Boy And His Younger Brother

Izumi and Basil rushed over to the fallen Rudel. Tears welled in their eyes as they worried over his condition. The referee declared Aleist the victor. Rudel, however, tried to get back to his feet.

“Not yet. I haven’t lost yet. I can still stand!”

“Rudel… that’s enough. Didn’t you say you wouldn’t have any regrets even if you lost?”

“I don’t want to leave myself with regrets! So… I’m… not done yet…”

Seeing that exchange, Aleist smiled, convinced that the event with Izumi was finally about to begin. This was where Rudel was supposed to order Izumi to cut him down… to cut Aleist down.

(This is where I tell Izumi… Who cares about your family! Do what you believe is right! This is the start of the event where I free Izumi from Rudel after she approached him under orders from her family!!!)

But Izumi did not leave Rudel’s side, nor did Rudel give any such order. Instead…

“You’re making a disgrace of yourself, Rudel-sama. You lost… Anything more than this would only be unsightly.”

“…I… see… Unsightly, huh… You’re right. It would be disrespectful to my opponent as well. …I… admit… defeat…”

Aleist could not understand what was happening. Rudel, however, gave a faint smile before losing consciousness. The medical team carried him away… and Aleist’s event with Izumi never happened.

In the Academy Tournament, Aleist’s class won the first-year division of the basic curriculum. Unias and Luecke’s classes had ended up facing each other in the semifinals… apparently, rather than calling it a draw, the officials had decided neither side was capable of continuing. Those two really went all out against each other…

Rudel had suffered serious injuries that would take two weeks to heal… He was taken straight to the infirmary, where Izumi and Basil spent their time nursing him back to health… Damn him, I hope it falls off!

And so Rudel’s new academy life as a second-year student of the basic curriculum began.

“Chlust? He is my younger brother, certainly… Is there something about him that bothers you?”

For the two years of the basic curriculum, there were no class reshufflings. Starting in the third year, lessons became elective-based, and the academy no longer had fixed classes at all. Naturally, that meant Rudel remained in the same class as Izumi.

“No… It’s more that I thought the atmosphere around him felt different. Among those who know you, I’ve heard some saying he’s surprisingly normal, while others say he’s exactly what you’d expect from a nobleman’s younger brother.”

The remark about being “like a nobleman” was surely sarcastic. Even Rudel understood that much. His younger brother had been loved and cherished by their parents. Apparently Chlust, too, had grown into the sort of noble their parents were… naturally, the bad sort.

“Am I really that unlike a noble? Well, never mind that. Is my brother really so famous…?”

“His grades are excellent, and he also holds the second-highest status among this year’s students… Though naturally, the highest belongs to the Second Princess.”

Rudel knew very little about Second Princess Fina. Part of that was because he had never participated in high society, but the greater reason was simply that he had never been interested.

“What kind of girl is she?”

“…That’s difficult to answer. You could call her cute, or you could call her beautiful… Your younger brother seems completely infatuated with Fina-sama, though. She has the blond hair and blue eyes typical of Courtois, and if I remember correctly… they call her the ‘Doll Princess.’”

Unlike Rudel, Chlust had taken part in noble society. Thanks to his family’s standing, he had therefore interacted with the princess as well. More importantly, though, that title of “Doll Princess”… Was that actually supposed to be a compliment? That was what Rudel found himself wondering.

“I suppose Chlust might have a chance… but I doubt it.”

Rudel did not believe Chlust and the Second Princess would ever end up together. No one would give a precious princess to a declining noble house… much less to its second son. Unless Chlust proved exceptionally talented, or perhaps became the successor to House Arses itself, Rudel could not imagine it happening.

“So you’re not interested. That’s reassuringly like you. Then what are your goals for this year, Rudel?”

Izumi seemed slightly more cheerful as she asked Rudel about his goals for the new term. His ultimate objective had not changed, so…

“I want to gain more real combat experience, and like I said during the last event, I’m aiming to reach the finish line first. Other than that… I suppose I want to fight strong opponents in the tournament.”

Ever since losing to Aleist, Rudel had been thinking about his own fighting style. He had considered learning Aleist’s magic sword technique… but rather than questioning whether he was capable of it, he had decided against it after considering whether it actually suited him.

What a Dragoon needed was the ability to cover the blind spots of a flying mount possessing overwhelming firepower—a dragon. Put simply, they had to protect the dragon’s back. According to the books, magic swordsmanship was ill-suited to a Dragoon. The reason given was that rather than swinging a sword around from a dragon’s back, it was more important to possess reliable means of continuously attacking at medium and long range.

“Is that all? The women who flock around you must be disappointed.”

Izumi playfully nudged Rudel with her elbow. Rudel had excellent grades and came from one of the Three Dukes… There was no way he could possibly be unpopular!

“That is an extremely difficult problem. I did consider dating several women at once, like my father does…”

“You actually considered that?!”

Izumi’s eyes became more serious than usual, and her voice sharpened at the end. Even Rudel could tell that she seemed somewhat angry with him.

“I decided it would be impossible for me. I don’t have the time, and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do… Trying to handle several women at once is unthinkable.”

“R-right… You’re missing the point a little, but since you’re Rudel, I suppose it’s fine… Wait! Of course it isn’t! What about your feelings? Don’t things like liking or disliking someone matter?”

Rudel certainly had people he liked and disliked. However…

“Someone in my position doesn’t have the freedom to decide based on whether I like someone or not. It’s normal to marry the person your parents choose for you, and if I happened to have someone I loved, I’d have to ask her to become my mistress. …And that isn’t exactly an admirable relationship.”

What he meant was: would he really condemn the woman he loved to live in the shadows? Even in Courtois, there was prejudice against women who became lovers or mistresses. That was precisely why nobles of Courtois often could not marry the people they truly loved.

“You’re right… I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize. As long as I can come to love the woman my parents choose for me, there won’t be any problem. …If possible, anyway.”

Rudel explained it to Izumi with the air of making a joke. Yet although Rudel was certainly interested in women’s bodies, he could not remember ever having fallen in love. Rather… he had never fallen in love at all.

That was deeply “unnatural,” as though there was something “deliberately engineered” about it.

Ever since arriving at the academy, Chlust had found himself troubled by his older brother, Rudel. As the younger brother of Rudel, who was notorious for causing problems, even the teachers regarded him warily. On top of that came his brother’s academic record… Rudel surpassed him in everything and seemed practically flawless. Yet his practical-training results were poor.

According to the more malicious students, that meant Rudel was “buying his grades.” Chlust himself believed the rumor and had thought his brother’s affairs had nothing to do with him. But if the older brother was doing it, would people really believe the younger brother was not…? Most people would naturally assume the younger brother was buying his grades as well.

Because of that, Chlust began to feel that his own abilities were not being judged fairly. He came to hate his older brother even more intensely than he had back home… and that hatred would eventually create even greater problems for Rudel.

That was because Chlust’s behavior toward those around him gradually became another source of Rudel’s bad reputation. Just as he had while living with the Arses family, Chlust looked down on commoners and other races. As his hatred for Rudel deepened, that behavior only became worse.

Together with the students who had gathered around him because of his status, Chlust began running rampant throughout the academy.

‘And those were precisely the actions the original Rudel had once committed.’

Had second-year Rudel not dreamed of becoming a Dragoon, he would have been the worst kind of man. He skipped classes, caused trouble for everyone around him, and always had women in his room whom he had paid for… He surrounded himself with rough students and rampaged through the academy.

Then, after losing to the protagonist in the tournament, he vented his frustration by ordering Izumi to attack the protagonist, only for her to refuse him… He was absolute trash. And that incident became the trigger for the next event.

Fina, known as the “Doll Princess,” condemned him for his actions… and in a rage, he ended up laying hands on the princess. As a result, Rudel became someone everyone at the academy treated like a dangerous nuisance. He switched from the five-year course to the two-year course and quietly left the academy.

For the sake of preserving appearances, he was at least granted the qualifications of a knight. He would later reappear during the war arc—that was the original role of the character known as Rudel.