Chapter 375: Episode 375

“Chatel, get up. Chatel.”

Chatel was born in a deep mountain valley, a world without people or contact. A world defined only by what he could see. He had always assumed all fathers were as small as his.

“We’re going down to the village today.”

But on his fifth birthday, when he first descended to the village with his father, Chatel understood. He was the only one who was big. People fled from him in terror. Some pointed and jeered, others snickered and mocked.

“Why are you so obsessed with that giant brat?”

“He still hasn’t learned his lesson after being kicked out of the village.”

Each time, his father would tell them that despite his size, his son was a good boy. He told Chatel, too, that while their bodies were different, the size of their hearts was the same. That these people were, in truth, kind. His wrinkled father had said so with a smile.

It was the last smile he ever saw.

That night, as Chatel returned from his hunt, he saw that his home was on fire. Soldiers, alerted by the villagers about a “wild giant,” had set fire to their house and fields.

To avoid confronting the giant, they had decided to burn the entire area. They joked that the giant brat must have a lot of fat because he was burning so well, and then they descended the mountain.

Staring at the inferno, Chatel dropped his catch and wailed. ’You were wrong, Father. Their bodies are small, and their hearts are even smaller.’

After finding his father’s body in the charred remains, he gave up on everything. He trudged toward the village, the hunting knife he used to kill monsters clutched in his hand.

“Hi there?”

On his way down the mountain path, a human blocked his way. She was small even for a human, and yet she radiated an aura of untouchable power. A girl with silver hair.

“I was too late.”

The girl muttered this with sad eyes, then gestured to the knife in his hand.

“Are you going to kill them all?”

Chatel simply charged. And then—

He awoke to the pale blue of the dawning sky. He had been knocked out with a single blow. The girl was squatting nearby, playing in the dirt with his knife. Gritting his teeth, Chatel forced his battered body to rise.

“Do you really think…”

The girl’s voice was now unnaturally restrained, a stark contrast to her youthful appearance.

“…a bloody revenge is what your father would have wanted?”

At her question, Chatel bit his lip until it bled. He knew. He knew this wasn’t what his father would have wanted. Seeing his hesitation, the girl finally broke into a brilliant smile.

“Let’s do something more fun than revenge!”

—

Chatel met Nephthys. He learned black magic and how to become strong. But the discrimination never disappeared. Everywhere he went, people pointed. The stares made him stutter, made him a recluse. For years, he holed up in a cave, speaking only to Nephthys.

Malice festered within him. His father had died because the villagers saw him as weak. They pointed, they ignored him, and he just smiled foolishly through it all.

He resolved not to live like his father. If he were born a monster, he would live as a monster. He would crush others with such overwhelming fear that they would never dare challenge him again. That was his path to survival.

After that day, Chatel’s life changed. He never avoided a fight, and he never lost. At the meritocratic Kizen, everyone looked up to him. No one even dreamed of standing against him.

That’s how it should have been—

’Swoooosh! Swoooosh!’

The roar of the crowd filled his ears.

[Simon Polentia: 98%]

[Chatel Maer: 3%]

Dozens of skeletons danced, their emerald blades flashing. Beyond them stood the black-haired boy, their commander. But Chatel didn’t have a single drop of Jet-Black left to muster. All he had was his sturdy body.

Fury burned in his chest. In this match, defeat was determined by the barrier gauge reaching 0%. That was why he’d been so cautious, why he’d wasted so much energy maintaining an inefficient veil of Jet-Black until it was completely depleted. If this were a true fight, those sword strikes would be nothing.

’Swoosh!’

A turquoise blade grazed his back. His barrier flashed red before stabilizing.

[Simon Polentia: 98%]

[Chatel Maer: 1%]

Was he fated to lose, all because of human rules?

’No, I still haven’t!’

’I haven’t lost!’

Having anticipated the Royal Guard’s movements, Chatel dropped into a low stance and clenched his fist. Simon and his Guard were linked. He would shatter one, and in the brief moment Simon was stunned by the feedback, he would close the distance.

A sword swung toward him. But Chatel’s fist was faster.

A direct hit. The skeleton exploded into a shower of bone fragments. Chatel immediately turned to charge at Simon, but—

“Huh!”

Simon was standing there, completely unharmed.

“I saw you were aiming for the Royal Guard,” he said calmly. He had considered this weakness at length. The moment before Chatel attacked, Simon had severed the Cloud link to that specific skeleton. What Chatel had destroyed was just an ordinary pile of bones.

“You’re truly amazing, Chatel.” Simon raised his hand. The emerald aura surrounding the skeletons receded, flowing back into the magic circle at his side. “As a sign of my respect, I will also give this my all until the very end.”

Lowering his stance, he began to draw something from the magic circle.

As if unsheathing a blade, dark blue Jet-Black coalesced and twisted together. It solidified into a pointed shape, unmistakably a sword.

’Simon Remake – Blood Sword’

Simon raised the weapon. It was a greatsword that shimmered with a dark blue haze. He had previously used this final technique only as the ’Blood Arrow’, but he was far more confident with a blade.

Gripping the sparking greatsword with both hands, Simon lifted it high above his head.

“I don’t think this result means I have the upper hand against you,” he said. Chatel had been at a disadvantage from the start, forced to fight Herseva and then Simon back-to-back. “I don’t know what’s driving you so hard, but…”

With a roar, Chatel charged like a grizzly bear, the last dregs of his Jet-Black flickering faintly around his fists.

“At the very least, there’s no one in this school who doesn’t acknowledge you.”

Chatel’s eyes wavered.

’The space itself—’

Simon’s greatsword, held high above his head.

’—is being sliced.’

It descended in a clean, straight line.

The dark blue slash passed through the charging Chatel. The moment it made contact, the attack erupted in a secondary explosion, hammering his barrier relentlessly.

Within the cloud of black smoke, the movements of both boys ceased.

[Simon Polentia: 98%]

[Chatel Maer: 0%]

The referee, drenched in sweat, finally thrust his arm into the air. “Match over! The winner is Simon Polentia from Class A!”

“WOOOWWWW!!” A thunderous ovation erupted.

Simon finally sank to his knees, letting out a long, shuddering breath. As if on cue, Dick, Kamibarez, and Benya rushed down from the stands to celebrate with him.

Chatel, who had collapsed to the ground, watched them for a moment before staggering to his feet. He had been so utterly defeated. Now, the pointing would start again.

“Chatel!!”

“You fought well!”

But…

Encouragement rained down from the stands. Soon, his own classmates from Class I were running toward him.

“Chatel. Can you get up?”

Despite the massive difference in their sizes, his friends strained to help him up.

“At the very least, there’s no one in this school who doesn’t acknowledge you.”

It wasn’t much, but…

Just resting his arms on their shoulders…

…made his steps feel not quite so heavy.

—

“Run, run!” Dick yelled, leading the way out of the arena. Simon and Kamibarez followed, panting hard. “This match took way longer than I thought! Theirs must be in full swing by now!”

Dick glanced at his watch. Kamibarez, running beside Simon, looked at him with concern.

“Simon, are you really okay? The medics said you should get examined.”

“I’m fine.”

“That match was almost entirely Herseva’s doing, not mine,” Simon admitted with a smile.

Herseva had collapsed the moment the match ended. It was the first time either of them had wielded a second- and third-stage Authority to such an extent. Herseva, in particular, was still unfamiliar with her own limits; the power to raise mummies was an ability she had only acquired after becoming a lich. When the barrier later shattered, she absorbed the full backlash—a perilous miscalculation that nearly destroyed her Life Vessel.

Fortunately, when Simon opened his subspace to check on the lich’s main body, he found her Life Vessel still beating, sustained by a dangerously thin reserve of jet-black.

[Mwahaha! There is no such thing as power without a price, boy.]

That was Pier’s assessment after observing Herseva’s condition.

Simon nodded grimly.

’It was far too reckless.’

Building a city, creating mummies… and raising that mummy dragon at the end—that was likely what had pushed her to the brink. He resolved then and there to train Herseva, to teach her how to wield her unique abilities more efficiently and better allocate her power.

“Ah, I see it over there!” Kamibarez shouted.

The No. 1 Indoor Arena, where Meirin’s match was being held, came into view.

“A match between Meirin and Serne!” Dick yelled. “I wouldn’t miss a showdown like this for anything!”

The three of them hurried into the arena, racing up the stairs to the spectator seats.

“Ugh.”

The moment they reached the top, a blast of scorching heat and the acrid stench of incinerated magic assaulted them. Unable to bear it, a few spectators were already fleeing.

’Did a fire break out?’

He scanned his surroundings and saw the arena was choked with thick, black smoke. Blazing ebony flames roared within, their maws gaping like a demon’s.

A protective barrier enveloped the entire spectator area, yet the heat was still suffocating.

Simon rushed to the railing, gripping it tightly as he peered down.

A great roar of fire swept across the arena below, turning the entire floor into a hellish sea of flames.

And in that inferno, he saw a girl with sky-blue hair, collapsed and gasping for breath.

“Meirin…!”

She staggered to her feet, the familiar oxygen-providing magic circle from the ocean-themed BMAT shimmering around her. Her entire body was caked in ash. She coughed violently, choked by the pungent smoke, wiping away a stream of tears and mucus with her sleeve.

A short distance away stood a girl with ivory hair, smiling serenely—Serne Aindark.

It was hard to believe they occupied the same space; Serne was not merely unharmed, she was pristine. With her arms crossed and her chin held high like a queen, a placid smile played on her lips.

Above her head, no fewer than twenty ’Dark Flare’ magic circles floated, poised to strike.

[Serne Aindark: 100%]

[Meirin Villenne: 9%]

“Just give up now, Meirin,” Serne cooed, extending an index finger to pretend to wipe a tear from her eye. “I’m just too heartbroken to fight anymore.”

Covered in soot, Meirin staggered upright and mumbled. “…up.”

“Hm? What was that?”

“I said, shut your mouth!”

Her bloodshot eyes blazing with fury, Meirin threw her arms out, and two blasts of Jet-Black Flame erupted from her open palms.

With a theatrical yawn, Serne flicked her index finger. Two Dark Flares shot from the magic circles hovering above, colliding mid-air in a massive explosion. A searing wave of heat washed over the stands, drawing screams from the spectators.

As more Dark Flares rained down at another wave of her finger, Meirin dove to the side, narrowly dodging the attack.

’The sheer number of spells she can cast is incredible,’ Simon thought, his expression hardening. As soon as one was fired, a single feather would flutter into the empty space and unfold, instantly replenishing the magic circle.

“…Wow, isn’t that basically cheating?” Dick let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Meirin…!” Kamibarez covered her mouth, trembling as she stared at the site of the explosion.

Simon’s grip on the railing tightened. “Why is she holding back her specialty, Jet-Black Ice, and only fighting with fire?”

“She has no choice,” Dick chimed in. “Look at the heat in there. Ice would melt in an instant.”

If Simon had entered his previous match against Chatel with an overwhelming elemental advantage, this one was an absolute nightmare for Meirin. It was a battle of ice versus fire.

“But…” Kamibarez continued, her voice trembling, “Meirin doesn’t look like she’s going to give up.”

Through the smoke of the explosion, Meirin’s figure came into view, still gasping for breath.

Simon nodded.

The only reason Meirin had come to Kizen was to surpass Serne Aindark. The Ivory Tower had originally planned to send Serne this year and Meirin the next, but Meirin had enrolled this year entirely of her own volition. And the sole reason she had refused to use her Jet-Black Ice for the entire first semester was her elemental disadvantage against Serne.

However, spending time with Simon and the rest of Group 7 had helped her relax, and her personality had grown more vibrant. She had started using her Jet-Black Ice again, and her potential was beginning to blossom.

’This is dangerous.’

Of all places, she was being forced to confront the insurmountable wall that was Serne once again. This was her final battle against her rival in their first year. In a way, this was more important to Meirin personally than any exam. It was a measure of how much she had closed the gap since coming to Kizen.

If she were defeated without even laying a finger on Serne, her spirit might break. She could refuse to use her Jet-Black Ice again and revert to the girl she was at the start of the semester.

“Ah, I see! You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you? Yeah, it’s all my fault!”

She would become that impatient girl again, the one who had completely shut her heart away. The girl who grew impossibly gloomy at the mere mention of Serne’s name.

’If she loses like this, her spirit will break. There has to be a way.’

Simon’s face was a mask of concentration as he fell into deep thought.

’Isn’t there something I can do?’

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