RATH 95
TL: Eevee
11. Not a myth, but a legend (8)
#8 Their story: The beginning of a legend.
“Although those that saw the magic video recording will know… But just in case anyone doesn’t. The pres betrayed Yugrasia for his lover in Arucia.”
As Risen faced the twelve people in front of him, they in turn had a seriousness to them that differed from the norm.
“Yes, just for a woman… just for his own selfish sake… the pres, no, Nerkia betrayed our hopes and dreams of victory in the imperial festival!”
Risen would always call anyone of importance by their t.i.tles, yet this time, instead of his t.i.tle, he called out Nerkia not as the president, but by name.
That meant that he no longer recognised Pres as the president.
Moreover, since as the vice-president, Risen had the right to impeach the president, this was even more meaningful.
“The pres we know, is no more. He’s dead! All that remains is Nerkia… the traitor!”
Although it was quite something considering it was coming from Risen, the one who could arguably be said to be the cause of all this, but in this situation where our president had betrayed us, there was nothing to be gained from dividing us even further, so I kept my mouth shut.
“So, what are we going to do?”
In all honesty, if we were any other academy, the students would be in pandemonium right now.
No, if it were Yugrasia from just last year, we probably would have given up.
But Yugrasia right now had strong fighters that weren’t the president, and thanks to Professor Nicerwin’s teachings especially, we were all too familiar with betrayal.
Although it was truly ridiculous… Professor Nicerwin had been right all along!
And so although we didn’t fall into panic mode just because we lost our student council president…
But losing one of our key forces that commanded a Spirit King and countless other elementals was a very big loss.
And as an enemy, no less.
“Of course.”
And having fully understood the situation, Risen.
“We kill him.”
I take that back. I don’t think he does.
“Uh, the imperial festival prohibits killing?”
“What does that matter. He betrayed us, he abandoned us…do you think we could just leave alone the pres that chose a woman over us?!”
As Risen ground his teeth in anger, howling like a beast, I stared at him and asked.
“You jealous?”
“Yep.”
Risen nodded.
And the number of people that nodded along with Risen was… ten?
That’s everyone else except for me? Plus, Lady Aris is included among the twelve as well?
“Is, is that how it works?”
As I looked at everyone who looked resentful of something, I started to wonder just why the heck was I even here.
“And so… we will kill Nerkia! Judgement on the filthy couple!”
“Judgement!”
“Judgement!”
“Judgement!”
The people that raised their weapons, shouting for judgement were filled with zealotry.
But, uhh… Why are you doing it as well, Lady Aris?
You weren’t that kind of person?!
“Very good, very good! I have heard your resolve. Now, take this cloak. This is the proof of us, the special unit, designed to infiltrate the enemy without being discovered!”
“…There’s nothing on it?”
“Ah, of course. We need you to make it for us, Reedan.”
“So this is why you called me?”
I finally realised why I was chosen to be one of the twelve.
“Here, will this do?”
“Great work, Reedan. It’s a brilliant robe befitting the darkness of the student council!”
“I feel like I’m the underbelly of the student council whenever you say that though…”
It was a suspicious nickname, but the truth was far more mundane.
That nickname stuck to me simply because I was contracted to a darkness elemental, an extremely rare type that not even Nerkia had contracted with.
My abilities were limited to simply manipulating darkness to make a robe specialised for stealth, or short-range instant transition between shadows.
Since I hadn’t made any contracts with any high-rank elementals, just medium-rank ones, I didn’t offer much in the way of sheer power, so my roles was literally the support of the other student council members.
“Right, then let’s hurry up and end this.”
Because of that, after I understood my job, my work was done quickly.
Because the robe made with the power of a darkness elemental, it would dissipate when it was a certain distance away from me. So I had to follow along, but there wasn’t all that much I had to do.
I simply had to transport them without the students from other schools noticing, dispose of the president, and return.
Although I personally had no hard feelings against Pres… no, rather, I was actually feeling sorry for him, but making an enemy of a contractor of a Spirit King in a team battle was a greater enemy than anyone else.
I don’t want to get hit by the silver devil any more.
I would transport myself through the shadows, yet the silver devil would reach her hand into the shadows, drag me out by force and beat me up.
The embodiment of all the injustice of the world.
To not have to fight against the silver devil any more, we had to become victorious in the imperial festival, and in order to achieve that, we were prepared to defeat anyone we had to.
“Alright, then… Lady Aris and Lady Siir will take on the president, Risen and everyone else, support Lady Aris and make sure the enemy can’t approach them. I will keep watch over the situation from here and prepare for our escape.”
Far away in the distance, I could see the castle that Pres had destroyed.
I stealthed myself in the shade of a nearby tree, and to take Pres out in a single attack, prepared for a sneak…
“Dieeeeeeee!”
Attack that didn’t exist!
The first attack was the throwing of a spear embued with a ma.s.sive amount of aura!
Moreover, Lady Aris was dual-wielding a sword in each hand, that she hadn’t even used in her fight with Mereldra ril Reil, Arucia’s strongest student.
“Surely, they wouldn’t actually kill him?”
The spear blew the castle doors off their hinges, every time her twin blades cut through the air, the three metre giant castle walls – even if they had been a rush build just for the imperial festival – were destroyed instantly.
“Charge, kill the traitor!”
And running through the annihilated castle walls, Risen and the other student council members charged in as if they were fully intent on killing Pres!
“Hopefully I don’t end up as an accessory to some murder plan…”
As I looked over the battlefield, I felt a faint sense of unease, and I used my natural trait of having little presence – for the better or the worse – in addition to the power of my darkness elemental as I carefully made my way over to the fighting.
“Die!”
“Wait, Lady Aris? I really will die?”
As giant lightning bolts met crimson sword auras, I beheld a scene from legends in my eyes.
“I’m f.u.c.ked if I head over there.”
I nodded and snuck away.
I saw Risen’s truly disgusting style of fighting as he cornered a female student.
“Die, die, dieee!”
“Hahaha, if you focus on other people then you will never get past me, Lady Nermia!”
If you were to only hear about how he dodged the spells that were thrown at him like a tempest as he successfully held down his opponent it would sound like a perfectly textbook fight, but his actions were the pinnacle of indecency.
“Hahaha, I saw them again!”
“I’ll seriously kill you!”
With a glare not dissimilar to the ones that our other vice-president Karen so often gave Risen, Marcis’s greatest danger factor, Lady Nermia was raging at Risen.
Well of course it would be obvious why.
The moment she made a slightly exaggerated movement he’d look under her skirt, there would be no female that wouldn’t get p.i.s.sed off by that.
“Alright, her movements have gotten duller! Attack her now and finish her!”
“Surtr, actually kill them all!”
Lady Nermia’s face was flushed bright red as she pushed her skirt firmly down with one hand as she summoned the fire giant.
Alright, let’s not go there either.
If I was taken to be one of their comrades, it felt that my life which already had no lovers, would continue to stay like that for the rest of it.
What I saw was the textbook example of why Risen, who as long as he kept his mouth shut was at least as good-looking as the president, still didn’t have a girlfriend.
And so as I was about to sneak out of the castle, something unbelievable came to register in my ears.
“I had no choice, Lady Aris. For their happiness… for my happiness with them! I bet my everything!”
“That’s pres’s problem! Does that mean our promise to be victorious at the imperial festival and be free from the night study mean nothing to you then?!”
“That’s…”
Nerkia faltered over his words with a pained expression, as someone said.
“Yes, that is not the important thing right now.”
That someone being me.
“Huh?”
“Senior Reedan?”
It seemed that both Pres and Lady Aris were surprised to see me appear all of a sudden.
“Oi, Nerkia. I think I heard something odd in your speech just now… Just now, did you say ‘their’?”
“Y, yes?”
Nerkia seemed quite shocked to see me for some reason, but undoubtedly not as shocked as I was.
“Everyone in the student council knows you have a lover. But ‘their’? How many is that?”
“Uh, um… Senior Reedan? I don’t think now’s the time to…”
“Now is the time.”
“Yes…”
Lady Aris took a step back at my reply.
Odd. She looked like she’d seen something that scared her.
“Oi, speak up, Nerkia. Including the Arucia vice-president, how many lovers do you have?”
“I, uh… two at Arucia, one at Marcis… one senior that’s already graduated and another little sister(1) that hasn’t yet enrolled in any of the academies…”
“And how old is said little sister that hasn’t yet enrolled?”
“Fif… teen…”
For some reason, Pres was starting to take distance from me much like Lady Aris had.
But right now, I wasn’t in any situation to take notice of that.
I looked at my tightly clenched left fist, and my right hand with all five fingers unfurled.
My left hand represented the number of lovers I’d had my entire life, and my right hand was the number of Nerkia’s current lovers.
…that p.i.s.sed me off a bit.
And just then, although it would be a poor way to describe a voice… I heard a dark, black voice in my mind.
-I understand you.
A foreign voiced that seemed to whisper into my ear.
But to me, it felt all too familiar.
-Well of course. I am the same existence as the emotion running through you right now. Now, let me ask. Are you angry?
Angry?
Of course I was angry.
The reason I was perfectly fine at the president’s betrayal, even when Risen and the others were practically baying at the moon, wasn’t because I didn’t know how to get angry.
My boiling point was simply higher than everyone else’s.
And so even when everyone else was enraged, I could remain calm.
Because it took a lot, lot more than everyone else to make me angry.
But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t angry.
Just that the point where I visibly expressed my anger was higher than everyone else’s… and when it burned, it burned hotter and more fiercely than anyone else!
-This rage… this is the first time I’m feeling the likes of it. It’s so beautiful. It is no ordinary anger, quick to burn and quick to cool. An anger that burns slowly, yet burns more intensely than anyone else! This was the anger I wanted!
The moment I felt the ecstasy within that voice (which seemed somewhat at odds with its dark nature) flow through me, I turned my eyes to Nerkia and said.
“I need power.”
“R, Reedan?”
“To execute that motherf.u.c.ker.”
Nerkia’s face twisted as he recognised me as an enemy proper.
-Very well. I will give you power. To thee who possesses pure and righteous rage. To my first ever contractor, since the creation of this world!
-The price?
-Ahh. The anger, that so bewitched me. That is more than enough. Rage, and rage even more!
The price was simple. But its power was more than enough to turn the tables onto Nerkia.
As a student of the summoner’s academy, there was no reason for me to not make a contract with as good of an opportunity as this.
“Very well, on my name, Reedan Rekein, I will entrust my anger to you.”
“d.a.m.n it, what the h.e.l.l did you just make a contract with, Reedan?”
In response to my words, Nerkia summoned high-rank wind and water elementals in order to strike me down, but his attacks were all stopped by Lady Aris.
And.
-Kahahahaha! Indeed, this is my first contract since this world took form. Nice to meet you, master of anger! My name is Wrath. Wrath, the one who rules over Wrath of the Seven Deadly Sins! The ones most primordial and instinctive among the Spirit Kings. As one who rules over emotion, I am a Spirit King of Emotion!
As Wrath spoke, the world became dyed in darkness.
And thus, I… became the true darkness of Yugrasia’s student council.
And for the first time ever, I found out that even outside of the materials and nature of the world, spirits also existed within emotions.