HTACS 51

Chapter 51

It was a system message I’d seen many, many times.

I recalled the memory of staring at the screen back then.

**【※Congratulations. From now on, the main story of D/Z SAGA will proceed.】**

**【From here on, Kelterus will experience countless encounters, conflicts, partings, and regrets in Zefflin, advancing toward the story’s conclusion.】**

**【If you gather companions, form a party, and raise affection, special events will occur with characters.**】

**【A deep bond with comrades is felt!】**

**【If the bond deepens further, you will be able to designate a ‘special partner’!】**

**【*The branching point for designating a heroine must be chosen carefully and may be irreversible.**】

This was the message that appeared when the main story’s 1-4 was cleared.

Naturally—and this was perfectly natural—it was a message meant for Kelterus.

So why did it appear for me? Reflecting on the D/Z SAGA I knew, the answer was simple.

“Buggy trash game.”

What else could it be? There was no way it could be anything else.

The heroine system meant for Kelterus had been applied to me? Then what happens to the story?

This was just a system message that appeared for me because I satisfied the 1-4 clear trigger—a statement with no actual validity.

Then who’s my heroine and what’s my route? Is there a hidden route somewhere? Could I just die randomly? As if my death probability wasn’t already sky-high as Wolfram—are you telling me there’s a route prepared like that insane bad-end-filled route for Kelterus?

I laughed dismissively.

“Anyway, I should use the skill selection now.”

Skill acquisition tickets and selection tickets—they both allow you to acquire skills of the same tier, but their effects are distinctly different.

The fact that I can choose a skill from the countless 9-tier skills that I can use even far into the future.

Of course, 9-tier only has miscellaneous skills, but even among them, there are a few support skills you can use until the end of the game. Like the ‘Play Dead’ skill I got before.

While I was reviewing skills in my head, voices called out from below the hill.

“Wolfram!”

“Senior!”

I glanced at the two people calling me as I was examining skills.

Oh.

“…”

A faint pinkish aura gently enveloping their bodies.

No doubt about it.

Wait, seriously?

“…Senior. Let’s go see the treasure chest!”

“Wolfram! This is treasure born from our friendship! Let’s go see it quickly!”

“…Sure. Let’s do that.”

The heroine system.

It had definitely been applied to me.

“Let’s go, Senior!”

“Let’s go, Wolfram!”

—

Eve von Lohengrin is insanely busy. Filthy busy.

If it weren’t for her monstrous mana capacity, she would surely have collapsed.

Eve can convert mana into stamina, even if it’s inefficient.

If not for that, this sixteen-year-old student council president would have collapsed long ago—even by evening.

But even with this conversion skill granting her unparalleled, overwhelming mobility, Eve von Lohengrin’s mental strength is not infinite.

Her willpower stat is certainly on the high side, but she’s not at the insane level of Rudika Hassan Shadow—one of those people called monsters of willpower.

And today’s meeting was gnawing away at Eve’s spirit even more.

“Mask sales have dropped over 15% compared to last year.”

“I see.”

“Yes. The commoner students and the Knight Department students are truly delighted.”

“It’ll keep going that way from now on. Tell Yggdrasil to stop wasting their time.”

“Th-then, shall you handle this matter directly, Student Council President…?”

“…”

Eve glanced at the secretary, and the secretary’s eyes filled with admiration.

“…Anyway, deliver that directly to Yggdrasil. Understood?”

“Yes, President!”

Considering the production cost of the masks, preventing Yggdrasil’s corrupt hoarding was truly meaningful.

However, this was not her achievement.

Wolfram von Lohengrin.

It was a feat accomplished by the man listed on the line above her in the family registry.

He had changed Zefflin.

He had a positive influence on a hundred thousand students.

How absurd. Wolfram had now accumulated enough achievements to either seize control of the student council again at any moment, or if not that, to split Zefflin apart.

“And yet, why did you hand it over to me?”

If.

If Eve were Wolfram?

If her younger sister had usurped the throne and she was demoted to commoner?

If that ambition lay in retaining the student council presidency, she would have done this:

First, take full credit for the pollen countermeasure. Then, aim a blade at the student council.

【Listen, you unfortunate chicks trapped inside the academy.】

【I, the most legitimate heir of the imperial family, Wolfram von Lohengrin, have cleared all this dust scattering in May for your sake.】

【You may not believe it, but even my younger sister Eve von Lohengrin—the usurper who took the student council presidency through unjust means—will acknowledge it.】

【Then you’ll ask the method. How I stopped this hell of pollen.】

【The answer lies outside. I led my own body beyond the academy and eliminated the source of the pollen.】

【I walked the path no one else took, and produced results that made everyone happy.】

【Think about it. If you have a brain, recognize your own disgrace.】

【Haven’t we spent these past 300 years of school life ashamed before our great ancestor’s name?】

【Why not venture beyond the academy that His Majesty the First Emperor created out of concern for later generations?】

【This is lack of virtue. This is depravity. This is like a chick that refuses to break its shell, fearing the storm even when it’s time to be born.】

【Follow me.】

【The world is vast. I, Wolfram von Lohengrin, shall lead you beyond this Zefflin.】

Truly a perfect strategy.

Make Eve out to be a power-mad usurper, and cast himself as a ruler of resistance, struggle, and liberation.

With the overwhelming achievement of the pollen, Wolfram could do it at any moment.

And with snacks made by Magical Patissier, he strengthens the students?

Over 30% of the Knight Department, whose bodies itch to charge and rampage, would side with Wolfram.

That number alone would be a staggering 20,000.

“And yet, you handed it over to me…”

What are you dreaming of?

What are you scheming?

I can’t read him.

Eve cannot understand where her older brother is looking.

“Was I wrong? Wolfram.”

At that moment, what flashed through Eve’s mind were the words Wolfram had said to her, looking down at her with detachment in that forest.

【Accept it, and find a breakthrough. Otherwise, you’ll stay in the same place forever.】

“…You’re telling me to follow, then. I’ll be waiting.”

Eve clenched her fist tightly.

This was a throne usurped from that Wolfram von Lohengrin.

And yet Wolfram himself was encouraging Eve—Eve had not lived a smooth enough life to accept that encouragement purely.

Rather, even if her qualifications as president were lacking, she could make up for it with effort. Eve clenched her fist tightly.

“Any remaining agenda?”

“…There is one.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about the first-year top student.”

“…Coolpis, was it?”

“Kel? Kelty?…Kel…what was it? Anyway, it’s the first-year top student. I only received an oral report, not a written one, so I don’t remember well. My apologies.”

“So, what did that arrogant Coolpis do?”

“…Apparently, last night, he snuck out of the dormitory with friends, ate some junk food, and was caught by the dorm supervisor on the way back.”

“…”

She clutched her throbbing head. Is that any way for the current first-year top student to behave?

“So? What did the dorm supervisor say?”

“…His recent grades have been terrible, and apparently there was an incident where he lost to a girl who was evaluated as an underachiever.”

Eve sighed.

She knew all about it.

He lost to Wolfram’s fiancée, Ayla Trista. Despite being under dormitory lockdown, he escaped and got involved in the public dormitory destruction incident, got hit and sent flying, causing trouble for everyone.

On top of that, grade decline and defeat in a spar against an underachieving girl.

“Stop beating around the bush. Do I really need to hear such trivial reports?”

“…A proposal has been submitted to strip him of his top student privileges and demote him to a regular student.”

“Clear basis?”

“His previous actions could be seen as mistakes due to poor adaptation at the start of the term, but this incident is a clear violation of school rules and wasn’t even an act of goodwill.”

“No room for leniency.”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

Eve sighed.

Wolfram was already making her anxious enough, and now that damned top-student junior was irritating her too.

Without any emotion—just as she would process routine documents—

“Yes. By the student council president’s authority, I revoke Coolpis’s top student privileges.”

She gave that instruction to the secretary.

—

“This is the treasure?”

“…Senior?”

“So it seems.”

Nephti and Rudika alternated their gaze between the ruin’s treasure left by their ancestor—and me.

Well, of course they’d be dizzy when it’s written in elegant handwriting: 【The adventure you’ve had together is the real treasure.】

“This is the treasure…? The adventure we shared?”

“So it says.”

“…What did we even do in this adventure?”

“I took one hit from the golem’s attack.”

“And I dispersed it with a protective formation and took it.”

The two stared at me intently once again.

“Wasn’t all the adventure-like stuff done by Senior Wolfram?”

“That’s right. Wolfram did everything. Wolfram, did you know the contents of this treasure?”

“There’s no way I could.”

No matter how suspicious I might be, knowing the contents of this treasure too would be impossible.

That would mean I’m a lunatic who went on an adventure knowing the treasure was fake.

Unless Wolfram von Lohengrin is seen as someone with such severe outdoors addiction that he’d go mad if he didn’t leave the academy, that inference is impossible.

“Really…? Wolfram wouldn’t deceive Rudika, would he?”

I silently nodded.

“Yes. Really. Besides, this is my first adventure too. The trips to the Sleeping Mountain Range and the Eastern Forest entrance with you all weren’t even adventures. How could I possibly know the identity of this treasure?”

“…First time. I see.”

“Mhm. That’s right.”

“Understood. If that’s the case, I can understand everything. All of it.”

“?”

“Wolfram read ancient texts, listened to fairies’ stories, and at the end of it all, chose Rudika and Nephti as companions for his first adventure. Right?”

“That’s true, but.”

“Good. That’s enough. Wolfram’s first adventure companion is this Rudika. That’s enough.”

Saying that, Rudika smiled brightly, as if genuinely pleased, and gave up on the treasure chest.

“U-um. I feel like there should be more, but… I guess there isn’t.”

“Instead, there are plenty of rare ores and herbs around here. Patrasche.”

When I gestured with my chin, Patrasche understood and began hauling the cart, digging up nearby herbs and ores.

How obedient.

How well-trained.

“Will you call Rudika—your first adventure companion—as a companion often in the future?”

“I’ll do that.”

“Mhm. No. Surely. Surely there must be more… I believe. I believe in the First Emperor!”

The exact opposite of Rudika, the highly satisfied assassin—Nephti, the knight of faith—or rather, the knight of desire—kept staring at the handwritten note.

“There doesn’t seem to be any magical device, and it’d be a waste to burn it… Ah!”

“What is it?”

“Senior Wolfram, isn’t this perhaps the great First Emperor’s own handwriting? Isn’t it?”

To Nephti’s question, I nodded.

Even when examined with item appraisal in the original, it was written as the First Emperor’s own handwriting.

“S-so that’s it. I understand it all now! Aha!”

“…?”

“The note itself is the treasure! That is, the First Emperor’s handwriting from 300 years ago. A note written out of concern for future generations! Surely, if put up at auction, it could fetch a decent price!”

“…That’s not an insult to the imperial authority? All relics of the great ancestors are managed by the imperial family.”

“Ugh. If we use the slums of Knight Department District 4…”

“That’s undeniably grounds for expulsion, Nephti.”

Nephti slumped down dejectedly.

“My jackpot. My liberation. My freedom. My wish to hit the big time, pay for my little brother’s tuition, graduate, and travel the world for gourmet food…”

Isn’t that too big a dream to achieve with just one score in the Eastern Forest?

Nephti sat down on the spot, on the verge of tears.

After all, it was Nephti who brought this treasure map and was filled with dreams of striking it rich… I do feel a bit sorry for her.

In a way, I did deceive her too.

“I don’t know about world gourmet travel, but to celebrate our completion, I’ll make you something at the convenience store. Rudika, come along too.”

“R-really? Th-then I want meat!”

“Oh! Alright!”

Listening to the two chatter their orders, we headed to the convenience store.

By the way, didn’t the aura surrounding Nephti turn just a little more pink when I said I’d make her food?

“Thank you, Senior Wolfram!”

“Mhm. Don’t chase get-rich-quick schemes—work hard instead.”

“Yes! This Nephti will become a tireless worker!”

“Take a break sometimes too.”

“Yes!”

With this conversation, I had the illusion that it turned just a little more pink.

Will this be okay?

It’ll be fine.

Right. Affection can’t possibly rise this easily.