Chapter 53

RATH 53

TL: Eevee

7. Is your backside safe? (5)

#7 Their story: A certain student council’s story

“The time the devil appears is 1:30 on the dot.”

“Damn it, does that mean the devil’s coming after us if we don’t clear the academy in thirty minutes?”

“Professor Muam alone’s probably gonna take over thirty minutes.”

“Doesn’t matter. No matter what we do, we need to beat them within 30 minutes.”

“Damn it, I actually preferred the night study to this.”

“Are these the holidays? Are these actually the holidays?”

The day afterwards that only had regret and despair.

The moment we arrived at school we put our heads together to plan for today’s after-school attempt.

But we had no solution.

“The problem is that each floor needs to beat the teachers on their own in five minutes, and we need to beat Professor Muam in twenty-five and escape the academy.”

“Is that possible? Is it?”

“We need to make it possible.”

It’s an impossible mission no matter how we look at it but we have no choice.

Because if we don’t solve it then the devil’s going to come for us.

Of course it wasn’t just peaceful solutions that were discussed.

“If the entire student body riots, then even the teachers can’t do anything about it?”

“Yeah, we’ve got our lives on the line here, right? We can all fight together!”

But.

“But if the silver devil comes to put the riot down then isn’t it just the same thing in the end?”

We tried everything we used during the night study.

But nothing changed.

And it seems like nothing will change just because it is the holidays.

“Are you seriously… seriously saying that we have no other options than to escape the academy in thirty minutes?”

“We’re being taught there’s nothing but giving up!”

Anger and despair.

This probably isn’t limited to just the student council.

Perhaps- no, definitely, the people who experienced the fear at school yesterday would be feeling like us right now.

Because the image of Lady Aris howling in despair at the setting sun was still firmly imprinted in all our minds!

“Does that mean we have to put up with this until the imperial festival…”

“Too far… there’s still three months left!”

“Three… months? You mean we can’t escape this hell for another three months? Are you serious?”

“No, there’s gotta be a way somehow. There has to! If god exists, there’s no way the world would be this absurd!”

It hadn’t even been long since the meeting started, yet one by one people were beginning to deny reality.

“Not yet, have hope! Professor Muam could go on holiday as well.”

“But then wouldn’t Professor Harian come back?”

“But I reckon it’ll be easier than the spirit king of water.”

“No, but we have to go against the god of wind instead. That could actually be harder.”

We did our best to try to revive the dying embers of hope, but a counter came straight back in.

No matter how we think of it, neither a god of wind nor a spirit king of water are easy matchups.

And just as my own hopes and morale began to plummet as well.

“Why do we go home from school.”

Risen, who along with Lady Aris had made the face of an enlightened saint, muttered seriously.

“Because school ended, of course.”

“In that case, why does school end?”

“Because all the classes are over?”

We all looked at Risen who was only asking weird questions with a look of pity.

We finally had someone who went off the deep end with despair.

And as if to mock us and our thinking, Risen shouted with a face of realisation.

“No, there’s only one reason why we go home from school! That’s because we went to school to begin with!”

“Well, that’s obvious.”

“So if we don’t go to school, then that means we don’t have to leave school either!”

“Does that even make any sense…”

“Then does our going to school during the holidays make any sense either?”

“…Holy shit!”

That was it! It’s the holidays! The school told us to come in, and our families allowed that but it’s still the holidays!

“So all we have to do is not come to school!”

“Ohhhhhh!”

This kid had to be a genius.

School grades? Doesn’t matter.

If our parents came in to school? Irrelevant.

Because our lives were the most important thing of all!

And so the very next day, the entire student council were absent from school.

***

“Wow, I seriously didn’t see this one coming.”

“I totes think the stuco are all genius, owner. They all show us sumfin’ that not even owner can predict!”

After first period, one teacher came to me and said that one second year student didn’t come to school.

Well, since humans aren’t always perfectly healthy I could understand that.

Especially people that go to school, academies and the army all sore and in pain everywhere.

Although oddly enough whenever I went I was never injured so I always drew the short straw.

And so I was lost in my old memories, but the another teacher came in and told me something similar.

When the teacher in charge of the fourth year class that had ten members of the student council in it reported that all ten of them didn’t come to school, that was all but confirmed.

And as expected, the people that didn’t come to school, were all members of the student council.

“Group truancy.”

Truancy is dangerous.

At this rate these kids will realise that staying home is much more comfortable than coming to school.

“Innt dat obvious?”

“But these kids hadn’t tried the obvious.”

As they don’t come to school for one day, then two, my important students will become hikikomoris.

“That will be a big problem.”

Being popular even if you’re a hikikomori is only possible in stories.

At this rate if they don’t come to school and stay all day in their rooms then they’ll eventually come to shun all interpersonal relationships.

Then they’ll become unable to debut in society, and if they become old unmarried men and women and the shame of their families, how sad would their parents be!

“So whatcha gonna do about it. Whenever owner rambled on for a long time, it’s never ended well for the kids.”

“I am simply taking responsibility as a teacher.”

As a teacher, I cannot bear to watch my students become social outcasts.

And so!

“An’ sho?”

“I will use what I learned in an evil organization, and rescue the students!”

At my words, the metal bat frowned and tilted her head.

“Ya learned something to save the kids in an evil organization?”

“Ahh, of course.”

“Wazzat?”

Skills that an evil organization would teach that could save children from becoming hikikomoris?

“Infiltration, kidnapping.”

“Dat’s my owner! Totes my bad for getting my hopes up!”

Now then. Shall we go save some students?

#8 Their story: Karen Rel Regrena’s story.

“Mmm…”

Was it because I slept too long.

Our dorm’s soft beds were starting to feel hard.

But I don’t want to get up.

Right now I’m sleepy because yesterday I had fun for the first time in far too long.

Of course as the vice-president of the student council, it did embarrass me a bit that I was truant from school, moreover following Risen’s suggestion.

But this honestly couldn’t be helped.

Daily life where I had to wake up at dawn every morning.

Unlike the boys, girls had a lot more to prepare before going anywhere, but the academy’s attendance time was 8 o’clock sharp.

The days where sometimes I couldn’t even eat breakfast before going to school continued, and that wore down at my mind.

Not even that, to fight the teachers to even go home?

And with the rule that if we couldn’t beat them within half an hour, we were all screwed?!

And so I had no choice.

As the oldest daughter of a viscount, which doesn’t even have that much power, I knew very well that there were a lot of hopes on me from my family when I became vice-president at Yugrasia, one of the Four Great Academies.

In knew that! But doesn’t people come first? Was the answer I came to.

And so the first holiday-like day I had was delicious.

I met my friends from other academies that hadn’t yet left the capital and drank tea with them in a café.

I bought summer-season cosmetics.

And when the sun was about to set, I returned back to the dorms with the songs of the bards in my ears!

This was something I took for granted this time last year, but I realised for the first time that this could make someone this happy.

I realised just why the wise words ‘those who have not experienced an abnormal life cannot understand the importance of daily life,’ were considered wise words

Thanks to that, the remaining guilt in the corner of my mind that I had about being truant had vanished.

As I thought… as I thought! Risen was not an idiot, he was a genius!

“Mmm…”

And just was I closed my eyes in happiness.

‘Eh?’

That groan… did that come from my mouth?

That’s weird. I had no feeling of that.

And moreover…

I I forced open my heavy eyelids and saw in front of me.

“Hi, hiiik!”

What I saw was, a mess of a face.

The face was slightly swollen, and the grey hair was sticking out every which way.

But I couldn’t forget that face.

Because it was the face of someone I fought with daily at the student council, my counterpart vice-president Risen.

“Mnya…”

“Is this a dream?”

Did I like this boy that much? Enough that I’d see him in my dreams? I thought as I asked myself.

-Nope?

And my inner self replied very cleanly.

Then, is this a nightmare?

“Mmmm…”

“What, what the…”

But at the sounds behind my back, I could recognise that this was reality.

“Hey, what the hell are you all doing in my room!”

“Ah… wha… huh?”

“Who’s making such a racket… hang on?”

And the people that began to wake up one at a time at my screech was none other than the other student council members.

Let alone the key members, the secretaries, support members began to wake up one after another.

And as the first to wake up, I was the first to realise.

“My room isn’t big enough to fit all these people…”

This is definitely not my room.

I definitely went to sleep in my room, my bed but I was in another place when I woke up.

“Kyaaaak! Wha, what the hell! Pervert!”

“Uwaah? Why, why are you all in my room!”

I started to hear the screams of the other members of the student council that still hadn’t pieced together the situation.

And as the people that woke up from my screams woke up other people with their screams.

-crrk… crackle… crack!

We heard the video magic tool in the corner of the room crackle to life.

“What’s this?”

As the nearest person approached it, the video magic tool began to show us a grayscale screen.

And soon afterwards.

-crackle… Greetings, ladies and gentlemen.

A man wearing a clown face appeared on the greyscale screen.(1)

“That’s Professor Nicerwin’s voice…”

Professor Nicerwin, who hadn’t even bothered to change his voice, and appeared only wearing a clown mask.

-You are all students who refused to come to school as a group. Because of this, there are many teachers whose hearts are hurting.

-Oh dear, our students are not treating the ability to come to school preciously! This is all our fault as teachers!

-Being able to come to school is a blessing, yet you do not know it

-To you children who do not know the wonders of being able to come to school,(2) I have prepared something for you to realise just how blessed you are to be able to come to school.

Perhaps because the recording was already complete, but as Professor Nicerwin’s words cut off at an awkward time with a crackling noise, we were all uniformly lost for words.

Why is it that every single word that comes out of this teacher’s mouth nothing but bullshit that we can’t understand?

Just why was it that we didn’t want to come to school?

Was it not because leaving school was so terrifying that we didn’t want to come to begin with?

-Now then, let the game begin.(1) Escape from here.

With those words, the magic tool turned itself off.

“Is what he says, and when we open the door, the hallway will be full of teachers, won’t it?”

As we sat there staring blankly at the turned-off magic video tool, Risen jumped to his feet and shouted at us.

“And so, I will escape differently!”

Risen summoned the Clown’s Scythe, broke down the wall and jumped down.

“Y, you don’t know what floor this is!”

“I have Loki’s shoooeeeaaaaarrgh!”

Unlike his confident first words, was his final scream because he stuffed the landing?

I was slightly worried, but my instincts were telling me to not look outside.

And.

Drrrk.

“Heave ho.”

“Hiiik!”

Was this also a place made by Black Anvil?

As we watched the wall slowly return to its original shape, the only door opened with a drrrk noise as someone came in.

The creature that came in while holding Risen’s legs under its arms.

The silver devil threw Risen to us and said.

“No cheating, now?”

“Ye, yes!”

And so, we lost the right to go to school.