Volume 1 Chapter 8 part1
Duel
It was the day after the party.
Marie was on top of her bed, holding her knees under her arms.
She chewed on the nail of her thumb while muttering to herself.
“Who the hell is that mob?! Why did he get in the way of my perfect plan?”
Yesterday, she said that she had felt sick and shut herself in to her room, but the capture target boys agreed on their own that it was likely due to the shock of being challenged to a duel.
“Everything will be fine. Those five can’t lose, and that mob seems unreliably weak, so it’ll be fine. Actually, just looking at him makes me irritated. He makes me remember my dead older brother.”
While she muttered about how worthless of a brother he was, her exclusive servant, Kyle, knocked and soon entered.
“H, hey, please wait for me to answer first!”
Kyle, who displayed a disgruntled attitude towards a cautious Marie, sighed.
“I’ll be careful next time.”
“You didn’t follow my warning this time either.”
Kyle, who was promptly preparing breakfast, had no problems in terms of his appearance or workings. However, he had a small peculiarity in his personality.
Due to that, he remained unsold, and even when he was sold, he was returned to slave firm. That was the setting he had.
“There’s a larger portion of vegetables for today’s breakfast.”
“…I hate vegetables.”
“Please eat at least this much. You’re being a miserable master.”
He spoke as if his master wasn’t really his master.
(Despite being a stuck-up in the game, I thought of him as a cute little brother character, but being with him everyday is getting irritating. Well, I’ll forgive him since he’s a pretty boy.)
After being with him for several weeks, Marie thought it was good that the pretty boy cared after her.
She thought about how swell things would be if males who could do housework and treated females with utmost cruciality existed in her previous world.
“So what happened with the discussion about the duel?”
Kyle poured a drink into a cup and offered it to Marie.
“It seems we got permission to use the arena. It appeared that Jilk and Brad had a hard time persuading the academy. I only heard this from fellow servants, but it also seems that Leon boy’s marks are at the low end of the upper range. Everyone has been saying that he won’t win.”
“I, I see.”
With that, Marie felt relieved and ate her breakfast.
“Please recognize my efforts. It was tough going around listening to other servants.”
“Th, thank you.”
Her exclusive servant acted under the expectation that he would receive gratitude in return, but she put with it since he had good looks and did his work.
(*sigh*, I’m quite commendable. If it were any other girl, they would soon sent this boy away. In my generosity, I’ll tolerate him.)
Marie thought of herself as an open-minded person.
(My plans have gone slightly askew, but Anjelica will nevertheless be driven out. That woman really is an idiot for challenging me to a duel after just slightly provoking her.)
Knowing Anjelica’s violent character, she purposely agitated her at the party venue. She made a display of herself by approaching Julian, and then afterwards clinging to a different boy and holding his hand.
(Now I need to make preparations for the summer vacation. I need to gather items in the dungeon, and also collect that.)
By that, she was referring to equipment that the protagonist normally would have.
Marie knew it would be the key to the future of the story.
(I’m really looking forward to this. It’s only a little bit more until I’m praised as a saint…)
◇
“Today and the day before have been really cruel on me.”
Inside my devastated room, I folded my arms and looked up to the ceiling.
Luxon, who had disappeared, then showed up.
Luxon descended into my field of vision, and then projected an image onto our surroundings. I looked into a video which was floating in the air.
[Master, while you were out, some students had barged in and laid waste to your room. The perpetrators were from a group you belonged to, and the one who gave the orders was from a different group.]
It seemed that since I picked a fight with Julian, the rich group employed the lower caste group to wreck my room.
I came back from the school building, only to come across this cruel situation.
In the video. I could see the figures of Daniel and Raymond being ordered around.
“Those two were forced to do it?”
[It seems your friendship was short-lived.]
“They were just prioritizing their own future. Looking at how gloomy their expressions are while being ordered, I can’t blame them. You’re being narrow-minded.”
Getting agitated, Luxon talked back as if angry.
[I don’t want to be told that by you, master. Anyways, there are already students trying to start a bet on this duel within the academy.]
When looking at the image, it turned out that I was becoming the underdog. However, the bet hadn’t been established. The reason was that nobody was betting on me.
“I’m overwhelmingly unpopular.”
[Did you think you were popular in the first place? Anyways, I’ve completed my preparations. That item will arrive on the appointed day, but what will you do until then?]
I thought for a bit.
“Can you prepare ten thousand gold coins? No wait, perhaps five hundred white gold coins will leave a greater impact. There’s no point if I don’t have fun with it.”
[You really are a heartless person. Besides, was it fine to just arbitrarily accept a duel when you intervened? I didn’t feel the necessity in riling them up either.]
I was a silent for a bit before answering.
“…So you saw those five associating with Marie, right? I’m the type of person that likes to resolve troublesome things all at once.”
[The type that makes many blunders.]
“It’s just that I’m not interested in being involved with them for long. I want to finish this quickly. That’s why I felt like agitating them. Those were my feelings. I got angry with their attitude of looking down on others.”
[…Is that so?]
The academy is isolated from the outside, so it’s kind of like its own world. That principle also served as an unspoken rule within the academy.
To many students, this seemed like a duke woman picking a fight with the prince, who belong to the most prestigious family. It was obvious which side was stronger.
However, the trouble lies in when the talks about this don’t remain within the academy.
“Well, once I get the white gold, how about I head towards where the bookmakers are?”
If I bet this much, then all of the students in the academy will bet on the prince and the others.
It was good that since the people around me knew I had earned money from a dungeon, it wouldn’t be suspicious if I held a large amount of cash.
If they knew that Luxon could prepare gold or rare metals, there would definitely be the danger of them trying to kill me and snatch Luxon.
…Well, enough thinking about that. I’m really looking forward to this.
[In that case, I’ll prepare them at once. Please come and pick it up at the harbor. Oh, and your two friends are waiting near your room.]
Sure enough, once I exited the room, Daniel and Raymond were standing there with their eyes cast downward.
I can’t blame them when seeing them so blue.
Ray whispered.
“S, sorry.”
Daniel also seemed frustrated.
“We were told not to get close with you anymore…we can’t oppose those orders.”
I passed by the two, who seemed like there were about to cry, and called out to them.
“There’s a bet involving this next duel, but if you place your wagers on me, you’ll be able to profit…I’m sorry, you two. I caused trouble for you guys.”
I left the scene at a fast pace.
◇
I was in the academy’s dining room.
There were about five boys gathered there.
“What do we do? We’ve waited so long for a duel, but now it’s not even a bet at this point.”
“It’s obvious that the prince and his crew will win, after all.”
“There’s five of them at least…so perhaps we could change the bet to be about how many people that guy will be able to gather.”
They were the bookmakers in control of the bet.
I appeared before them while pulling a wagon. The five made a startled expression upon seeing me, but I acted indifferent and continued their conversation.
“Here we go, sorry about how troublesome the bet has been. Deciding whether I’ll win or lose is simple, right? Oh right, and this entire pile is what I’m betting.”
I opened a crate, and inside was a mountain of white gold that shined stronger than regular gold. The five gasped in front of the mountain of white gold, which was worth more than regular gold.
“With this much, the bet is established, right?”
Nobody was placing any wagers on me, so there was no bet. That being the case, I thought it would be good to bet a large sum on myself.
This was a match with a victor that everyone was sure about. However, even when people can predict how to profit from the match, there will always be that one idiot that makes an illogical bet.
That one person is surely me.
“Is this all white gold? I, Is this really all white gold?”
Speaking in terms of the modern age, this would be worth about one billion to two billion, I believe? Well, it amounts to just that much.
It’s way too big of an amount for a student to deal with.
“Of course. I’m the guy who captured a dungeon. What’s wrong with betting all I have on myself?”
The five people were breathless and began to check that everything was indeed authentic.
“W, with this much, we’ll have people that will place bets.”
“We have to make this public at once!”
“People will get excited this time!”
What mattered most was that things were looking fun.
While thinking so, I heard a voice from behind.
“…Baltfault, we need to talk.”
I looked behind me.
I thought for a second that it was my older brother or older sister coming to address me, but it turned out that Anjelica was taking the lead for some reason.
The place fell silent.