Episode 29: Accepting the Duel
“Hold on! Riana-san, you don’t need to feel indebted, you know?”
“Rui-san, Milady is implicitly saying she wants to help you.”
…No, Riana-san is giving you a deadpan stare, you know?
“Ahem. Well, either way is fine. I’ve decided to lend you a hand if you wish. The rest is up to you.”
“Um… can I hear the plans first?”
She said, “That’s true,” put her hand to her chin, and began to think. Then she laid out three plans.
First, become affiliated with the Randall family, gain their backing, and continue attending here.
Second, secretly transfer to a school in the Randall territory and become a Hunter there.
Third, with me as a witness, formally accept the Sacred Duel and settle things.
“Ah, the third one sounds best, but will things be okay afterward?”
“…If you’re that casual about it, you’d better not. To put it bluntly, a Sacred Duel is just a fight to the death.”
“No, that’s fine, but… won’t his family come after me later?”
Yeah. If it’s a fight to the death, that’s convenient. After what they did, I’m not soft enough to fuss about taking a life. If he cried and apologized out of remorse towards me, I might just rough him up a bit, but with him, that’s not happening, so if it comes to a duel, I’ll probably just kill him.
What I’m worried about is whether his parents will come barging in, saying their son was killed.
“I can’t say they absolutely won’t, but at least they can’t openly interfere. A Sacred Duel is one where you swear an oath to God to leave no lingering grudges. If they were to defile that duel, the Church would subject the Listol family to an inquisition.”
Uwah, there’s the Church. Scary! The Church in this world is militant, after all. But if that’s the case, should I just go for it? I want to graduate from this school if possible.
“Then, can I go with that option?”
“Yes, of course. It’s convenient for me too if a despicable noble disappears. But are you really sure? Even if he’s rotten, he’s still third in our year, you know?”
“Yeah. I was winning against him last time too. The only reason I got blown away was because four upperclassmen attacked me with magic all at once.”
Well, if there had been ground behind me, I’m confident I could have beaten them too. Ah, or maybe not. I was healing the whole time I was falling, so maybe my recovery wouldn’t have kept up? Hmm. The magic exchange was a draw, and it depends on how many were incapacitated by the Firestorm. I can cast magic even while healing.
“Hmm. If you’re that strong, why were you pretending to be weak?”
“No, I wasn’t pretending. I just grew incredibly fast thanks to Yuri.”
She didn’t seem to believe me much, so I explained everything up to this point to Riana-san. How I couldn’t even use Enhancement Magic when I enrolled. How Yuri taught me everything, and how I taught her Maso in return.
“So, to me, Yuri is a great benefactor and a master I can respect.”
“I see. So that’s why your base physical abilities were low,” Yukina-san commented.
“Hmm. Even with that factored in, it’s hard to believe, but I’m somewhat convinced for now,” Riana said.
Yukina-san seemed convinced, but Riana-san still looked like she didn’t quite believe me.
“Well, either way, I’m confident I’ll win in a one-on-one, so you don’t need to worry about that. If anything, the question is whether Listol will accept this ‘Sacred Duel’ thing.”
When I added, “He couldn’t even stand after taking my punch,” she nodded confidently and said, “That part will be fine.”
“Once he’s declared he’s challenging someone to a duel, if the other party accepts, he has no choice but to go through with it. It’d be a different story if too much time had passed, or if he’d said it where no one was around, though.”
But what about the conditions he mentioned for participating in the tournament? Aren’t those irrelevant now?
That’s what I thought, but apparently, a duel isn’t something so trivial as just making someone listen to you. It seems you can’t just call it off now by fussing over conditions. That’s why, apparently, there aren’t many fools who would challenge someone to a duel so readily.
“I see. Well then, I’m sorry I can’t offer anything in return, but can I ask for your help?”
When I asked, she smiled and said, “Leave it to me.”
It would be nice if I could give them something in return… Ah, I have that!
“Yukina-san, can I borrow the kitchen for a bit? I want to at least give you something in return.”
“Oh my, are you that good at cooking? Yukina is also skilled, so we eat well even in the dorms, you know,” Riana commented.
“Heh heh heh, my cooking skills might be inferior, but I have some special ingredients.”
I told them to wait a moment, dashed out of the girls’ dorm, and returned with about two kilograms of Dinosaur Meat. Then I started preparing it in a familiar way. I grilled it rare, drizzled it with the sauce Naomi taught me, and presented it.
“Here you go! I put the remaining kilogram in the freezer, so feel free to eat it later if you like.”
I confidently presented the Dinosaur Meat to the two of them. And the moment they took a bite, they both froze. They must be enduring the overwhelming umami assaulting their mouths.
I get it. I totally get it.
I nodded sagely and waited for them to compose themselves.
“Wh-what kind of meat is this?” Riana asked.
“I don’t know the name, but it’s meat I got from where I fell. I wandered for six days, but thanks to this, I managed not to get depressed.”
“I’ve never known meat of such high quality. What kind of monster could it be…” Yukina-san murmured.
Learning that I didn’t know the name, the two of them cut it into small pieces and continued to pop one bite after another into their mouths, eating silently until the three hundred grams of meat were gone. After they finished eating, they stared up at me intently.
“No, I mean, there’s still over a kilogram left, so if you want to eat more, Yukina-san can cook it, right?”
“Are you sure… I mean, you’ve been eating this every day, haven’t you? Yukina?” Riana asked, first looking at me, then turning to Yukina.
“Yes! I shall go and prepare it!” Yukina exclaimed.
She quickly stood up and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Well, it’s late, so I’ll head back now.”
“Alright. See you tomorrow,” Riana replied.
“Yeah. Sorry, but I’m counting on you.”
I raised a hand, said “Later,” turned on my heel, and headed back to the Men’s Dormitory, which was fine, but I’d returned before hearing Yuri’s story.
“Crap, if anything, that was the main topic…”
It’s the meat’s fault. Because of it, the atmosphere became such that I couldn’t bring up any topic other than meat partway through.
Well, I can just ask tomorrow. It’s not like there’s anything I can do about it today anyway.
And so, when I got into my futon, I once again felt the reality of being back and fell into a pleasant sleep.
“Y-You! Why are you here?!”
In the morning, as I took my usual seat in the classroom, Listol, who had just entered, raised his voice.
“Because I’m a student here. What? Am I not allowed to be?”
“Of course not! You commoner! Hurry up and go back where you belong!”
Hahaha, he’s panicking, he’s panicking. What an idiot. He’s so flustered he’s spouting nonsense. He probably doesn’t even understand what he’s saying.
“And where exactly is this ‘place I belong’? Oh, right. You challenged me to a Sacred Duel, didn’t you? I’ll accept. Is after school today good for you?”
“…Hoh. Very well. This time, I’ll send you where you truly belong!”
Huh? He actually accepted. Seriously…? He’s not thinking something like, ‘I wasn’t serious before, so I can win this time,’ is he? Oh well. Now, just as Riana said, it looks like I can have a fight to the death with no lingering issues.
“For that Sacred Duel, I, Riana Randall, shall act as witness. Rui-san, if that happens, you won’t be able to run away, but are you truly fine with that?”
“Ah, of course. Please do.”
“What?! I didn’t ask for such a thing, Lady Riana!”
“Oh my, for a Sacred Duel, the challenged party has priority in appointing a witness. Listol-san, you weren’t even aware of something so basic?”
At Riana-san’s words, Listol’s face turned red, and he fell silent. His expression showed not only anger towards her but also panic.
Ah, I get it.
He was planning to call me out and kill me with a group lynching. He probably thought he could win this time too because he won that way before. And now he’s panicking because she crushed that plan.
“Everyone, you’ve heard, haven’t you? After school, the Sacred Duel between Rui-san and Listol-san will be held. Sacred Duels are considered open events, not to be hidden from public view. Please come and watch if you wish.”
Saying so, she spread her skirt, curtsied, and sat down in the seat next to me. Yukina-san, who had appeared at some point, also sat next to her.
“With this, he absolutely cannot escape. If he were to run, it would be such a disgrace that he’d lose his place in his own family,” Yukina-san said.
“In noble society, Sacred Duels are taken that seriously,” Yukina-san added, a smirk playing on her lips.
“I proceeded with the conversation assuming you’d win, just as you said, but are you really going to be okay?” Riana asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Even if he brings upperclassmen and it becomes eight against one, if I’m allowed to kill them, it’ll be easy.”
Well, there’ll be spectators this time, so I don’t plan on using a Gun, though.
“More importantly than that, I want to hear about Yuri…”
“More importantly than that? Your life is on the line, you know?” Riana said, exasperated.
“I’m confident, so it’s fine. So, why did Yuri go back to her family home?”
Riana-san gave me an exasperated look, but then she sighed and told me about Yuri’s situation up until the day before yesterday.
From the day I disappeared until the next morning, she apparently searched the Dungeon, and when she went to school just like that, she confronted Listol. The moment he said with a smirk, in a suggestive tone, “It’s useless to search. That commoner is long dead,” Yuri apparently snapped.
While crying and screaming, she apparently beat him up and interrogated him, but he kept feigning ignorance and was stopped by a teacher.
The day after that, it seems the war had reached a lull, and a pick-up from her family home apparently arrived for her.
And so, still disheartened, she was apparently taken away by her family.
“Oh! Is the war over!?”
“No. It seems they only succeeded in repelling them once. I heard there was no request for a ceasefire or an end to the war. It’s said it will start again within a year at the latest.”
I see.
I want to somehow at least let her know I’m alive, but…
“If I send a letter, will it reach Yuri?”
“That would probably be impossible. It’d be a different story if she had told her family your name, but… If there’s no family name, it’ll get mixed in with petitions from commoners and such, so they don’t pass each one up to the higher-ups.”
I was told that if you’re lucky, there’s a chance the message might get through, but unless the person who reads it is someone in a high position and they happen to ask if anyone knows the recipient, it will likely be discarded without being delivered.
Apparently, there are rare cases of people trying to get a message through no matter what by impersonating an acquaintance of the family, so they are wary of such attempts.
So, basically, they say only letters with a reliable wax seal of a family name are allowed through.
“If you absolutely want to tell her, it’s better to go in person. If you can prove you’re a schoolmate, even if you can’t meet her, they’ll at least pass on a message.”
Even if you say “go”…
I don’t have the money to travel.
For now, is my only option to do my best and graduate from here?
Haaah. That’s just way too long…
She’ll probably get angry and say, “If you were alive, you should have said so sooner!”
“…Isn’t this a good opportunity? It was going to be difficult for you two anyway because of your social statuses.”
No, I know that, but.
Still, I don’t like being treated as dead…
While we were talking like that, class ended, and for some reason, Mr. Owen called out to me.