“Since we're having a match anyway, isn't it a shame if there's no reward?”
I casually floated the idea to Kyle, who was radiating a murderous aura as though he might leap at me at any moment.
“You want to make a wager?”
“Why? Are you scared you'll lose?”
It was an obvious taunt, even in my own opinion. But there was no need to worry.
“Don't be ridiculous. Fine. What will you wager?”
This moron was stupid enough to fall for even a ploy like this.
“Money.”
From the start, money was all I wanted.
I wouldn't be able to beat him without using my Privilege, and using my Privilege meant suffering a financial loss.
“Crazy bastard.”
Kyle looked at me in disgust.
“Not confident?”
“Fine. If you beat me, I'll give you however much money you ask for.”
Wow, a blank check.
I didn't expect him to actually give me whatever amount I wanted.
Still, he was supposedly a reincarnator. He wouldn't end it with one or two coins.
There was no reason to turn down such a good offer.
If I could get back more than I spent, I could make active use of the Shop.
In any case, I'd profit if I won.
“Then if you lose....... Become my slave for as long as you are at the Academy.”
Kyle grinned.
A slave? What a barbaric bastard.
“Fine. If you win, I'll serve you as my master for the next six years.”
It won't happen, but still.
I simulated the spar with Kyle while looking at the Shop window.
I had deposited most of the money Repizen had invested in me into the Shop.
With this much money, I wouldn't have to worry about being unable to buy anything I needed.
Once money was deposited, it couldn't be turned back into cash, but it was nice that no one could steal it as long as I was alive.
Moreover, using the Shop was far more convenient than buying something with cash, so there was no reason to keep much cash on hand.
Could there suddenly be a situation where I needed cash?
“Are the two of you ready?”
The headmaster asked as he stroked his luxuriant beard.
Kyle and I nodded.
“Then....... Begin.”
The headmaster snapped his fingers.
“HYA—!!”
Kyle drew his sword and charged at me.
What he was most confident in was swordsmanship. Therefore, his simple strategy was to settle the match in one stroke through close combat.
“You're too predictable.”
Letting someone who had received the Blessing of the Sword get close was a disadvantage.
I knew that well, so I had been ready to retreat even before the headmaster declared the start of the spar.
Kyle's physical ability was greater than mine to begin with, and running forward was faster than retreating backward, so the distance closed in an instant.
The time I gained by retreating was very short.
However, it was more than enough time to buy what I needed from the Privilege Shop.
I unfurled the scroll I had just purchased. At that moment, black flames enveloped the scroll.
“SCREE—!”
Three monsters sprang out of the scroll with piercing cries.
Winged frogs as large as human heads.
They had an official name, but I called them Wing Frogs for short.
“Are you trying to act like a black mage?!”
Kyle did not slow down at all.
Wing Frogs were not particularly large, and if you looked closely, they had a fairly cute appearance.
To someone who swung sword aura around, low-grade monsters like these would be worth less than stones by the roadside.
When Kyle ran straight at me and swung his sword, the Wing Frogs were cut down helplessly.
“Not a very good choice.”
A sneer escaped me at the sight of Kyle moving exactly as I had expected and intended.
It was true that Wing Frogs were weak monsters.
With proper preparation, even a seven-year-old child could easily hunt them. They were creatures so pathetic it was embarrassing to call them monsters.
Even so, people did not carelessly provoke these insignificant Wing Frogs.
The reason was simple.
“BOOM—! BOOM, BOOM—!”
These bastards exploded.
The purple bodily fluid that had filled the Wing Frogs' bodies scattered in every direction.
Kyle, who had been charging forward, was drenched in the Wing Frogs' fluid.
Kyle flinched a little but continued to charge. It was neither acid that immediately melted the skin nor poison that caused pain.
It was merely a little unpleasant.
“You think you can stop me with something like this.......!”
“I never did.”
I lightly swung my wand.
Wing Frog fluid was not particularly harmful.
On its own, that was.
Snap.
A spark flew from the tip of my wand.
The moment the tiny flame touched Kyle's body, drenched in Wing Frog fluid, fierce flames surged up.
Wing Frog fluid was even more flammable than gasoline.
“Ugh.......!”
Kyle, engulfed in heat, tried to extinguish the flames, but the fire clinging to clothes saturated with Wing Frog fluid only grew more intense.
Before long, Kyle gave up on extinguishing the fire and charged at me.
No matter how painful burning was, it would not immediately result in death.
He seemed to have judged that it would not be too late to put out the flames after winning.
“Reincarnators really are reincarnators.”
To make a calm judgment even with his body on fire.
Calling him unlike a child was not enough.
He did not seem human.
“......!!”
The eyes of Kyle, who thrust out a sword wrapped in flames, widened.
It seemed he was quite flustered that I had deflected his sword.
“What's so surprising? Did you think I couldn't wield a sword?”
I had learned it in a short, intensive course, so I wasn't good enough to boast about, but I was no longer a complete novice.
Still, it had been close.
If I had tried to take a sword imbued with sword aura head-on, I would have been cut in half along with my sword.
Even though I focused only on turning its direction, Kyle's sword had split my sword nearly in half.
“Cough......!”
Kyle coughed next.
It was because of the toxic smoke released as Wing Frog fluid burned.
This was why Wing Frogs were treated as troublesome monsters.
If Wing Frog fluid burned cleanly, they would have been used as useful livestock in this world, where oil was valuable.
“Isn't it about time you surrendered?”
The noxious smoke steadily smoking his lungs and the fire cooking his body.
If enough time passed, his life could be in danger.
The smoke's toxicity did not distinguish friend from foe, but while our idiot was panicking over the fire, I had bought cloth and medicinal herbs from the Shop and made a makeshift gas mask.
This cost money too, so it was a little wasteful.
“Cowardly.......!!”
Kyle staggered. He was literally suffering both inside and out, yet his eyes still gleamed fiercely.
“What do you mean, cowardly? Is using the Privilege I received somehow cheating? You're strong like that because of your Privilege too, aren't you?”
Judging from Kyle's movements, experience from his previous life had certainly been helpful.
Even without his Privilege, he might have been able to take top place in the Department of Martial Arts.
However, he would not have been able to create such an overwhelming gap between himself and the other applicants as he did now.
“If we'd fought without Privileges.......”
Kyle muttered, unable to let go of his lingering attachment.
He kept thrusting his sword at me, but it no longer had the sharpness it had at the beginning.
A sword cutting weakly through empty air.
The sword aura was losing its light as well.
“Think you'd have won if we'd fought without Privileges? Then aren't you admitting that my Privilege is far superior to yours?”
If one ability more than made up for the gap, the answer to which was superior became clear after only a little thought.
“Th...... ah......”
Kyle's eyes lost focus as he tried to argue back.
His mind might endure the pain, but the immature body of a child had its limits.
Kyle collapsed limply.
“Disgusting bastard.”
One moment he acted childishly like a child, and the next he was so tenacious that he wouldn't retreat even with his body burning. It made me sick.
I couldn't tell what sort of life he had lived in his previous life to become like this.
“Healing magic......!”
“We need to move him first!”
Fearing that their precious reincarnator might really die, the faculty rushed over in a panic to extinguish the flames on Kyle's body and carry him away for treatment.
Because Kyle had endured so stubbornly, his condition was serious. He had burns all over his body, and his lungs must have been badly damaged as well.
On Earth, he would have been gravely injured beyond treatment, but this was a world where magic existed, so he would somehow be all right.
That was why they had stood by until things reached this point.
“Aren't you going to announce the winner?”
I stood with a defiant tilt and looked at the headmaster.
Though the outcome had been clearly decided, everywhere was quiet. More people were looking at Kyle, the loser, than at me, the winner who should have been receiving attention.
“The winner of the spar is Lawrence Reed.”
The headmaster declared it reluctantly.
There were no cheers. A few people clapped softly, but even they stopped after noticing the people around them.
Weren't they all being too much?
Well, I hadn't expected anything in the first place.
“There is one week until the entrance ceremony. If they wish, successful applicants may move into the dormitory and stay there early, but it is not mandatory. I look forward to seeing you again in good health a week from now.”
As though trying to erase my victory, the headmaster immediately brought up another subject.
The fact that students could stay in the dormitory was not particularly important.
Applying to Beaumont Academy meant one had firm backing, whether from their family or a patron, so few people wanted to move into the dormitory early.
“This concludes the event.”
The headmaster left in the strange atmosphere.
Only awkward applause echoed.
Those who had remained, watching the reactions of others, began to disperse.
“Such a paltry trick....... What world did that reincarnator even come from, honestly.......”
The headmaster's mutter as he passed beside me lingered in my ears.
He said that deliberately so I'd hear, didn't he?
Even with a clear result right before him, he couldn't recognize how impressive my Privilege was.
The other teachers were not much different.
Not one of them met my eyes. It seemed they had already decided I was a troublemaker.
For educators, they were awfully narrow-minded.
I clicked my tongue and calculated the money I had spent in this match.
One Wing Frog Summoning Scroll cost ten silver coins. The medicinal herbs and cloth together were worth about one silver coin.
Even combined, it was less than one gold coin.
Compared with the money Repizen had given me, it was truly a speck of dust. It was almost as if I hadn't spent anything.
As expected, having ample seed money was reassuring.
“Only now do I understand what you meant when you said the Department of Martial Arts didn't suit you. If you insisted on your methods there, it'd be easy for the others to stab you to death.”
Lucia approached me and spoke.
Her words were somewhat rough, but they did not feel especially hostile.
“What a joke. I won, so why are they making such a fuss about the method?”
I couldn't help laughing.
What they needed to learn was not sports, yet it was ridiculous how they talked about cheating and whatever else.
To begin with, the spar between Kyle and me had not been fair.
Fighting a sword duel against someone who used sword aura was no different from facing an opponent with a gun barehanded.
Compared with that, the means I had used were perhaps no more than a broom.
Why was sword aura allowed, but a Wing Frog Summoning Scroll wasn't?
They were the sort who would make the excuse that magic was cheating even if they lost to a mage.
“Your life at school won't be easy from now on.”
Lucia looked at me with an expression of unrelenting concern.
That was true enough.
My fellow students would resent me considerably for gaining the right to enter the Academy because I was a reincarnator, despite fitting neither the Department of Martial Arts nor the Department of Magic.
The headmaster scorned me, so there was no way the faculty would take my side either.
That was why victory in the spar with Kyle had great significance.
Whatever means I had used, I had a record of defeating a reincarnator. Few people would dare lay a hand on me.
“I was prepared for this much.”
I hadn't come all the way to the Academy to enjoy playing at friendship with snot-nosed children.
It wasn't as though I had come here because I especially wanted to.
Turning someone's heart around was absurdly difficult in the first place.
Rather than waste time trying to make a good impression on people who disliked me, it was better to find other allies.
“Cheer up.......”
Perhaps she misunderstood what I meant, because Lucia quietly comforted me.
The pity she couldn't completely hide showed on her face.
“You don't have to worry so much. This old man has a plan too.”
Teasing a kind child wasn't enjoyable.
She was the only one in this school who tried to understand me. I should treasure her.
If I had aimed for a peaceful life, I could have done nothing no matter how Kyle provoked me.
My plan for a wealthy Academy life included ‘making a strong impression,’ so this had been half intentional.
Even if my fellow students' resentment grew stronger and the headmaster's gaze became uncomfortable, that was enough if I could draw the interest of the other students.
“Are you really all right?”
“I'm a reincarnator too. I'm not a child.”
Lucia's inner self was an adult. It was only natural that she saw the other students around her as children who needed looking after.
However, I had memories of a previous life too.
I was past the age of being unable to take care of myself.
My school life, where I said every day that I wanted to drop out, and my military service, which had been several times more painful than that.
And even my working life, which had been so miserable that it made me miss the military.
Compared with that, the malice of ten-year-old children was literally nothing more than child's play.
“All right. Since you're going to attend the Academy anyway, make sure you enjoy yourself.”
Lucia gave a bright smile and nod, then left, saying she had something to do.
She wasn't even enrolled yet, but she had something to do. How diligent.
“An enjoyable school life. Sounds good.”
I intended to enjoy school life to the fullest too.
It would be a little different from the kind of enjoyment Lucia had in mind.