◈ Mistaken for a Masked Monster
──────
Asking Her Out
Right after the Freshmen Welcome Exam.
The Class E students were still steeped in its aftermath.
The crowd's murmuring lingered at the edges of their hearing, refusing to fade.
-Seriously, how does someone with all-E stats end up as class representative?
-If that kind of trash is their top student, what does that say about everyone sitting below him?
-Tsk, tsk... not even worth looking at.
Aftermath.A word that tasted different when mockery had ground you down this many times. When a blade finds the same wound often enough, even breathing around it starts to feel like habit.
-Oh my, look at him thrashing around like that.
-Ahaha! Dangling there like that, what is he even doing? He's actually crying?
-That's what you get for enrolling when you have no business being here.
Every one of them had heard it. The contempt aimed their way, the mouths curled with laughter at their expense.
The students had no choice but to hang their heads.
Teeth clenched against the humiliation that made their whole bodies shake.
-My, is that supposed to be their second seat? He's particularly stubborn, at least.
-Still dragging himself back up? Does he not understand his own situation?
The Class E students. In their hometowns, every one of them had been called a prodigy at some point. They carried real talent. Potential that couldn't be measured.
Kids who had always walked with their heads held high.
'But.'
Even they were treated as failures here.
Grandia Academy. The finest educational institution on the continent. A waystation where countless gifted students passed through. In a place where the real ones gathered, these kids were simply ordinary.
'It's too much.'
Everything they had worked for, dismissed without a second thought. And on top of that, none of them had noble blood to fall back on.
Commoners. Scrambling for an education they'd never been meant to have. Being looked down on by the noble students was, in a way, perhaps inevitable.
'We only did our best...'
Skill, connections, money. Not one of the three.
Being scorned for it was simply the natural order here. Even the faculty didn't bother stepping in to stop the hostility between classes. It was justified as fostering competition, sharpening the students' fighting spirit.
So the children's hearts had no one to protect them.
That was just how it was, clearly, and yet.
-Heh. You don't go messing with someone else's errand boy.
Someone stepped forward.
A boy in a mask.
He moved down the row and tapped each student once on the shoulder. Then he told them to rest, turned, and walked toward the arena where they had all been so thoroughly crushed.
'......'
At that moment, none of the students were expecting much. A duel between Class C's top seat and Class E's top seat. The outcome was obvious to anyone watching. Class E's clean sweep was already a foregone conclusion. This exam had been a stage designed for mockery from the very start.
-Luyan-ssi, good work out there.
-Go ahead and rest for a bit.
It'll end the same way, they thought. He'll get torn apart just like the rest of them and laughed off the floor.
So the only thing Class E's students had been praying for was simple.
Please.
Please, let this miserable stretch end quickly. Let them be free of those awful voices.
Sprawled across the waiting benches, they carried that quiet resignation. Beaten soldiers, all of them.
Burning through that bitter taste like the last drag of a cigarette.
-Wait, what's... what's happening?
A miracle.
That voice, unmistakably amused. An ease that came through even behind a grotesque mask.
-Hmm.
-Didn't you say you'd end it in one hit?
-Is that really all?
The moment everyone's expectations shattered.
The boy was dominating Shariel. Completely. The inferno didn't burn him down and the sparks left no marks.
-......
The biting mockery from Class C, the laughter that had rung all morning. He silenced all of it. Students from every class, high-ranked or low, looked on in open admiration.
That figure swinging a colorful sword, cutting through the flames.
《Match over. Winner, Viktor.》
And in the end, he took the victory. He had broken a wall that had seemed impossibly high.
But he didn't stop there.
-So then.
-Anyone else here have a problem with my errand boys?
He swept his gaze across the remaining students in the waiting area, letting the pressure land. And then, toward the Class E students, he threw up a little finger V.
He had covered for them. Landed a hit on Class C on their behalf, for every slight they'd swallowed that morning.
Of course, maybe that hadn't been his intention at all.
But to the students whose spirits had been worn through, the Class E kids, that was exactly how it looked.
-He took our side...?
-Why? We're in the same class, sure, but it's not like he was particularly fond of any of us...
-And on top of that, we all teamed up and tried to knock him off the top spot...
The eight known as the Errand Boys felt it most sharply.
The top-ranked students within Class E. Their pride in their own ability had always run deep, which meant the quiet ache had also always run deep.
And into that ache, a small kindness arrived.
-You all worked hard today.
-Don't pull the rickshaw tomorrow. Take the day and rest properly.
-The exam must have worn you down, physically and otherwise.
Even after the exam, he had come to each of them personally.
The Errand Boys felt themselves soften, whether they wanted to or not.
A dangerous one. An unpredictable one.
That read on him had been quietly shifting toward something else: maybe he's not so bad after all.
-He might actually be a decent person...
-I mean, after everything we pulled, he still stepped up and took the hits meant for us...
-......I need to apologize properly. For underestimating him. For threatening him like we did.
The Errand Boys had come to a conclusion.
The person standing in front of them might genuinely deserve to be called "hyung-nim." And staying close to him might mean learning more over the next three years than they could manage on their own.
So the Errand Boys decided, first of all, to say thank you.
""Welcome back, hyung-nim!!""
A booming chorus.
"We've been waiting, hyung-nim!"
"Hyung-nim! Come sit over here!"
"We laid out a cushion in advance!"
That was the story behind the Errand Boys' sudden change in attitude.
***
"Hmm..."
The enthusiasm hit me the moment I walked through the door.
A deep, formal bow, and then I found myself seated on an actual cushion.
'......What is happening?'
Leading the charge were the Errand Boys themselves, doing it with expressions that looked almost... eager.
These guys normally couldn't hide the irritation on their faces even when they kept quiet. Understandably. Pulling the rickshaw, Beyblade games, the Sonic drills.
If you could keep a straight face through all of that, you weren't human.
So whenever we crossed paths, the furrowed brows were always right on schedule.
'Why do they all look so cheerful today?'
Especially after getting demolished in yesterday's exam. I had expected a funeral atmosphere. But the air was lighter than I'd anticipated.
I tilted my head, puzzled.
"Hyung-nim, is something wrong?"
"Ah... no, it's nothing."
"Right! If you need anything, just say the word!"
"......"
No, seriously. What's gotten into you all.
At this point it was almost unsettling. I was scratching the back of my head, vaguely uneasy, when one of the Errand Boys worked up the nerve to speak.
"H-hyung-nim... thank you for yesterday!"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"Yesterday's exam! It was genuinely incredible to watch. We already knew you were unusually strong for Class E, but to completely dominate the Class C top seat? And Princess Labriell, the one they call the prodigy of fire sorcery, no less!"
"Ah... so that's what you mean. She was a tricky opponent, I'll admit."
"Haha! Modest as ever, and you pulled it off with a balloon sword!"
"I got lucky."
"Word's already spreading all over the Academy."
I genuinely got lucky.
I'm about as frail as they come. The only reason I managed any of that was by leaning hard on bugs. My base specs are locked at E-grade, and they always will be.
If one of you flicked a speck of mana at me, it'd punch right through.
'This is awkward...'
[But everyone's attitude has softened quite nicely, hasn't it?]
'That's true.'
[They were moved, I imagine. Yesterday's exam was a real shock to them. You stepped in on behalf of the kids who had been getting ground into the floor all morning, and you landed a hit on Class C in their place.]
'I suppose so.'
Had I accidentally won them over without trying?
Well, I had made a pretty flashy mess of things yesterday, so it wasn't entirely surprising.
Good enough. I nodded along and let it go.
"Ahem. Let's all work hard going forward. We can't stay in Class E forever."
"Yes, hyung-nim!"
Hyung-nim.
I told them to call me that, so I had no one to blame, but hearing it now felt oddly strange.
And they were all saying it regardless of gender, which made it stranger still.
I pushed the thought aside and exchanged a few words with the Errand Boys clustered around me.
'Well... now that things have turned out this way, I might as well make proper use of it.'
Even as Class E students, every one of them has a solid foundation. There's no such thing as a genuinely untalented student at Grandia. If you couldn't make the cut, you wouldn't have gotten in at all.
In other words, these kids have real room to grow. Clear away whatever's blocking their development and they could reach Class A-level strength without much trouble.
Probably a balancing decision on the game's part.
'Back in my old life, playthroughs like [Clear the story using only Class E characters] were actually trendy for a while...'
Meaning they're not exactly dead weight. The difficulty curve was steep, sure, but for a veteran like me it was nothing.
Pull it off and I'd have solid allies at my side.
I'd been planning to stay in Class E for a while anyway, so it made sense to develop them while I was at it.
'The one who turns out strongest is... Luyan, wasn't it.'
Luyan Jestar. Class E's second seat. Develop him properly through the back half of the original story and he could hit S-rank performance.
"......"
Unlike the others, Luyan was sitting silently in the corner of the classroom, pointedly not looking in my direction.
Still had his pride, apparently.
'He's the one I need to bring around, but...'
He was also the de facto emotional anchor for Class E, whether he knew it or not. Compact frame, but well-balanced underneath. Rough efficiency early on, but once a certain bottleneck broke open, his potential would come pouring out.
Decent-looking too, in the pretty-boy way. He'd had a fair fanbase in the original game.
The one flaw was the pride, but.
'I'll think about that later.'
As I was turning things over quietly, a message blinked to life in front of me.
Ding!
[Sub Quest]
-Objective: Develop all Class E students to B-rank or above.
-Deadline: Before graduation
-Penalty if failed: None
-Reward: Character exclusive item 'Scales of the Black Arbiter (S-)'
So this counts as a quest too.
And Scales, at that. An S-rank item.
No reason to refuse.
I clicked the accept button without thinking twice.
'Good... things are falling into place nicely.'
Talking with one part of my brain, thinking with the other.
The buzzing crowd around me was starting to settle when Alice caught my eye, mixed in among the rest of the students.
"Oh."
A small flicker of warmth. I'd arrived late to yesterday's exam, so I'd missed her match entirely.
From what I'd heard, she had forfeited the moment it started.
'Not surprising, really.'
Alice still couldn't properly control her own ability. She was afraid of hurting someone, so she avoided letting the Nightmare activate at all.
Poor kid.
Someone with that kind of selflessness, and yet fated to become a calamity. The original story had never been kind to her.
"Alice-yang."
I gave a casual wave, just to say hello. We'd broken the ice before, so a little more warmth seemed fine.
Alice was the supporting character I had been fondest of in the whole game. I wanted to stay close to her. And I had to stop the future where she became a calamity.
"Good morning."
"Hic...!"
The friendly greeting didn't land.
The moment our eyes met, she startled. Her shoulders hunched, then trembled.
She fidgeted for a moment before looking away completely.
'What.'
Without another word, she slipped quietly out of the classroom.
I just stood there.
What.
What was that.
'Don't tell me.'
I haven't even confessed and I just got rejected?
***
Alice.
A few days ago, she had seen something she was never supposed to see.
-My eyes, our eyes met...?
-How? That's never happened before...
Purgatory, Floor 70.
The back of a monster that ruled that place.
She had been peering in carelessly, and the jester had caught her looking.
-I'm going to die... I'm going to get killed, silenced, shut up forever...
-Sob, what do I do...
Her life had felt instantly forfeit. She had seen what she shouldn't, so of course she'd be silenced. That was the only logical conclusion.
But against all expectation, nothing had happened to her.
Time had passed with no explanation given.
'Why...?'
She'd cried over it for days and still had no answer.
That mask, looking straight through her with its unsettling smile, was already burned into her mind.
She had taken it as a kind of warning.
'He's not going to kill me right away? But the moment I say something...'
There had been no reason to kill her. Not outright.
Even the Academy's faculty hadn't dared attempt Floor 70. And with a single gesture, this person had killed the keeper of that place.
Overwhelming power. The Academy's fate might as well already be in his hands.
Someone in that position wouldn't need to bother silencing one small witness.
'He's telling me to know my place...'
Speak and die.
This was someone who had carved up a dragon with one finger. The Academy's faculty would be nothing to him.
'I have to stay quiet. Quietly... live like I don't exist.'
It was the rational call. Or maybe she was just terrified.
'If anyone finds out... I don't know what would happen to the Academy...'
This was the best Alice could manage. There was simply too much she didn't understand.
Why?
Why on earth would someone that powerful enroll in Class E?
Why hide that strength and operate in secret?
The most powerful figures were all supposed to be a little unhinged. Was he one of those?
Why hadn't the Academy noticed anything was off?
Was he so far beyond the faculty that they couldn't even sense him?
Could the headmaster stand a chance against him?
'I don't know. I don't know anything.'
A thousand questions bloomed and not one of them had an answer. Only the fear in her chest, growing a little larger each day.
Even on the walk to school, Alice had repeated it to herself over and over.
Never.
Never get more entangled with that person. Never end up in his sights. Not even a pretense of familiarity.
-How about this. Stay close to me from now on?
Something he had said before nagged at her, but it didn't matter anymore. Someone that extraordinary had no reason to pay her any particular attention.
She had received the warning. All she had to do was show him she understood. Prove she had no intention of ever saying a word.
'Then... it'll be okay.'
Yes.
Live quietly. He wouldn't seek her out or acknowledge her, surely.
She had talked herself through it carefully, taken a deep breath, and arrived at that decision.
She had been certain. Completely certain.
"Alice-yang."
So what was this.
"Finally caught you. You've been running all day..."
In front of her was that grotesquely grinning mask.
And behind her, a wall she hadn't been able to dodge in time.
One of the jester's hands was pressed flat against it.
Wall-pin.
Boy and girl, a romantic setup straight out of a novel.
But Alice was on the verge of wetting herself on the spot.
"Y-y-yes, yes...!"
Her voice came out bleating like a goat.
The jester let out a quiet laugh and gently took her hand.
"How about a little date? Just the two of us."
"Y-yes... yes...?"
Her shoulders wouldn't stop trembling.
Alice wanted to cry.