Chapter 32: Kraken (3)

Quinier caught her breath involuntarily.

Anne stood still for a moment, looked around, then approached her.

“Ngh...!”

Quinier backed away. Anne’s unfocused eyes drew closer.

When Quinier took a couple of steps to the right, Anne passed beside her.

Anne wasn’t looking at Quinier. She was merely searching the classroom for Frondier.

“... Frondier. Kill him. Die.”

At Anne’s chilling mutter, Quinier swallowed.

Seeing her friend’s condition firsthand made her realize just how dire Frondier’s situation was.

An enormous number of students were pursuing him right now. And they meant to kill him.

‘Have the teachers been affected too?’

If the culprit intended to kill Frondier, controlling the teachers would naturally be the first thing they considered.

With no response from the teachers even after things had escalated this far, it seemed almost certain that they were being controlled.

“... Anne.”

Quinier looked at Anne’s still-vacant face. Devoid of any emotion or will, it truly resembled a corpse’s.

But...

“... No.”

Looking at her friend, she could feel it with certainty. This wasn’t a corpse. There were no corpses here. How could she even think such a thing while looking at her friend? Quinier bit down hard on her lip.

“I’ll be back, Anne.”

Her resolve firm, Quinier went to her seat, picked up the bag she had left there, and walked out of the classroom.

Noise rang out from every direction across Constel, to the point that specifying a location was meaningless.

Things were breaking, shattering, being smashed to pieces and knocked down. It was the result of the uncontrolled students’ efforts to protect Frondier.

Quinier checked the situation through the windows as she walked down the corridor.

But something was strange. Despite all the noise, she could hardly see any students from here. In fact, she spotted only a few who seemed free of the control.

‘Why? There were quite a few students here just a little while ago.’

Then a thought struck her. By the time an alarming possibility flashed through her mind, her legs were already moving.

She raced up the building’s stairs to the roof.

CLANK!

Quinier opened the door and surveyed the grounds from the roof. She was on the Second Main Building. Ahead stood the First Main Building, with the athletic field below to her right. Beyond it was—

“The auditorium...!”

She saw countless students converging on the auditorium. Frondier’s location had been discovered.

Ice walls, Gathering Wind, and other spells surrounded the building, cast by Aten, Elodie, and the other mages.

But there were far too many students. Stopping them all without hurting them was impossible.

“... Ngh.”

Quinier drew her fan and sprinted across the roof.

She leaped from its edge and swept her fan through the air. With each stroke, she rose as though jumping again in midair.

Feeling lightly suspended, the wind lifting her hair, she landed on the next building.

Then she made for the next, and the one after that, drawing ever closer to the auditorium.

“Oh, just! Stop already!!”

“Why do these bastards keep going even when I hit them over the head?!”

“I told you! Trying to knock them out won’t work!!”

As she drew closer, she spotted Elodie, Aten, and the others.

Every one of them was giving their all to keep the controlled students away from the auditorium.

Quinier was the last to arrive.

‘Uuugh...!’

She recoiled at the crowd of students now visible up close. They looked even more like corpses at this distance. Like corpses that had risen and begun to move. Just looking at them made her breath come short.

“Oh! Quinier!”

Saibel Forte, who stood at the front of the crowd pushing people back, spotted her. Her face clammy and pale, Quinier barely managed to raise a hand in response.

The others glanced at her upon hearing Saibel’s voice, but holding back the crowd took priority.

“Saibel, is Frondier inside the auditorium?”

“I think so! But someone put up a barrier, and we can’t get inside!”

“The culprit’s doing?”

“I’m not sure, but if it is, we need to stop the students first!”

Even while holding back the students, Saibel diligently shouted her answers to Quinier.

“But are you all right? You don’t look so good!”

“O-of course. I’m fine. Though I don’t think I will be in a moment.”

“What?! What do you mean?!”

Leaving Saibel’s question unanswered, Quinier repeatedly took deep breaths, slowly inhaling and exhaling.

‘Ugh, I don’t want to do this.’

She knelt and opened her bag, looking miserable even as she rummaged through it.

What she slowly pulled out was a transparent sheet mask.

She lifted it, pressed it onto her face, and slowly stood.

Countless students were heading toward the plaza. Those holding them back had reached their limit.

Quinier drew a deep breath. The energy within her rapidly surged.

As a third-year, manifesting Aura came very easily to her, and her proficiency was on another level even compared with her peers.

Filling her voice with Aura, she shouted.

“I AM FRONDIER!!!”

Her thunderous voice rang out not only through the auditorium but across all of Constel. It was a manifestation similar to the shout Aster had once used to stop a fleeing horde of monsters.

That tremendous voice was more than enough to draw the attention of the students heading toward the auditorium. Amazingly, the entire crowd turned its back on the building and began walking toward Quinier.

‘Eeeek!’

Beneath the sheet mask, the color drained from her face.

Elodie and Aten, who had been holding the students back, tilted their heads.

“What’s going on? Why are the students suddenly...?”

Their gazes naturally shifted to Quinier. Then they froze.

It was Frondier. Frondier was standing there.

With long, jet-black hair, a jet-black fan, a delicate, slender figure, and only Frondier’s face.

... A deeply unappealing Frondier stood before them.

* * *

The sheet mask Quinier wore allowed her to disguise herself with the face of someone she knew.

However, because it relied on the user’s memory, its accuracy suffered if the face was unfamiliar or one they hadn’t seen for a long time.

Quinier had first thought of this item after the monster attack.

She had been among those Frondier warned before the attack took place.

Yet she was far from the only person who had believed him.

Besides several students, almost all the teachers had prepared countermeasures in advance.

How had they been able to believe Frondier?

His mother, Malia, had provided the answer.

[“Ales confessed.”]

[“Confessed?”]

[“Yes. Frondier pretended to be on Elysia’s side and bluffed, telling Ales something along the lines of ‘You seem suspicious.’ And it worked.”]

A bluff. That certainly sounded like Frondier.

[“What kind of bluff?”]

[“He suggested Ales had been replaced. Ales was working with Renzo and Elysia, right? So he claimed Renzo’s failure meant Ales had been replaced. The real Ales had disappeared somewhere, and this one was an impostor. That sort of thing. Shameless, really, considering he was the one who thwarted Renzo.”]

Quinier wholeheartedly agreed that Frondier was shameless.

But a replacement...

[“There certainly are items that could do that.”]

[“Well, yes. Magic engineering is remarkably advanced these days. But products that imitate someone else’s face get outrageously expensive the more convincing they are. And most are single-use.”]

[“In other words, it’s possible if you have enough money?”]

[“... Quinier.”]

Malia gave her a half-lidded look. Quinier merely smiled sweetly.

Understanding what she had in mind, Malia sighed and offered a mild warning, as though resigned.

[“You mustn’t use it on campus, all right? It’s against school rules.”]

... And now.

‘School rules really are important!’

Watching the students swarm toward her, Quinier regretted her choice.

She really should have listened to her teacher.

* * *

I hit the floor and rolled yet again. Kraken’s yawning nearby grated on my nerves.

As I staggered to my feet, Pascal strode toward me, his face expressionless.

He mouthed the words.

[Focus!]

[Does it look like I’m not focusing?]

One wrong move and I could die.

Even knowing that Pascal’s attacks were meant to train me, they were merciless. I was certain of it. He had never taught anyone before. That was why he was so shit at holding back.

CLANG! CLANG!

The impacts of our blades left my hand stinging.

[You’re letting your weapon go to waste, Frondier.]

[I know that! But telling me to use Aura right here and now is ridiculous!]

As Pascal said, any inferior weapon would already have been destroyed by his Aura. Mine only endured because it was Neil Jacques’s Short Sword.

[You’ve misunderstood me.]

Pascal twisted his blade and drove it toward my shoulder. Our locked swords scraped against each other.

[The “weapon” I meant is you. You yourself.]

[... What?]

[At the very end of our spar, you knocked my weapon away, didn’t you?]

[As I’m sure you know, that wasn’t Aura.]

[Whether that itself was Aura is irrelevant.]

What was he talking about?

I knocked Pascal’s sword aside and put some distance between us.

[Frondier, think.]

Despite his words, my thoughts only grew more confused.

But as though he could see right through me, Pascal slowly moved his lips again.

[You can already use Aura.]

‘What...?’

That was when it happened.

I thought Pascal’s claim was absurd, yet for some reason I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

The subject was completely different, but I felt as if I had heard something similar before.

Strangely, the first voice that came to mind belonged to Slav, whom I had defeated in my first dungeon.

[“I see. Can I still reach that revered person’s sword?”]

Why was that voice coming back to me now?

The next voice was Renzo’s.

[“You looked pretty interesting, but I guess you’re just a novice after all.”]

Then came Empress Philly’s voice.

[“Frondier, don’t you know how to use Aura?”]

One by one, the things I had heard flashed through my mind. For some reason, old remarks I hadn’t given a thought to drifted past my ears.

And finally, when Atzier’s words crossed my mind—

[“You can already use Falling Tension. Clumsily, but you can.”]

“... Huh?”

The sound escaped me before I knew it.

Why could I use Falling Tension? No matter how diligently I had watched it on the Wizergram and copied it, Falling Tension was fundamentally—only when my thoughts reached that point did it hit me.

I recalled one obvious piece of lore about the world of Etius, something I had known for a very long time and had thought about even recently.

In the world of Etius, Mana and Aura were fundamentally the same substance.

After realizing all of that, the words I finally uttered were...

“... Huh?”

Still utterly idiotic.