RATH 58

TL: Eevee

7. Is your backside safe? (10)

#13 Their story: A certain student council president’s story

“Of course we need to eat it all together.”

After we charged in, and realised once again that we were no match for the silver devil.

As if we’d been hit by the legendary space-time magic, when we woke up we were on the rooftop again, and were punished once more by the other student council members.

Vice-president Karen had been stomping one of the other stuco members when almost as an afterthought, she told us what happened with Professor Nicerwin.

And the contents of which, that we would have supplies prepared for us.

But there was no way that that devil of an instructor would ever just give it to us, and as I expected, while there were twenty of us, there would only be ten peoples’ worth of supplies.

And moreover.

“Isn’t 1PM around the time where all the students are busy escaping?”

To think he’d make us scavenge for food in the middle of that intense struggle!

“It is. And it’s also the time that the silver devil shows up.”

“Isn’t that just asking for her to beat us up as runaways?”

“No, but we have to escape, after all.”

“But, we have to think of the possibility of failure and get food as well.”

“Our final boss is the silver devil after all.”

“Damn it, I’d honestly rather fight the demon king. At least you actually can die against that.”

“The old heroes had it easy. At least they got to die if they lost?”

“We can’t even die.”

Not even the soldiers that fought in the Great War that was said to have overturned the continent would have had to face our current dilemma.

They who went out to fight for their country, to defend their families were truly honourable, but just what the hell do we have to face this deathly fear for?

Learning? Was the occupation of a student always this dangerous and fearful?

The other academies aren’t like this!

“It can’t be helped. This is just our fate.”

Did one of the great generals of the Great War not say this to his conscripted troops?

[As long as you don’t die this will be but a passing memory!]

“Just three more months. Once the imperial festival ends, we’ll be free.”

“Though I don’t think our sanities’ll last that long, Pres?”

“I totally agree with you on that, but it can’t be helped. Firstly, including Risen, five people good with speed should form a team to secure food supplies.”

I put forward a motion to split into teams to find food, but a rebuttal came immediately.

“Wouldn’t it be better to give up on lunch? Wouldn’t it be easier to focus on breaking through?”

We never broke through the front gates even with all our forces.

Although we’d never actually gotten beyond the first floor to begin with.

“No, who knows whether Professor Nicerwin’s idea of a single person’s portion might actually be a logical single portion or not.”

“For example, a baby’s portion, or an elf’s portion.”

“Yes, so it’s better to get as many supplies as possible. Plus, he said that he’d provide ten portions throughout the academy, he never said he’d give us ten portions.”

But our enemy is the man who annihilates common sense, Professor Nicerwin.

Against a person that might do literally anything and everything, obtaining food for the long game is a must.

“Alright, let’s go hunt for dinner!”

Two hours later after I shouted so confidently.

“Is, is there any to begin with?”

We couldn’t even find a trace of anything that remotely resembled food.

“Is there really nothing?”

“Nothing. I even had a canine-type summon try to smell it out, but there’s no place with food in it outside the night-watch rooms.”

“Have you considered invisibility magic, or some other magic interference?”

“At least in the rooms we’ve searched so far, we’ve gone over it with every method we know, but still nothing.”

Did it mean that food was only available from tomorrow?

But if it was, then he would have.. surely not?

“Hang on, I need to go check something.”

“Want us to come with you?”

“No, I think it might be better if I go alone first.”

Since it was an absolutely utterly ridiculous thought, I went alone to confirm first.

If it was last year, this would be an unimaginable idea, but this year is different.

“It’s the student council president Nerkia.”

“Hm? Ah, c’mon in.”

When I knocked lightly on the door and revealed my identity, I got permission from the other side to enter.

The time right now was almost 10PM.

Right now in this dark academy, neither students nor teachers remained.

But even so there were still people at school, and they were us on the school’s rooftop.

“What brings you here at this time of night?”

And the teachers on night duty in the night-watch rooms!

Just in case of emergency, there were always a number of teachers on standby in the academy, and they would guard the school until the other teachers arrived the next day.

“Professor, by any chance did you hear anything about Professor Nicerwin since today?”

And it was also currently the only place in the school where food had been discovered.

“Hm? Professor Nicerwin?”

The teacher tilted his head to the side as he thought, and said.

“Nothing special. Just that since you kids are living in the roof, don’t pay them too much notice as long as they don’t try running away, and aside from that there was nothing that you kids would have to worry about.”

For a start, I obtained intel that the night-watch teachers would try to capture us if we tried to flee.

But since we’d expected that to begin with, that wasn’t that big a deal.

“It doesn’t have to do with us. Just anything out of the ordinary.”

“Hm? Out of the ordinary outside of.. ah! That was it. For some reason he told us to bring two packed meals. And to always eat after 7:30 as well. It’s a weird ask, but since it’s on the orders of Professor Nicerwin, the man who’s pretty much the top dog of the academy I pretty much have to listen. But well, so I brought one for dinner, and one as a snack.”

Ahh.. my delusions were slowly becoming reality.

“Professor, as far as I know, there are a total of five teachers on night watch, did he say that to all the teachers on night duty?”

“Probably? Since it came as an announcement to all the night staff. If you’re working the night shift then that applies to all of us.”

Five teachers on night duty. Two lunches each.

Exactly ten packed meals in total.

And moreover, they were told only to eat past 7:30.

In this situation where my absolutely nonsensical imaginations was turning to reality, my brain began whirring into gear.

“So that has nothing to do with us.”

“Well, true. It would be weirder if it did.”

My poker face was absolutely flawless to the point that I thought I might try my hand at acting if I ever had nothing to do in the future.

Thankfully, the people who were guarding our food supplies were also unaware that what they were holding was our meals.

Or, should we be considering ourselves unfortunate that five of the food supplies had already disappeared.

No, what was certain here was that the man who came up with all this, Professor Nicerwin, was definitely not human.

And so after exchanging some few more minutes of idle chatter to prevent him from becoming suspicious, I left and immediately headed back up to the rooftop.

“Now, listen up. Our food supplies are the teachers’ packed meals.”

Just what would the reactions be if I’d said this in any other academy?

The majority of them would think that I’d gone mad. But this is Yugrasia.

In this already insane academy, the students who had turned insane accepted this story calmly.

“So we just need to invade the night watch room?”

“Easy. We’ve been fighting the teachers for how long now.”

“If it’s the teachers’ lunchboxes then there some of them might already be eaten?”

“Damn it, we need to loot them quicker from now on.”

Looking at my trustworthy comrades who accepted the need to steal the teachers dinners as if it was obvious without a word of opposition, I explained a strategy.

And.

“Excuse me, Professor?”

“Hm? What is it, Karen?”

“I discovered something odd, could you please come with me?”

“Huh? In the academy?”

As expected from a Yugrasia student, that was some brilliant acting.

I honestly think that our acting skills which we honed by playing dead with our lives under threat from the silver devil had already hit the levels of a master.

“Charge.”

Very simply, the moment we saw Karen lead away the teacher from the night watch room we immediately ran in and began searching for food.

“Here, found a lunchbox!”

“One here too! But this one’s already empty.”

“So one to start? What are its contents?”

“Urk.. a lunchbox with some fruit and vegetables. There’s.. no meat.”

“Don’t grumble. That’s still our important food supplies.”

“Report from the fifth floor! Fifth floor is empty! All the lunchboxes on the fifth floor are empty!”

“Third floor reporting in! A lunchbox with a large quantity of meat discovered!”

“Seventh floor reporting in! The contents of the seventh floor lunchbox is bread!”

“Alright, now we just need the first floor to succeed..”

After the quick raid, I nodded my head satisfied at the reports of the people in charge of communications.

When we put the menu together, it seemed like we would be able to put together a simple sandwich at least.

Now the important thing was the first floor. Since we could escape from the first floor, the moment we approached it, no, even the second floor, the responses of the teachers would be different.

“First floor, food discovered! The contents are meat similar to smoked chicken and some vegetables!”

“Very good, brilliant! Did the teachers not suspect anything?”

“They say they just outright begged for them. The teachers just gave them their lunchboxes when they said they came to beg for food because they were too hungry.”

“Very good. If you bother to concern yourself with something like pride then it’s hard to survive in Yugrasia. But we can’t use that again, can we?”

“Most likely so. There’s no way Professor Nicerwin would permit them to hand over their lunchboxes so easily.”

“Everyone return to the rooftop with your spoils!”

Our first sortie had a 50% success rate.

Because of that, each person’s share was only a 1/4 portion of bread, meat and vegetables.

But as I ate these meager rations a tear dripped out the corner of my right eye.

“Ah..”

Were these tears for how tasty these rations were.

Or, even if I wasn’t some major noble, were these tears for my situation that I was in despite being a child of nobility.

If not that, are these tears of my having lost something as a human.

“Pres, why’re you crying?”

“You’re crying too?”

“Hurk.. it tastes so good! This bread, it tastes so good!”

“The meat, the meat’s just melting in my mouth!”

“It’s delicious. It’s so delicious that I’m actually crying over it!”

Perhaps because we all felt the same way, but it wasn’t just me, but everyone else was crying as they ate their designated rations.

“Hey, doesn’t it feel a lot like camping now that we’re all like this? We’ve even got the mood going too.”

“Enough bullshit, is this camping?”

“At least speak properly.”

“Oh come on, at least pretend to feel something! Don’t come back to reality the moment I say something!”

“Alright, let’s at least pretend to be happy. Who knows how many opportunities we’ll have for that in this academy?”

“Till we escape from here.”

“Please, let’s at least pretend to get a decent mood going?”

As the rest of us watched the arguments between those who tried to lift the mood and those who tried to ground us in reality, one by one we began to break out in laughter.

Was it because we were comrades who were suffering together.

Right now, each and every one of these memories seemed like they’d be the most horrific yet memorable moments in the future.

-There was a time we thought that.

For exactly a week.

No, more accurately..

“It seems that none of you seem to be aware of this, so I came down to tell you myself.”

“Wh, what is it?”

Before Professor Nicerwin suddenly appeared, and said something to shock us all.

“Student council vice-president Risen, safely escaped from the academy this morning and has earned the ‘right’ to go to school from today onwards.”

Professor Nicerwin left after saying his part, and the one who broke us out of the stupor was.

“Again? Risen again? Is it you again!”

Karen’s scream of rage.

“What kind of bullshit is this!”

“Escape? That’s possible?”

“We said we’d all escape together! But why alone!”

“Did you forget what happened before the holidays! Plan A’s first traitor was Risen!”

“Damn it, does that mean that once a traitor, forever a traitor!”

To begin with, each and every person in this room had turned traitor at least once.

No, let’s forget the fact that they’d gone even beyond that and all but begged to become traitors.

Because right now, we needed to unify in solidarity, to escape from this hell-like place, and gather our strength together!

“Alright, abandon our lunch supplies and carry out the plan!”

The plan we would set forward in motion even while abandoning our precious meals.

And that plan was!

“Escaping from the academy or whatever, right now we will capture Risen and execute him!”

Bloody retribution against the traitor.