I have to solve this.
Shuo Hero Academy.
Cultural Festival.
As usual, visitors and cadets are mingling, enjoying the vibrant festival now.
[Ah, testing the mic.]
Maeda Shinji’s voice flows from the speakers.
Everyone’s attention shifts to the sound coming from the speakers due to the sudden announcement.
[Breaking news! The perfect superhuman Student Council President! ‘Silver Queen’ Saionji Aris. Until now, our Shuo cadets have regarded her as a lady of high status, but I, Maeda Shinji, the head of the school’s disciplinary committee, have discovered that she actually hails from rural Wakayama Prefecture!]
Crackle.
All the TVs and monitors around the school change their screens with a burst of noise.
Maeda Shinji’s face appears on the monitor.
The bespectacled handsome Maeda Shinji continues passionately.
[That’s right! Despite being a country girl from Wakayama, she has deceived the elite cadets of Shuo! As evidence, I will now present her personal details!]
Click.
The screen switches, revealing a document.
[This is the family register of Saionji Aris that I secretly obtained. It states her birthplace as Wakayama Prefecture. This means Saionji Aris is not a lady from Tokyo, but a country girl from Kansai!]
All eyes are on the monitor.
“Did the president senior not come from a high status family?”
“Is she from Kansai?”
“She looked like a high-class lady…”
“Did we misunderstand all this time?”
People murmur in shock.
Maeda Shinji smiles from beyond the screen.
[That’s not all. I also prepared an evidence video that was difficult to obtain… Her true self will now be revealed.]
Suddenly.
The screen transitions.
A shaky video, seemingly taken with a phone, shows a girl in dorky braids and high-powered glasses.
The name tag on her sailor uniform reads Saionji Aris.
It was Aris during her middle school days before awakening her powers.
On her desk, there were scrawlings.
[Country girl Aris]
[Get lost from our neighborhood]
[Just go to another neighborhood already]
Aris trembles as she watches.
[Did the country girl come?]
[You’re doing well in school, huh?]
[It’s offensive for a beggar to feel this way.]
[You stink. Just get lost.]
[Talking like that makes you sound dumb.]
The voices of schoolchildren surround Aris, and the screen ends with her bowing her head.
[Did you see that? This is the true nature of Saionji Aris, her real self that has fooled everyone until now! Here, I will reveal everything about her… ]
Crackle, crackle.
Pop.
The screen that showed Shinji’s image goes dark.
The academy has regained control over the network.
But amongst the crowd that has realized Aris’s true nature, silence hangs in the air.
*
“Haha, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
Shinji’s laughter echoes in Aris’s ears.
The focus in Aris’s eyes fades away.
“It’s over now…”
Nightmarish memories from the past rise in her mind.
Being despised for being uncool, for her appearance, for coming from a poor background.
The memory of being looked down upon for coming from a poor family.
I remember being bullied for stuttering.
The memories of being bullied, which had clung to me like a shadow throughout elementary and middle school, resurface.
The countryside where she lived was a closed-off little community.
The human network formed in a small area undergoing aging was solid.
Thus, the intensity of the bullying was also stronger.
Because her family was poor.
Because her style wasn’t sophisticated.
Because they didn’t like her appearance. Because she stuttered.
It started small, but the subsequent community-level bullying was beyond what a middle school girl could endure.
In the classroom, after school.
Aris was always alone.
She couldn’t tell anyone. Because it was a small countryside.
The closeness of a small society where everyone knew each other suffocated young Aris.
For that reason, Aris tried to throw away all of her past.
The reasons she was bullied were because she was uncool, because she stuttered, because she was poor.
She made an effort to erase those aspects of herself.
She believed that if she did so, she wouldn’t be bullied.
After a grueling effort, she transformed into the perfect superhuman student council president, Saionji Aris, but the scars of her childhood still tormented her, unhealed.
“I’ve been found out… by everyone…”
Being exposed to one person, Kim Deok-Sung, was nothing compared to this.
Her identity had been revealed to the entire student body and external visitors through the broadcast.
Aris’s vision blurred.
Cold sweat poured down her face like rain.
“I-I might have to go back again…”
Her rationality was already paralyzed.
The Academy’s strongest.
Her power, comparable to an S-rank hero, meant nothing in the current situation, where she was psychologically shaken.
For Aris, the dialect, the image of a country girl, was the very embodiment of her terrible memories of bullying that she wanted to erase and forget.
The trauma she thought she had barely overcome crashed back down on her.
Aris was unable to move.
“Kuhuhuhuhu! Serves you right! You country bumpkin!”
Shinji’s sneer pierced through Aris’s mind like a dagger.
“Your secret of deceiving everyone has been completely exposed! Everyone will point fingers at you, Aris!”
His voice melded with the taunts from the kids who used to bully her.
Aris’s head drooped.
“N-No… I can’t…”
The fact that she deceived everyone, her shameful past laid bare before the world.
Like Shinji, like the kids who used to bully her before.
The whole world would point fingers at her.
At that moment, when delusions spread rapidly in Aris’s mind—
“Ku, kuhuuhuhu, Kyaah?! Kiick? Kiieeek!”
Shinji’s eyes turned bloodshot as his whole body twisted grotesquely.
With it, his limbs contorted strangely, and his muscles bulged abnormally.
He was transforming into a monster.
*
She was taken aback.
Suddenly exposing her as a countryside girl to the entire school was unexpected.
Of course, in the kind world of light novels, it wouldn’t really be a huge problem.
No, even in the real world, someone like Aris would receive praise as a self-made individual rather than criticism.
In fact, when it was revealed in the original seventh volume that Aris was a countryside girl, the reaction from the Shuo Academy students was enthusiastic cheers like, “The gap moe of the president is so cute! Please use the dialect, president!” rather than scorn and bullying.
The problem lay in Aris’s psychological state.
“…Ugh…”
Regardless of how this world was, she had the backstory of being bullied since childhood.
For Aris, the very appearance of a countryside girl triggered the trauma of her bullying.
That’s why, in the original work, a considerable amount of time was spent on the protagonist and heroine strongly persuading Aris to accept her identity as a countryside girl, and only after they resolved the matter and she met the academy students who accepted her rustic identity as an attractive point did her trauma begin to heal.
It was only after meeting the cadets that her trauma began to ease.
However, Aris wasn’t yet ready to accept her inner self.
The very fact that Shinji was going to reveal Aris’s identity on live broadcast never happened in the original story.
[Partner, don’t panic, stay calm and try to comfort Saionji-san.]
The Black Prince’s voice echoed in my head.
Only then did my mind clear up.
First, I needed to hand over Shinji’s young body to someone else and get out of here to persuade Aris.
I wasn’t confident in speaking smoothly like the original protagonist, but it had to be done.
It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t responsible for Shinji’s extreme choice to reveal Aris’s identity, which was different from the original.
All the deviations from the original story were my responsibility.
So just like with Olivia’s engagement ceremony, I had to take responsibility for Aris as well.
Just then, as I thought that…
“Cough, cough, cough, kkeu?! Kiriik? Kiiiiiick!”
Shinji twisted around.
He transformed into a monster.
‘Damn it.’
I barely swallowed the curse that rose to my throat.
New World League.
I suspected they would pull some tricks, but I didn’t expect them to make Shinji a monster.
It wasn’t completely unexpected, though.
In fact, transformation into a monster was often used in the story as a trump card to take down low-level villains.
But the timing wasn’t great.
At this moment, Aris was unable to fight normally due to psychological shock.
If Shinji, who had reached complete S rank and true name liberation, became a monster, the battle could get a lot tougher.
[We should deal with that one first.]
I grabbed the handle of Durandal after hearing the Black Prince’s words.
[Kiiiiiick! Aris… Black Beast…]
Shinji, having completely shed his human form, had eyes glowing a menacing blue.
Unlike William, who acted like a beast, he muttered a simple word or two as an S rank.
But a monster is a monster.
The muttered words carried no meaning.
[Grroooowwwwl… Aris! Possession!]
His beast-like arm muscles twitched, aiming for the crouched Aris.
Aris’s eyes wavered.
She completely lost her will to fight.
This is driving me crazy.
[Partner!]
‘I know.’
With that, I kicked off the ground and jumped to block Aris.
I deflected Shinji’s attack with Durandal.
BOOM—!
Shinji’s blue magical energy mixed with my black magic and exploded.
The shockwave from the deafening sound shattered the magic barrier and left a scratch on the full-arm gauntlet covering my left arm.
“Ugh.”
Blood flowed from my left forearm.
Along with it came the pain.
It was due to my inability to properly defend against the sudden attack.
The current Shinji, with S rank and transformation, was in a state stronger than me purely in terms of power.
I had hurried to defend, but a scratch on one arm was damage I could have predicted.
It wasn’t something I couldn’t tolerate.
[Grroooowwwwl! Kim, Deok-Sung… Kyaaaaaah!]
He calls my name in a twisted voice and goes wild.
Shinji, now a monster, had eyes gleaming blue.
Fortunately, it seemed the aggro was directed towards me.
“B-Blood… I-I’m so sorry… It’s all my fault… K-Kim Deok-Sung…”
I heard Aris’s trembling voice from behind.
“It’s fine.”
My arm still hurt.
I bit my lips.
[Kyaaaaaah!]
With all the aggro now focused on me, Shinji swung his glowing blue arm to attack.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Sizzle-sizzle-sizzle!
With the magic sparks, a terrifying blue trajectory spun chaotically in the air, leaving an afterimage.
As expected of an S-rank monster, he had immense power.
But no matter how strong the power, since the user was a monster who had lost control, it had little meaning.
No matter how powerful the attack, it only mattered if I had to take it.
It only makes sense if I get hit too.
Dancing around while calmly dodging his attacks, I strike back with the Black Radiant Sword Technique.
[Crack! Guh! Krrraaaah!]
It flares up.
With each hit on his body, Shinji screams like a banshee.
Bam! Ka-blam! Bam!
The explosive sounds shatter the walls of the Old School Building with magical sparks flying everywhere.
On the surface, it looks like we’re exchanging blows, but in reality, I’m the one piling up damage on Shinji.
But the perfect opportunity for a decisive attack hasn’t come yet.
This boring back-and-forth needs to end.
[Kyaaaaah! Kim Deok-Sung!!]
Seems like he’s getting a bit too excited as he calls my name while swinging his right hand.
Whoosh.
With that, a gap reveals itself.
[Partner, now’s the time!]
The Black Prince’s voice echoes in my mind.
I don’t even need him to say it.
I know this is my chance to take him down.
I inject magic into Durandal.
[True Name Release]
[The Demonic Sword that Burns Darkness]
Wooooooong!
As I unleash the True Name Release, Durandal’s blade turns black.
Black flames ignite above it.
Patsutsuutsuutsu!
My entire body is cloaked in black magical aura, doubling all my stats.
I was saving this True Name Release for this very moment.
To ensure I can definitely eliminate him.
[Black Radiant Sword Technique]
[Secret Move]
Patsutsuutsuutsu!
At the tip of Durandal’s blackened blade, black magic gathers into a spherical shape.
As a horrifying amount of magic collects, sparks fly.
Wooooooong!
The Magic Core in my chest and the Black Stone heat up intensely.
Thump, thump.
My heart races as hot magic flows through my magic circuits to power Durandal.
[Grhhhhh?]
Just then, a panicked Shinji tries to do something, but it’s already too late.
“Now perish.”
The black sphere appears in an instant.
[Full Moon Drop]
The moon-like black sphere drops straight towards Shinji.
Boom-BOOM-BOOM!
With an explosion of magic, it obliterates the floor and ceiling.
The Old School Building, which was barely holding its shape, turns to dust and collapses without a trace.
[Kraaaaaah!]
The horrible scream of the monster pierces my ears.
“Phew.”
Maybe it’s because I expended so much magic in such a short time, but my head feels a bit dizzy.
As the dust clears, I see the scene of Shinji’s body, mutilated in his monster form, lying in the wreckage of the Old School Building, bleeding.
This should be the real end, right?
Dizzy head.
I hold my bleeding arm and scan my surroundings.
“Saionji-senpai.”
But Saionji Aris is nowhere to be found.
Even when I spread my dark powers to sense her aura, it’s the same.
Her presence can’t be detected around the Old School Building.
Saionji Aris has vanished.
[Gone. Partner. Where could Saionji-san possibly…?]
The Black Prince speaks in my mind.
I know exactly where she might be.
[Are you going to search for Saionji-san?]
The Black Prince asks.
‘Of course, I have to go.’
Without hesitation, I respond to the Black Prince’s words.
The current situation, which has diverged from the original storyline, is entirely my responsibility.
If only I hadn’t needlessly provoked Shinji like the original Yuji.
If I had gotten along with Aris after the cultural festival event in volume 7 like the original Yuji.
If I wasn’t a reincarnator.
If I hadn’t interfered in the original flow of events.
Maybe Shinji wouldn’t have gone berserk, and Aris wouldn’t have been so traumatized.
So this is just like at Olivia’s engagement.
‘It’s entirely my fault.’
Everything is my fault.
So just like at the engagement, I have to resolve Aris’s issue.
No one else but me has to deal with the mess I created.
Deactivating combat mode, I immediately left the ruined Old School Building.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.
