Chapter 38: Kora

“Ugh! Cough, cough!”

Kora coughed. Powder from the ruptured pouch scattered through the air.

“What is this?”

Kora frowned at the red powder drifting in front of him.

But only for a moment.

“Ah, ugh! Aaagh...!”

The change was immediate. Kora’s eyes became bloodshot. His fingers rigid with tension, he wrapped both arms around himself. White fur was slowly sprouting all over his body.

Seeing that, I approached Armel.

THWACK!

“Gah!”

I punched him in the face, then searched inside his clothes. Of course, I could easily have searched him without hitting him. I just felt like hitting him.

I found a syringe, already filled with liquid.

“... Tch.”

So a little powder was enough to enrage Kora, but counteracting it required an injection?

I shouted, “Selena!”

“Yes!”

The instant Selena appeared, she stepped in front of me.

“I’ll cover you! Get to safety!”

“No! Stop any students coming this way! Don’t let anyone near here!”

“What?”

Selena turned to me in surprise.

“A-are you saying you intend to fight that monster?”

Just as I’d expect of Selena. She hadn’t said a word, but she already knew all about Kora.

“Yes. We don’t know what might happen, so turn back any students leaving school this way. Chase off anyone who comes out of curiosity, too. Everyone except the professors.”

“That’s reckless, Lord Frondier! You know what kind of beastfolk Kora is! You should evacuate! I’ll hold him off, even at the cost of my life—”

GRIND.

I clenched my molars. I felt a vein bulge at my temple.

Selena was merely repeating stock phrases, just as she always had. They held no meaning, no sincerity.

She was simply acting out loyalty to me as the Ten Thousand Capes had trained her to do.

Even so, I couldn’t contain my anger. I shouted,

“Why should your life end here?!”

“...!”

I felt a faint vibration spread through my voice. It was a manifestation of Aura. Selena fell silent, her eyes wide with surprise.

“Go. Do as I ordered. There’s no time.”

“... Understood.”

Only then did Selena run off. Once I made sure she was leaving, I looked at Kora.

He screamed as though fighting against himself. Yet his body only continued to grow.

I spoke to Quinier.

“Please watch Armel here. He won’t be able to move with that wound anyway. Keeping him in check with your fan should be enough.”

“... That girl is your bodyguard, isn’t she?”

Quinier glanced after Selena as she spoke.

“She’s right. We should run, before Kora finishes changing.”

“We can’t. The same thing that happened thirteen years ago will happen again.”

“... What? How do you know about that?”

“And this time, Kora will die too.”

If Kora went on a rampage and injured the students—or worse, killed someone—death would be the only path left to him.

Since he was beastfolk rather than human, Constel’s professors would have even less reason to hesitate.

“Then you’re saying you’ll subdue Kora without killing him?”

“That was my plan from the start.”

Otherwise, I would have waited for a professor to arrive. If Kora were just an ordinary monster, that was.

“That’s absurd. You’re insane. Stop. You can’t do it.”

Quinier tried to approach me, but I held out a hand to stop her. There was scarcely anything human left about Kora now. He had quite literally become a White Tiger, standing on all fours and radiating chilling magical power.

“Stay where you are. Even wounded, Armel is dangerous if we leave him unattended.”

“But you...!”

“It’s all right. I have a plan. There’s just one favor I need.”

I looked at Quinier’s worried face.

“Lend me a face mask.”

“... A face mask?”

“You have one, right? For disguises.”

“I do, but are you really going to be all right?”

I nodded. Quinier bit her lower lip and watched me for a moment before taking out a face mask and handing it to me.

“Don’t worry. We’ll both come back safely. Kora and I.”

I applied the mask to my face.

Then I took a deep breath and grasped my tie.

* * *

Frondier loosened his tie and walked forward with it held in his left hand.

Quinier watched him go, anxiety written on her face.

Thus far, Frondier had never acted without a basis for doing so.

That had been true during their first-semester final exam, when they had teamed up. He always prepared a variety of tactics and excelled at exploiting his opponent’s psychology.

Since he had said he had a plan, she wanted to trust him, but...

‘You’re facing a White Tiger. Do you understand that?’

With every step Frondier took toward Kora, she felt as though he were walking to his death.

“Heh, heheheh.”

Armel chuckled quietly where he lay.

“It’s impossible. There’s no way to quell Kora’s rage.”

“... No way?”

Quinier aimed her fan at him. The meaning of that gesture was clear: answer.

Armel spoke.

“The powder Kora inhaled doesn’t induce rage. It strips away reason. He’s reverted to the wild instincts of a White Tiger. Think about it. What would a wild tiger do? He’s nothing but a beast now. You can’t quell his rage. He won’t even be thinking about calming down.”

Quinier’s eyes trembled at Armel’s words.

Did Frondier know this too?

“He spouted something about subduing him without killing him, didn’t he? Whatever trick he tries, it won’t work. Soon enough, those fangs will be driven through Frondier’s body.”

At Armel’s words, Quinier looked at Frondier, then shifted her gaze to Kora.

He had already transformed completely into a White Tiger. Seeing him head-on, she realized the truth.

Kora was the one who had carried out the massacre thirteen years ago. He had lost his reason, become a White Tiger, and attacked people.

‘... Kora.’

Of course, she now knew it hadn’t been his will. It had been Indus’s doing.

But what about Kora? What would happen to him once he learned the whole truth?

Frondier had said he would subdue Kora without killing him. That was what Quinier wished for deep in her heart, but was it really possible?

GRRRRR...

As Frondier approached, Kora spotted him and growled low.

Just as Armel had said, there wasn’t a trace of reason in his eyes.

It was impossible after all. There was no bringing Kora back to his senses now.

FLASH!

Then Mana wove together like threads in Frondier’s right hand, and something appeared.

It looked like a slender rod bent into a triangle, shining like a jewel.

“Huh?”

Frondier swallowed it.

At the same time, the tie in his hand began to glow.

WHOOOOSH!

An instant later, Frondier changed completely.

Quinier felt an explosive surge of Mana rise from his body.

‘What is that? How does Frondier have that much Mana...?’

Before she could finish that thought, Frondier shattered his necklace. The black liquid inside gathered in midair and flowed into his right hand.

Then a sword gleaming with brilliant luster appeared in that hand.

‘What is that...?’

At first, she thought it was Gram, the sword she had seen during the first-semester final exam.

But it wasn’t. She sensed a different kind of power from Gram’s.

And its appearance. The instant she saw it, a particular sword came to mind. It was a shape no Constel student—or anyone with even a passing interest in literature and legend—could fail to recognize.

But she simply couldn’t believe it. The idea that Frondier was holding it now was so utterly incomprehensible that it took her quite some time to murmur,

“... Excalibur...?”

* * *

When Kora began to rampage, most of the students had already sensed that something was wrong. It was an immense pressure unlike anything they had ever felt.

Some fled, while others headed toward the source of the magical power.

But Selena stood in their path, shouting.

“Turn back! The main gate is dangerous right now! Please stay away from it!”

“What? What’s there?”

“A monster! Don’t go near the main gate until the professors arrive! Evacuate at once! There’s no guarantee this area will stay safe either!”

The students knew how dangerous monsters were, so most obeyed without complaint.

Aten was among them.

‘... I have a bad feeling.’

Following Selena’s instructions, she turned toward the rear gate.

Still, Frondier’s strange behavior that day troubled her. He had left a little while ago, after classes ended, so she assumed he would be all right, but...

Just then, a bird cut through the air.

[“Danger at the main gate! Danger at the main gate! A monster has appeared! Everyone evacuate through the rear gate!”]

It flew around the students, diligently sounding the alarm.

It was a crow, unmistakable even from a distance.

Aten stared at it.

“... It can’t be.”

She stopped walking toward the rear gate.

There was no doubt about it. That talking crow was the bird Frondier had tamed.

If the bird flying about warning everyone of danger at the main gate belonged to Frondier, then right now, Frondier was...

“It can’t be.”

Aten lowered her eyes in deep thought. At last, she headed up the stairs.

Going to the main gate would be far too reckless. The right thing to do was assess the situation from the roof.

She wouldn’t intervene. Her eyesight was good; she would only check whether Frondier was there.

CLANK.

When she opened the rooftop door and stepped outside, the enormous magical power brushed against her skin. Its ferocity was far more palpable than it had been inside the building.

Aten hurried to the edge of the roof and focused Mana into her eyes. She saw two figures facing off. One was an enormous tiger covered in thick white fur. The other was...

“Huh?”

A Constel uniform, jet-black hair, a sword in his right hand, languid eyes.

The man standing before the tiger...

“... That’s not Frondier.”

* * *

The professors also sensed the magical power and moved immediately.

The closest was Malia, who was working in the infirmary.

‘This feeling... I’ve felt it somewhere before...’

An extremely dangerous, ferocious presence. Unless they dealt with it immediately, it could develop into a major incident.

Alongside that intuition came a strange sense of familiarity.

A scent from long ago, from a past distant enough to inspire nostalgia.

“Oh, Ms. Malia!”

As she hurried along, she met another professor. It was Jane.

“Let’s hurry. This doesn’t seem like an ordinary incident.”

“Yes. It’s been one incident after another lately.”

Jane grumbled as they went. Indeed, her face had been growing more haggard by the day.

“... Come to think of it, all the recent incidents involved students from Class Five, didn’t they?”

“Not Class Five! Frondier keeps getting caught up in them!” Jane corrected.

True, Frondier was the one involved. Most of the other Class Five students had nothing to do with it. Aten was perhaps the only other one who did. The problem was that Frondier belonged to Class Five.

“Please, just this once, let it not be Frondier.”

Jane muttered the words like a prayer. Even so, she was dutifully drawing up her Mana in preparation.

When Jane and Malia arrived, they found themselves facing a very strange sight.

Malia even rubbed her eyes and looked again.

“... Oh my.”

The exclamation escaped her before she knew it.

The first thing she saw was, of course, the enormous and utterly menacing White Tiger.

But when she saw the face of the man confronting it, her thoughts stopped for a moment.

It wasn’t the sword he held that captivated her. It was his face.

—The man was Ampere.

He stood before the White Tiger with the face of his much younger self, from more than ten years ago.