But there were giant clumps of beetles at each of its joints and lice blotting out its eyes.
I drew back, evading the desperate last charge and casting a Linebolt spell—the new spell that I’d memorized—right as it passed by.
A thin thread of electricity formed from the fingers on my right hand, which then clamped down on the scaled weasel’s head.
I’d only touched it for a brief moment, but the spell, which only I knew I’d cast, passed through its skull and messed with its brain. I’d barely expended any magic, but the weasel dramatically flopped over, then the chameleon slime squashed the poor thing.
“When you can’t extempore, you sure look pitiful during times like these. I ain’t going to let you escape, either.”
“You…you think I’d run…?!”
Bernhart stood up.
His customary duck hairdo had been ruined, and he’d even lost his weasel, but his face still burned with fury as he looked at me.
“Garcfoire hasn’t been defeated YET!!”
He practically yelled himself hoarse.
In response, water spurted up in one corner of the classroom. Apparently, that’d breathed life back into the elemental after it’d gone silent from being blown away by brute force.
The chameleon slime lost no time going on the move. It covered the waterspout, gorging itself on the endless water buffet.
“How long are you gonna rely on that slime?!!”
That slime—he was right. My chameleon slime could only absorb so much water.
That was why I stepped forward.
I ran toward Bernhart, who was still thoughtlessly standing right in the open, and gave him a punch straight to the mug.
Crack.
The light sound echoed throughout the classroom as Bernhart was sent flying back onto his behind. I grabbed him by the collar and glanced at the water elemental.
“Not enough, huh.”
I dragged Bernhart up to his feet while he was still too dazed to realize what’d happened, then this time, I head-butted him straight in the bridge of his nose. I didn’t want him falling over quite yet, so I kept a hold of his collar. Next, I kneed him in his defenseless crotch.
That moment, Bernhart’s face froze, and when I checked for the water elemental, it’d disappeared. “All right, it’s gone.”
Maintaining a summon took a certain amount of concentration. If you could distract a summoner with pain or render them unconscious, you could force a recall on any monster of a summon. It was an established trick for fighting a summoner, even among kids when playing make-believe hero.
I released my hands and the collar of his clothes with them.
“Y-yo… Ah…”
Unable to support himself, Bernhart crouched down right on the spot.
And in that moment…
“Whoaaaaaa! Feil Fonaf!!”
“You WON!!”
…the other students exploded into a cheer.
In that same moment, five guys ran over toward us. “Bernhart—” They were the nasty noble’s henchmen. I could tell right away because of their incredibly tacky appearances—it was those telltale gold bracelets and extravagant rings they wore.
The five of them surrounded me.
“You coward! You resorted to underhanded tricks, Feil Fonaf! You punched Bernhart at the end!”
They started howling at me. “Shut up,” I said as my chameleon slime bowled one of them over, and they all turned away from me to retrieve their friend who’d been blown away. They’d ditched Bernhart.
“Who’s the coward now?”
When I walked toward them, the fear showed up on their five faces.
That was only natural. They weren’t just facing my overgrown slime anymore. Cyril had even summoned up Zylgar, who had appeared from behind me to menace the five lads.
“You gonna wail at me for bein’ underhanded while a furious tiger’s in front of ya, huh?”
They didn’t answer.
One of the five started to say something, but when Zylgar roared at him, he fell right over onto his rump.
“You go around talkin’ about people, and now you wanna uphold ranking-match regulations? Seems awfully convenient for you guys. Huh? You agree with me?”
I cocked my head to the side as I threatened them.
They swooped right onto their knees—a little too easily—and rubbed their foreheads right into the ground.
“P-please give us a chance to apologize, Feil Fonaf! We, um…we only did it because we thought it’d make Bernhart happy. We thought he’d pay us for it.”
“We won’t hang out with him anymore.”
“So please just spare our lives. We won’t call you poor anymore.”
“Please, Feil Fonaf. You can see how it is. It’s all the truth.”
“I’m begging you!”
I was flabbergasted by how little self-respect these guys seemed to have for themselves, but I just thrust my chin over and ordered them, “Go say that to Julietta.”
I watched them scramble off, fighting one another to get there first, then headed back over to Bernhart.
Zylgar was batting Bernhart’s head as he was still crouched on the ground. Those giant paws treating him like a toy didn’t seem like a good situation, so I had Zylgar move off to the side.
I heard a quivering voice coming from below.
“F-Feil—Feil Fonaf… Feil Fonaf, you…you know what’ll happen now that you’ve upset me…?”
He was trying to lift his bloodied face.
“Are you an imbecile? What’re you goin’ on about when I’ve got your life in my hands?” I said. Then Bernhart, his nose smashed, which’d transformed the terrain of his face, started laughing unpleasantly. “Heh-heh-heh-heh.
“I’m the one who’s got the key to doom. I’m an apostle of the end.”
“Of the end, huh…?”
“You’ll be the first one I’ll crush at the summons festival. No matter how much anyone struggles, the silver will be unstoppable.”
I hadn’t gone silent because I’d been caught in Bernhart’s weirdo ambience—I’d remembered that strange guy from a few days ago at work.
…That weird customer talked about doom and ends and whatever, too…
I kinda got a bad feeling about this. But Julietta appearing behind me disturbed me from those thoughts. “Feil, thanks for your help.”
I didn’t say a word as I surrendered my spot right in front of Bernhart’s eyes.
I couldn’t care less what Julietta and Bernhart were going to talk about, so I recalled my chameleon slime and swarm of insects.
“Cyril, you worrywart. I wasn’t gonna lose against a measly five guys in a fight.”
I gave Zylgar’s giant face a stroke. I was down to my elbow in his plush coat.
“—My mother isn’t dirty!!”
I turned around when I heard the sudden outburst to find Julietta had kicked up toward Bernhart’s face. His jaw was sent up, and that made Bernhart completely quiet.
His shoulders were still moving, so the guy wasn’t dead, but…I didn’t think he was getting up for a while.
Then Julietta turned to me.
“I’m so sorry for the trouble I caused. But I’m very grateful. If you hadn’t come by, I would have—” She stopped there and bowed her head low.
I smiled awkwardly at her and answered, “Don’t think twice about it. I was just irritated he got me soppin’ wet is all. Laying him out made me feel a little better.”
Then I suddenly looked over and saw both Sasha Shidoh Zultania and the high-order magic professor coming my way.
Julietta stepped in front of me.
“Please wait. Please wait, sir. It was all my—”
She was trying to take all the blame for the mercilessly destroyed lecture hall and wasted lecture time.
Princess Sasha, also a trustee of the Academy, was the one to absolve Julietta of the crime.
“Lulua has explained everything to me. I think it’s only proper for Bernhart Hadcheck to take the burden for the full cost of repairs to the lecture hall.”
Julietta and I both sighed with relief at that.
Then Sasha took a look at me and smiled.
“It seems you’re capable of absolutely everything,” she said.
I raised my open hands lightly and shrugged.
“Just learned by example.”
I didn’t actually know much about fighting with my hands, so I’d learned from watching drunken brawls between the customers at the pub.
“Ah, yes, but there was also that peculiar magic you used. It looked a bit like threads.”
“That was just a test…”
“I won’t inquire further, then. I’m simply happy to see you’ve progressed in your preparations for the summons festival.”
After that, she started talking with the high-order magic professor about what to do next. I heard things like “supplemental lecture” and “other classroom” and realized then how much trouble I’d caused for both of them.
I waited for them to finish, then tried to apologize, but…Sasha came to me herself eventually and gave me a small smile before saying, “I think this is quite nice in some ways. It feels like we’re really in our adolescence.”
My eyebrows knit together. The heck was she saying?
Anyway, if high-order magic was canceled, I just wanted to get back to the dorms so I could change out of my wet robes. I felt like if I didn’t fight against it happening at every moment, I’d end up with a cold like any other person.