they were seeing.
The boy smiled as if satisfied by their reaction.
A bizarre resonance dribbled out through the mask.
“It sure is convenient having a vehicle! The main Class E building is quite a distance from the dormitory.”
It was not a short distance.
Thus, student-only trams had been placed throughout the academy.
Since its grounds were comparable in size to a city, it had its own transportation system.
“It's comfortable, too, so I'll have to use it often.”
In context, it was a line marveling at the tram he was riding for the first time.
But what he was admiring was no tram.
It was the thing creaking beneath Victor's feet.
Every student who saw it was rendered speechless.
“Still, nothing beats a rickshaw powered by human sweat and toil over a tram powered by magic.”
A massive rickshaw.
A roofed structure with a base measuring at least one pyeong.
Beneath the cozy shade, there was even a white bed.
It was quite an impressive design.
A spacious rickshaw, with a single bed inside.
The clown was lying leisurely inside it.
“Traveling will be nice and soft from now on.”
And at the point where the rickshaw was being pulled...
On the tightly packed handles...
“Haa, haa...”
“Ugh, eek...”
Several students stood there, utterly exhausted.
The students ranked second through eighth in the class.
They were the ones pulling the rickshaw.
They must have overexerted themselves, because every one of them looked half-dead.
“Damn, ugh... fucking...”
One of them ground out a curse between ragged breaths.
As if he had heard it with supernatural precision, the clown poked his head out of the vehicle.
“Oh? Are you perhaps dissatisfied?”
“Eek! N-no, big brother! We can run for another two hours!”
Swish, swish-.
They promptly went pale and shook their heads.
A desperate denial, as if they were terrified.
The others assigned to the rickshaw reacted the same way.
““······.””
When Victor extended that mask toward them, they forced their faces into pleasant expressions.
They even clamped their mouths shut as if trying to silence their panting.
We have no complaints whatsoever.
It seemed those words could be heard beyond the silence.
Though they could not hide the sweat pouring down or the twitching between their brows.
“Everyone, are you perhaps tired?”
““No, big brother!””
“This is supposed to be a direct route to building muscle and stamina. You're getting plenty of exercise, right? It's really doing you a lot of good.”
““Yes, big brother!!””
They looked thoroughly drilled.
The only remotely normal reaction came from the runner-up.
He alone made no effort to smooth out his scowl.
Sweating as if he were about to die, he ground out a thick curse.
“Goddamn, shit... He makes something like this in a single day...”
“Mr. Ruyan.”
Of course, even he swallowed a gasp automatically when their eyes met.
He tried hard to glare at the clown, but his eyes were plainly terrified.
The masked boy stared at Ruyan as if he were enjoying himself.
“Mr. Ruyan?”
“······.”
“Is it perhaps heavy?”
“······No.”
“Pulling a rickshaw is pretty stressful. You need that kind of stress, too. You'll probably think about this a lot before bed.”
“······.”
“You're grateful I'm training you, right?”
“······Yeah.”
Fuck.
He certainly would think about it a lot before bed.
Ruyan answered with his lips clenched tight.
The reason things had ended up this way was simple.
It concerned something that had happened not long ago—yesterday afternoon, to be exact.
‘Damn it, I got caught by some crazy bastard...!’
The students of Class E had a lot of complaints.
Especially those near the top of the class.
What they found impossible to accept, above all, was the inexplicable ranking.
-No... Forget everything else, how can someone with E-rank stats be the top student in the class?
-That's ridiculous. Forget being top-ranked; I question whether he's even at a level where he could be admitted.
-Isn't this really some kind of admission corruption?
-Something is definitely wrong here...
Astonishment, questions, suspicion.
Their brows furrowed of their own accord.
-Besides... do you know what those bastards from the other classes said earlier?
-They said Class E is the kind of class where even trash like that can enter at the top.
-If something like that is the class's top student, you can tell what level everyone below him is.
Of course, those remarks were far from the truth.
Even the students in Class E had grown up being called prodigies somewhere.
They were children who had passed only after working themselves to the brink, hitting walls, and smashing through them.
Simply by being admitted to Grandia Academy, they had earned the right to be considered an excellent next generation.
-Damn, those bastards...
-Over a difference of just one rank...
But things were different for the people involved.
Rankings naturally had a way of making people arrogant or pathetic.
The world of numbers was cruel.
Students in the upper classes looked down on those below as a matter of course, while students in the lower classes suffered from an inferiority complex as they looked upward.
A common phenomenon in a competitive society.
The students of Class E were merely victims of the system, too.
The inferiority complex born from having their potential and efforts denied.
-Why does someone like that get to wear the top-student badge...!
-Things are shitty enough already—what do you think the other classes will think of us?!
Their prickly feelings turned toward an innocent target.
That target was Victor.
They were glaring at the easiest person to pick on.
If they thought about it carefully, they would have realized how cowardly it was, but...
-Are you going to let things stay like this? Are you really going to let some E-rank nobody sit above us?
-Nobody likes it. We're all thinking the same thing, aren't we?
-I don't know whether it's admission fraud or what, but he's run into the wrong people.
They were buds that had yet to bloom.
Immature sprouts still in the process of growing.
Those who had never even seen a flower discarded could hardly know how to bear fruit.
-Can't we just teach him a lesson?
-He's just a country commoner. No need to feel him out.
-Why touch him carelessly? We just need to threaten him a little.
Subjective opinions swayed by emotion.
Those opinions exploded when Victor provoked them.
-What the hell did that bastard just say?
-What? He can fucking wipe the floor with us? Some nobody who came out of nowhere...
-I already hated that he went around wearing that weird mask.
-He doesn't seem like the kind you can reason with. Should we rough him up a little?
Thus, after the day's schedule ended, they surrounded Victor.
The atmosphere was menacing.
Honestly, they thought the clown would be frightened or run away.
Every stat E-rank except theory. What could that mean?
It meant he was a bookworm who only knew how to sit and twirl a pen.
There was no way he wouldn't be intimidated with the class's runner-up and top students surrounding him and applying pressure.
-You sure talked big earlier. You can wipe the floor with us?
-But... why are you leaving in such a hurry? Are you scared?
-You still have business here.
Even without being a boy, anyone would have been intimidated by the situation.
Seven sturdy boys and girls surrounding him.
So they intended to scare him sufficiently, then finish sorting out the hierarchy, but...
-Shall we flatten him right here?
-Since we're doing it anyway, how about we make a bet? It'd be a shame for it to end without one.
The boy's reaction was somehow different.
It was far beyond what the students had expected.
-The loser does whatever the winner wants for the next year.
They could barely remember what happened afterward.
It was difficult even to figure out what had been done to them.
They had simply been utterly thrashed.
At the end, they seemed to have begged for mercy with both hands.
-Hmm... Surrendering already? That's a shame.
The grotesquely twisted mask.
That was all they could barely remember.
-You remember the terms, right?
-From now on, you'll obediently do as I say?
Heh heh.
The voice behind the mask laughed unpleasantly.
““······.””
And now, here they were.
“You guys are going to gain a lot of muscle. It's really doing you a lot of good.”
The clown said this as he lightly stepped down from the rickshaw.
He patted the students on the shoulders.
‘Fuck...’
The students packed up the rickshaw while cursing in resignation.
***
A few days later.
Day after day spent playing excitedly with his juniors.
It was exactly two days before the Freshman Welcome Exam.
‘No... holding an exam just a week after the entrance ceremony is kind of insane.’
This was what made it a gathering place for elites.
Was this what it meant to be the continent's finest educational institution?
Fidget, fidget-.
Whenever I was lost in thought for a moment, the front pocket of my school uniform would poke out again.
[Victor!]
“Yes, Your Highness.”
[It seems you aren't spending time with those children today.]
“You mean Ruyan's gang? I gave them some time to rest. They had fun playing all day yesterday.”
[Indeed they did. Though they were bullying you rather severely yesterday.]
“Bullying? What do you mean? What kind of bullying is there between children? It was all just playing around.”
[Is that so? Human culture is difficult to understand, no matter how many times I hear about it.]
A light conversation.
Soon, Carmilla asked as if she had just remembered something.
[Come to think of it... didn't you say you were going to meet someone in Class E?]
“I did.”
[You said you had deliberately enrolled in the lowest-ranked class to meet that child.]
“That's right. But she hasn't caught my eye at all. I don't know whether she's hiding or skipping class...”
[How fascinating. I didn't know there was anything Victor didn't know.]
“What do you take me for?”
[A highly capable trusted aide?]
“That's an overestimate, but thank you all the same.”
[No! I mean that Victor is amazing! Yesterday, you even pulled out the child who had dived into the lake to escape, with a single wave of your hand...]
The bat's eyes sparkled.
The fact that she was weak was true, but she plainly refused to believe it.
Still, she was cute, so perhaps that was enough.
I gently stroked her head with a finger.
[Eek... H-how dare you! Don't stroke my head!]
Even while she scolded me, the princess melted like butter.
Perhaps she quickly grew drowsy, because a purring sound leaked out.
Her fur was soft and fluffy, which made her pleasant to touch.
As I was walking like that, I suddenly sensed someone's presence.
Rustle-.
“······?”
A bush that had shaken unnaturally.
I stared toward the direction of the sound.
‘Is someone watching me...?’
Actually, rather than sensing a presence, I had simply seen someone behind the tree.
As if I could sense a presence.
E-rankers can't do that.
There was even a head peeking out from a fairly close location.
‘Who is that supposed to be?’
Should I check?
Tap tap-.
I took a step.
A few measured false steps, and then space crackled.
I stepped onto that haze and leaped forward as if springing through it.
The next moment.
I had moved behind the bush.
At the same time, my gaze met a pair of blue eyes.
‘Huh?’
Black hair spilled down with the turn of her head.
Dark, drooping hair, with deep, clear blue eyes set between it.
Perhaps startled, she fell flat on her backside.
“Hgyak...!”
Her body sank into the bushes.
I stared blankly down at her.
A little moisture had pooled damply at the corners of her eyes.
“S-sorry for spying on you...!”
“······.”
Even her timid, trembling voice.
She was the girl I remembered.
‘Why is she...?’
Her identity was none other than the person we had been looking for until just now.
The girl who was the reason I had deliberately enrolled in the lowest-ranked class.
The seed of calamity.
A monster that would half-destroy the academy exactly two years from now.
A killing machine that would go on to slaughter countless supporting characters.
‘Again.’
Neugme.
(Ranne & Grandia Academy: The Märchen)
The supporting character I cherished most in the original game.
My original favorite character who had made me cry so many times.
The child of tragedy.
The girl who dreamed.
‘Alice.’
She was exactly as she had appeared in the illustrations.
Trembling pupils, hair in a hopeless mess.
As I looked down at the girl, a mechanical sound shimmered.
Ding-!
[Story ‘Alice's Nightmare’ in progress.]
[The main quest begins.]
A status window appeared before my eyes.
[Main Quest]
-Prevent the corruption and rampage of the third calamity, ‘Alice.’
-Time remaining until Alice is consumed by the nightmare: 2 years and 1 month
I was standing before the calamity I had loved most, with its end approaching.