Chapter 173: Identity Revealed? (3)

Rachel and Karina.

Leaving the training hall, the two moved to the Lodge Café.

They ordered snacks and tea.

Karina, who had taken a seat at a balcony table with a view of the outside scenery, began to grumble as soon as she sat down.

“Ah, the more I think about it, the more pissed I get. How could such a ridiculous rumor spread when I’m here?”

Looking at her, Rachel giggled and played along.

“Tell me about it.”

“Huh? What. Are you thinking the same thing as me?”

“Of course, silly!”

Rachel clenched her fists and shook them from side to side as she shouted.

“Gerard and Skull Mask are to-tally! Different people!”

Karina’s eyes, staring at her, sparkled with a different light.

“Hmm. You’re not just saying that to get on my good side, are you?”

“Eeh? Noo-? Even an idiot would know how nonsensical that is with just a little thought!”

“True.”

Karina nodded.

Then she glanced at Rachel.

“But you are a foolish idiot, Rachel.”

“Whaat? That’s so mean, Karina! I’m not that bad, you know!?”

At her frivolous reaction, Karina burst out laughing with a ‘pfft’.

Rachel, who had been glaring, also broke into a peal of laughter.

“Ah, this is nice. I like you.”

“Oh my. Really? Am I okay?”

Karina answered honestly.

“Yeah. I thought you were just an idiot playing queen bee, hitting on commoner boys, but now I see my thinking was wrong. Now that I look, we can talk, and you’ve got some sense in you.”

Karina crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair, scanning Rachel from head to toe.

“You’ve got the face for it. Your style isn’t bad either…… Where’s that blouse from?”

“This? Lows Tailor Shop!”

Lows Tailor Shop.

It wasn’t a very large establishment, but it was famous for being meticulous about quality.

“I heard you were close with Yuria, but you’re better than her.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Of course.”

“Hehe.”

In fact, it wasn’t just that she ‘had the face for it’; Rachel’s looks and style were famous on campus.

Her long, upward-slanting eyes that exuded sex appeal and her captivating lips.

The beauty mark next to them was Rachel’s trademark.

If Yuria gave off an unapproachable aura with her coldness and aloofness, Rachel radiated a charm that bewitched people like a succubus.

This was why Karina had been wary of and disliked the two women at the beginning of the semester.

When she found out the three of them were grouped together and called by the ridiculous nickname ‘Eureka.’

‘What? Eureka? It’s absurd enough that I’m being treated in the same class as them, but why is my name at the very end!?’

She had been furious enough to rage like that.

But now that the first semester was over, her feelings for the two women had mostly faded.

Perhaps it was because she had come to acknowledge their skills as they overcame numerous crises together, and as they matched hands, feet, and even hearts, an affection born of dislike had unknowingly piled up.

To be honest, she was still a little uncomfortable with Yuria.

The reason…… she wasn’t sure.

Sometimes when I looked at her, I felt like I wanted to teach her things like how to dress up or social skills for making friends, like a younger sister who had just entered society.

But then, when I saw her sticking to Gerard──,

“…….”

Compared to that, Rachel was comfortable to be with.

She was pretty and had a certain level of skill.

But she was also quick-witted and knew how to get by.

Karina still remembered what happened during the second assignment of the final evaluation, collecting Perdon feathers.

If Rachel hadn’t suddenly appeared and helped her then, she would surely have had all her feathers taken by Ivan and finished the exam with a low score.

‘She definitely helped me on purpose.’

I couldn’t know what that intention was.

She might want something from me, or it could have been purely to interfere with Gerard.

But one thing was certain.

Rachel, who appeared innocent and foolish, actually knew how to use her head to some extent.

‘And, I can’t deny that she helped me as a result.’

Karina inwardly weighed Rachel, who was in front of her, against her friend (who was actually her head handmaiden) whom she hung out with the most at the Academy, Luna Filler.

‘No matter how I look at it, Rachel seems better than Luna…….’

Just as Karina was lost in such useless delusions,

Rachel, who was cutting and eating a strawberry cake with her fork, suddenly spoke up.

“But Karina, do you like Senior Gerard?”

Simultaneously,

Pfffft──!

A black liquid spewed from the mouth of Karina, who had just taken a sip of coffee.

“Wh-what kind of nonsense is that, all of a sudden!”

At the unexpectedly violent reaction, Rachel’s eyes widened and she burst into laughter.

“Kyahaha. It’s a joke, a joke. I know you and Senior Gerard don’t get along!”

“Then why would you make a joke like that!? Are you crazy? Wanna die?”

“Hehe. Sorry. It’s just. I heard you at the rest area earlier, and it seemed like you were defending Senior Gerard, so I was just teasing.”

Rachel pouted her lips and apologized.

‘Hah, damn it…….’

Karina wiped the coffee from her lips with a napkin.

She then said, in an excuse-like tone.

“There was n-no particular reason back then. Ahem! It’s because the Gerard I know isn’t that kind of person. Skull Mask is a bad guy, after all.”

“Is that so?”

“What do you mean ‘is that so’? He’s a villain, he terrorized the Academy. He terrorized Icata too. Judging by his actions, he’s just trash.”

“……Trash?”

“Yeah.”

It was then.

For the first time, the muscles around the mouth of Rachel, who had been giggling foolishly until now, stiffened.

“But, Karina. Skull Mask hasn’t directly killed anyone. I don’t think he’s that much of a trash.”

“……What? Are you being serious right now?”

Rachel momentarily flinched, but since she couldn’t take back the words she had already spoken, she nodded.

“I’m just stating the facts.”

And it was also what she truly believed.

‘Trash? What trash. That person is my one and only hope.’

However, to Karina, who was unaware of this background, it was just absurd.

Karina frowned, placing her coffee cup down with a thud.

The two women’s chat was gradually forming a strange composition.

“Listen up, you idiot. Even if he didn’t kill anyone, it’s a fact that Skull Mask’s actions put many people in danger. As a result, I mean. That’s why he was given a Slaughter grade. No. I heard he’s being promoted one step higher to a World Public Enemy because of the War of Villains this time.”

“Oh, really!? A World Public Enemy? How do you know that, Karina?”

“Ha! Hey. You don’t know me? I’m Karina Zain, Karina Zain. Of course, there’s nothing I don’t…… No. More importantly, were you just happy about that?”

“Eh?”

Realizing her mistake belatedly, Rachel hastily acted clueless, twirling her hair with her finger and changing the subject.

“Hehe. Did I do that? Anyway! What I wanted to say wasn’t that Skull Mask isn’t bad, but that Skull Mask and Senior Gerard are different people! Just looking at their abilities, Skull Mask overwhelms Senior Gerard, so how…….”

“Wait a minute. What? Overwhelmed?”

This time, a fire sparked in Karina’s eyes.

“Hey. Do you not know what the word ‘overwhelm’ means? How can that skull-face overwhelm that person? They’d be evenly matched, or if he won, it would be by a ve-ry slim margin. A close call, you could say.”

“……Whaat? A slim margin? A close call?”

A deep furrow formed on Rachel’s brow.

“Karina. Are you saying that after seeing the War of Villains, that incredible fight, with your own eyes?”

“Hmph. Talking like a fool, as expected. You never know how a fight will go until they actually fight. Huh? And you’ve done various activities with the senior, so you should know, right? That person’s skills are amazing.”

Karina quickly continued.

“First of all, their personalities are incomparable. How can you compare a trashy thief who leeches off people with a hero cadet? He’s probably ugly too, since he goes around covering his face with a skull. Seeing as he carries a staff, he’s probably a wrinkly old man.”

“By that logic, Senior Gerard doesn’t have a handsome face either, right? He looks gloomy and stares at Yuria every day with perverted eyes. His eyes are dull, and the smile he sometimes makes is so unpleasant it makes people feel bad.”

“……Hey, you.”

Before they knew it, their conversation had long since deviated from its original point.

A battle of wills under the guise of ‘Gerard and Skull Mask are not the same person.’

“Ha! Looking at this girl, I can’t tell whose side she’s on. Aren’t you the one who likes Skull Mask?”

Flinch.

“Wh-what are you talking about! I just want to state the facts. If anything, you’re the one who said you hated the senior, but you were defending him just now and you’re doing it again, it’s so suspicious!”

Crackle──

A staring contest began between the two women.

But the rivalry, which seemed like it would never end, came to a surprisingly anticlimactic end.

“Oh?”

“What’s that?”

Right in the yard in front of the Lodge Café, they could see professors gathered and walking hurriedly somewhere.

That wasn’t all.

More than twenty cadets were following behind them.

“…….”

Even an idiot could tell that something was about to happen.

And that it was related to Gerard.

“Get up.”

“Okay.”

The two hurriedly cleared their table and left the Lodge Café.

***

The incident at the training hall this morning.

The story of how Yuria, having heard her classmates gossiping about Gerard, couldn’t hold back her anger and smashed a training machine, spread like wildfire throughout the campus.

Naturally, Ivan and Guillaume, who visited the training hall right after, also heard the full story, and from then on, thoughts about it hadn’t left my mind.

‘For Yuria to express her anger to that extent…….’

I was worried, and at the same time, my heart ached.

I was also angry.

At Gerard, for letting things get to this point.

‘Why is the senior staying silent all this time?’

It was just yesterday that the photo that decisively fanned the flames of the rumor was posted.

I thought it would be right for him to clear his name as quickly as possible to resolve the false accusation.

‘Is he thinking that as long as he’s in the clear, that’s all that matters?’

Was Gerard that selfish and irresponsible of a person?

I shook my head.

The Gerard I knew wasn’t the type to avoid or take a passive attitude when facing any matter.

Furthermore.

The memory of that day, dubbed the War of Villains, floated in my mind.

Since I had gone out with the investigation team, I had also been at that place, and the huge shock I felt then was still vivid.

My skin had tingled, my breathing had stopped, and my mind had gone blank.

In that strange sensation where all the nerves in my body were completely blocked, I witnessed that fight.

It was a battle I had only seen in history textbooks.

They were clearly sharing the same space and time as me, yet they seemed to exist in a different dimension.

And between us, there felt to be a huge, insurmountable wall.

‘To think Skull Mask was that strong.’

When I first met him at the Cemetery.

I was surprised then too, but it was just a surprise.

I remember it wasn’t this kind of thrill, a feeling of being completely unapproachable.

For a moment, I even felt a sense of awe watching Skull Mask’s fight.

‘But, it’s not the senior.’

Gerard was a great senior whom I respected, but he was definitely not a person who felt like an insurmountable wall.

A rival.

A mountain I had to overcome someday, and I could now roughly see its peak.

That was why, despite all the circumstantial evidence and the photo that could be called conclusive proof, I didn’t believe the story that Gerard and Skull Mask were the same person.

“Why won’t the senior make a statement.”

Then I heard a voice.

It was Guillaume, who was walking beside me.

The two of us had been training together and were on our way back to the dormitory.

Lost in thought about Gerard and Skull Mask as I was, I immediately voiced my thoughts at his words.

“If it were me, I’d be so frustrated and annoyed that I’d want to clear it up quickly. Isn’t there really something to this?”

“……He probably just doesn’t feel the need to. There can’t be any other reason.”

“That’s not right. It’s not just anyone, it’s Skull Mask, the hottest topic in Icata right now. If he doesn’t want to cause trouble for the Academy, it’s right for him to clarify his position quickly. There are already talks among the kids about whether he’s just trying to buy time.”

I immediately made a questioning face.

What? They’re saying that?

About Senior Gerard of all people?

“Who on earth is saying things like that?”

“I don’t know either. I just heard it.”

The doubt in my eyes deepened.

“Guillaume, you said you just heard it last time too.”

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