Chapter 539
"......."
In front of Simon’s 10th team’s empty altar, Hector was at a loss for words.
His teammates caught up with him a moment later.
“Hector! Did you find it?”
“What the— it’s gone!”
Seeing Hector’s face, which looked like it was about to explode any second, the others quickly grasped the mood and scanned their surroundings.
“Are they even allowed to do this? Moving their own red relic would be against the rules!”
"......."
Hector fell into thought.
That was true. A red relic from another team could be stolen and moved, but the red relic on their own altar was untouchable.
Which meant…
“Those bastards…!”
Hector’s eyes glared with ferocity.
* * *
One hour earlier.
The students were given a 30-minute break. Teams huddled together, reviewing the detailed rules and devising strategies.
Team 4, who were to participate in the first match, was no exception.
“Man, the department rep’s scary as hell.”
One of the boys from Team 4 shrugged, speaking lightly. Just a moment ago, Pierre Buckley from Team 1 had come by, relaying Hector’s message.
The message was crystal clear:
– Don’t interfere.
Hector’s Team 1 had openly declared they would strike Simon’s Team 10.
“But hey, isn’t this situation actually kinda good for us?”
A girl from Team 4 drew her knees together and spoke.
“Honestly, the worst-case scenario would’ve been if Team 1 and Team 10 both decided to target us and Team 13. But if the whales want to beat each other up, all we have to do is stay out of it and gather relics.”
“Exactly. At least this way, we avoid last place and don’t get on the department rep’s bad side.”
"......."
The teammates were in agreement, but Team 4’s leader remained silent, arms folded and eyes closed.
“Captain, you don’t look convinced.”
The boy who had spoken first narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t tell me… you’re actually aiming for first place?”
"......."
The leader opened his eyes, not denying it.
“What’s wrong with me aiming for first place?”
“W-Well, it’s not wrong, but let’s be realistic! By sheer bad luck, we got matched against the Student Council President and the department rep! How the hell do you expect to beat them?”
"......."
Of course, the leader had no sharp answer.
But what frustrated him was not having no plan, it was the idea of giving up from the start, lowering themselves to fight for second or third place.
– At this school, anyone can climb to the top.
He had seen it firsthand: a classmate who had entered in the 900s during first-year admissions but rose to the top by second year.
It inspired him. He had sworn to change himself by second year.
And now, in their very first major evaluation, was he supposed to abandon that vow just because of bad matchups?
“Hello, hello~”
That was when it happened.
A girl with bright orange hair suddenly appeared.
Recognizing her, the Team 4 girl waved cheerfully.
“Oh, hi Eshu~ What brings you here?”
“Ah, her.”
The boy from Team 4 stiffened.
“She’s from Simon’s 10th team.”
At those words, the others immediately tensed up.
But Eshu simply folded her skirt neatly, plopped down in the middle of them, and giggled innocently.
“So, what’s up?”
Team 4’s captain spoke with irritation.
“Your Hector buddies already came by earlier. What, here to ask the same thing?”
“Hehe, I was wondering if you’d tell me what they said~”
“Dream on.”
What a blatant question.
The captain turned his head away with a sharp reply, and Eshu pouted a little. Then, slyly, she raised the corner of her lips.
“Should I guess? Let me try. They said something like: ‘We’re going after Simon’s team, so you guys stay out of it’. Am I close?”
Team 4’s members flinched, and Eshu snickered.
“Actually, I came here to pass along our Student Council President’s message…!”
“Enough already!”
The captain suddenly shouted, startling his teammates.
“What, do only your two teams exist in this exam? Huh? Just ‘cause you’ve got a little power at school, you think you can treat us like we don’t matter and bark orders at us?’ That pisses me the hell off! We’re Keyzen, aren’t we?!”
“C-Captain!”
“Why are you blowing up all of a sudden?!”
The teammates tried to calm him down, while Eshu blinked in surprise.
“Seems like a misunderstanding. We’re not here to order you around, we’re here to make a proposal.”
“…Proposal?”
“Yes~ At least hear it out before you get angry. I’ll repeat our president’s words word for word.”
She clapped her hands together.
“From now on, I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Simon’s proposal was shocking.
When she finished speaking, the captain muttered in disbelief.
“…You’re saying your team will just hand over your red relic?”
Eshu nodded vigorously.
“Eshu, look me in the eyes and say it straight.”
The Team 4 girl’s eyes glowed sharply.
“No conditions?”
“Yup!”
“For free?”
“Mhm!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know the reason. I was only told to deliver the message.”
"......."
"......."
The captain rubbed his eyes, conflicted.
‘Simon knows Hector will attack. Rather than let their rival take the relic, they’d rather give it to us just to spite him?’
Then Eshu added.
“Oh, and he also said this! Our altar will be empty, so if you run right at the start, you can grab the red relic before Hector does.”
‘…Just as I thought.’
In this exam, the 15-point red relic was invaluable.
Holding two red relics would guarantee at least second place, and make first place very likely.
Simon’s motive was clear: use a third party to keep Hector’s hands off the 15 points.
For Team 4, it was a sweet deal.
“Well, I said what I had to say, so I’ll go now~”
As soon as Eshu left, Team 4 huddled together.
“This is a trap!”
One boy declared.
“They’re luring us with the red relic, then lying in ambush to wipe out our ghouls!”
“Or maybe it’s actually a collab with Hector’s team?”
A girl suggested.
“What if they’re just pretending to fight, while secretly teaming up, each taking one team out and splitting the relics?”
“…No.”
A sleepy-eyed boy, who had been quiet until then, yawned.
“That’s not it.”
The captain turned to him.
“Right, you’re from Class A. What kind of guys are Hector and Simon?”
“…Hector Moore will definitely go after Simon. No doubt about it. And…”
He clicked his tongue.
“Simon Follentia isn’t the type to lie.”
"......."
Decision made.
The captain stood.
“I’ll take one ghoul and head to Team 10’s side alone. If something’s off, I’ll pull back immediately.”
Even if it was a trap and they lost one or two ghouls, it wasn’t a bad gamble.
* * *
And Now.
“Huff! Huff!”
The captain of Team 4 was sprinting breathlessly through the darkness.
Beside him ran his ghoul, and inside its body was the red relic of Team 10.
‘It worked! It worked! It worked!’
Just as Simon had promised.
The altar had indeed been empty, and there had been signs of chaos ahead, as if a battle had broken out, most likely between Hector’s team and Simon’s.
The captain had ordered his ghoul to swallow the red relic and was now racing back to his base.
‘I— no, our Team 4—!’
The corners of his lips trembled with the thrill.
‘We’ll surpass Simon and Hector… and take first place!’
As he pushed himself harder, the sight of Team 4’s altar finally came into view.
He couldn’t wait to deliver the good news to his teammates. He was about to accelerate even further through the Darkness when—
Shrrraaaak!
Claws sliced through the air, grazing his ghoul. The captain flinched and pushed his ghoul back in alarm.
“Hold it right there! Surprise inspection!”
A voice called out, and when he lifted his head, three pairs of glowing eyes gleamed in the shadows.
“Where are you rushing off to in such a hurry?”
—Kerrrr!
Ghouls lurked out from the darkness, prowling.
Nine ghouls in total.
They had him completely surrounded.
“Your ghoul looks nice and plump.”
Tap—
A boy jumped down from a tree, smirking as he raised his index finger.
“Mind if I slice its belly open to see what’s inside?”
‘…Team 13! They caught the scent after all!’
The Team 4 captain quickly pulled out two more ghouls from subspace.
But even then, it was three against nine. The numbers were stacked against him.
“Now then, smash them to pieces!”
The nine ghouls controlled by Team 13 lunged all at once.
“Over there! Found him!”
“Protect the captain!”
This time, voices rang out ahead.
The rest of Team 4 had arrived, their six ghouls charging in at full speed.
“Tch, they’re fast! But no matter. Kill them all!”
Golden lines gleamed across some of the ghouls as Funeral Chant activated. Cloaked in black energy like tattered capes, they charged.
“Not so fast!”
The Team 4 captain likewise cast Funeral Chant on his ghouls, meeting them head-on.
From the start, it was all-out war.
* * *
Meanwhile.
Simon had not only approached Team 4.
While Eshu was negotiating with them, Toto had been dispatched to the back of the washrooms where Team 13 was planning their strategy.
–You’re giving your red relic to Team 4?
Simon had offered the relic to Team 4.
But to Team 13, he intentionally leaked that information.
Though suspicious it might be a trap, the lure was impossible to ignore.
Team 13 had been discouraged by their miserable matchups, resigned to just avoiding last place. But now, suddenly, an opportunity appeared.
If Simon’s words were true, then Team 4 would become number one.
And from Team 13’s perspective, Team 4 was far less intimidating prey.
‘Yes, there was a chance it was a setup. But…’
–There’s no way we’re letting Team 4 take first. That’d piss me off too much.
For a game where all they had to look forward to was fighting for 3rd or 4th place, even the smallest chance at 1st was worth the gamble.
So when the test began, Team 13’s captain took three members and lay in ambush between Team 10 and Team 4’s path, just as Simon had predicted.
And, right on cue, Team 4’s captain appeared alone.
Thus began the mud-wrestling battle between two teams suddenly chasing first place.
‘Heheheh! Our Student Council President’s got a brilliant mind, doesn’t he?’
Eshu clicked her tongue in awe.
Simon’s grasp of Hector’s personality, and his awareness of every other team’s position, was what made such a strategy possible.
And while everyone else was caught up in bloody skirmishes, Eshu made her way straight to Team 13’s base.
“Wh-Who’s there?!”
Team 13 had already left to ambush Team 4. Only one student remained to guard the altar.
Startled, he raised his guard, and Eshu waved brightly.
“Hi~ I’m the housebreaker today!”
She had her own rule of thumb.
If there were at least two defenders— pass.
If the defenders were from Group A or B— pass.
But thankfully, only the weakest D-Group student was here alone.
Which meant she could take him.
“You’re from Team 10…!”
He pointed at her with fury.
“You tricked us!”
“Huh? Nope, not a single lie.”
Eshu tilted her head.
“We only gave you information about Team 4, didn’t we? No demands, no requests. Whether you used it or ignored it was entirely your choice.”
With a sharp thrust of her hand forward, she declared:
“And now, your red relic is ours!”
From behind her, a ghoul came charging— painted over with bright orange paint, with lipstick smeared across its lips for some reason.
“What the hell kind of taste is that?!”
The D-Group boy controlled three ghouls.
It was 3 versus 1.
Sure enough, the lipstick-wearing ghoul was quickly overpowered and pinned.
“Ha! All that confidence, and you only brought one ghoul?”
As he mocked her gleefully, the pinned ghoul’s mouth suddenly opened.
‘Activate!’
The summoning circle of her ghoul changed.
The formulas and glyphs that maintained its structure shifted, activating a secondary magic circle inscribed beside it.
Eshu instantly reconstructed the formation, rearranging the components into a cursed puppet format.
–Only techniques that apply to ghouls may be used.
This didn’t violate the rule. It was purely a curse born out of the ghoul’s own summoning circle.
The cursed doll slipped neatly into the mouths of the enemy ghouls.
“Ghoul Funeral Chant. My success rate in combat isn’t high, but—”
She raised her arms like a pianist about to strike the keys.
“—I’m confident in failing gracefully!”
The cursed doll infiltrated the structure of the enemy summoning circles. With a snap, she drew golden lines in reverse.
Rrrraaaaaaaghh!
The ghouls of Team 13 howled, vomiting Darkness from their mouths.
“Wh-What the hell?! What did you do?!”
Eshu laughed, pressing her fingertip against her tongue.
“Everyone thinks to cast Funeral Chant on their own ghouls. No one thinks to cast it on the enemy’s.”
Thud!
Boom!
All three of Team 13’s ghouls collapsed.
Eshu casually summoned a new ghoul from subspace and had it collect their red relic.
The boy could only stand there helplessly, fists clenched.
“You… you bitch!”
“Bye-bye~ Don’t hate me too much. It’s just a test, after all!”
She chuckled, leading her ghoul away with the relic.
‘Looks like I landed in one fun team!’
With this, Team 10 now held two relics and stood within reach of victory.
Team 13 couldn’t realistically retaliate, leaving them no choice but to gamble everything against Team 4, who also possessed two relics.
That left only Hector’s Team 1, humiliated by Simon’s ploy. And of course, Hector would not back down quietly.
‘Hehehe, I can’t wait to see what Hector does next.’
Superb.
When are we getting more free chapters?
Thanks for the new chapters