The Person You Must Not Anger

They were speaking in hushed voices.

They were saying they could not forgive that girl for getting carried away.

She had won the favor of an S-Class student and made them drop out with a cowardly tactic like a pitfall.

That nasty girl had to be beaten down no matter what it took.

“You girls are right. For the future of this country, it must not be allowed for commoners to excel.”

The one who said that was a glasses-wearing girl from S-Class.

“I have a plan. Will you cooperate with me?”

They nodded.

They brought the proposal to them.

The boys in E-Class agreed with the plan.

They believed that that stuck-up girl had to be given justice.

Making sure the teachers would not find them, they surrounded the timid girl.

They covered her mouth, bound her with rope, and carried her off to the deserted old school building.

They shoved an apple into her mouth, poured water over her head, and laughed.

Cheerful voices echoed through the silent old school building.

Before the final match of the special practical exam, during the last break.

Claris did not come to the bench in front of the clock tower where we were supposed to meet.

I looked up at the two sword-like hands of the historic clock tower and frowned.

“Why do you think she didn’t come?”

“Maybe something unavoidable came up? Like a teacher called her in or something.”

Kate said in a calm voice.

“Let’s do the meeting before the match. Otherwise we’ll be late for class.”

Prompted by her, I returned to the classroom.

The glasses-wearing girl—Camila—glanced at us for a moment with the corners of her mouth raised.

“Do you think something might have been done to her?”

When I said that in a low voice, Kate raised a hand to her mouth and said,

“I was thinking that too. Though, no matter what, I don’t think they’d really go that far.”

“Maybe it’s because we stood out too much in the preliminaries. There must be a lot of people who didn’t like the fact that we, who were dead last, came first in the prelims.”

“I hope she’s okay… I hope I’m just overthinking it.”

“I’m going to look for her.”

I moved to leave the classroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Camila stood in front of me.

“That has nothing to do with you.”

“Class is already about to start. Would you mind not disrupting class unity?”

It was at that moment that the bell announcing the start of class rang.

The teacher came in and told us to take our seats.

As I sat down in my seat, I examined the sense of unease inside me.

Why had she stopped me from leaving the classroom?

I still thought I had to confirm whether Claris was safe.

A friend was five hundred million times more important than some class like this.

“Teacher. My chronic spasms are acting up, so I’m going to the infirmary.”

Pretending to head to the infirmary, I made my way to the south wing where F-Class was.

I secretly peeked into the classroom from outside.

(Claris isn’t there.)

I had a bad feeling about this.

I assumed the worst-case scenario.

If those vile delinquents had taken Claris away, where would they have taken her?

“Mythia! Was Claris there?”

Kate came running over.

Apparently she had gotten worried and slipped out of class just like I had.

I asked whether there was anywhere suitable for taking someone.

“The old school building is probably the most likely place. I’ve heard that it’s a hangout for ill-behaved students.”

We headed for the old school building.

In one room, we found delinquent students laughing with disgusting voices.

Claris lay in the middle, bound tightly in straw wrapping.

It looked like they had sprayed her with a hose, and the area was soaked with water.

“Why are you here…?”

The delinquent students’ voices rose in panic.

They let their eyes wander as they thought about how to move.

“It’s fine. We didn’t bring a teacher.”

Once they confirmed that only Kate and I were there, their attitude suddenly grew much bolder.

“We’re teaching this stuck-up girl the attitude she ought to have.”

“It must never be allowed for a commoner to make nobles of the magical kingdom look bad. It’s common sense.”

The delinquent students surrounded me.

“Just because you got good results on the special practical exam, don’t get cocky. If there are no rules, we’re stronger than you.”

They were holding tools and blades in their hands.

I quietly looked back at them and said,

“Do you know that there are people in this world you must not anger?”

“People you must not anger?”

“That would be me.”

I slammed my magical pressure into them.

I covered the mouths of the boys whose legs had given out with small masses of water made with household magic.

“…………!”

The expressions of the delinquent students changed from surprise to anger, and then to fear.

After confirming that tears had welled in their eyes and that they were wearing frightened faces, I released the magic.

“Do you understand now? If you hurt my friend again, this will not be the end of it. You will regret it for the rest of your lives, so keep that in mind.”

I undid Claris’s restraints and used a spell that dried hair with warm air to warm her soaked body.

“That was frightening, wasn’t it? Are you okay?”

“Thank you, Sister…!”

“You seem surprisingly energetic.”

“This sort of thing has happened to me a lot since long ago.”

She had the kind of resilience that did not break despite her tendency toward misfortune.

I really thought she was the heroine after all, then turned back to the delinquent students.

“I don’t think you would do something this outrageous on your own. Weren’t you egged on by someone?”

“…………”

To the delinquent students, who closed their mouths and looked down, I said,

“If you don’t answer, you’re going to have a much scarier experience than before, you know?”

The delinquent students caved in easily and told us everything.

The culprit was Camila of S-Class.

Apparently, as harassment against me for hurting her pride, she had tried to make it so Claris could not participate in the preliminaries.

“I can’t believe she would go that far.”

Kate pressed her lips together, then said,

“Let’s tell the teachers. This is unquestionably a criminal act.”

We went to the staff room and told the teachers the details of this incident.

“Thank you for telling us. We will handle this matter ourselves, so please try not to talk about it to others.”

There was something oddly lacking in the teacher’s reply.

“That teacher is probably planning to cover it up.”

“There’s no way…”

Kate said that much, then lowered her face.

“Maybe so. My dad did bad things and hid them too.”

“But that may not be the truth either.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means there’s also a possibility that Kate’s father is being made to take the blame by someone. The adult world is quite filthy.”

I said,

“And that’s exactly why we can’t lose either. Let’s blow away every last one of their dirty backroom schemes and make everyone understand who the strongest really is.”

I told the two of them the strategy I had thought up.

Time passed in the blink of an eye.

When it was time to assemble, we lined up in the row of participating students formed in front of the labyrinth.

When Camila saw Claris standing beside me, her cheeks twitched.

“Did something happen that you weren’t expecting?”

“No, not at all.”

“Let’s have a fair and honorable match.”

I narrowed my eyes with sarcasm.

Camila said nothing, turned away, and walked off.

The one who approached as if taking her place was Prince Felix.

“You, um…”

“What is it?”

I had thought he would, as usual, mutter some insult under his breath, but apparently that was not it.

“It’s nothing.”

With that, he turned his back on me.

While I was tilting my head at how different he was acting from usual, it became time for the match to begin.

Following the strategy we had decided on in advance, the three of us ran to the center of the labyrinth and had Kate create a pitfall with earth magic.

(The problem is that the enemy most likely knows our hand. They should have prepared countermeasures, and Camila in particular may have taken some other step to win.)

If so, then the first target would be us.

They would surely want to finish us off in a situation where interference was as unlikely as possible.

I listened carefully and focused my awareness.

I could feel the presence of magic approaching.

Camila Reiss had prepared one strategy for the final round of the special practical exam.

It was a secret pact between the three teams belonging to S-Class.

They would join hands while taking care not to be found out, and jointly crush the troublesome team.

(It was good that I prepared this. I will be able to crush that transfer student who insulted me for certain.)

In addition, Camila had gathered information from students eliminated in the A-Block preliminaries about how Mythia’s team fought.

They obstructed visual information with rare light magic, dropped opponents into pitfalls made with earth magic, and then concentrated attack magic on them.

It was a cowardly tactic befitting that sly, nasty little runt, but if you knew the trick, countering it was simple.

She created walls with ice magic to block the light that obscured vision.

On top of that, she spread thick ice across the ground, nullifying the pitfalls.

The three girls, looking flustered, fled deeper inside, and the three teams cornered them while coordinating together.

(A dead end. Checkmate.)

She nullified the attack magic they desperately fired back with magical barriers.

The difference in power was obvious.

They already had the advantage in basic ability to begin with, and on top of that, they had three times the numbers.

(This is the end.)

Just as she was about to unleash the finishing attack magic, what she felt was a faint sense of discomfort.

(What… my arms and legs are going numb…?)

A numbness like when something had been pressed on for a long time made her body movements awkward.

When Camila looked around, what she saw were labyrinth plants growing in dense clusters all over the side passage of the labyrinth.

(Why are there so many labyrinth plants…?)

They were labyrinth plants that released pollen carrying a paralytic toxin that numbed the body.

Given the season, they should not have been releasing pollen now, and yet in reality, symptoms clearly caused by the pollen’s poison were appearing in her body.

Something cold ran down her spine.

(Could it be… we were lured in…!?)