The Mystery Society's paint barrage continued.
The members majoring in the Arcane Path fired paint with magic, while the Knightly Path majors threw actual water balloons filled with paint.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“Are you trying to start a fight?!”
“How dare the Mystery Society!”
The Glory Society began spraying paint with magic as well.
But the Mystery Society blocked the counterattack with barrier magic they had prepared in advance.
As time passed, only the Glory Society looked increasingly miserable.
“Damn it!”
One Glory Society member, unable to contain their anger, cast an offensive spell.
A fireball formed in midair and flew toward the Mystery Society.
“That…….”
Just as I thought it was going a little too far, a wall of ice suddenly appeared and blocked the fireball.
Steam billowed with a hiss, and the fireball vanished without a trace.
“Do not use dangerous magic.”
Seraphina Grand, the Glory Society's club president, had stopped it.
Even amid the chaos, not a single drop of paint had touched her, making her seem as though she alone inhabited another dimension.
“I'm sorry, Club President. I lost control for a moment…….”
“Be more careful from now on.”
Then she looked this way—more precisely, at Senior Yurik beside me.
Senior Yurik waved.
A smile appeared at the corners of Seraphina's lips, and a massive basket materialized above the Mystery Society.
“What is that?”
Then the basket slowly began to tilt.
Paint of every color started pouring out of it.
At that volume, they would not merely get drenched. They would drown.
“Damn it, the Glory Society's club president has stepped in!”
“Can we block that?”
“No chance!”
The Mystery Society fell into chaos.
The sleepy-eyed senior even tried to abandon the formation entirely.
Then—
“Not happening.”
Senior Yurik, standing beside me, swept a hand through the air.
Incredibly, time began to rewind.
The paint pouring down like a waterfall was sucked back into the basket. The tilted basket righted itself, and finally, time returned to before the basket had existed.
The massive basket vanished without a trace.
Seraphina Grand and Yurik Clover had clashed through magic.
I marveled at both of their abilities.
Now that the leaders of both sides had stepped in, it was only natural for the rank and file to stop.
The members of both clubs ceased their attacks.
At Seraphina's signal, Leshang spoke.
“Why is the Mystery Society attacking the Glory Society?”
The sleepy-eyed senior stepped forward.
“Why? We have two reasons!”
She had removed her glasses and opened her eyes fully.
With her glasses on and her eyes half closed, she had looked drowsy enough to fall asleep at any moment. But with her bare eyes raised sharply, her gaze was so fierce that she looked downright dangerous.
“First, does the Ivory Tower belong to you? Hold your loud, gaudy, disgraceful welcoming ceremony in your own clubroom! You're bothering everyone! And the second reason is you, Leshang Puar!”
“Me?”
Leshang frowned.
“You're saying you attacked the Glory Society because of me?”
“That's right!”
The sleepy-eyed senior—now the sharp-eyed senior—pointed at me.
“That boy is the Mystery Society's new Manager, Armand Draco!”
At that moment, countless eyes turned toward me at once.
Not only the Mystery Society and the Glory Society, but even the ordinary students watching nearby stared at me.
“Armand Draco, the heir of House Draco—the house that your House Puar and the cowards of the North betrayed and stabbed in the back—is our Mystery Society's new Manager!”
Leshang's mouth fell open.
“For our new Manager, Armand, the Mystery Society has taken revenge on you northerners and the Glory Society that sheltered you! The Mystery Society is one!”
“One!”
“The Mystery Society's revenge!”
“Revenge!”
The Mystery Society shouted with wild enthusiasm.
Even the ordinary students watching raised their hands and joined in.
“Traitors!”
“Take revenge!”
But I, the person actually involved, was dumbfounded.
They may have sided with the Empire, but it was your Empire that attacked the North in the first place.
Do any of you even have a conscience?
“Revenge! Revenge!”
“Traitors of the North!”
The fervor did not subside.
Leshang's gaze locked onto me, and I stared back at her.
Senior Yurik pushed me forward from behind.
The situation was hardly glorious, but now that it had come this far, I could not turn my back as the heir of House Draco.
So I walked toward her, and Leshang stepped forward as well.
With the two clubs facing off, Leshang and I stood opposite each other.
The surrounding students held their breath and watched us.
Where else would a drama like this unfold?
Leshang spoke first.
“Armand Draco, you've changed a lot.”
“Do you know me?”
“I saw you when we were children. At Winter Castle.”
“I don't remember.”
“I suppose not.”
“Did you recognize me from the beginning?”
“I wasn't sure at first. I only realized later.”
When the conversation between Leshang and me briefly lapsed, a group of students came to stand beside her.
“Are you here to blame us?”
They were all second-years who had promoted the Glory Society in Frog Class.
So that was why they had paid such peculiar attention to me. They were from the North.
“Do you think the North would have defeated the Empire if we had fought alongside House Draco? No. It would have been even more disastrous. Our actions reduced the casualties. If you've come to blame us now, forget it!”
I asked the shouting upperclassman,
“May I ask your name, Senior?”
“Derme Faria. Armand Draco.”
Faria. It was a familiar name. I remembered House Faria as one of the most powerful houses under House Draco, alongside House Puar.
With that much power, they were bound to resent being stuck in the North.
Whether it was my father or his predecessors, the heads of House Draco had cared only about guarding the wall.
I looked at the two of them and spoke calmly.
“I did not come here to blame you.”
A flicker of emotion crossed Leshang's face.
She seemed to feel guilty, but I did not think much of it.
She and I had both been children then.
It was not as though she had personally stabbed soldiers to death. There was no reason for me to hold a grudge against her.
However…….
Draco's Eye, embedded in my left eye socket, seemed to remember that time.
For once, Draco's Eye became angry.
Mana surged on its own, raising a wind that flattened the grass.
The students from the North each took a step back.
“Urgh!”
“Draco…….”
I studied Leshang and Derme, then the students standing behind them.
They were afraid.
In the North, the name Draco inspired fear all by itself.
Especially among the northern nobles who had experienced House Draco up close.
“A-are you trying to fight us?”
Derme forced the words out, but their voice trembled.
Even if House Draco had fallen, memories accumulated over countless years would be difficult to cast off.
That was enough intimidation.
“No.”
I shook my head.
“The seniors of the Mystery Society planned this trivial prank for my sake, but I bear no feelings toward any of you. I opposed this plan from the beginning.”
“What?”
“So let us leave this as nothing more than an entertaining prank between the Glory Society and the Mystery Society. It was fun, wasn't it?”
I bowed to the paint-covered Glory Society and its club president, Seraphina Grand.
“We will stop here. That is all.”
I was about to turn away when Leshang called me.
“Armand Draco.”
She spat the words toward me.
“If you have something you want to say, say it now. This is your last chance.”
Whether it was blame or a curse, she was telling me to say it now.
I looked into Leshang's dark blue eyes.
Within them, her responsibility to lead the northerners was tangled together with her guilt toward me, the heir of House Draco.
What should I say?
Now that Father was dead, I was the only direct descendant carrying Draco blood.
I did not like House Draco, but the name still dwelled within me.
What would Father have said to Leshang?
Father did not have a particularly pleasant personality, but he would not have slapped her simply because she was a Puar.
Yes, Father had dignity.
It was one of the few things about him that I respected.
Before the people of the Empire who had conquered the North, there was only one thing a guardian of the wall could say to another guardian of the wall.
“Is the wall safe?”
House Draco guarded the wall and stopped the monsters descending from the Frozen Demonlands.
That duty was engraved into our bloodline.
Even after he had been driven from Winter Castle, Father had never forgotten it.
Perhaps she had not anticipated my question, because Leshang's eyes widened.
“The wall…….”
Her lips moved soundlessly for a moment before she nodded.
“The wall is safe.”
She bit her lip hard, then continued.
“The monsters of the Frozen Demonlands cannot cross the wall. Just as they never could before.”
I looked at her and the northern nobles beside her.
They could not meet my eyes, as though they had committed some terrible wrong.
Yes. They were the ones guarding the wall now.
“Then that's enough.”
I had no lingering attachment to the North after being driven out of Winter Castle in the first place.
I only needed that crazy skeleton's acknowledgment.
It felt strange to leave without another word, so I gave Leshang one final remark.
“Do your best.”
Guarding the wall in House Draco's place was no easy duty.
Perhaps they already regretted it, but that was their concern now.
I turned and walked back toward the Mystery Society.
Then I heard Leshang's voice from behind me.
“I'm sorry.”
I did not look back.
It was not really her place to apologize.
The one who had stabbed Father in the back was not her, but her father.
“Y-you…….”
Karl greeted me with strangely tearful eyes.
Not only him, but the entire Mystery Society welcomed me with oddly moved expressions.
I had no idea how the scene had looked to everyone else.
While the paint-soaked Glory Society members stood there in a daze, the Mystery Society turned around with imposing dignity.
“Our objective has been achieved. Mystery Society, withdraw!”
***
Nekzul received a report about what had just happened in front of the Ivory Tower.
[He is even crazier than I expected. I told him to seize the Mystery Society, and not only did he become its Manager, he attacked the Glory Society?]
Yes. This was a kind of demonstration.
Nekzul recalled the audacious Draco brat who, even after being strangled by him, had refused to be cowed and proposed that they cooperate.
Perhaps blood truly did tell.
“Armand Draco's reputation is becoming extraordinary.”
The person standing before Nekzul was a student wearing a blue epaulette.
[Extraordinary in what way?]
“No one expected him to speak about the wall there. People are saying that House Draco of the North has preserved the noble dignity the Empire's aristocrats have lost.”
[Noble dignity?]
“Noblesse oblige. Even after losing his territory and being driven out, he did not resent or curse them. He spoke about the wall.”
Opinions about House Draco varied throughout the Empire.
The descendants of an evil dragon that threatened the Empire.
Or noble aristocrats who endured the bitter cold and fulfilled their duty.
One fact neither side could deny was that even with the tremendous power inherited from their ancestors, House Draco had guarded the wall in the North as though enduring a sentence.
Originally, the word noble meant a bloodline born to an Arcane Path.
They were expected to bear responsibility equal to the magnitude of the power they inherited.
But amid the prosperity of the Age of Glory, those old virtues had long since been forgotten.
Until the heir of House Draco appeared before them.
[Do you think so as well?]
“Not only me. Everyone there probably felt the same.”
The boy recalled the scene.
Even before the traitors who had brought down his house, Armand Draco had not lost his dignity.
He had merely spoken of the duty the northern nobles had to carry on.
A mage among mages.
A noble among nobles.
He truly was the heir of an Arcane Path house whose history was as old as the imperial family's.
“I think I understood why the Empire attacked House Draco as well.”
[You are excessively honest.]
“I was impressed.”
[So he made even someone like you think that way.]
“He will draw even more attention from now on. Even the Glory Society's club president has begun watching him closely.”
[Seraphina?]
“Yes.”
[But that boy will have a difficult road ahead. That inscrutable Headmaster sealed his Attribute.]
“Will you not help him?”
[I must give him what I promised.]
Nekzul handed the boy a pouch.
[Deliver this to Armand. He should have at least one secret weapon of his own.]
Nekzul grinned.
[I am becoming curious about what his ‘Extinction’ will look like.]