The Only Male Student in the Academy

032. Dungeon Attack with Underground Water (1)

“…Why are you here?”

The meeting with Marie must have been the day after tomorrow.

Then two days have already passed since I slept?

No, no matter how much time has passed.

“Eh, you can’t leave Ariel alone…”

“……Why?”

“Uh, why?”

Marie frowned in embarrassment. Was it a difficult question for her to answer?

“Marie, do you mean you came here to camp with me?”

“Uh, yes… That’s what I came here for…”

“Do you know what that means?”

Somehow, it becomes an accelerating tone.

To that extent, I couldn’t understand Mari’s actions.

“I’m going to attack the underground canal to avoid Claire’s eyes. I plan to skip class tomorrow and go to the dungeon.”

“That’s right…”

“It means that you will miss class too. Your attendance score will be reduced by that much.”

“Ah, I know…”

“You know?”

You came even though you knew?

…… Why?

“Marie, I am a man.”

“Uh uh… Ah, I know…”

“If someone sees a man and a woman camping together, strange rumors may arise.”

“That, that’s a bit difficult…”

“You’re still going to camp with me?”

At that question, Marie nodded her head broadly.

…… You said you nodded?

“Go back to the dormitory now, Marie. It’s not a place for you to stay.”

“Yeah, as expected… Eh, Ariel is nice…”

…… ?

I would have told her to go back, but she was told she was nice.

Unexpected answers to unexpected situations.

Unexpected things keep happening.

“……Ariel is not an idiot.”

Marie says.

This is the first time I’ve heard of it.

Words I’ve never heard since I came here.

Marie said it right in front of her eyes.

“That’s right… Ariel is taking care of me right now… So, Ariel is not an idiot…”

“…….”

I shut my mouth for a moment.

No words come out. It feels like getting hit in the head with a hammer.

I don’t understand why I’m so shocked myself.

I don’t think I really wanted to be understood by anyone.

Even if you felt lonely, you wouldn’t have felt lonely either.

So, regardless of what others thought of me, I was fine with it.

Even so.

“I, I want to help Ariel… Chi, you’re my friend…”

For some reason, that voice, still stammering and speaking timidly, was especially audible today.

Ariel Beheritt.

An extra among extras who die in the tutorial.

The only male student who is shunned for being an idiot, discriminated against for having an accident at the previous academy, and treated with contempt for being a man.

The fact that I survived is undoubtedly the destruction of the original work.

Meeting Marie is also destroying the original work, and becoming a colleague with Marie is also destroying the original work.

But.

Perhaps it is the only miracle allowed to me.

“I will defeat Claire.”

I didn’t intend to tell anyone about those words.

At this academy, there are many people who will be on Claire’s side, but no one will be on my side.

“Eh, defeating Ms. Entirus…? Is that okay…?”

“It’s not okay. If I fight Claire one-on-one and win, it will only make my evaluation worse…. Even if I asked for a fight in the first place, they probably wouldn’t accept it.”

Claire can drive me into a corner even now.

Whether you break into my room or take off your clothes in front of me…. In various ways.

So, from Claire’s point of view, the confrontation won’t be very attractive.

Rather, if you lose even one in a row, Claire will suffer a loss. The dishonor of losing to the duke’s madman.

Because of that, Claire will never want to fight me.

“That’s why we need bait.”

The bait to pull Claire up to the ring.

If you don’t respond to the match, you need a bait enough to destroy Claire.

And that bait lies dormant in the underground canal here.

“Marie, what I’m about to do is never nice. Maybe I’ll destroy Claire with my own hands.”

Human nature won’t change, and I don’t know how to regenerate Claire.

The only thing I could do was to crush Claire and trample her down so that she would never touch me again.

There is nothing left but to carve a scar into that heart.

“I’m begging you though. I want you to help me.”

I said so.

“Yeah… I’ll help you.”

‘Claire of the Iron Wall’ is an NPC that appears conditionally as a villain when Lucius becomes a sophomore.

Conversely, in the first year, I wasn’t really a villain.

[Claire] “Hmm? Do you have something to say to me? Why are you here? I’m looking for something.”

[Claire] “I met you again. So you have something to say to me? Um…? I was just looking for something.”

[Claire] “Hi. Was it Lucius? I came here to find something. Why are you here?”

Even in the first year, you can often see Claire as a passer-by NPC.

Every time I talk to Claire from time to time, there is something I must say.

-“…Are you here to train too?”

-“No? I’m looking for something.”

At that time, Claire said so.

I didn’t say that with the intention of just covering it up.

Claire really has something he’s been looking for, so he came to the training ground.

[Ron] “Claire Entirus! Stop being petty and let’s play fair!”

[Claire] “I don’t like it? Why do I have to compete?”

[Claire] “Whether I compete or not, I can bully you all? This is the privilege of a high-ranking nobleman.”

[Claire] “You say you’re doing well these days, but even if you fly and crawl, you’re a commoner.”

[Ron] “This bastard…!!”

[Claire] “Oh, it’s scary, scary~. Are you going to hit me?”

[Claire] “Hey~, a commoner is beating a poor nobleman~! I’m dying, I’m dying!”

[Claire] “Should this be referred to the disciplinary committee?”

With this feeling, in the original work, Lucius and the others can’t touch Claire at all.

I research information to catch Claire’s weakness somehow, but in the meantime, I find out something.

[Henrik] “I was in the same class as Claire Entirus in the first year, but to be honest, I don’t know much about him.”

[Henrik] “He’s a proud person. He has a good family, talent, and skills. But he’s a person who works hard, so it’s scary.”

[Henrik] “He always seemed to be looking for something. I’m not sure what he was looking for.”

[Nina] “…Cler Entirus? I’ve never seen him come to the library, so I’m not sure.”

[Nina] “No, I only came twice.”

[Nina] “I came here once, on the day of the entrance ceremony. There were only two first-year students who visited the library that day, so I remember it clearly.”

[Nina] “Then I came back a few days later, but I was looking for something and left.”

If you meet many NPCs like that, you will learn what happened to Claire.

As already mentioned, Claire hates boring routines and always wants new stimulation.

For Claire, entering the academy was a big event.

Unseen people come from unseen places, and there are many commoners among them.

The change of environment was a stimulus Claire had never tasted before.

That’s why Claire explored every corner of the academy from the first day he entered the school.

Then it gets lost.

[Varkas] “Come to think of it, there was one guy who was particularly excited among the freshmen. Was that Entirus?”

[Varkas] “I was so excited that I was wandering around, and he accidentally dropped his epaulet.”

[Barcas] “I was going to pick it up, but it ended up going down the drain.”

[Barcas] “I tried to tell you the truth, but he had already left. I couldn’t even remember his face because he was a freshman.”

“Miss Entirus lost her epaulet?”

I nodded my head broadly at Marie’s question.

“Ha, but you always wear epaulettes…?”

“It’s a replica. It’s a replica that can’t even perform 10% of the original.”

“Genuine? Performance…? It must be a very important epaulet…?”

I nodded again.

“It is a rare item called ‘Brilliance of Andebarium’. An heirloom of the Marquis of Entirus.”

“Let’s go…? That, losing it…”

“Yes. In the worst case, you will be banished from the family.”

To be treated as an heirloom by a powerful aristocratic family means that it is a one-of-a-kind item.

Claire lost an item of inestimable value.

It is truly a family shame.

“Why does Ms. Entirus have such an item…?”

“In the second year, the crown prince… No, because the princess is in school.”

From noble mtl dot com

In the original work, Claire also rode the Crown Prince line.

Because they were firmly warned to look as good as possible from the crown prince, the Marquis of Entirus entrusted the heirloom to Claire.

Claire lost it from the first day of school.

He had no choice but to use the replica he had brought to prevent theft, and he was fooling all the academy students.

“The fortunate thing about Claire is that the original and the replica have almost the same appearance. So no one at the academy has noticed it yet, but probably someone from the Marquis of Entirus will recognize it as soon as they see it.”

“Well, how did Ariel know that…?”

Because I’ve seen it a lot in games.

“……When I was young, I met people from the Marquis of Entirus.”

“That’s right…”

She lied, but luckily Marie didn’t notice.

Instead, he put on a frightened expression.

“Even in such a situation, why does Ms. Entirus bully Ariel…? She always has a smile on her face… I don’t understand…”

“That’s…”

About that, I can’t say anything. Since it was not expressed in Unknown Saga, it was a part that remained in the realm of speculation even among users.

It has been speculated that Claire had no attachment to the family, so she had little thought of losing the heirloom.

Since she lost her heirloom and was about to be kicked out anyway, there was speculation that she thought of doing what she wanted to do with her only one life and getting kicked out.

There was speculation that she tried to solve the loss of her heirloom by strengthening her relationship with the crown prince.

‘But it’s probably not like that.’

My intuition, having played Unknown Saga for 1532 hours, is telling me. Probably none of the three.

Actually, I was already drawing conclusions.

Claire is probably enjoying the current situation as well.

‘This crisis situation where you may lose an heirloom and be exiled’

Just enjoy the thrill.

I guess so.

“…Anyway, the method is simple. We just need to obtain Andebarium’s radiance first, and then tell Claire to fight.”

For Claire, it would be an offer she could never refuse.

If you lose, you will be completely destroyed.

The fact that he lost an heirloom is also a problem, but if it is known that it was stolen by me, he will be banished from the family immediately.

Conversely, if I win, I will become Claire’s toy.

You can also retrieve lost heirlooms.

Truly high-risk, high-return.

Claire would definitely go crazy.

Because you’re an outrageous pervert.