443 – The Reason I Wish to Become King -2-

Teams were formed.

Thanks to the absence of a single reluctant soul, there were no complications in their arrangement.

I’d feel the same, truth be told.

Ruin and Schoen.

Mikhail and Yuria.

Baylin and Hannah.

And finally, Shartia and myself.

The pairings were a touch…peculiar.

Putting mages with mages.

Pairing an assassin with a swordsman. But there was no guarantee that combat would find you beside a perfectly complementary partner. Hence the slightly… off-kilter team formations, an intentional design of sorts.

These were not people who would fall easily.

“Ahem.”

At the crossroads, I looked upon them, ablaze with zeal, and imparted one final piece of crucial advice. Safety first, and safety always.

“Everyone.”

“…”

“If it looks like you can’t win, you must retreat.”

“…”

“Taking first place and claiming the treasure I hold is important, but nothing is more important than your lives.”

Whether she truly heard my words or not, Shuen, burning with resolve, nodded enthusiastically, her eyes shining.

“No more, no less, you have to catch 10 of ’em!”

“Hey, you don’t call a person ‘of ’em’. You say ‘people’.”

“Shut it, Seaweed!”

“…Seriously.”

After a brief exchange with Shuen, Ruin turned, looking at the passageway where a chilling wind was blowing and said,

“Then we’ll go to the center.”

“Seaweed-ssi and Shuen-ssi, are you going to the center?”

“I have a good feeling.”

Seeing Ruin’s playfully charming smile, Shuen clenched her fist and shouted.

“Don’t smile so creepily! And why are you deciding on the center without consulting me?!”

“Just trust my intuition today. My luck’s been good lately.”

“Don’t give me that crap!”

“…”

Yuria and Mikhail took a step towards the passageway from which a humid breeze was blowing and said,

“Yuria and I will go left, then.”

“Mikhail team, left. Understood.”

Finally, Hanna and Beylin began walking towards the last remaining right passageway and said to me,

“Then we’ll go to the right.”

“Understood.”

I threw them the signal flares I had prepared in my pocket as they departed. There weren’t any that registered on my senses, but just in case a strong adversary appeared, I told them not to hesitate to ask for help.

“If you’re in danger, just pull the cord below.”

Watching them leave, I turned to Shartia, reaching out my hand to guide her. Looking after pretty women was a butler’s virtue, after all.

“Shall we go then, too?”

Shartia looked at me with a puzzled expression. The others had already taken the branching paths; her expression asked where we were going.

“You weren’t going to side with Hanna?”

Perhaps Shartia had assumed I’d support the comparatively weaker students, but sadly, I had no intention of playing favorites. I simply said to Shartia, quietly,

“No, I am not.”

Our destination was set, you see.

“We will retrace our steps.”

It was drawing closer.

The killing intent to eliminate the pursuer who had invaded their nest.

“It will be… interesting.”

“…”

“Perhaps.”

Perhaps.

He would be there, I suspected.

The old nemesis who had haunted the princess’s nightmares.

*

“Yuria.”

The left passage of the sewer.

Mikhail, walking through the section thick with moss compared to the other tunnels, spoke, noticing Yuria’s tense expression.

“Something’s not right.”

Yuria seemed to know, quietly nodding and slowing her pace. She, too, found this unnerving silence suspicious.

Originally, the sewers teemed with life.

Cockroaches, fond of the stench, were commonplace, as were monstrous creatures such as ‘Giant Rats’ or even ‘Goblins’, forming small ecosystems within their watery burrows.

So much so that the Empire mandated that adventurers of a certain rank accompany sanitation workers during sewer cleanups. A harsh, developed ecosystem, that it was.

“…It’s too quiet.”

From the moment they entered the sewer, the absence of any sound had been unsettling.

Not the squeaks of mice, usually so common, nor the rustling of insects scurrying away from people.

“…”

Nothing could be heard.

Mikhail, having promised not to use the Holy Sword on this operation, placed his hand on the sword at his right hip and spoke to Yuria.

“It’s coming.”

With that, a step.

– Thud.

Two steps.

– Thud.

The instant the sound of someone’s footsteps echoed from beyond the sewer grate.

“Kheh…”

A man of immense bulk began to materialize before their eyes.

Showing no inclination to conceal his sheer size, the man clutched a massive staff studded with nails in one hand, and the neck of a rat in the other.

Just as Yuri’s gaze fell upon the dead rat’s tail dragging across the ground, the man unleashed a radiant smile, his voice dripping with mockery as he addressed Yuri and Mikhail.

“Well, aren’t you a pair of cuties.”

“…”

“Here I was expecting Imperial soldiers, and it’s just some adorable little kids.”

“…”

“All that tension for nothing.”

The man crushed the rat’s neck with a burst of pressure, a wet pop echoing in the confined space, and clicked his tongue. Simultaneously, the rat, its head and body now separated, fell limply from the man’s grip to the ground.

“Oi!”

The man, now smeared with droplets of blood, glared at the silent Mikhail and Yuri and roared.

“When an adult is speaking to you, why aren’t you answering?!”

“…”

“You impudent little shits, did you forget your manners?!”

“…”

“Doesn’t matter, kheh kheh… I was getting bored anyway.”

The man, clad in a prisoner’s uniform, slowly advanced toward Mikhail and Yuri, his grip tightening brutishly on the staff in his hand.

As if the slivers of flesh clinging to the nails were to be your shared fate.

“The ones who came for the bounty on my head were no fun.”

“…”

“Just squawking and pathetic… So boring I ground them into meat paste, and their friends couldn’t even whimper. Tsk tsk…”

“…”

“Oh…?”

Catching sight of Mikhail’s face, the man offered a sly smile, leaning closer as he spoke.

“You could have been alright if you had gone another way.”

“…The other one?”

“A fella lookin’ like a girl, for Christ’s sake. The guy over there’ll probably take a shinin’ to him.”

Along with the man’s snickering, a horrifying scream started echoing from the direction Ruin had gone.

“-SHEEEEEEEEIT!!!”

“…”

Mikhail, his eyes now cold, shed his previous demeanor as he spoke.

“Yuria.”

“…”

“Could I handle this one?”

Gone was the glint of twisted justice that usually filled his gaze.

“No.”

Likewise, Yuria.

“I’ll do it.”

Gone was the demanding gaze of unconditional devotion as she answered Mikhail.

Now that they had a target, there was no need for hesitation.

*

Ruin was flustered.

“Sh… shi… shiiiit…”

He was just as intensely flustered as he had been when Ricardo called him algae.

“What in the world IS this…”

Shuen, looking at the same scene as Ruin, had the most agitated look in his eyes he had ever shown.

“This is a disgrace to the nobility…”

“So…”

“It’s as disgusting as seeing…living algae!”

“Hey…”

Shuen ignored the feelings of the wounded algae and continued to speak. He couldn’t express what he was feeling, but he could describe the scene before them.

“How can a man!”

“Look away.”

“Is he wearing a… bunny girl outfit!!!”

Shuen, no longer seeing the prisoner’s garb, but rather an adult man flaunting his behind in a bunny girl costume, gasped and pointed a trembling finger.

“Burn him!”

“…”

“Hang him, I say!”

Already wretched enough from traipsing through this sewer, the sight of the man prancing about in nothing but his briefs filled Ruin with a revulsion so intense, he sighed a long, irritated breath and covered Shuen’s eyes.

“Cover your eyes.”

Unable to simply obey, Shuen retorted, “A lowly Green cannot touch nobility!” before once more launching into a tirade.

“You… If you’re a noble, I’ll kill you!”

“…”

“No. I’ll just kill you!”

From the shadows, the man, his backside still bared, began to approach, his bare feet squelching on the slick sewer moss.

“Heehee…”

He licked his lips, his gaze fixed on Ruin.

“Ughh heh heh he…”

His name was Gailo.

Ten years prior, he was the empire’s scourge, a murderer who had butchered forty souls with unspeakable cruelty, and earned the moniker [He Who Covets Azure].

Fixing Ruin with a steady stare, the man flexed his grotesque pectoral muscles, exhaling a long, raspy breath through his nostrils.

“Oh my~ You’re quite the looker.”

“…I’ll kill you.”

“So, you must be well-endowed down there, too, eh?”

“…”

“I’ll kill you.”

Just as a furious Ruin began to channel his magic, Shuen burst out, agitated.

“Don’t you dare harbor perverse desires for plant life!”

“Hey…”

Shuen’s words wounded Ruin even more.

Ruin clenched his fist, barely containing his annoyance.

“Cover me, Shuen.”

“Eh?”

“I’m going to castrate that b*stard.”

“…Is that your kind of thing?”

“No!”

Luin spoke, channeling mana into the tips of his fingers.

“I’ll show you.”

“…”

“How much this little Greenhorn underestimated by you lot has grown.”

With Luin’s cold words, his body began to move rapidly.

His target: the man’s windpipe.

Yearning for recognition, Luin wanted to prove himself today.