Chapter 207
I was somewhat troubled that the achievement points I’d piled up little by little were spent in one shot. I’d spent a lot of them to get a talent before I’d started my Magic Body Strengthening training.
However, since I didn’t know when some kind of incident might happen, I needed to always save up a certain amount of achievement points just in case.
So, to make up for the points lost, I tried to collect some through challenges…
If I were to win the first-year tournament, I would get a huge amount of points, but I decided to consider it an impossible feat for the moment.
Ellen, who was originally supposed to be the winner, had announced that she wouldn’t participate the other day, but there certainly were participants a lot stronger than me. There was Scarlett, Bertus, and Cliffman, while they couldn’t even come close to Ellen, they were definitely stronger than me.
Of course, I could ask them not to participate as a favor.
However, even if I persuade those three to not participate, I was sure to get crushed by the Orbis Class students.
As such…
With great regret, I had to admit that none of the challenges, except those having to do with delinquent behavior and such, were possible for me.
And on top of that…
[(Festival) Become Miss Temple – 4000 Points]
[(Festival) Win the cross-dressing contest – 4000 Points]
[Get your first kiss – 500 Points]
[Fight against the Orbis Class – 500 Points]
Those four…
With great sadness in my heart, I had to admit that it was more likely for me to become Miss Temple or win the cross-dressing contest than to become Mr. Temple! It wasn’t that impossible to conceal my identity with Sarkegaar’s ring!
My appearance as Reinhardt was pretty good, but it wasn’t the best in all of Temple.
Well, since the cross-dressing contest was only for those that actually prepared for it, I felt like there might be fewer contestants.
Of course, I didn’t care about any of them, though.
However, trying to get my first kiss or fighting against the Orbis Class was just as strange. It was my first kiss! Were they telling me to just randomly get it from anywhere?!
Those challenges seemed giddy to turn me into a complete weirdo for some reason.
Normally, challenges should have been something difficult to achieve, but were those challenges made to be as strange as possible instead?
What did that bastard want me to participate in the cross-dressing contest for?!
It would have been better if I didn’t check. That was why I didn’t regularly go through the list of challenges—it only ever contained those kinds of challenges.
If I suddenly went up and fought with Orbis Class students, those bastards, it was more than obvious that those punks wouldn’t just sit around and respond to my actions.
But why would I even do that?
While I was known as a mad dog all around the place, that didn’t really fit with my principle.
If someone didn’t touch me first, I wouldn’t beat them up.
I mean, I had no real justification. I would never move unless I had some basic justification to do so. If they didn’t pick a fight with me first, I sure as hell wouldn’t go and pick one with them.
I didn’t want to do something like that.
Getting my first kiss…
That wasn’t something I could just do either.
‘I should just stop thinking about this.’
Those challenges were bound to be trash or just crazy, no matter what!
As such…
I decided to not tackle any of the challenges.
I only had a few achievement points left, but it wasn’t like I needed them right then, and there wasn’t some kind of life-threatening crisis lurking around the corner, either.
By the way…
“…Sigh, seriously… What should I do about my swordsmanship class? That bastard’s gonna bully me again…”
Erich de Lafaeri talking to the other two idiot brothers in the dormitory lobby caught my eye yet again.
“Why don’t you just tell the teacher about this?”
“Right. How long do you want to get bullied by that guy?”
Kono Lint and Cayer were trying to persuade the deflated Erich.
“No, that’s not the problem here. If we have sparring duels, he’d just continue to beat me up… And I can’t really do anything about that… And the other students who are taking the class with us… just laugh at me…”
“They are such jerks.”
“That teacher is far too irresponsible.”
Recently, Erich de Lafaeri had been getting bullied throughout his swordsmanship class because he’d messed with one of the Orbis Class guys.
That guy’s bullying itself wasn’t actually the problem.
As the one getting beat up was someone from Royal Class, it seemed like the other ordinary Class students ignored him or ridiculed him.
To put it simply, he was getting mobbed.
As I watched those three indignant brothers, it suddenly occurred to me.
The justification I had been looking for…
It was staring me in the face.
“Hey, you punk.”
“Huh…. Oh? R-Reinhardt? What?”
As I approached him, he flinched and started to stutter. It was only natural to get scared if a crazy bastard appeared right when you were talking about one.
“Hey, that asshat that’s been bullying you… Let me meet him.”
I clenched my fist and gave him a sly smile.
“I’ll take care of the guy for you.”
Some bastard was bullying one of my classmates.
Wasn’t that justification enough?
“Huuh?”
“Y-you?”
“Seriously?!”
All three of them looked at me as if they’d just found a ray of light in their moment of darkness.
They seemed to think that it was good and all that I’d decided to step up, but still questioned whether I really meant it.
That was fine, but couldn’t they hide their shock a little at least?
I was just doing it for some achievement points, but it looked rather different from the outside.
The expressions of those three were a sight to behold when they heard that Reinhardt, the mad dog, had decided to step up to avenge his classmate who had been beaten up by Orbis Class students.
Those guys, who got scared shitless whenever I spoke to them, looked at me as if there wasn’t anyone more reliable than me in the world.
* * *
Translator – KonnoAren
* * *
This wasn’t about winning the fight or something.
I might actually lose because I didn’t who the guy was. If he was the top student of the Orbis Class, I’d absolutely lose.
However, the condition of the challenge was to fight them.
It didn’t matter whether I won or lost. I would feel like shit if I lost, but it wasn’t like I would die.
It was by far better to just get beaten up than to participate in a cross-dressing contest or turn into a real girl and participate in that school beauty pageant!
I wasn’t sure if Olivia Lanze would participate, but I felt like I could actually beat her.
Furthermore, the Orbis Class was holding both a leading as well as supporting role in many parts, so there was reason enough for me to properly look them over once.
Anyway…
The fight would give me 500 points.
There was a similar challenge in my first semester as well. At that time, I hadn’t even known that there was a challenge related to that and had just beat Cayer up, which had ending up completing the challenge. Kind of ridiculous.
With the intent to strike the iron when it was hot, I took the three incompetent brothers along with me.
Erich de Lafaeri, Kono Lint, and Cayer Vioden…
Those three were following behind me.
That made it seem as if I was the leader of those three incompetent brothers.
No, come to think of it, wasn’t I just slightly different from those guys? Some of my aspects were worse than theirs were.
The leader of the three idiot brothers…
Reinhardt, the mad dog.
I actually had all the attributes to be seen as their leader. Was that what they called fate?
If it wasn’t for those achievement points, I wouldn’t have had a reason to do it, and I would have never imagined until five minutes beforehand that I would be dragging those guys around like henchmen.
“A-are you really going to be okay? He’s really…”
“What of it? Even if I lose, it doesn’t really matter. I’ll just get someone stronger to take care of this.”
If I could be considered their boss, I would also have someone who was like my boss who had my back.
Ellen Artorius…
-If I get beaten up, big sis Ellen will take care of everything! So don’t be scared!
-Kuhuk, that guy, Reinhardt, was just the mid-boss!?
-The strongest first year of Royal Class, Miss Ellen Artorius, will deal with those bastards!
I wouldn’t actually say that, though.
Anyway, even if I were to lose, that was how things would roughly turn out.
“But… Where are we going?”
Cayer, a little frightened, hesitantly posed a question.
“Where do you think we would be going if we wanted to beat up some Orbis Class kids?”
I pointed at one of the stops on the tram route map.
[Orbis Class Dormitory]
“Y-you’re going there directly?”
“What? Should I just go to Main Street and yell ‘Come out, you Orbis Class Bastards!’ then?”
Wasn’t it only natural to knock on their front door if one was looking for someone?
At that moment, all of them realized that we were about to enter the tiger’s den, so their faces grew pale. We were about to wander into the middle of the enemy’s camp after all.
They knew that I was a crazy bastard, but when they heard that we would be going straight to the Orbis Class’ dorm, they seemed to want to go back as fast as possible.
“If you want to go back, then go. It doesn’t really matter whether I go alone or you come with.”
I told them that with my arms folded as we waited for the tram. Those guys seemed kind of worried when they heard me say that they could go back.
“Go back, and just live like that for the rest of your fucking life.”
Go back…
Go back, and continue to live like cowards.
I didn’t know what they felt when they heard those light words of mine, but one of them said that they would go back.
* * *
The day was Thursday.
On Friday, some of the students might go back home or go out to play, but in all likelihood, our targets would remain in the dormitory. If not, we could just wait for them there.
The Orbis Class Dormitory was on the opposite end of Temple, far away from the Royal Class Dormitory. Unless we ran into each other on Main Street, in a lecture, or went close to their dorm, we would never encounter Orbis Class students.
Of course, I regularyly saw the Orbis Class kids running in rows during my morning training with Adriana, which covered the entire ground of Temple.
The students of Royal Class would just train on their own terms, but Orbis Class acted as one unit.
—That was why they were able to easily annihilate people like Erich, who had talents but didn’t put in any effort.
As we rode the tram to the Orbis Clas,s Erich was restless on the entire ride.
“B-but Reinhardt… Even if you win, won’t he get even angrier instead…? What if things just get worse?”
What did that guy want from me?
I didn’t really care if he got beaten up or not to begin with. I only did it because that guy gave me a reason to stick to.
“…What? I even have to take care of the aftermath?”
“N-no. Th-that’s not… erm…”
When I glared at him with wide eyes, he backed off with his tail between his legs. Cayer and Kono Lint also seemed skeptical, perhaps because they also suspected that the situation might just get worse after I whooped that guy’s ass. I sat on my tram seat, folded my arm,s and sighed.
“Do you think the guy bullying you is a fucking bastard?”
“…O-of course…”
“Then if you think like that, why did you do this to someone else?”
That guy had been slapping the back of Scarlett’s head and picking on her for no apparent reason. While that was no longer possible for him, Erich actually became a victim of bullying himself.
Erich wore a bitter expression because he knew what I was talking about. He wouldn’t have known while he was the one bullying. How the victim would feel.
He had to go to swordsmanship lectures almost every day. After his poor skill got revealed there, he got looked down on by not only the Orbis Class student, but by the normal class students as well.
I wondered whether Erich reflected on his actions and understood how it felt.
I didn’t know though. Usually, people like that tend not to remember what they did before. The worse they were, the more they would pretend as though nothing had happened. They’d just say something like “Did I do that?”
“…”
Erich didn’t say anything.
I didn’t know if he actually felt guilty, but it seemed like he at least felt something.
“No. Actually, it’s not your fault. It should be the fault of the person who made you do that.”
Just as Scarlett was the victim of those weird settings I’d come up with, Erich was also a victim because I’d made him the main perpetrator of this strange setting.
Every problem in this world originated from me and would eventually end up biting me in the ass. What I criticized Erich for was, after all, something akin to a boomerang.
“Did you just curse out my parents?”
However, Erich ended up raising his voice ever so slightly at that.
Ah…
No, that wasn’t what I meant, though?
Well, but if one heard that without any context, it would definitely sound like I was bad-mouthing his parents, wouldn’t it? The ones who made him do something like that, of course, would be his parents, right?
Kono Ling and Cayer also looked rather shocked because I’d suddenly started flaming him.
You really don’t have a bottom line, do you? That was what their expressions seemed to say.
“That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry if it sounded like that.”
“You’re too much…”
Erich was just passively mumbling things like that, so I just apologized because one could misunderstand what I said rather easily depending on the way one took it.
No.
But come to think of it, wasn’t it a privilege to actually have parents and a wealthy family that could be bad-mouthed?
I had neither, you know?
“You know, fuck it. I don’t have none and I’m not even allowed to say that to you, who has everything?”
“…Huh?”
“Ain’t that right? I heard that those fuckers who have everything want even more. Ain’t it such a fucked up world we live in? Huh?”
“N-no, but you’re the one who said that, so why did you get mad all of a sudden…?”
Their faces became something to behold when I started to cuss him out all of a sudden after I apologized.
You have it much better than me who has nothing, so shouldn’t you hold it in a bit more even if I bad-mouthed your parents?
Even I thought that this was complete bullshit.
No, I didn’t actually bad mouth his parents, though.
