<245 - What the Heck>
1.
It was Friday, the day of the inter-grade competition.
The first and second-year students felt a vague sense of unease as they stepped onto the massive playground, which was filled with countless pieces of gold scattered across the ground.
“Is this…?”
“I’ve seen this gold somewhere before.”
“It’s just the same coat design, but a different size…”
Professor Mahabharata, the head of the first-year student body, confirmed everyone’s speculation.
“This year’s inter-grade competition has been decided, following discussions with the student council, to be a team dodgeball match. Everyone good with that?”
“Wow! Dodgeball!”
The faces of Son Ohchun, Hestia, and Sing, who had experienced dodgeball at the Gift Academy, crumpled in disbelief.
The naïve students who were excited suddenly realized something was very wrong when they saw the serious expressions on the faces of the experienced trio.
“Why is everyone like this…?”
“Dodgeball isn’t good?”
“…You’ll understand once you experience it.”
The bitter smiles from those who had been through it before!
The second-year students, on the contrary, were overly excited.
“This is the perfect sport to give the freshmen a good education.”
“I was just stressed out from being compared with the 980 class who supposedly have a lot of talented kids.”
“Let’s show them that no matter how talented they are, a one-year entrance gap can’t be bridged.”
With dreams of one-sided bullying, the second-years stepped onto the court!
This wasn’t your typical dodgeball where you simply divide the ground in half; it was dodgeball in a field where each evenly sized section was filled with small and big pieces, adding to the confusion.
“Jezel, how should we position ourselves?”
Jezel, known as the brain among the upper class, was consulted by students who had badly suffered from his random gacha point losses or had watched the formation of the Dark Trading Company.
“First, the lower class is just there to fill the ranks. In the end, this dodgeball match will be a showdown between first-year and second-year upper class students.”
“But there are over two thousand lower class students?”
“Do you really think two thousand lower-class students can defeat Oknodie?”
“Well, that’s a bit much.”
“What about Sing?”
“That’s a bit much too!”
“What about Dorothy?”
“Um… it’s a bit embarrassing to say, but I don’t think I could win even with just ten people…”
Jezel gave Isabel a gentle smack on the head.
“I’m not talking about students specialized in terrain, but rather the generally stronger upper class students.”
“Then what position should we take against the second-year upper class seniors?”
“First, you have the [Dedicated Marking Unit]. In this year’s inter-grade competition, multiple people can occupy the same section, so we aim to crash together into a group and all drop out together.”
Jiang expressed admiration for Jezel’s quirky strategy with an astonished “Heh.”
“The head of the Dark Trading Company truly is different. I was just thinking of poking them to death if it got annoying; I never even considered that kind of bizarre tactic.”
“…Who are you calling bizarre?”
Despite Dorothy’s incredulous reaction, Jiang played it cool, flipping her short hair nonchalantly.
“Of course, since the second years can use this strategy too, we need to establish a [Serious Defense Unit]. We can guard the sections occupied by upper class students with lower class students, or have upper class students support each other nearby.”
Constructing a safe defensive position across the sprawling board.
“The more we huddle together, the stronger we can perform. We also need lower-class students to block attacks from the Deadcat seniors so we won’t retire uselessly.”
Taking lessons from past defeats, Hestia actively supported Jezel’s strategy.
“So where will we take? Center? Edges?”
“The center has high scoring potential, but it’s packed with enemy upper class students. The same goes for the outer areas. We will occupy the space in between.”
“What about the dedicated marking unit?”
“There will be first years trying to join individual events. They’ll forfeit quickly anyway, so let’s gather a self-destruction team to go along with the second-year upper class.”
Even though they thought it was just a competition randomly played anywhere with scores, a solid strategy now brought purpose and tactics to the selections.
“Your skill at setting the board is impressive. If someone like you is under me, that family will thrive greatly.”
“You’re too kind. Lady Arcadia, you possess the capability to restore the Sebiche family, recently demoted to a count, back to a duke territory, don’t you?”
“Hoho, I hope so.”
On the dodgeball field laid out like a Go board, the first-year border troop following Jezel’s commands settled heavily in the south.
“I think it’s a decent strategy, but you don’t have to listen,♡ The Empire will build its own defenses,☆.”
The Masugaki Princess led the imperial students, positioning a lot of them in the two high-scoring corners at 1 o’clock and 11 o’clock.
“Dodgeballs are most effective when shared. If they all gather on one side, how do you plan to retrieve the balls that you either hit or missed~? Puhuh~ Just like your learning, your thinking is short!♡”
“…That bad trickster. Why is that brat worse than Oknodie?”
“It would be a loss to engage. Please endure, Isabel. She’s just a child who can’t even reach your chin.”
Honestly, getting seriously competitive with the immature princess, who was on par with Oknodie in terms of mental age, would only hurt oneself.
“Oknodie, come here!”
Now that they’d formed their formation, all they needed was for Oknodie to arrive.
Having fully prepared their formation and waiting for Oknodie in the center were Jezel and the students.
“Yep? I’m just gonna stay over here.”
Oknodie seemed completely indifferent to everyone’s plans and strategies as she casually squeezed through the second years.
“That idiot.”
“Haha! Trying to apply common sense against a mouse will only make the person applying it miserable.”
“Sigh. I just don’t get why we came up with a plan.”
In the midst of the chaotic atmosphere, Professor Mahabharata lowered the flag.
At the same time, fireballs were shot up from the instructors’ staffs.
With the sound of dazzling fireworks, the dodgeballs came crashing down from the sky.
“Uh?”
“J-Jezel, what do we do?!”
Above, dodgeballs were falling.
A whole bunch.
At least thirty or more.
“Be careful. If you look up too much and get knocked down by the second-year tackles, you’ll step on the gold.”
Hestia grasped the waist of a dangling second-year senior and swung them up high.
“Woah! Let go, let go!”
“You asked for it, senior.”
As Hestia threw the senior, those in the adjacent section toppled over like dominoes, getting engulfed in light.
The second-year seniors, with dazed expressions, were transmitted outside the court!
“Hey, hey!”
“Ouch, that hurt!”
“Who threw thorn bushes on the ground?!”
The upper class proved why they were upper class, easily brushing off even Dorothy, who was regarded as weak among first-year upper class students.
Unable to muster their strength, those standing awkwardly were easily cut down by Rokpel, Dorothy’s pair, who swung his sword like a whirlwind.
“Kak!”
“This is frustrating…”
“To get eliminated before catching a dodgeball.”
But the upper class was few, while lower class students were many.
A few second-year lower class students managed to snag a falling dodgeball by pure luck.
“Ha! Fall in fear, first-years. Now we’ll show you second-year skills…!”
Bang!
“AAAAAAAH!”
A senior screamed, clutching their arm as the dodgeball rolled below them.
“Huh? What did fear do?!”
“M-Mad girl! Who shoots guns in dodgeball!!”
“The instructor said it was okay, right?”
The instructor nearby nodded in agreement.
As the second-years hesitated and approached the ball, Jigoku’s gun fired once more.
Bang!
“Hey you crazy girl! This isn’t dodgeball!”
“Kyahahaha! Whatever! As long as I can shoot! I’ll make you shiver in fear, right? You’re second years, right? Seniors? Now, make me fear you!”
Jigoku, truly mad, began enjoying something that could hardly be called dodgeball, rendering the adjacent seniors incapable of even tossing a ball back.
“Ugh, die already!”
Unable to hold back, a barrage of magical attacks from the seniors overwhelmed Jigoku, but the lower class students in the same section shielded her with their bodies.
“AAAH!”
“Quickly, shoot all those seniors dead!”
“Kyahhahaha! I like this! Maybe I’m gonna love dodgeball from today!”
Jigoku started relishing something that definitely couldn’t be called dodgeball.
Though not as extreme as her, the upperclassmen who benefited from Jezel’s [Serious Defense Unit] managed to safely navigate the early phase.
“What about Oknodie?”
“She probably got eliminated. She’s over there, beyond that crowd.”
“But she likely still had fun, right?”
Isabel and Jezel exchanged bittersweet smiles as Son Ohchun gazed at the wall of second-years beyond them and said.
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean?”
“That scream.”
“Is it Oknodie’s!?”
“No, it’s the second-years screaming.”
Second-year lower class students were also experiencing a disastrous collapse, as the first years went in for self-destructive exploits but, amidst all that chaos, only one person remained unscathed.
The protagonist, Oknodie, was the one instilling fear in the surrounding second-years.
As the wall of second-years collapsed, revealing the spectacle on the other side, the first-year upper class students realized what Oknodie had been up to.
“Isn’t that worse than Jigoku…?”
Dorothy’s muttering resonated with everyone.
