By accepting the bet, Jenita began throwing all sorts of questions at me about the book.
She must have had several things she was relying on: the belief that she knew this book better than I did, the assumption that I hadn’t really read it, and above all, a loophole in the wager itself.
Jenita had said that if I “answered all the questions,” I’d win. But she never set a total number of questions.
If she felt like it, she could generate questions without end until I missed one. Under normal circumstances, her chance of losing was zero.
“...Question forty-eight.”
Not to boast, but—
I am not normal.
“The Gorgo sisters’ weakness?”
“There isn’t one. Setting a clumsy trap like that won’t work.”
“Urk...”
Even I could see the cold sweat on Jenita. Now she was blurting out a prompt first and only then thinking up a question.
The problems she’d prepared from the start had run out long ago, and she was rummaging through the book’s contents in her head, improvising. Naturally, the difficulty and the quality were dropping.
'And of all things, she picked this book to bet on.'
The book I had just been reading—the one we staked for the bet—concerned myths and monsters.
Back when I had to clear a game called Etius, it was crucial and fascinating to me. And the same holds here.
Even with just Weaving and the workshop, the matchup was already lopsided against Jenita; on top of that, the topic was one of my interests. She must have thought this was her favorable terrain. That was only in her mind.
“Q-question fifty.”
“Forty-nine.”
“Forty-nine...”
Jenita clutched her head.
To a bystander it might look like I was bullying her, but I was the one answering. It’s only troublesome when the questioner is the one groaning.
“Forty-nine...”
“If you can’t think of one, forfeit. I won’t ask anything too hard of you.”
“R-really? Ha! No—no! I won’t give up!”
Damn, I was almost there.
Honestly, I was getting bored.
Jenita’s oddly earnest nature made it worse. At this point she could have just thrown out random questions she didn’t know herself, but she insisted on asking only what she was sure of.
Which meant that by posing forty-eight problems, she’d shown she knew this book nearly perfectly.
After much fretting, she suddenly seemed to recall something, straightened up, and thrust her arm high.
“Q-question fifty!”
“I said forty-nine.”
“Forty-nine!”
Life came back into Jenita’s voice.
Had she dredged up some high-difficulty question she’d missed?
Whatever it was—if it was inside the book, I wouldn’t miss it.
“In the continent of Agoris, where was Heracles last sighted?”
“...”
At that question,
I kept a brief silence.
Taking it as her victory, Jenita preened and said,
“Hehe, well? You don’t know this one, do you? You can’t possibly get it without reading the whole book and piecing—”
“Miss Jenita.”
“Yes?”
“That’s not in this book.”
I held the book out to her.
And showed her the table of contents myself.
“This book compiles the gods and monsters of myth, and their weaknesses and traits. Heracles appears, yes, but only as a dictionary entry. It doesn’t track current events.”
“Uh—huh?”
Listening to me, Jenita scanned the contents, found the section on Heracles, and checked. Her face turned awkward as she scratched her cheek.
No doubt—she’d mistaken some knowledge of hers as being from this book.
But that makes one point impossible to ignore.
“Miss Jenita, every question so far—you knew the answers yourself, correct?”
“Y-yes, of—of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t know whether your answer was right.”
Exactly. Within the form of this bet, Jenita had simply wanted to beat me fairly.
That earnestness helped.
“In that case, the question you just asked—you know the answer, don’t you?”
“The one just now? Ah...”
She started to nod, then met my eyes, flinched for some reason, and backed off.
I didn’t know why, but I asked anyway,
“Heracles’s last known location—where?”
“...Sir, you really sound like—”
“Yes?”
“—like you intend to kill Heracles.”
She said it with a vaguely frightened look.
I blinked.
“Why do you think that?”
“Your eyes... sort of.”
“Hardly. Pure curiosity. And more to the point, how would I kill Heracles?”
“...Right.”
Even as she answered, she didn’t look convinced.
Still, perhaps out of the same earnestness, she told me where Heracles had last been sighted.
'A bit far.'
Unfortunately, from Atlas it was quite a distance. Not a place one could reach in a day or two.
“Where did you hear that, though?”
“I’m... not sure. I thought it was in that book.”
Well, given she’d already misremembered the source, asking her to recall the original origin was a tall order.
“Th-then I’ll be going.”
She awkwardly started to rise—
“Where are you going?”
She froze at my words.
“T-the bet is over, so I’ll just...”
“I haven’t received my prize.”
“Wasn’t that information what you wanted...?”
I gave her a bright smile.
“Of course. If you’d staked it as the prize, I would have accepted it.”
“R-right?”
“But you offered it to me out of goodwill. I didn’t receive it as my reward for winning, did I?”
“Ah—what?”
“The prize is separate.”
Jenita’s mouth fell open.
“Th—that’s petty.”
“I’ll be making a home visit next time. I’d like to check that Miss Jenita is living properly.”
“Liar! You’re just going to snoop around for something to take!”
“That’s an uncharitable way to put it. I’m merely fulfilling my duty as a teacher.”
After saying so, I straightened up and put my books in order.
“In future, make sure you trade information for appropriate value before you hand it over. That’s what it means to be an adult.”
“...So being an adult is to be cowardly.”
That’s right.
Cowardly, petty, sly, and dirty.
Of course, Frondier is only a year older than Jenita, but with this, Jenita would take a step closer to adulthood.
***
Pielot von Livanche went by “Pielot di Ribanche” on this continent. The name “von” simply wasn’t used anywhere here.
At first he struggled with the slight change in his name, but after a few days he got used to it.
And once he did, Pielot began to feel a familiar sensation in Atlas.
“Pielot, how do you solve this?”
“That swordwork just now was amazing! How’d you do it?”
“Incredible—you’re breathing almost steady after this much training!”
The people around him marveling at whatever he did; the gazes full of admiration and yearning.
Things he’d felt up until he entered Constel.
As a child, those showers of praise had sent his pride, self-respect, and conceit soaring in a three-piece set. Now, they embarrassed him a little.
'...Right.'
Atlas had no out-of-spec humans like Constel did.
Pielot, too, was one of the standouts inside Constel. He’d been popular there as well.
But he hadn’t been unique. In swordsmanship, there was Aster Evans, plainly stronger than him, and his friend and rival Dierre Aiger, who amazed Pielot every time with how he could think like that.
And his teacher: Frondier de Roach.
If you said “out-of-spec,” that was the sort of person you meant.
“Amazing, Pielot! To have this level the moment you transfer!”
“Ah, yeah. Thanks.”
A mock spar in Combat Practicum.
As Pielot rested after his bout, a female student approached with sparkling eyes. She even handed him a water bottle.
Her name—what was it again? In any case, she was definitely in Pielot’s class.
The fact that he was a transfer student had long since gotten out. Frondier had told him it would be obvious soon anyway, so this went as expected. It had been right not to announce himself early.
'This is bad.'
Pielot thought as he drank.
He couldn’t go all out.
From what he’d heard, in the continent of Agoris, the performance of the weapon took precedence over individual strength.
There was some research organization whose goal was to make magitech weapons reach the divine rank.
'...If they actually saw a divine weapon, that notion would evaporate.'
The image of Frondier holding a hammer flashed in Pielot’s mind, and a chill ran through him.
At any rate, with the continent oriented this way, Atlas had no overwhelmingly dominant individuals on display. The average skill didn’t seem very different from Constel’s, but they lacked figures to idolize.
Enter Pielot—a character who, in that vacuum, could attract the favor of the girls and the boys’ admiration and jealousy all at once. A very convenient position.
“So, what did you do before you transferred? How’d you get so strong?”
“Ah? Mm, I trained. Yeah.”
He kept his words to a minimum. In the old days, a question like that would have got him rambling about everything under the sun. Even he could tell he’d changed a lot.
'And that’s why I’m worried.'
Living at Atlas, a slowly growing unease stirred in him.
There was no Aster Evans here, plainly stronger ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ than him, nor his rival Dierre Aiger.
Frondier, his teacher, was too busy with faculty work to spar with him, and so of course was Elodie.
Around him were only people who praised him; no one said anything harsh or pointed out his flaws.
Just like before. Just like the days that had swollen him into a bundle of conceit.
'...I might be slipping back without noticing.'
Lately Pielot felt his mind loosening, little by little.
With no one to draw out his full strength, he held back so as not to stand out too much. To a third party, it would look like his old self—sandbagging and deceiving those around him.
'Ordinarily, this is where Senior Frondier would show up and put me in my place.'
He still remembered his first encounter with Frondier vividly.
No—that hadn’t been a fight. It had been one-sided instruction.
He’d felt the gap in skill with Frondier, who had been sitting in a chair, and afterwards he’d learned his place while getting thoroughly beaten.
Only after learning under Frondier did Pielot understand—
How vicious his arrogance had been.
How viciously his babyishness had clung to him.
After drinking, a small murmur slipped from Pielot’s lips.
“...Don’t be a baby, Pielot.”
“Huh?”
The girl in front of him tilted her head, not understanding, but Pielot no longer saw her.
He recalled Frondier’s austere eyes. He could see the traces of Frondier’s own worries there, too.
Frondier had been strict with him, and even in moments when praise or encouragement would have seemed appropriate, he deliberately held back. The difference from how he treated Dierre made it plain.
'That’s how serious your babyishness is, Pielot.'
Pielot had come to be of help to Frondier. He’d even stowed away on a ship to grow stronger, crossing continents despite trying his teacher’s patience.
Was it for this comfortable life?
Had he come here for a few compliments from students who would overtake him in a blink if he let his guard down, just because he was a little late?
No. Absolutely not, Pielot.
“Hey.”
Someone approached him then.
“...You’re—”
“Ias.”
Ias turned an unpleasant gaze on Pielot.
Pielot knew Ias, too. A clear standout in Atlas, conspicuously strong. Someone Pielot had thought he must befriend if he wanted to become stronger.
“You’ve gotten pretty full of yourself, transfer. Everyone fawning over you got you thinking you’re the best?”
“Full of myself...?”
Pielot turned the words over, then paused to recall what full of oneself meant.
Arrogant—brimming with useless conceit.
'Wait... this is—'
He remembered a certain novel.
A transfer student arrives at some school; he’s more skilled than others, and for that reason he’s very cocky and arrogant.
Drunk on his popularity and skill, he even crosses the line with the heroine who dislikes him—then the protagonist beats him down, and he suffers humiliation and disgrace before the whole school. A classic arc.
Pielot: the transfer student. Beside him, the girl who’d handed him the water bottle. And the boy who’d approached—strong enough to be called the school’s protagonist.
'Oh. Oh, this is—'
For a moment, Pielot’s eyes sparkled.
He stood.
“Yeah. I am full of myself!”
“...Huh, what?”
While Ias blinked in confusion, Pielot thought,
'This is my chance!'
If it was Ias, he’d fix Pielot’s rotten habits.
Pielot believed it without a doubt.
