Chapter 230
Charlotte de Gardias felt strange.
“W-well, I mean. I guess I went to sleep, but erm… I don’t really remember.”
Was she stupid?
Someone who was able to study magic being that stupid made no sense.
Harriet was by no means an idiot.
However, they could clearly see that she was anxious, so they wondered why she acted so stupid, however, although she responded a little bit when Bertus decided to push her a bit, all that came out was basically gibberish.
The previous night, Louis Ankton and Ellen Artorius had been assassinated. When asked where she’d been and what she’d been doing at that time, she’d only answered that she was sleeping in her private room, but she wasn’t even that sure about that and that she didn’t really remember. That might’ve been the case because she was really nervous and confused.
She even used suspicious words to hide behind.
“Can anyone testify to your alibi last night?”
“W-well… I don’t think so…"
“Harriet, you had tea with me until late at night.”
“D-d-did I?!”
A girl who wasn’t an idiot was acting like one.
Just what was wrong with her?
She was too young to already be suffering from dementia.
Charlotte already felt quite troubled.
She had a good start because she had easily gotten rid of Reinhardt, who was the biggest obstacle to the mission and the most annoying to deal with, using the preconceptions everyone had of him.
However, in the end, she still felt uncomfortable with sharing her victory with Bertus if she wanted to be the mission’s victor.
Once she had been given the task to win, she had to win no matter what.
—That was the way Charlotte had lived—the same way Bertus had.
So she was able to make some infinitely cold-headed judgments in that situation.
Reinhardt was the biggest stumbling stone, so she had to remove him from the start to succeed.
That night, she had decided to deal with Harriet de Saint-Owan and Louis Ankton, thinking that she should deal with the smart students next.
Harriet wasn’t only smart, but also a member of the new club called the Magic Research Society, and she was also well-liked. It was safe to say that she was the one who had the most influence on her classmates after Reinhardt.
Bertus had made the proposal and Charlotte had been in charge of the implementation.
But then…
'Kill me.'
“…Huh?”
She’d thought that she was moving around secretly while no one was looking, but then she was actually caught by someone from behind before she even knew it.
Ellen Artorius.
‘You’re one of the assassins. Just kill me.’
‘I-I don’t know what you mean? I was just looking for someone to spend the night with. It’s kind of uncomfortable being alone here.’
‘Just kill me, I know you’re here to kill Harriet.’
As if trying to tell her not to use some lame excuses that wouldn’t work, Ellen read her behavior and asked her to kill her.
She had been completely read.
And she didn’t even know what her opponent was after, but it seemed like she just wanted to get eliminated from the mission.
Just with that, Charlotte already felt a certain sense of defeat and discomfort.
‘…Sure, I’ll assassinate you.'
-Pa!
The recall artifact was triggered immediately, and Ellen disappeared from where she stood. Charlotte felt incredibly annoyed that she had been read and that she couldn’t understand Ellen’s intentions.
She seemed to not be interested in anything. It felt unpleasant.
It looked like someone who did their best in something they didn’t even really care about.
It wasn’t funny.
She felt like she had already lost before she’d even really started, but she couldn’t give up.
Because of that, the target she was to get rid of because they were smart had survived, which would cause suspicion.
They should have just decided to go for Ellen, not her.
It was a misjudgment. Of course, it was Bertus’s suggestion, though.
In the end, the next target they’d wanted to get rid of after Reinhardt, had practically begged to get eliminated.
However, Charlotte already felt rather unhappy because she couldn’t predict Ellen’s actions.
“W-well… It seems like I do have an alibi after all… No, I mean… Th-that couldn't be! No way!”
Watching Harriet de Saint-Owan crawl into the trap on her own left Charlotte dispirited.
That girl, who absolutely wasn’t that foolish, acted like a complete fool.
There had to be a reason for that stupidity, then.
At that rate, she would get executed.
If the result of her stupid actions was her execution, then her purpose had to be said execution.
She wanted to get executed…
She slowly started to figure out what was going on.
Ellen and Harriet…
Neither of them seemed to have much interest in the mission.
'Just how much do those two like Reinhardt?'
She was getting annoyed.
They’d gotten rid of him because they were scared of Reinhardt’s incredible influence.
That was the right answer.
Just by getting rid of that guy alone, two of their most threatening targets were basically giving up on the mission all on their own.
One got herself eliminated after sniffing out one of the assassins, and the other one was trying to get herself executed by acting like an idiot even though she wasn’t one.
She’d decided on that move because she’d thought it was the correct answer, and it led her to reap even more rewards than she’d expected.
It was something so unexpected that it annoyed Charlotte in the end.
Reinhardt held more influence than she’d thought.
'Just what’s so good about him?’
In any case, there was no reason to stop that girl from getting herself executed.
However, she just felt incredibly uncomfortable seeing her opponents not giving it their all.
Charlotte had already lost all interest in the group mission.
“Let’s vote. I think it’s pretty clear.”
Charlotte suggested just executing her opponent, who so desperately wanted to die, with a smile on her face.
‘I guess… He is worth liking.’
When she thought of Reinhardt, she didn’t notice that her smile seemed a little different from usual.
* * *
When I heard her explanation as to how she was executed, I was shocked.
"Hey, dumbass, so you got suspected, started spouting nonsense, and then got executed? This idi—”
“Don’t call me an idiot! A-and dumbass?! You’re the dumbass! Hah… Hah! Hah!”
Harriet’s face blanched and turned red, looking as if she wanted to deny reality. “Why should I listen to you calling me a dumbass after calling me an idiot?” was what she seemed like she wanted to say.
“Isn’t this time more fitting than any other to call you idiot, though? You idiot.”
“Irrk! You! You really! No! Don’t call me an idiot! I’m not an idiot!”
Following my new approach of calling her dumbass, I made Harriet’s face red hot by using the classic “idiot”. She looked really pitiful.
But that girl got executed after mumbling some gibberish. I thought she was smart but was she actually unable to use her brain that well in practice? She seemed to be telling the truth, judging by how she looked.
She seemed to have gotten uselessly caught up in the culprits’ scheme
I hadn’t actually seen what had happened, so I couldn’t be too sure just by listening to her recounts.
Anyway, Harriet hadn’t been assassinated, but in the end, she had gotten eliminated on the following day.
And after some time, the next eliminated student arrived.
—It was Kono Lint.
In the original, Class A would nominate someone who might be Class B’s assassin, and Class B would nominate someone who could potentially be Class A’s assassin.
Of course, that wasn’t necessarily the case.
However, it was still a group mission in the end, so there was nothing good about reducing the number of people in one’s own class.
It felt like attacking one’s own class, after all.
However, in that day’s trial, two Class A students had been executed.
Four of Class A’s students had already been eliminated by day two.
“What’s your deal?”
Just as Harriet had been unfairly executed, it seemed like Kono Lint was in a similar situation.
“No! I was executed for nothing else but my ability! How does this make any sense?!”
He was about to cry out about how wronged he felt.
Kono Lint’s ability—Teleportation. Even if he had a bulletproof alibi, one couldn’t be all that sure what he did or didn’t do because of the variable called his supernatural power. Did they use that approach?
“…Right, you surely couldn’t say anything if they put you under suspicion like that.”
Kono Lint’s face turned pale at my words.
“No matter how much I can move my underwear together with me now… If I did that, I’d be declared completely crazy after this mission. Even if I were one of the assassins, do you really think I would use my ability?!”
Well…
If Kono Lint was one of the assassins and used his supernatural ability…
* * *
Translator - KonnoAren
Proofreader - ilafy
* * *
He would just randomly appear in one of his classmates’ private rooms wearing nothing but his underwear and then just disappear after declaring his assassination.
That was very… How should I say?
The perfect picture of a criminal.
Kono Lint seemed to feel really wronged, wondering how one could think that he would ever do something like that.
Yeah, he wouldn’t.
But what could I say? He had that kind of reputation. To be honest, it was somewhat bad.
—In a different sense from me, though.
He felt like shit.
“Actually, he had an alibi, but we were theorizing about how he would be able to assassinate someone if he were the assassin, and while we were talking about that…”
Harriet had been executed after spouting some gibberish.
Following that, they’d just assumed one of them was an assassin, one after the other, and theorized how they would be able to assassinate the others—that was the kind of discussion they had.
They just went through the students.
Then they got stuck on Kono Lint.
What if he was an assassin?
He could teleport into their rooms wearing just his underwear…
After imagining that picture in their heads, all of them unanimously decided to execute Kono Lint.
He might not have been the assassin, but if they were right, that would be incredibly terrifying.
The guy must have been really upset.
“It’s just not fair!”
“Yeah, well, what should I say? The ability to do it is as good as half the crime.”
Kono Lint left, looking for his private room after saying that he didn’t have enough energy to eat anything right then, as if he felt seriously dispirited that his ability itself had become subject to contempt.
Harriet looked around the mansion seeming as if she felt better, although she had also been executed quite unfairly.
"Wow, what’s that? It’s so well made.“
Then, when she saw the snow human covered by an umbrella outside the window, her eyes widened.
After looking at it quite closely for some time, Harriet alternately looked between me and the snow human.
“That’s you, right? Who made it?”
“......”
Ellen seemed a little reluctant to tell her, while Harriet looked a little uncomfortable, fiddling with her hair when she looked at her.
“Oh, us two, we made it… Yeah.”
Harriet narrowed her brows and looked at me.
“I can’t imagine you making a snowman… and something like that at that.”
"I only rolled some snow for a bit, she was the one who made everything else.”
“Oh, is that so…?”
Actually, I didn’t really do much in the process of making that snowman. Harriet seemed unable to imagine me rolling up some snowballs with a straight face.
"I-I want to make a snowman as well.”
What the hell kind of trend was that?
Harriet whined that she wanted to build a snowman in the evening as well.
* * *
She wanted to make a snowman, but she didn’t want to do it alone, so I eventually entered the second round of snowman building; Ellen also joined in.
Harriet wasn’t that dexterous with her hands…
However, she owned the cheat code called magic.
-Roll, roll, roll…
“One makes snow humans instead of snowmen, and the other makes snow giants instead of snowmen.”
Harriet’s snowball grew bigger and bigger, exceeding her own height, using telekinetic magic. The snowball grew so much that it was impossible to push it with one’s own strength, so she started using magic.
Even though the snowball had grown so large that it sometimes started to break apart, it always just rebuilt itself again.
Wizard.
I wanted to be a wizard as well!
“Hey, look at that! Have you ever seen a snowball that big before?”
“Is that so?"
Harriet, whose face had turned red, exclaimed. The cold didn’t seem to bother her. Just how great was that? Unlike Ellen, her expression clearly revealed whether she was happy or not.
She seemed happy, which put me in a good mood as well.
“Come on, push it. Hurry.”
Harriet grabbed my arm and dragged me along, asking me to push her giant snowball.
“Hup!”
It didn’t even budge.
I couldn’t roll that snowball consisting of compressed snow that exceeded Harriet’s and even my height.
“What? You can’t even push that much?”
Harriet covered her mouth as she snickered. No, was she trying to test me or something?
“Want me to show you?”
“Huh? Show me what?”
“Ah, just sit back and watch.”
That punk…
I didn’t want to use it just to roll some snowball.
Strengthening my muscles… to the max.
“Huup!”
I pushed the snowball with my arm, waist, and leg muscles tightening up.
-Crunch!
“...Huh?”
However, instead of rolling, the giant snowball began to collapse as my hands became stuck in it.
“Wh-what is…”
“Aaarg!”
-Rumble!
As the snowball collapsed, both Harriet and I were buried by the falling snow.
The two of us, who had been completely covered, found ourselves in a rather unusual situation.
“Hey! How hard did you push it for it to collapse?!”
However, Harriet seemed more upset about her snowball having been broken rather than our situation of being buried by said snowball.
“No, I didn’t know something like this would happen.”
“Whatever! Go away! I’ll just make one again!”
Harriet began to rebuild it again, huffing and wheezing as she tried to piece the snowball together again like putting together some puzzle pieces.
-Roll, roll, roll…
And Ellen was rolling a snowball that had already passed her own height with ease as if she was rolling a balloon.
No, Harriet actually needed to use magic to move it, but that girl was only using her physical strength to do it. And before I knew it, Harriet’s new snowball had grown even bigger than before after she rolled it around a bit.
No matter how strong she was, how was that possible?
No…
“Why the hell are you using Magic Body Strengthening to roll snowballs?”
Looking closely, I could see blue energy enveloping Ellen’s body. At my astonishment, Ellen looked at me with a sullen expression.
“If I don’t use it, I won’t be able to roll it.”
Magic was a noble discipline…
And there she was using that superhuman power to roll some snow.
That meant that she was already able to use Magic Body Strengthening at the level where she could use it for daily activities.
That was some unbelievable talent.
Anyway, Ellen seemed to have agreed to Harriet’s plan of creating a super-sized snow giant after she had made a snow human.
* * *
To build the snowman, no, snow giant…
There were three steps in total:
First was Ellen’s snowball, which was the biggest, next was the one Harriet made, which was second in size, and then there was the one I made using my supernatural ability that, while still really big, was the smallest of the three.
In order to maintain its balance, we did various things such as treating the base with magic, and like that, we managed to create a snow giant of about five meters.
Usually, one expressed the arms of a snowman with wooden sticks, which weren’t enough on that scale, but we found some dead trees around and just slammed them into both sides of the snow giant.
“It turned into a snow monster, not just a snow giant.”
It became a bizarre, twisted, two-armed snow monster. It wasn’t cute at all, but it was kinda creepy.
“It’s just a bit stylized.”
“I don’t think that’s what you should call that.”
“Anyways…!”
Harriet was smiling as if she was satisfied with the result. There were also some people watching from afar, seeming curious; they even brought some warm drinks for us, saying that we must’ve felt cold, so the three of us were just standing there, blankly admiring the completed snow giant.
The me who was made of snow by Ellen stood next to the snow giant.
“Why the hell did you make something like that?”
That wasn’t training, nor was it magic research.
I couldn't believe we’d spent the whole day like that even though we were simply waiting for the group mission to end.
“It’s fun, so isn’t it fine?”
Harriet spoke with a bashful smile on her lips.
“Well, I guess so?”
Well, that was all the reason one would need, I guess.
“Actually, this was my first time making a snowman.”
“…Really?”
Harriet’s eyes twinkled at the sight of the huge snow giant, her face flushed red.
“While it does snow in the duchy, I’m not allowed to go outside because it isn’t dignified. I also had no one to make one with.”
Harriet was the young lady of a grand duchy, but in the end, she was like a princess of a country, so it seemed like that was the first time in her life that she’d done something like that.
“I’m glad I came to Temple.”
Harriet smiled brightly, no shadow visible on her face, as she spoke happily.
She was cherished by her family, but in the end, her estate seemed more like a prison to Harriet.
Looking at Harriet as she expressed her true feelings without kicking up any fuss was somewhat painful.
