<147 - Scheduled Event>
The plan to use the princess was a complete failure.
The first person to give me, a veteran player, a sense of defeat!
I’m scared, Princess Masugaki the 2nd!
“Puhuhu. It feels great to have exercised last night♡ All my stress has just vanished♡ If you want to bet again next time, feel free to say so♡”
“Hmph. How dare you kill someone else’s collection? I’ll never invite you!”
If it’s a hunting collection guide, it’s fine to kill the targeted prey, but for the insect collection guide, only living ones caught for a set period count.
If you gather carcasses or if the caught target suddenly dies, the count simply vanishes or becomes invalid.
[We played vigorously and joyfully, having a gathering contest with the princess until late at night.]
[Observation Experience Points +15]
[Scream Experience Points +15]
[Dark Vision Experience Points +15]
[Blocking Experience Points +10]
[Collecting Experience Points +10]
[Tossing Experience Points +10]
[Memorization Experience Points +5]
[Running Experience Points +5]
[Dark Electricity Generation Experience Points +3]
[Jet Black Coating Experience Points +3]
[Concentration Experience Points +3]
[Reflexes Experience Points +3]
[Psyche Prediction Experience Points +3]
[Action Prediction Experience Points +3]
[The princess thinks you’re a ‘funny child’.]
[The probability that Princess Masugaki the 2nd will block the aggressive actions of the Imperial faction students has slightly increased.]
Due to the aftermath of the intense battle, tons of functional experience points came my way, but I didn’t even have the stamina to rejoice.
With me completely exhausted and trudging along, a large hand picked me up.
“What kind of deadly game are you playing?”
“I just wanted to save them…”
I wanted to earn the next title, Goo Fabre…
For some reason, Hestia looked happy at my genuinely sullen expression.
What’s this?
Uh?
Is she angry?
“Hestia. Why are you happy when I’m feeling down?”
“Just because.”
“That’s mean.”
How could she make me angry? I can’t forgive that.
No matter how much it’s Hestia, this crossed the line.
I won’t let this slide…!
Hestia… will get this treatment!
I puffed up my cheeks and glared sideways, activating my secret skill, Side Glance!
Hestia’s expression, made to provoke guilt, only seemed to buoy her spirits even more.
As I quickened my pace, my body, caught in her grasp, swayed side to side faster.
“Ahh— I’m feeling dizzy—!”
When I finally finished my return home and got back to the dormitory, I obtained [Balance Experience Points +3].
Trying to be cunning just made me suffer more.
This was a fight of a different dimension rather than just a game.
Seeing Jiang’s serious expression, it seemed I wasn’t the only one who thought that.
‘I can’t see properly.’
The princess’s memorization sharply penetrated through the darkness.
The speedy flurry of memorization, slicing through the air, was dodged like a pro mercenary’s shield defense, as I deflected them with rocks.
“Wow, you run away well♡”
“Give up! There’s no way you can kill all the insects I have, so I’m guaranteed to win!”
Even as she urged surrender, the princess simply laughed coldly.
“The word ‘defeat’ doesn’t exist in the dictionary of an imperial princess. Didn’t you know such common sense~?”
With a snap of her fingers, the memorizations she had thrown so far radiated suspicious dark power.
[Imperial Court Mana Flow Technique]
[Sneak - Attribute Transformation]
[Metalization]
The unique chilly breeze of metal was felt throughout the wood, rock, and ground.
In the safety torch I raised, the forest stained with metallic hues and the princess’s unsettling expression could be seen.
“Watch out, Oknodie!”
Before the warning had time to settle, the princess’s memorizations began to rain down.
Having snatched away Oknodie’s collecting tweezers, it seemed the princess was endlessly throwing them, making me suspicious she had a bottomless pocket full of them!
Unable to hold back my suspicion, I approached a tweezers that had bounced and stuck into a tree, uncovering its secret.
“This is… a fake?”
“It’s a skill of the princess.”
Jiang peeked from behind, examining the tweezers and said, “Touch it with your hand.”
“The tweezers… they’re squished?!”
“When the material made of mana drifts away from the sorcerer, it changes that way. It’s the principle of regaining its original form as the mana inside depletes.”
“For that kind of thing, it’s surprisingly solid?”
“It was loaded with enough mana to maintain the shape of a projectile for a while. Some can hold even more mana like that.”
Jiang caught a bouncing tweezers effortlessly with her bare hands.
As she handed me the tweezers caught between her middle and index fingers, Hestia felt a firmness that didn’t crumble at all, unlike the previous tweezers.
Even though she exerted enough strength to bend a real tweezers, it didn’t budge at all; it was anything but ordinary strength.
“It’s better to drop that quickly.”
“Why?”
“Do you want a splendid metallic hand?”
Upon realizing the meaning behind those words, Hestia freaked out and tossed the tweezers away. Not long after, the princess snapped her fingers again.
Mana, packed inside the tweezers, burst forth from the tip, turning the grass below into metal, causing Hestia to feel fear.
“If it hits a person, it’s game over.”
“If you receive the magic that unmetalizes it, you can regain your organic structure. Provided that the skin tissue doesn’t necrotize or the blood vessels haven’t been infiltrated.”
“Is it okay to deal such a fearsome attack to a child?!”
“If we’re being fair, wouldn’t Oknodie also be partly at fault?”
“What do you mean by partly at fault, if I get hit, I’ll need immediate treatment at the academy infirmary!”
“Think about why Oknodie is able to fight back against such a relentless assault.”
At Jiang’s words, Hestia finally regained some composure and paid more careful attention to the battlefield.
The tweezers rained down sharply.
Hurling a rock to block the tweezers, she soared a stone to deflect them in mid-air, deftly snagging the collecting can’s ring with her finger to pull it back.
As the princess’s tweezers activated metalization, she aimed to target the back, while Hestia now spun around, deflecting and dodging the attacks.
“Aah!”
Something wasn’t going right as she opened her mouth to let out a startled scream, just as thwack! one side of the collecting can turned to metal.
With the structure altered, it crumbled with a squelching sound as a rhinoceros beetle bolted out from the corner, getting impaled by the tweezers before Oknodie could block it.
“You bad princess!”
As Oknodie exploded in frustration, unable to hold back, she grabbed a nearby uprooted tree.
“Ugh!”
She lifted the tree high to waist level and hurled it towards the princess with a shout!
A few trees struck down by the flying wood collapsed with a thud, but the princess burst through the dust and pointed a finger at a collecting can.
“Hey!”
With a crackling sound, golden electric streams surged!
“Hey, that’s unfair!”
Black lightning sparked from Oknodie’s finger at the same moment, striking the ground.
Unskilled in casting without an incantation, the princess unleashed lightning magic, which Oknodie narrowly countered.
“You’re surprisingly prepared~? Lightning magic isn’t even on the syllabus yet. Hehe, but it’s weak♡”
“That’s unfair! You pumped your output with potions!”
“Hehe. If you’re mad, you shouldn’t have challenged a member of the imperial family~. Pathetic persistent amateur♡”
I was undeniably on the back foot.
Yet Oknodie was reacting.
To every one of the princess’s attacks.
Physical, magical, applied, unconventional, relentless assaults.
Out of ten attacks, she parried six, evaded three, and barely avoided one.
“How come the princess isn’t the top student with those skills? She’s stronger than Oknodie.”
“She probably held back her pride. She looks like she’s got a serious my-pace attitude compared to Oknodie. And…”
“And?”
“Oknodie isn’t attacking the princess; she’s solely focused on protecting the collecting can.”
“Aha.”
From the start, this wasn’t a duel at all.
If anything, it was a cargo protection battle.
The fight was between Oknodie, trying to protect the insects in the collecting can, and the princess, attempting to destroy it.
Oknodie ran through the woods, clutching the collecting can’s ring in her mouth, dodging the rapid-fire attacks, her movements only focused on protecting it.
If she displayed her strength, magic, and wisdom against the princess directly, the situation might have been different.
“I’m getting sleepy♡ I think I’ll finish this♡”
Ultimately, the princess manipulated the metalization fields she had spread out and raised countless spikes, transforming the collecting cans into a honeycomb before smashing them to pieces.
“You must have realized it today, but Oknodie doesn’t particularly need your help. She’s stronger from the start.”
“I can get stronger too if I enter a frenzy.”
“Oknodie can do the same. If she triggers dark mana, that’s enough.”
Despite the fierce battle, Oknodie never once summoned dark mana.
Although there had been moments when dark mana naturally manifested while using magic, she had never utilized it as her primary means of attack.
She was controlling herself to avoid recklessly using that dangerous power against others.
“Assassins are meant to be that way. Killing people isn’t a hobby for us; we’re professionals.”
“…Is that so? There’s not much difference from mercenaries, huh?”
Hestia casually dismissed it, but Jiang’s unblinking gaze seemed to imply that she didn’t believe there was nothing special about her words.
“I don’t get why there are so many kids in this academy who want to play friends. They’ve all experienced enough socializing to be recognized outside.”
“Maybe they haven’t matured yet.”
“Isn’t the Western Noble Union supposed to have crossed the battlefield several times?”
“Jiang, you don’t seem to like the word ‘friend’ much. Trusting others is the same.”
“I’m an assassin.”
“I don’t know what you’ve been through, but Oknodie is different. I’m different. And you can change too.”
Jiang pushed off the ground with her foot, spinning around.
“I don’t particularly dislike making friends. I just hate empty relationships that vary with the time and situation.”
The hope that the friends I made during the day could call me a friend even at night had only been a sentiment I held when I was about the same age as Oknodie.
Jiang had made friends a few times and had lost all those connections.
Even wimpy Titosso and busybody Hestia would surely reveal their true colors and drift away one day.
And that day might be approaching much sooner than they think.
“If you’re so confident, give it a shot. Next week starts ‘Guardian Observations’.”
“Guardian…? Wait a minute. That’s Oknodie’s…!”
Jiang raised a hand as if to cut her throat, grinning in the moonlight.
“The ‘Foundation’ official related to Oknodie will come to the academy.”
Now everyone will finally understand what the foundation is, how it appears to others, and how to treat Oknodie.
They might have been filled with daydreams in the first month, but will they still be the same when that time comes?
Who knows.
From the looks of it, it seems unlikely.
Leaving behind Hestia, unable to take a step with a stiffened expression, Jiang melted into the darkness around the corner of the dormitory.
