Chapter 21: Deal Part 3

A few days later,

When all preparations had been completed,

“Ah!”

I let out a sigh before initiating the plan.

I really didn’t want to do this.

Why did I have to be the one to take on such a dangerous task?

But there was no avoiding it.

If I didn’t do it, things would become even more dangerous.

However…

“Once it starts, there’s no turning back.”

It would either succeed or fail.

The question was how effective the methods I had prepared would be, and how well things would move according to my will.

Since I had to act before Kult could make a move, the plan I had come up with was full of holes.

I hadn’t been able to grasp the full extent of Kult’s plan, and the only thing I could do was aim for the time before his plan began.

“The key to the plan is the traitor in Class F.”

I had made the first move.

I struck before Kult could use her as a pawn.

If I eliminated her early, then Kult’s preparations would collapse as well.

Another plan? That might exist.

But he probably wouldn’t have the capacity to carry it out. After all, Kult was an outsider, and his stay in the Cradle was limited.

This one act would change everything.

With this, I would finally be able to enjoy a peaceful school life.

“Let’s do this…”

I followed the plan.

Aside from the fact that I would carry it out today, I didn’t tell Ariel anything.

The key to the plan was to avoid raising suspicion.

If someone as close to Lobelia as Ariel started acting unusually, even the attacker would have no choice but to be cautious.

Ariel was simply in a position to be able to check my location at any time.

That was precisely why I had proposed a deal to her.

If she were involved in my plan, it would be harder for her to keep focusing on Lobelia’s side.

“Ugh. Do I really have to do this kind of thing just because I’ve become a noble?”

It was the time when darkness had settled in.

I stood on a deserted hill with a shovel in hand, digging into the ground.

The bait had been thrown.

If she didn’t attack me after seeing this, then there was nothing more I could do.

I had given Melana an opportunity.

How she chose to use that opportunity was entirely up to her.

But there was one problem…

There’s no way to avoid the first strike.

Me? Someone like me?

Avoiding or blocking an ambush from a skilled attacker in this kind of darkness?

That was impossible.

What’s more, Melana believed I was Lobelia’s informant.

Naturally, she would strike in a way that didn’t allow for even the slightest reaction.

Of course, I had a plan.

There had been no prior agreement, and it might turn out to be an act with no benefit, but I was half-sure of one thing.

“……”

I stopped digging.

The air had changed. The darkness before my eyes suddenly felt sharper, clearer.

At the same time, I realized it.

I glanced briefly behind me.

There, frozen in motion, was Melana who was swinging a large scythe down at me.

After confirming that image, I took a step back and turned my head again.

“You’ve arrived?”

Standing there was a demon.

Just like when we had first met, the demon appeared in the form of a black poodle. He was looking at me with a displeased expression.

The demon growled and spoke.

“You could’ve died.”

“No, I would’ve been fine. I knew you’d come.”

“What were you planning to do if I hadn’t? If I hadn’t stopped time and warned you, you wouldn’t have even realized your own death.”

“Haha! Would a demon of your caliber really give up on me that easily?”

I knew who the demon in front of me was.

Because I knew, I could be certain.

The ability to stop time.

The immense power to manifest his form without a contract.

And most decisively, the condition of the contract.

“Stop, O’ moment.”

A famous line from the play Faust.

And in that same play, there was one fool who gave everything to the protagonist Faust only to be completely taken advantage of.

His name was…

“Mephistopheles.”

I believed that someone like him, that much of a fool, would save my life without asking for anything in return.

Especially considering who he was up against.

If it was Mephistopheles, he was bound to hate Under Chain.

And with good reason. Because the head of Under Chain, the Great Sage, was none other than Faust himself, the very one who had made a fool out of Mephistopheles.

Fate had a cruel sense of irony.

The one who had tried so hard to lead others into corruption had ended up collapsing on his own.

“There won’t be a next time. I’m only falling for it once.”

“…Of course.”

Even if I called him a fool, he was still terrifying. I wondered what he thought when I mentioned his name.

Maybe it would’ve been better to act like I didn’t know anything instead of pretending I did.

Perhaps I’d gotten too excited, thinking everything was going according to plan.

“…What did you just do?”

Time started moving again, and Melana who had swung her scythe through the space where I’d been muttered in what seemed like fear.

To her, it might have looked like I’d moved at an impossible speed. But it was more than that.

I had moved while time was stopped.

Not that I was the one who stopped it, but still, that wasn’t exactly wrong.

“As if I’d tell you that.”

To be honest, I didn’t really understand the exact mechanism myself.

Still, bluffing like this was the only way to buy some time.

And sure enough, she froze.

Holding her stance, she began carefully observing my every move.

Yes, caution was key. The more cautious she was, the more slow her actions would become.

“Then die!”

I stretched out my arm toward Melana who was charging at me. I opened my fist as if to show her something.

Melana stared intently at the motion of my hand and remained on guard.

What emerged as my fist opened was light.

At best, it was no more than the brightness of a high-powered flashlight.

Still, given the darkness around us, there was no better way to disrupt her focused vision.

“What a pathetic trick…!”

Of course, in the end, it failed to blind her.

She wasn’t someone who had trained so carelessly that she’d shut her eyes over something like this.

It was expected. After all, the light wasn’t aimed at her to begin with.

Her scythe came swinging down. By the time I heard it cutting through the air, it was already too late.

I couldn’t even see the attack.

However, given the nature of a scythe, its range of motion was limited.

Clang!

I blocked it.

It wasn’t that I saw and reacted in time. I simply swung my sword toward the most likely angle of attack the moment she moved.

My wrist throbbed, and I felt my whole body being shoved back, but at least I hadn’t been cleaved in half.

“It’s over, Melana.”

Illusion magic was my specialty.

I couldn’t even cast basic spells like [Fireball], but I could use illusion spells up to the intermediate level.

The spell I had just released from my hand was called [Radiance] and [Kaleidoscope].

Light and refraction. A dual cast of the two foundational spells of illusion magic.

The spell shot up into the sky, scattering light in all directions.

It wasn’t bright enough to instantly bathe the world in light, but it was a dazzling laser show. One that anyone watching closely couldn’t possibly miss.

“I gave you a chance. You should’ve taken it when you had the chance.”

I had pushed and provoked Melana, but I did give her a chance.

That much, at least, was true.

I gave her a chance to surrender, but she was the one who threw it away.

“I could’ve reported everything about you directly to Her Highness, you know.”

That’s a lie.

I wouldn’t have done it.

Not because I sympathized with Melana, but because I was afraid of what Lobelia would demand in return. After all, just helping her once last time was enough to get me thrown into a face-to-face confrontation with Kult.

Getting rid of Melana early would take more than just brute force. It would require political scheming too, and a lot of it.

Eliminating Melana might be simple, but the fact remains. She’d inevitably draw the attention and opposition of the other imperial members.

That’s why I needed solid evidence. Not just suspicions or words, but undeniable proof.

And now, that proof had appeared.

Glinting green eyes. Hair stained a murky ash gray.

Signs that she had used dark magic.

Sure, it would all return to normal with time. But there’s no way she’d be given that kind of time.

“You used Under Chain. There’s no talking your way out of this now.”

“Shut up!!”

The large scythe came sweeping down again.

This time, I couldn’t block it.

Just stopping her first strike had already wrecked my wrist.

There wouldn’t be a second time.

Melana’s strength, powered by the chain, was far beyond what I’d accounted for.

Well, not that it mattered much. This was just a bonus stage, after all.

I still had my trump card.

“Urgh?!”

Lightning struck from a clear sky—

A bolt of light crashed down on Melana.

And then floating gently down from above and perched on her staff, came the girl who had summoned it.

“Seriously, Sir Johan? You can dual-cast, but you can’t even use [Fireball]? How does that make any sense?”

Ariel started scolding me the moment she arrived.

“And don’t you think your plan was a bit sloppy? If I’d been even a little later, you might’ve lost a limb, you know?”

“That’s how plans go. Unexpected situations always come up.”

It seemed like she arrived almost at the exact moment I cast my spell.

I had no idea how she got here so fast—

She was basically a monster.

Still, in the end, my plan worked.

It was clumsy and rough, sure, but a result is a result. That’s what counts.

The important part?

I knew I wouldn’t die. That’s all.

“You sure you can’t use your ability?”

“I told you, I can’t.”

If I were, I would’ve gotten out of that situation way more easily.

And it wasn’t like I could dual-cast because I was some kind of prodigy.

It wasn’t because I had any deep understanding of illusion magic either.

I was just average.

This was more like… a leftover trace of some former ability.

“Hmm… I still don’t buy it…”

Ariel just kept staring at me with suspicion.

She kept treating me like some kind of con artist. What did I even do?

She was the one who got fooled.

But now she was blaming me for it like it was my fault. I didn’t trick anyone.

“Hah… So it really was a trap. I knew it… I knew it, and yet…”

And then, from the spot where the lightning had struck,

Melana slowly rose to her feet.

It looked like a direct hit, but she was tougher than she seemed.

“Miss Melana. Surrender. If you do it now, we can still keep this quiet.”

Even now, with things as bad as they were, Ariel still offered mercy.

But shouldn’t she ask me first if we’re going to let her off the hook?

I’m the one who got hurt.

“You know I can’t give up, young lady.”

“….…”

Ariel shook her head with a troubled look on her face.

It was the kind of shake that said she wasn’t planning to show any more mercy either.

She adjusted her grip on her staff.

“You two knew each other?”

“Yes, a little.”

“I see. Good luck, then.”

“…Sir Johan, you’re colder than I expected.”

“What could someone like me possibly say when I hardly understand anything?”

They had to solve their problems on their own. All I needed was to get through this moment.

I took a step back.

Just as I had always wished, I stepped down from the stage and into the audience.

“I envy you, young lady.”

“…Melana.”

The walking corpse who was crying tears of blood spoke. The white rabbit looked at her and began chanting a spell while drawing a magic circle.

“If I had that much power, I wouldn’t have had anything to regret back then!”

“No, everyone has regrets.”

Ariel was colder and more resolute than I had expected.

Was it because I had always thought of her as fragile? It was quite surprising.

Boom!

From the magic circle floating in the air, a spear of steel flew out, and flames danced along her staff.

Magic twisted the air, combining with the psychic force known as telekinesis, pressing down on Melana as if the spells were alive.

No matter how much power Melana borrowed from the chains, she couldn’t win against Ariel head-on. At this point, Ariel was even stronger than Lobelia.

“Kyaaagh!”

Eventually, Melana let out a sound that could have been a scream or a shriek of agony as she rolled across the floor. She swung her scythe again and again but couldn’t even get close to Ariel.

She scratched at the ground over and over, trying to stand, but Melana seemed to have exhausted all her strength and collapsed.

“It’s over.”

Ariel looked at her pitiful state without a hint of hesitation.

It was over.

It should have been.

“Hrrgh…!”

That was until Melana pulled out a new chain from her robes.

“What?”

This was the one thing no one had anticipated.

The group known as “Under Chain” all possessed soul rings.

One ring meant one life.

And the thing created by weaving those rings together was the chain.

Because of that, the chain was bound to be powerful.

It was thanks to that power that Melana, who belonged to Class F, had managed to hold her ground against Ariel.

However…

“You’ll die, Melana. If you die like that, you won’t even find peace.”

Ariel spoke in a cold voice. It was, in her own way, an act of mercy.

As powerful as the chains were, they came with an enormous burden. It was like forcing another person’s soul into oneself.

There was no way anyone could withstand that.

“Death is…”

Even so, Melana did not hesitate to grip the chain.

“…just another path.”

A shrill, ghostly wail rang out.

The chain woven from seven rings dug into Melana’s hand.

Ash-gray hair, green eyes.

And this time, the hand gripping the chain began to turn black with necrosis.

The signs of her limit were already showing.

“Only death can end eternal sorrow.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Gripping her scythe with arms turned black, Melana rose to her feet like a broken puppet and pushed off the ground.

Seeing her like that, Ariel changed the type of magic she was using.

It was deadly magic, stripped of even the slightest mercy.

“No! It has to be this way!!”

At last, Melana charged toward Ariel.

A black aura trailed behind her like a tail.

Death followed in her trail.

Even so, Ariel calmly aimed her staff at Melana.

There was no miracle.

Overwhelmed by power she couldn’t control, Melana failed to contain it, and Ariel, with unwavering composure, began to destroy everything that made Melana who she was.

The outcome was decided even faster than in the previous battle.

Melana collapsed to the ground in a pitiful state, and Ariel prepared to finish what she had started.

And that’s when the anomaly occurred.

Clang!

Dawnlight. A single beam of brilliant light blocked Ariel’s path.

Ariel, who had worn a cold expression from beginning to end, wavered for the first time.

And Melana who had been lying collapsed was no different. She too was shaken.

I, however, could only let out a sigh.

“So in the end, this is how you chose to use the chance I gave you?”

Kult had approached the students to uncover the traitor in Class F.

Following in Kult’s footsteps, I spoke to every student in Class F.

As a result, I was able to identify Melana as the traitor.

And because of that…

“Jeff.”

I drew closer to someone named Jeff.

He had been the first to realize Melana’s betrayal.

And he was…

“It was something I decided on six months ago. When Rain asked me to protect Melana, I said I would.”

A fool who was stubbornly keeping a promise made by a friend long since dead.

“I keep my promises. I decided not to think about anything else.”

The dawn’s radiance.

A knight blessed in the name of Paradise stood with his back to the shadows.