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Chapter 90
“Exactly. What would have happened if you hadn’t been there, Rien? I would’ve never met Jane again.”
Hans shuddered from head to toe, as though he didn’t even want to imagine it.
Watching him, Jane smiled as if a weight had finally been lifted from her shoulders.
“Congratulations, Hans. Now you can go on the graduation trip without a worry.”
“Yeah. I was wondering what I’d do if you were the only one left behind.”
The Arena Academy held a graduation trip exactly once during a student’s final year, just before winter vacation began.
It was the first—and last—trip that the entire grade took together during their entire time at the academy.
At my words of agreement, Hans puffed out his cheeks as though I’d said something terribly unfair.
“You really thought I’d be the only one to fail the graduation exam?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Answering that quickly actually hurts.”
His face, however, showed absolutely no signs of being hurt.
I simply shrugged.
“But look at the people around me. If they all failed, who would even be able to graduate from the academy?”
“That…! Actually, you’re right. Hehe.”
Hans readily admitted it, grinning from ear to ear.
That was when Karsion and Fior walked into the classroom, waving at us.
“Rien, I’m here.”
“What? Everyone’s already gathered.”
I waved back before teasing them.
“What brings you two here together? Did you fail the exam and come looking for consolation?”
It was a joke I could make because I knew perfectly well that the two of them had obviously passed.
As expected, Fior curled one corner of his mouth into a smirk.
“No. We came to make fun of you for failing.”
“How wonderfully touching. I suppose you thought everyone else had failed just because you did.”
Fior casually waved his passing certificate right in front of my face, looking completely at ease.
“As if. I’m nothing without my brains.”
…Wouldn’t everyone be a corpse if you took away their brains?
I was debating whether or not to point that out when Karsion asked me worriedly,
“So, how did Rien do? You seemed to have a lot on your mind lately. You didn’t make some kind of mistake, did you?”
How did he even know I’d been worried about something?
I pulled the graduation exam results I’d crumpled into my pocket and handed them to Karsion.
“Of course I passed. What kind of person do you take me for?”
Only then did the worry disappear from Karsion’s face. He broke into a bright smile.
“As expected. There was no way Rien would fail. Ah, this is something worth celebrating too. How about we go somewhere delicious for dinner tonight?”
As he spoke, he casually slipped the paper I’d given him into his own pocket.
His hands were busy scheming while his mouth sweet-talked me.
I let out a short, incredulous laugh at his shamelessness.
His hands and his words were both outrageously cunning.
What on earth was he planning to do with that? Frame it and put it on display?
“Everyone here passed. There’s no need to make such a big deal out of it. Don’t be so dramatic.”
I rejected him without even a moment’s hesitation.
Karsion merely narrowed his eyes into a smile, as though he’d expected that answer.
“What about that new dessert shop that just opened outside the capital? I heard their choux pastries are incredible.”
“…I’ll think about it.”
“Good.”
Fior stared at the two of us with an utterly dumbfounded expression.
“You’d probably sell your soul for choux pastries.”
Then, as though he’d just remembered something, he changed the subject.
“Oh, speaking of graduation trips, you guys know about that, right?”
“What?”
While Hans and I tilted our heads in confusion, Jane nodded as though she already knew what he meant.
“Of course I do.”
“What is it?!”
Unable to bear his curiosity any longer, Hans urged them to hurry up and tell us.
Fior suddenly lowered his voice dramatically and spoke in a deep, ominous tone.
“The Seven Great Wonders passed down through generations at Arena Academy.”
“Whoa, our academy has something like that?”
Hans’s eyes sparkled with interest.
Meanwhile, my eyes gradually became dull.
He meant wonders, not starfish.
Fior noticed my unimpressed expression and grinned.
“Rien. I know exactly why you’re making that face, but yes, I said starfish.”
Then, from somewhere, he produced a rubber band and quickly twisted it into the shape of a star.
…He really meant starfish?
Seeing my bewildered expression, Fior’s face twitched.
“Pfft.”
What was wrong with him?
A moment later, Fior doubled over, clutching his stomach as he burst out laughing.
“You actually fell for that? Puhahaha!”
“…”
Damn it.
I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for such an obvious trick.
I bit down on my lip in frustration and glared at him.
Karsion smiled sweetly and gave Fior a merciless chop to the neck.
“Quit laughing.”
“Urgh!”
While Fior clutched his neck and wheezed, Jane continued the explanation in his place.
“The Seven Great Wonders… I mean, the Seven Mysteries. The one Fior was talking about must have something to do with the graduation trip.”
“There’s some kind of secret surrounding the graduation trip?”
Jane’s expression grew slightly uneasy.
“You know that our academy’s graduation trip goes to the same place every year, right?”
…I didn’t, because I’d never paid enough attention to care.
Still, I nodded as though I’d known all along.
“The strange part is that no one knows the itinerary.”
“Huh?”
No one knew the itinerary?
Shouldn’t they at least tell us what we were going to do?
“The graduates and even the professors don’t tell anyone where they’re going or what they do once they get there.”
“That’s suspicious.”
“The graduates too?”
“Yeah. So before I returned to the academy, I contacted some friends I used to be close with and asked them about it…”
Jane rolled his eyes for a moment before continuing.
“They just smiled knowingly and told me it would be the best graduation trip of their lives.”
“…The best?”
“Yeah. They couldn’t stop praising it. Apparently the scenery, the accommodations, even the food were all perfect.”
Fior, who had recovered from his impromptu execution, added his own thoughts.
“That’s the most suspicious part. No matter how good it was, there were plenty of noble students on those trips. Yet apparently not a single complaint was made.”
That was chilling.
The more I heard, the more ominous the whole thing felt.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Fior rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.
“I thought something was fishy too, so I asked a senior I was close with if he’d want to go again. He just gave me this meaningful smile.”
“Wow, that…”
None of us could finish the sentence.
We exchanged glances.
It seemed we were all thinking the exact same thing.
Shouldn’t we apply to cancel the graduation trip while we still can?
A heavy silence descended over us.
Just as the mood was beginning to shift toward abandoning the graduation trip altogether, the person who broke the silence was none other than Koon, who hadn’t even been there moments ago.
“Why are you all so certain that it will be unpleasant before you’ve even gone?”
I blinked at his sudden appearance.
“Did you hear us?”
“I apologize. I wasn’t deliberately eavesdropping. I simply happen to have good hearing.”
“It’s fine. We weren’t discussing anything particularly secret.”
I asked him a question so he could naturally join the conversation.
“Koon, have you heard anything about the graduation trip?”
“No. But I suppose we’ll find out once we go.”
Several of us immediately objected.
“Aren’t you being a little too relaxed about this?”
“…They say escape is a matter of intelligence.”
“Ugh. I don’t want to find out through firsthand experience.”
Koon merely smiled faintly.
“What the graduates said could very well be true. Even if their claim that it was enjoyable was a lie, surely the academy wouldn’t starve its students or throw them to monsters as food, would it?”
“Hmm.”
He had a point.
At worst, the facilities would be old or the food would taste terrible.
Perhaps noticing that we were beginning to waver, Koon delivered the final blow.
“It is our last chance to make memories together, isn’t it? And it’s only an overnight trip. Surely that much is worth enduring.”
That was also undeniably true.
Considering that Koon was probably the most pampered person among us, hearing him say that somehow made me feel like I was being overly dramatic.
All right.
I’d made up my mind.
“I’m going. The graduation trip ends right before vacation starts, after all. And once vacation is over, graduation is only a week away. Wouldn’t it be nice to make at least one more memory together before then?”
Once I announced that I would participate, the others gradually followed suit.
“If Rien’s going, then I’ll go too.”
“Yeah. Like Koon said, it’s not like they’re going to starve us. If they only feed us grass, I’ll automatically lose weight, so that might actually be a good thing.”
“If they throw us to monsters, I’ll just have to start selling monster repellent right there.”
Fior even grinned confidently.
“Besides, no matter how bad it is, I doubt the conditions will be worse than the quarterly training trips our swordsmanship division takes.”
Once I confirmed that everyone intended to participate, I asked Fior something I’d been curious about.
“All right, I understand the deal with the graduation trip. What about the other mysteries?”
“One of them is pretty famous. You know how our academy doesn’t have a student council president?”
“Right.”
Whenever something important needed to be decided, the class representatives would gather and discuss it.
And since even class representatives could be replaced at any time, there was essentially no student who held any real power.
“But apparently, someone receives an Award of Merit as the student representative during the graduation ceremony.”
“Based on what?”
“No one knows. That’s why it’s one of the Seven Mysteries.”
“…So this is where the true nature of Arena Academy finally reveals itself.”
I’d always thought there was no academy that cared more about its students’ convenience than Arena Academy.
I suppose no organization was so spotless that you couldn’t find a speck of dust if you dug deep enough.
As I sat there looking slightly dejected, Fior offered a somewhat more hopeful explanation.
“But you can’t necessarily assume it’s something bad like you’re thinking. The truth is, nobody actually knows what the selection criteria are.”
“Wasn’t it usually someone from a high-ranking noble family or a wealthy household?”
“Nope. It had absolutely nothing to do with social status. Usually, it went to a popular student, but even that wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule. There was even a year when a professor received the award.”
“What? Why would a professor receive it?”
“…It’s called the Student Representative Award of Merit.”
“I’ve already said this three times, but that’s why it’s one of the Seven Mysteries.”
Fair enough.
If it were easy to figure out, they wouldn’t call it a mystery.
“What are the others?”
This time, Jane continued the explanation.
“The others are so trivial that it’s almost embarrassing to call them mysteries. Some are little more than unverified rumors.”
“Like what?”
“Things like the identity of the chairman of Arena Academy, or the Cat-Is-Liquid Theory…”
One of those things seemed completely unrelated to our academy.
“There’s also a rumor that this place used to be a cemetery before Arena Academy was built. And apparently, some students claim they’ve seen the statue near the fountain move on its own…”
I nodded.
Apparently, building schools on top of cemeteries really was a universal tradition.
“Then what’s the last one?”
“I think it was how the eccentric Professor George and Professor Walter, the master of laziness, became friends.”
Ah.
I actually knew how Professor George and Professor Walter had become friends.
Professor Walter had told me that Professor George had been his homeroom teacher throughout his student years.
Come to think of it…
Following Achander’s advice, I had been keeping my distance from Professor Walter.
But wasn’t Professor George the person who spent the most time with Professor Walter?
I felt uneasy.
No, to be honest, I was worried.
I had managed to get through every vacation without returning to the count’s estate.
I was afraid that Rex Begonia might be waiting for me there.
Since I had nothing better to do during the breaks, I would occasionally—while pretending I had no choice—help Professor George with his research.
Perhaps because of that, I had grown rather attached to him.
After agonizing over it for quite some time, I ultimately decided not to interfere.
Not only did I have no justification for trying to persuade Professor George, but I had a strange certainty in my heart.
A certainty that Professor Walter would never hurt Professor George.
