Part 8
Alexia, Claire, and Isaac stand at the vanguard as the group travels. Their goal is to avoid wearing out the students who are low on magic.
However, Alexia doesn’t have much to spare herself.
“I’m under one thousand…,” she mutters.
As her magic drains, she can feel death creeping ever closer.
“I’m at eleven hundred,” Isaac says.
“I’ve still got thirteen hundred,” Claire replies. “If things get rough, just leave it to me.”
The two of them have slightly larger buffers than Alexia, but even so, the psychological strain is wearing away at them.
However, the person who has it the worst of all is the girl they just saved.
“No, no, I can’t…”
She trembles as she watches her number steadily drop. Her mana reserves are down to 59; that means she only has about ten minutes left. However, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
“Snff…”
When she finally breaks down into tears, nobody can find any words to console her with.
All of a sudden, the group senses a series of magical reactions around them.
“Be careful.”
They look around, but there’s nothing there but white fog.
No, that isn’t true. There’s magic gathering in the fog and forming into spirits. The fog is literally conjuring them out of thin air.
“Take this!”
Alexia and the other attackers stab at the spirits before they have a chance to make a move. However, there are too many of them. Christina, Nina, and the students making up the rear guard join the battle as well, and the cramped corridor devolves into an all-out melee between humans and spirits.
“Gah, there’s more behind us!”
“Damn these things!”
“Eek! Stay away from meeeee!”
Despite it all, there are still those who don’t fight.
“Are you not going to get in there, Eliza?” Suzuki asks.
Eliza laughs scornfully as she deftly evades the spirits’ slashes. “That’s Miss Eliza to you, thank you very much. And the time for me to fight hasn’t come yet. What’s your excuse?”
“I’ve got way less magic left than you, Miss Eliza. I figured that if one of us should be fighting, it’s you, Miss Eliza.”
Eliza’s brawny bodyguard shoots Suzuki a glare. “Watch your mouth, frosh.” He, too, has been using magic solely when it’s the only way to keep Eliza safe.
Suzuki lets out a quiet chuckle as they stare him down, then looks over at the girl from earlier. Her mana’s in the single digits. “It really is a shame. You patched her up so thoughtfully, and now she’s gonna die.”
Despite the girl’s wounded arm and paltry reserves, she’s fighting the spirits as if her life depends on it.
“It is what it is. There’s nothing any of us can do for her now.”
The girl’s mana reserves keep dropping. Six, five, four…
“Sure there is. I did some fiddling, and I found that there’s something reeeal interesting you can do with these collars.”
With that, Suzuki walks through the battle, over toward the girl. A spirit is about to bring its sword down on her, but Suzuki parries the blow with a magically imbued palm strike.
With a wham, the spirit’s sword explodes into pieces.
“Huh?”
The girl looks up at Suzuki in shock.
Another wham echoes.
Before anyone realizes what’s happened, the spirit’s jaw shatters as well. Suzuki slowly lowers the palm he just lashed out with.
“What did you just do?!” Eliza demands.
“Some rudimentary martial arts. It’s nothing to get excited over.”
With a soft grin, Suzuki reaches for the girl’s collar.
The numbers keep going down. Three, two, one…
It’s obvious the girl is beyond help.
“Ahhh… No, no, I don’t want to die… Please…,” she begs.
“Don’t worry,” Suzuki assures her, then pours magic into her collar.
The next moment, the girl’s magic reserves start shooting up. Fifty, one hundred, one hundred fifty…
“Th-thank you…”
They stop at 251. The girl breathes a sigh of relief.
“Suzuki…what did you just do?”
The question comes from Christina, who’s now finished fighting.
Most of the spirits have been dispatched, and Claire is right in the middle of dispatching the final one.
After looking to see that the fight is well and truly over, Suzuki explains himself. “Back in the classroom, I took a look at some of the dead students’ collars. When I tried pouring magic into one of them, I found out that the collar actually stored it, and that got me thinking.”
Everyone present is listening to him.
“These collars allow you to transfer mana. When you do, it gets saved in a pool in the other person’s collar before slowly getting expended. In other words, if we transfer mana to low-magic students, we can delay their explosions.”
“I’m impressed you were able to figure all that out,” Alexia says, meaning every word of it.
“This’ll mean that fewer people will have to die,” Claire notes.
“And out of all of us, the student with the most magic…is Miss Eliza.” Suzuki smiles. “I trust you’ll be happy to help, right?”
Eliza returns his smile with a sweet one of her own. “When we get to the auditorium, I’ll take it under consideration.”
“Aw, that’s good to hear. By the way…when I was checking out the bodies in the classroom, there was something that caught my attention.”
“And whatever might that be?”
“There were signs that all of them had had their hands and feet bound.”
For a moment, Eliza’s eye twitches. “Are you certain you weren’t just imagining things?”
“Well, there was something else that seemed odd. All their collars had detonated.”
“And what about it? They ran out of magic, so of course their collars exploded.”
“True, true. But if you try picturing it, it makes for a pretty odd scene. While they were tied up, their collars went off and killed them. Makes you wonder what exactly happened.”
“…If you have a point you’re going to make, I would suggest making it now.”
“Let’s say there’s a person who had the same idea I did, but they did it to someone who was still alive. Maybe they transferred mana, forcing other people to use magic. Maybe they ran a test to see what triggers the collars, or they checked to see if they could be removed. But the decisive piece of evidence was her.”
Suzuki points at the girl.
“When I gave her my mana, she thanked me. But that’s weird, right? Most people would just be surprised. After all, the fact that you can transfer mana between the collars would come as news to them. But you guys already knew about that, didn’t you?”
The girl goes pale and starts trembling. “I—I…”
“You knew.”
“…I’m sorry. Miss Eliza is a powerful aristocrat, so I couldn’t defy her… If anyone went against her, she had them tied up and messed with their collars. She would try to remove them or force people to use up their magic until the timer hit zero… That’s when we learned they could transfer mana.”
“I thought it was weird how Miss Eliza had so much mana left when everyone else was running on fumes. No one else was over three hundred. It’s almost like it was by design.”
“We all had to give Miss Eliza our mana. But I had so little, I couldn’t even do that, which is why I was in the hallway…” The girl lets out a sob.
Alexia glares at Eliza. “If this is all true, then this is a serious situation.”
Eliza sighs. “And? What exactly do you plan on doing about it?”
“So you’re not even going to deny the charges.”
“Charges? I was trying to help people in my capacity as vice president. Back then, I had no idea the collars would explode if you ran out of mana or tried to take them off.”
“You have no shame, do you? How do you explain the way you stole their mana, then?”
“I didn’t steal it; I was looking after it for them. I assure you, I had every intention of dividing it back out evenly.”
“You really think that excuse will hold up?”
“Against most people, certainly…although I will admit to being on the back foot against you, Princess Alexia. Instead, how about this? Let’s make a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“I still have nineteen hundred mana. If you agree to turn a blind eye, I’d be happy to hand it over.”
Alexia softly clicks her tongue.
That last fight did a number on the students’ mana reserves. Getting Eliza’s mana might be enough to save them.
However, accepting Eliza’s offer would mean having to overlook her crimes. Even Alexia would get into trouble if she tried to renege on a deal with a major aristocrat.
“…And you’d really hand it over?”
“Of course. If you agree to my conditions, I’ll hand over allll sorts of mana.” Eliza beams confidently. She knows that Alexia’s in no position to turn her down.
Alexia glances around at the other students. Their faces are filled with exhaustion and fear. They can feel their lives draining away with every passing moment.
If she wants to save them, she has no choice but to strike a deal.
“Fine. You have a—”
The words are halfway out of Alexia’s mouth, when suddenly…
“You really don’t understand the situation you’re in, do you?”
…Suzuki speaks up, cutting Alexia off. He’s standing behind Eliza.
“What the…? When did you get there?!”
“Don’t move.”
Eliza and her bodyguard hurriedly try to turn around, but with a low growl, Suzuki puts a swift stop to that. He’s holding his hand to Eliza’s neck—or rather, to her collar.
“You know what’ll happen if I rip this collar off? I suspect you do, Miss Eliza.”
The look on Eliza’s face is downright bloodcurdling. “What are you playing at? You know exactly what’s going to happen to you for laying a finger on me!”
“Cut it out, Suzuki,” Christina urges. “The Hope family has no desire to make an enemy out of her.”
Suzuki sighs loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Well, damn. I guess none of you understand the situation we’re in.”
“And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“None of the things that usually protect you are here right now, Miss Eliza. Your influence as a powerful aristocrat, your faction’s authority, and all that wealth you’ve built up can’t reach you here in the white fog.”
“I am Eliza. One of the foremost aristocrats in the Midgar Kingdom—”
“So what? Right here, right now, is that going to protect you? If I kill you here in the fog, what sort of testimony do you think these people will give? You really think the people you stole mana from are going to come forward on your behalf?”
Eliza glowers at the other students. Not a single one of them meets her gaze.
Suzuki leans in close and whispers in her ear. “Are you starting to understand? Are you starting to see the position you’re in?”
He tightens his grip on her collar.
“…L-look, I’m sorry,” Eliza squeaks.
“I’m not interested in your apologies. What I want is for you to distribute that mana to the others.”
“Of course, of course.”
If looks could kill, the hatred burning in Eliza’s eyes would have done just that.
“Look, Princess Alexia, this is an emergency,” Suzuki says. “You can deal with Miss Eliza in a court of law once this is all over. And me, too, if the need arises.”
“Are you sure about this?” Alexia replies. “Once it comes out that you threatened a major aristocrat, things could get ugly for you.”
“I’m prepared for that.”
“I see…” Alexia turns to Christina. “And what does the Hope family have to say?”
“I’m all right as long as you agree to testify on our behalf, Princess Alexia.” Christina’s tone is flat. “We have the moral high ground here, so I can’t imagine things turning out all that badly for us.”
Suzuki gives her a small bow. “I appreciate it.”
Christina averts her gaze. “It’s nothing. I’m not made of stone, you know.”
With that settled, they start transferring the mana. Eliza ends up with 400, and the other 1,500 goes to the mana-starved students.
“I hope I don’t have to spell this out, but you’re banned from stealing their mana back,” Alexia tells Eliza.
“Let’s just get to the auditorium already,” Eliza replies. “Wouldn’t want to get attacked by any spirits, now, would we?”
After the transfers are finished, the party splits in two. Eliza and the students head for the auditorium, and the original group goes back to tracing the magic.
As they part ways, Eliza shoots Suzuki a glare. “You’ll pay for this, you know.”
However, when he passes her, he pays her no more interest than he would a stone by the side of the road.
With his back facing her, he lets out a profound-sounding whisper:
“None of this happened. It’s just an illusion, conjured up by the white fog…”
HELP! This volume is incomplete ;’( ... some chapters are missing