Running Away From The Hero! (Remake)

RATH 46

TL: Eevee

6. Hell is just beginning. (7)

#10 Their story: A certain student council president’s story

“We’re done for. We couldn’t even break through our own floor this week.”

“Damn it, it’s unfair that we have a Spirit King as our opponent.”

“Oi, Nerkia. Isn’t it about time for you to power up like some novel protagonist and summon a Spirit King or something? Your nickname is ‘the elemental army,’ you gotta have a commander somewhere in there.”

“Say something sane for once, you lunatics.”

After class, student council meeting room.

Time 5:30 PM.

Just this time last year, the majority of us would have left school, met our girlfriends or hung out with our friends, but now we were meeting in the student council room.

The student council meetings that were held around once a month because we couldn’t be bothered with it became part of daily life since Professor Nicerwin came to the academy.

Because the students without a club had something called after school study awaiting them!

They’re already forcing us to study under the name of night study as it was, and they’re filling up the time between class and night study as a freaking after school activity! Are they thinking of making us into studying machines!

“Alright, under the excuse of observing club activities, we’re going to check out the outdoor clubs and run away from there.”

“Moron, do you think the outdoor club kids wouldn’t have tried that? After five o’clock the silver devil is on standby in front of the school gates. When I went to see last week, there were a whole pile of corpses that got done in sprawled out across the field.”

“Let’s jump the gates. We don’t have to go through the main entrance when we can just jump over the gates!”

“We already have people who tried that. The walls themselves are fortified to at least the level the academy itself is, so let alone direct charges, it can even snipe down summons that can fly in the air.”

“Wait seriously, what kind of academy is a fortress? I reckon even if the castle walls were broken through you could probably hold out in the academy?”

“The problem is that we’re trapped in that fortress.”

We call it a student council meeting, but in reality what we were doing was planning how to run from the night study.

But with the mass forfeit of the first and second years, any realistic hopes of running from the night study were pretty much nonexistent.

So we tried to anything and everything at our disposal including some dubious means, but none of them worked.

“Damn it, so do we have to break through the bars in the windows after all?”

“What the heck is that even made of if even a high ranking fire spirit can’t melt it? Heck, when we come back the next day even the scratches we put on it are gone, is someone changing them overnight or something?”

“Damn it, those evil dwarves, making something like that in the academy.”

“The Black Anvil clan? They sound pretty reliable though. If they’re a clan that can make something like that, their weapons seem like they’d be pretty good.”

Bang!

A massive thud cut through the idle chatter of the student council room.

“Risen?”

The source of the sound, the one who slammed down on the table and stood up was none other than the student council’s male vice-president Risen.

The man they called the Trickster, who until just this year had been the only god-class summoner in Yugrasia!

And that man shouted in a brazen face befitting a god-class summoner.

“Can’t we just destroy the academy and run?!”

And all of us thought.

-Is he insane?

Destroy the academy? What sort of lunacy was that meant to be?

No matter how much we hated the night study, but destroying the academy and running?

In that case then there would be no academy for us to learn from tomorrow, then we can’t attend class, then we can’t come to school.

…Then we don’t have to do the night study!

-G, genius!

Everyone’s thoughts came into alignment. That’s the Trickster for you!

Now all we have to do is destroy the acad…

“Wait a second! That’s not right!”

In the absolute last moment, my remaining fragments of reason barely managed to calm my inner demon.

“Then, just breaking through the floor would work.”

“Eh, that might actually be possible…”

But our reliable trickster immediately gave us another idea to work with!

“Alright, then today’s plan is to break through the floor as soon as we start and going all the way to the first floor!”

“Or as an alternative, what about breaking the ceiling and heading out through the rooftop?”

“That’s a good idea too!”

As we planned new strategies, and made preparations for the upcoming night study for our great holy war, it was then.

Slam!

“We don’t need any of thaaaat!”

“Lady Aris?”

As Lady Aris appeared by slamming the door open as if to break it, she told us something that shocked us – no, would shock all of Yugrasia.

“Professor Nicerwin said he would remove the night study!”

“What?!”

“Is, is that true, Lady Aris?”

“Conditions? There’s no way that man wouldn’t set out conditions for that!”

“Demon king? Do we need to take the head of the demon king in the demon continent to get rid of the night study?!”

“No, it could be world conquest. Alright, so do we need to start the second continental war today?”

Although it was pure nonsense, I was thinking that although world conquest might be difficult, assassinating the demon king might be doable.

Was I the lunatic, or was the night study the lunatic!

“He said he would remove it if we became victorious in the imperial festival. And he asked me to call for the student council president to discuss the matter with him.”

Of course, winning the imperial festival is difficult. The competition between the empire’s Four Great Academies, also known as the Academy Festival, are at such high levels you wouldn’t think that the participants were students.

And that is why they call them the four academies that represent the empire, and is another reason why it is so popular among the many competitions in the imperial festival.

Last year, Yugrasia suffered total defeat in the imperial festival, and that’s already been the case for the last ten years.

The reality was that only a minority among the student council barely eked out a few individual wins.

“…Just that?”

But this is different.

Our enemies are merely a bunch of brats playing school. A bunch of children that aren’t even at school for half the time we are, that barely know of the letter ‘s’ in study!

Lose? Us, to mere students?

We, who challenge the teachers every day?!

“I’ll go and make the contract right away!”

Defeat is non-existent. Because of that I boldly sought out Professor Nicerwin and obtained confirmation that we would be freed from night study if we won the imperial festival.

This is a contract with the devil.

In the future my name undoubtedly go down as someone who sold my soul.

But it can’t be helped. If I can get rid of the night study in my life, I can sell my soul however many times I have to!

And so the next day, at 5PM on the dot.

Normally this would be when school finished for the day, but now it’s become the time marking the beginning of night study.

And right now, every student that attended Yugrasia was currently assembled in the school’s auditorium.

“I believe that many of you will be unaware as to why we have gathered here.”

I said so without a word of explanation to the assembled students the moment I stepped up on the podium.

Thanks to that a small commotion rumbled through the hall, but I had to finish what I had to say.

Things would get quiet soon enough.

“Soon, the imperial festival will begin. And so I asked the teachers to gather all the students here to tell you this.”

Normally, students would begin preparing for the imperial festival after the summer holidays, when the second semester begins.

The only people who prepared for it before summer were the teachers and the student council who decided on some important balance measures between schools.

But, this time is different.

“I have obtained a document from Professor Nicerwin proclaiming that should we become victorious in the imperial festival, he will remove the night study.

As I expected, silence fell over the auditorium.

There were students who had frozen with their mouths hanging open, students who couldn’t hide their horror, and students that looked as if they couldn’t believe what they had just heard.

True, it wasn’t like I couldn’t blame them.

“This is the proof, a Geass Roll.”

Professor Nicerwin was meticulous. To think he would forge a contract with the famous Geass Roll!

“L, lies…”

It was not a very loud voice, but the silence of the auditorium allowed us to catch it.

Everyone was probably thinking the same thing.

Because even I was the same when I first heard it from Lady Aris.

But the truth of the matter is that a contract on the Geass Roll has been made that would end the night study if we won the imperial festival.

“It is not a lie.”

-W, woooooaaaaaahhh!

The silence broke and cheers rose up through the hall.

There were people rejoicing.

There were people crying.

There were people who had embraced each other and fallen to the ground just like that.

But among the all students.

None were thinking that Yugrasia could possibly lose!

“Arucia is strong. It is a place that has fostered many imperial knights, and is a holy land for swordsmen comparable to the strongest martial families in the empire.”

Arucia is strong. There is no doubting that.

No one will think that they are weak when they have won nearly every imperial festival so far.

“Marcis is also strong. They have connections with the Magic Towers, and the majority of their students are people who have connections with them from an early age.”

Marcis is also strong. The years that Arucia didn’t win were also the years that Marcis won. The only place that could consistently beat Arucia was Marcis.

“One can say Mercaria is also strong as well.”

In terms of brute strength they are weak. However what they honed was not their martial abilities but their knowledge.

It was not unheard of for them to, very occasionally, win a match or two with nothing but pure strategy alone.

Meaning in the end, none of the three academies that we are up against are weak.

“Well, that’s that. So what?”

-Uwooooooooo!

There was no reply. Only roars. But that was more than enough.

“The enemy is strong, but even so, they are but ordinary students.”

If it was last year, we would think of this as an impossible task.

If we did not know of the night study, we would still think it impossible.

But now it is different.

“Can you call those kids students, that are in school for a mere 4-5 hours a day?”

It was said that the occupation of a student was studying.

And through that study we came to know just what a true student was.

“Arucia? How would those brats that barely clash swords with their teachers a few times ever know their teachers’ full strength? Marcis? What would those children who only moved their childhood activities to school ever know of studying? Mercaria? Are you saying that they can even learn anything when they go to school long after the sun is high in the sky, and leave school before it even sets?”

After-class activities. Night study. Then morning lessons. The time we left school turned from five o’clock to ten.

The time we arrived at school turned from ten in the morning to eight.

We have to stay at school for fourteen hours a day. The reality is that in order for them to beat our study times, the other three schools would need to combine theirs.

“Now just in case, just in case, I will ask you all.”

-Do you think that there are any morons who will lose to those. kinds. of. immature. brats?

-Of course we don’t have any idiots like thaaaaaaaaattt!

This was the roar of a beast.

Those who challenged, and despaired. Crushed pathetically by the silver devil. We even used our last resort, only to make things worse.

But even so, there were those who kept on trying with hope in their hearts.

There were those who fell by the wayside in despair.

But, that was because we faced the strongest forces among the teachers.

It was because of the unhurtable, untouchable silver devil.

But this time is different.

“We just have to stomp a few weaklings to end our night study. I’m telling you now, I was surprised? I thought we’d have to conquer the world or kill the demon king, but we just have to slaughter a few brats playing school to end the night study!”

We only have to trample a few brats to end the night study, will an opportunity as good as this ever come again in the future?

“Now, let us hear your resolve. What is defeat to us?”

-NON-EXISTENT!

“To our enemies!”

-THE JUDGEMENT OF DEATH!

“Those who don’t know of the silver devil?”

-BRATS THAT HAVE NO RIGHT TO CHOOSE LIFE OR DEATH!

“Then the winners of the imperial festival?”

-OF COURSE IT’S NO ONE BUT YUGRASIIAAAAA!

-UWWOOOOOOOO!

Fwup!

Each of the student council members behind me raised the flag that symbolised Yugrasia.

They numbered thirty in total.

And thirty was also number of competitions that the four academies would face off against each other during the imperial festival.

“Simply winning is much too simple. Our objective is total victory. We will hoist this flag over every single event.”

We don’t want to just win. We need compensation for all our hardships.

And in order to do that.

“We will all, escape the night study!”

We can only hone our skills in live combat and more combat.