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Translator: Nonon
Proofreader: Silavin
“What do I think of Ms. Mary Sue?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will answer your question once again… however, could you please refrain from relaying this information to the person involved and Lady Violet, who’s currently speaking with Sir Chartreuse?”
“Yes, of course.”
“In one word, she’s free.”
“Free?”
“Yes, Ms. Mary is free. She has the strength to make many choices.”
“Indeed, she could be said to be free. She has the power to overturn common sense.”
“Yes. However…”
“However?”
“I find her somewhat scary.”
◆
A great match can not come from a single person.
This match made me realize this obvious fact once again.
In terms of the results, His Highness Vermillion won. However, to those who saw it, it may sound like a cliché, but it was the kind of a match where both sides could be considered to be winners. Many big moves clashed with each other, and the talk was that His Highness happened to be extremely lucky. This amazing, tense match would surely be talked about at the academy in the future. …It was the kind of a match that made you feel so.
The winner of the first year division was His Highness Vermillion.
The winner of the second year division was Eccles Forsythe.
The winner of the third year division will be decided soon.
I came to the waiting room with Apricot as the participant of the extra tournament which also included outside participants, and we were sitting a little distance away from the other participants.
“You have a strange expression on your face, Mr. Clo.”
As I was watching the magic screen showing the current match in the waiting room, Apricot, who was sitting next to me, placed her index finger on the lining of her witch’s hat and twirled it around, and began a light-hearted conversation with me, as if making small talk.
I replied back listlessly.
“Well, I’m just a little depressed at the thought of having to deal with His Highness and Ms. Mary.”
“If they recover their strength by the time for this Crusade, that is.”
“… I guess so.”
The match between His Highness and Ms. Mary was amazing. However, the match which heated up as each side spoke passionately, was concluded with a clash of magic with such power that it surpassed the highly durable amulets that had been prepared in advance. In short, after the match, both of them reached the limit of their physical strength and collapsed.
Medical examination showed that there was no particular problem with either of their bodies, so the second and third year divisions proceeded as scheduled. However, apparently they are taking it easy and are resting (I heard it from Ms. Kriemhild).
“Still, that was a heated Crusade. I couldn’t hear it well, but it seemed to me that both sides were fighting for what they thought was right.”
Apricot twirled her hat and raised it up from the force of her twirling, catching it with her cane as she commented.
What each of them thought was right… in other words, she meant the conversation between His Highness and Ms. Mary during the game.
It was an important conversation between the protagonist of the Ring of Fire and His Highness. It was an important conversation for dispelling the resentment deep in His Highness’s heart, which even he himself was unaware of.
“In response to being told that he never got serious, His Highness declared that he was always serious, but Ms. Mary denied it, replying with ‘I respect you. I am not beneath you. I want to walk along with you as your equal. So—- I’m going to be serious.’ That’s how the conversation went.”
“You could hear all of it, Mr. Clo? All I could hear were cheers and shouts of magic.”
“Well yeah, kind of.”
I couldn’t hear everything from the spectator seat either.
That conversation was originally meant to be an important turning point for the people involved and hard to catch for outsiders.
But I know that conversation. They made such a big impression on me, that even though it’s an old memory, when I think about His Highness in Ring of Fire, I still think of those words.
“However, she’s a brave woman for being able to say something like that to a royalty… if things went wrong, she could face the death penalty.”
“I don’t think Ms. Mary wants to hear that from somebody who refers to His Highness as the ‘Third Eye of the Mind’, abbreviating to the ‘Third Eye’.”
“No, it’s actually the “Eye of Truth”.”
“Either way, it’s a problem.”
However, Apricot’s doubts are valid. Even if they’re classmates and students at the same academy, it’s problematic for a commoner to say something like that to a royalty. Thinking such a thing about royalty is already disrespectful.
“It’s not a problem. His Highness loves her. He won’t complain if the person he loves says a few things about him.”
It’s true that His Highness loves Ms. Mary, but to be more exact, she wouldn’t be punished because she verbalized something that His Highness already felt somewhere in his heart.
Her words were meant to wake up His Highness, who, despite being overflowing with talent just like Ms. Mary, turned a blind eye to that fact and suppressed himself to the utmost to not damage others… Normally, those were the words meant for the heroine to say.
“… Mr. Clo, you’re different from Mary Sue, right?”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“Well, I was just wondering.”
Apricot put on a hat that was hanging from the end of her cane and asked me a question as if she was remembering something from a while ago. But what does she mean? How did our conversation spark that question in her?
“It’s true that you don’t eat poison by choice and get excited when you go into convulsions, you don’t try to kill your partner while confessing your love to her like the Beige couple and you don’t wrap yourself in an Artifact and cause explosions like Ms. Robot. Compared to them, you’re normal.”
Yeah, if I was perverted enough to stand out among them, things would probably be dangerous for me.
“It’s not like you’re overflowing with all sorts of natural talent like Mary Sue. But I’ve definitely thought that—you two have something in common… It’s hard to put into words, but for some reason I couldn’t help but think that way.”
Could it be that… she somehow felt that Ms. Mary and I were Reincarnators who knew about this world? No, I can’t be sure that Ms. Mary is a Reincarnator.
“You’re wrong.”
“Hmph, you deny it so easily.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, I’m not well put together enough to behave like Ms. Mary.”
But I have to deny her question.
Even if we’re both Reincarnators, I’m not overflowing with talent like her and I’m not trying to save many people. It would be rude towards her to put us on equal grounds.
“Fuh, I see. That being said, you’re also my benefactor, Mr. Clo. I don’t want you to belittle yourself too much.”
“I see— Oh, it’s about to begin. We have to get ready.”
“That seems to be the case.”
As we were talking, the third-year finals had concluded.
The third year students will come back to matches a little later to recover their mana, so we, the outsiders, and the first and second year students were given the priority. Our matches would probably begin once the preparation of the premises was finished.
“I hope we both win.”
Oh? Didn’t you say that you didn’t mind losing, Mr. Clo?”
“Well yeah, but… I now have a reason to not want to lose.”
“… I see. I won’t go easy on you in a match.”
“Yeah. I look forward to it then.”
Apricot held out her fist, so I fistbumped her and we wished each other luck.
—
Author’s note:
The Eye of Truth – Third Eye
The eye that can probably see things that cannot be perceived by the human eye. She came up with it on a whim. Vermillion has no such ability.
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