The Reason I Can’t Afford To Give Up

“So they got away.”

Looking toward the side passage, Roy Edwilde said that.

His face was expressionless, like a machine.

Then he clenched and unclenched his hand, confirming the numbness in his body.

“What was that just now?”

The one who said it was Felix.

With a body that was still tingling, he approached Roy and grabbed his shoulder.

“Answer me. What was that just now?”

“My magic.”

“You used something, didn’t you? You can’t fool my eyes.”

“I used nothing.”

“If you do not answer, I will ask my father to have you removed.”

“…………”

After falling silent, Roy said,

“It was the first-class relic ‘Thunderflower Pendant.’ It doubles the power of the lightning magic cast by its user.”

“That level of power shouldn’t come from merely doubling it.”

“It has been enhanced, adjusted, and enchanted by craftsmen in royal service. Even I do not know the exact amount of the increase.”

“Bringing magic tools in is prohibited. This is an exam, so it should be faced fairly and under equal conditions.”

“Your Highness knows better than anyone that that is nothing more than a façade.”

Roy spoke in a flat tone.

“This academy proclaims complete meritocracy because that raises its value as a title. Some students are given preferential treatment out of sight. Your Highness should know better than anyone that it is no coincidence that the students whose donations to the academy are large all achieve above-average grades.”

“Even so, this clearly violates the academy’s rules.”

“I have the headmaster’s permission. Reporting it would be pointless. The auditing body is on our side as well.”

Roy shook his head, then continued.

“It is all the will of my father and the royal family. In order to preserve the authority of the royal house, you must continue to demonstrate that you possess outstanding talent.”

“I’m my brother’s spare. I won’t actually become king.”

“Even so. As the Council of Three Hundred, whose roster includes the most powerful nobles, grows in influence, the situation is more pressing than it was when the Second Prince was in his teens.”

“My brother really was the top student at the academy through his own abilities.”

Felix let out a deep breath.

“My father has given me strict orders to do whatever it takes to keep you seated in first place in the year.”

“Even if it means trampling those who worked honestly?”

“This world was unfair and unequal from the beginning.”

Roy said in a cold voice.

That was true, Felix thought.

From the moment he was born, he had been bound in chains.

“You may choose whatever you like,” his mother said.

But when he chose what he truly liked, his mother’s face clouded over.

His father’s face clouded over too, and so did the faces of the adults.

When he said, “Then I’ll go with this instead,” and chose something he did not like, everyone was pleased.

He had felt that he had to live that way.

Everything had to be in the way most convenient for his father the king and for the royal family.

He walked earnestly, careful not to step off the path.

But deep down, he knew.

His brother, who was publicly known as a playboy, was in truth more capable and more highly expected than anyone else.

And surely those rumors had been spread as a warning to the faction trying to split the country in two by backing him as the next king.

In the end, there was sadly nothing at all in him.

Neither his brother’s excellence nor his freedom.

Even trying to associate with the transfer student his brother had taken an interest in as an act of defiance had changed nothing.

His heart sank.

His emotions died.

This was fine, he thought.

He would become the doll everyone wanted.

“All right. I’ll do as you say.”

Felix said that.

The light had vanished from his eyes.

Claris had saved me, and I had somehow managed to survive, but the situation was so severe that I hardly wanted to think about it.

I had to fight a three-person team battle alone.

I kept fleeing from the other teams attacking me with all my might, somehow protecting myself.

As time passed, the barrier at the outer edge contracted and the combat area narrowed, making escape even more difficult.

Burying myself inside the pitfalls Kate had left behind to hide, or curling up like a caterpillar inside the labyrinth’s tiny side passages, I somehow continued to survive.

Thanks to the shameless ways I had fled and hidden, my hair had dirt on it and my uniform had become terribly filthy too.

(This is such hopeless behavior for a splendid villainess…)

I felt a little down, but then,

(No, wait. Being driven into adversity and ending up looking shabby is actually rather villainess-like, isn’t it!?)

and I recovered my spirits.

More than anything, what mattered was not outer beauty, but the nobility of the heart.

If one possessed an excellent soul, shabby clothes would not shake them.

The splendid villainess I admired also worked quite doggedly behind the scenes.

Above all, I had a reason I could not afford to give up no matter how dire the situation became.

“If tomorrow, if I can do as well as I did today… If I can feel like I might be able to make it at this school too, then I think I’ll tell my mother I won’t transfer. A lot of the paperwork is already moving along, so it might cause trouble. But still, I think I’ll try to be brave.”

At this rate, Kate would surely transfer away.

If I wanted us to stay together, then I had to bring back a result big enough to make her feel like she might be able to make it at this school too.

(If I win, the situation will change.)

At this academy, the school culture was such that better grades directly affected the school caste.

In Kate’s case, there was also the problem with her father, so it might not be simple, but even so, there should at least be a chance to keep her here.

In front of the rooftop at dusk.

That day when the two of us stood side by side and talked.

Kate’s words, which she had spoken as if opening a secret box, echoed back to me.

“But right now, school is a little fun. When I’m with you, Mythia, I can forget the unpleasant things. Maybe it’s because, unlike the others, you’re not two-faced. Everyone else’s gaze scared me, but yours doesn’t.”

She had said that to me, my very first friend at school.

I did not want to lose her.

(Besides, if I win, then the bullying of Claris should end too.)

A friend who had thrown herself in harm’s way to save me.

Because of the strength of those two, I was here now.

I was not alone.

Even if I was by myself, I was not alone.

(The problem is what to do about Roy Edwilde.)

The trap using the labyrinth plants had definitely worked.

Even though his spell formula had become distorted, the power of the attack magic that was unleashed had clearly been abnormal.

(There’s probably something I don’t know about.)

I did not know what it was.

It might be overwhelming talent, or he might be cheating in some way.

(But that’s fine.)

I did not particularly dislike a method that refused to choose its means.

What I did dislike was that, if it really was cheating, then the school itself was involved in it.

The adults were dragging children into it and forcing them into bad methods.

“Please yield the victory to Prince Felix in the final match. We ask for your appropriate consideration.”

That was the weak and uncool kind of evil I hated.

And because of that, I would crush it with cool, genuine evil.

(If I’m going to defeat those two by myself…)

I began to think up a strategy.