CH 53

[Hated Hero, Standing Up]

A sudden burst of mana.

Noticing the anomaly, the gazes of several people in the venue were drawn towards the window to see what was going on outside.

I tried to go out to the terrace to get a better idea of ​​the situation, but…

“Wait, Barrett.”

…I was stopped by Mr. Walter, who was dressed up in a tuxedo. He must have been prepared specially for today’s ball.

“You seem to have sensed it as well, but… the origin of what happened just now is no doubt the same as the previous case.”

“…Yes, so it seems. That’s why I’m going to track back the mana, and ascertain the situation.”

“H-hey!”

“Lord Barrett!”

As Mr. Walter and I were talking, Raul rushed over in a hurry. In his hand was the Holy Sword that I had entrusted to him before the ball began. After receiving it, I said to Mr. Walter with a smile, “The Holy Sword is meant to be used at times like this, don’t you agree?”

“Mgh…” Mr. Walter was at a loss.

The Hero who was granted the Holy Sword must be the first to stand up at times like this. I knew I was still lacking in many ways. Even so, I was confident I wouldn’t shame the title of Hero as I’d had some degree of success in mastering the Holy Sword.

At that time, a voice chipped in in my support.

“It’ll be difficult to dissuade him once he made his decision, Mr. Walter.”

It was Jarvis.

“I’ll go too. I don’t mean to say that I’m worried about you going alone, but an extra pair of hands will make things much easier, right?” He said, turning to me.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

Fighting alongside Jarvis, huh… I would never trust my back to the original Jarvis, but the current him was someone that I was sure I could depend on. I mean, his falling into the dark side in the original storyline was most likely caused by (former)Barrett. We could build up trust between us by fighting alongside each other, too; I believed this was a good idea.

“I’m going too! I wish to be of help, even if just a little!”

Raul announced his participation as well.

Now that it had come to this—

“…All right. But on the condition that I’m going as well.”

—Mr. Walter could only join us, and thus the four of us would be setting out to investigate the situation.

Mr. Walter temporarily left to tell the students to stay in the dance hall and explain the situation to the other teachers, whereas I, in the meantime, explained the situation to Tayte.

“—As such, we’ll be going to investigate the source of the mana.”

“I-I see…” Tayte wore a worried look.

Dammit!

How dare they mess up the fun ball… I’d definitely catch the culprit!

“Barrett, let’s go!”

Mr. Walter came back and called out to me, and when I was about to walk over to him, one of my sleeves was grabbed. Of course, the one who grabbed it was Tayte.

“Um, Barrett… please make sure you come back!”

Tayte appeared very worried about me.

“Of course. I mean, there are still so many things I want to do with you, Tayte.”

“Me too! Me too, so…”

At that point, Tayte fell silent.

After a few moments of silence, I finally said, “I’ll be back,” and started running. Curious, I turned around as soon as I joined up with Mr. Walter and the others, and I found Tayte waving her small hand at me with Reina standing by her side. She had rushed up to Tayte to console her, apparently. I couldn’t find Mr. Abel around; I wondered if he had moved out on his own.

“We don’t know what will be waiting for us. Don’t let your guard down.”

“““Understood!”””

Jarvis, Raul, and I responded to Mr. Walter’s warning, then we ran outside.

◇◇◇

Deep forest surrounded Academy Homeville.

Sure, a school being in harmony with nature may sound cool, but a forest this deep made for a perfect place for someone to carry out secret maneuvers. Of course, there were security measures in place such as the barrier; if an outsider were to attempt to slip through it, they would be dealt with promptly.

However, the security measures were mainly meant to deal with threats from outside; they wouldn’t necessarily work against insiders.

“This is it… I’m pretty sure it came from around here…” Mr. Walter, leading the way, stopped.

Just as he said, I had also sensed the great amount of mana had come from around this area… but there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

――However, the situation soon changed.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!”

A roar that cut through the darkness of the night echoed throughout the forest.

“W-What?!”

After looking around, I immediately found it.

“?! A m-monster?!”

“S-so big…”

“I have never seen such a monster before!”

Raul, Jarvis, and even Mr. Walter were shaken.

…Well, there was no way they wouldn’t.

The monster was too bizarre, after all.

Its body, probably that of an orc, was almost 3 meters tall. However, it had the head of a giant insect—in fact, there was two of them. It held an axe in its right hand and a shield in its left hand. In addition, it had a thick tail that seemed to belong to a lizardman, hitting the ground violently.

You could call it a ‘synthetic monster’, I supposed?

In any case, it was a monster made from parts of different monsters combined together.

This had to be… a man-made creature, wasn’t it?

“It’s coming! Prepare for battle!”

Receiving Mr. Walter’s instruction, we readied our weapons.

Anyway, if this guy was the culprit who had messed up the fun ball… then I must make it pay for it.