Episode 30
“Eek!”
The boy scrambled back, clutching his crotch, his face a mask of pale terror.
“I—I’ll let you off this time, but you just wait!”
He spat out the line like a third-rate villain before sprinting away, his pride clearly in tatters.
A few more participants tried to shatter our egg, but they were consistently blocked by our monsters and forced to retreat. After three hours of this, however, the repetition began to wear on me.
“Mari, I think enough participants have been eliminated. Let’s head toward the safe zone.”
“Why there? Raspi told us to wait until she got back…”
“The tide is going to force everyone toward the center soon enough.”
“Yes…? The tide?”
I offered a silent prayer for all the tides in the country that had been so misunderstood, then looked for a simpler explanation.
“Do you know what high tide and low tide are?”
“N-no.”
“It just means the island is getting submerged. There won’t be much space left to stand.”
The fundamental rule of any battle royale is a shrinking arena, after all.
“Gasp! How did you know that? Was it your precognition?”
“No. Just a gut feeling.”
“……That’s cool!”
In truth, adjusting the arena size was a necessity. It was the only way to prevent people from hiding indefinitely and stalling the progress of the event. As the boundary closed in, participants were pushed into smaller quarters, forcing engagement.
I led Rosemary and the monsters toward the interior of the island. Along the way, the backs of two children—a boy and a girl—came into view, moving toward the center just as we were.
Rosemary’s eyes gleamed like a predator spotting prey. She leaned in, whispering softly into my ear.
“Hero, may I try to eliminate those two?”
“Without the monsters?”
“Yes!”
After sitting in one spot for three hours, the restless girl was clearly itching for action. She wasn’t an Abilitator, but her enthusiasm was infectious, and I felt I should let her gain the experience.
[Saving the current point in time to Timeline 1.]
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Thank you for trusting me. I shall return after annihilating the enemy!”
……Where on earth did she pick up the word ‘annihilate’?
I watched from a distance as Rosemary approached them. She moved with the grace of a cat, perfectly matching their pace. Just as she drew close enough to touch them, she squeezed between the two, gave their shoulders a sharp, synchronized tap, and darted past.
“Eek!”
“Wh—what the!”
Both children whirled around, sparks of power igniting as they fell into a defensive stance. They frantically patted their pockets, eyes wide as they checked for their eggs.
Only after confirming their eggs were still there did they turn their glare toward Rosemary.
“Damn it. I didn’t even sense her presence…!”
“You’re going to pay for messing with us!”
Rosemary just smiled brightly, holding her own egg aloft.
“Break it if you can.”
“We’ll see how long you can keep that smile!”
In an instant, the girl whipped up a powerful gust of wind. She was clearly an Abilitator who commanded the air.
“Ugh!”
Rosemary was swept up by the gale; she swayed, lost her footing, and watched as her egg tumbled from her hands.
*Splat—!*
The shell shattered, and the yolk and whites oozed into the dirt.
“Ha! You weren’t even an Abilitator and you were acting all cocky?”
“I don’t know how a moron like that even got into the talent cultivation camp.”
As she stood there, defeated and insulted, Rosemary……
“Pfft, pffft-hahaha!”
She burst into laughter, clutching her stomach.
“Wh—what’s this? Are you so devastated you’ve lost your mind?”
After a long bout of laughter, Rosemary stood up and brushed the dirt from her clothes. She looked at them with a look of pity, revealing the truth as if it were an afterthought.
“The egg that just broke? That was your boyfriend’s.”
“What?!”
“I—I’m not her boyfriend!”
“Hey! Is that what’s important? Check your egg first!”
“Th—that can’t be. I checked to make sure it was safe in my pocket just a moment ago…!”
The boy frantically rummaged through his pockets and pulled out his egg.
*Whiz—!*
A stone thrown by Rosemary hit the egg mid-air with surgical precision. *Crack.*
Only then did the two children look at Rosemary with expressions of sheer horror, finally realizing the game she had been playing.
She scratched her head, looking embarrassed as she confessed the rest.
“Actually, the egg that broke earlier was your girlfriend’s. Even for me, swapping two at once was a bit much.”
I felt a brief shiver of admiration. If she had the reflexes to swap the eggs, she certainly had the speed to just crush them outright. The fact that she chose this elaborate ruse meant she was genuinely just ‘playing’ with them.
“Whew. That’s scary.”
I felt like I finally understood how she became the third adopted child of the Duke of Papiope in the previous timeline.
……Come to think of it, when would Mari awaken her own ability? Unlike the previous timeline, where she was left alone on the streets after losing her brother, her life had become almost too stable.
While I was lost in thought, Rosemary spat on the ground, echoing the insults they had leveled at her earlier.
“Life is real, you idiots. How is walking around without watching your back any different from saying, ‘Please kill me~’? How did people like you even manage to get into the talent cultivation camp?”
Watching her, I felt a surge of gratitude that she was on my team.
It was a total victory.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I didn’t know you were this reliable, Mari. Maybe you should have been the Hero?”
“Hehe, I was pretty cool, wasn’t I! But there can’t be two Heroes. You are the only Hero for Tania.”
“R—right.”
After Rosemary’s performance, a heavy weight lifted from my heart. Subconsciously, I had been operating under the assumption that I had to coddle her, but that was clearly unnecessary.
As we entered the inner sanctum of the island, the skirmishes were intensifying. Those meant to be eliminated were falling, and the rising tide was forcing the remaining participants into an ever-tightening circle.
The safe zone was a staging area of sorts; those who had refused to participate, the eliminated, and the cultivation camp staff watched the carnage unfold from the sidelines.
“Oh, it’s my brother!”
Raspi was there, riding atop a monster and driving back her opponents. But among the crowd, one figure stood out from the rest.
Elision was perched on a high rock, watching the chaos with a look of leisurely detachment.
“Wow…… That’s the final boss.”
There were plenty of people still fighting, yet no one dared to target Elision. He sat there in a conspicuous, vulnerable spot, yet he might as well have been behind an invisible wall.
“Mari.”
“Yes, Hero!”
“Can you take all the monsters, join up with Raspi, and thin out the numbers inside?”
“If I take all the monsters with me, what about you, Hero?”
“I’m going to target Elision.”
“……Without even a monster?”
“Even if I brought every monster on this island, I wouldn’t be able to beat him. I have to win by other means.”
“What kind of Abilitator is he, anyway?”
“He’s not an Abilitator. He’s a mage.”
Elision had risen to the position of the youngest Archmage, the same man who had smiled while conducting a massacre during the monster war. He was a war hero of the Empire. To him, this battle royale was nothing more than child’s play.
I had to persuade him to voluntarily give up the spot of the adopted child, or find a way to break his egg. Unless I succeeded, the probability of me being chosen by the Duke of Papiope was zero.
The only fortunate thing was that Elision had shown me a sliver of favor, despite only meeting me yesterday.
Hoping my hypothesis—that he had fallen for me at first sight—was correct, I steadied my breath.
“Go and fight well. I’m going to go see Elision.”