11
It wasn’t me, but Lulu who first discovered the tournament bracket with the name Conrad Perdalros written on it.
Unlike me, who had only scanned through the Magic Division students’ match list several times, she had read every other department’s brackets from top to bottom as well.
Thanks to that, she found my name in another department’s bracket first.
Information gathering was Lulu’s specialty and instinct.
Thanks to that instinct of hers, I was able to save the time I would have wasted wandering around, unable to find my name.
While I was too preoccupied to step away from the Magic Division bracket.
Lulu returned with an uneasy expression and opened her mouth.
“Hey, Conrad.”
“Ah, yeah. You already looked through everything?”
“…I’m asking just in case, but did you find your name on the Magic Division bracket?”
“No, not yet. I’m on my third scan right now, and I still don’t see it.”
“I found your name on the Swordsmanship Division list… Could it be someone with the same name?”
“Swordsmanship Division?”
At first, I thought she was talking nonsense.
But I followed Lulu, who had grabbed my sleeve, and checked where her finger was pointing.
Indeed, at the spot indicated by the tip of Lulu’s finger, something absurd was happening that I had initially dismissed as nonsense.
[First Semester Midterm Evaluation Match Bracket
Swordsmanship Division Dyke Osman / Magic Division Conrad Perdalros]
“Swordsmanship Division… Dyke Osman?”
Since “Magic Division” was even kindly written next to my name.
There was probably no room to deny that Dyke Osman of the Swordsmanship Division was my opponent.
“Wh-what, isn’t something wrong? If it’s Dyke from the Swordsmanship Division, he’s definitely that famous guy.”
Setting aside the fact that a match between the Swordsmanship Division and Magic Division was set up in the first place.
The fact that my opponent was Dyke Osman made me feel someone’s clear malice toward me.
“I suppose so.”
Dyke Osman.
He was someone famous in many ways, just as Lulu had said.
Even though I hadn’t thought deeply about unimportant people since returning to the past, the name Dyke Osman was vaguely familiar.
There were various reasons why I remembered it.
But the important thing was that this man was a disciple of Professor Oliver.
That alone was enough to grasp that Professor Oliver was involved in the process of me and Dyke being matched up in the evaluation match.
Was he so resentful that his own disciples had lost to me?
“Let’s go to the academic office quickly and complain. There’s no way a mock battle between a swordsman and a mage can be vali—”
“Are you Conrad Perdalros?”
“Hiyak?!”
Lulu’s words, who had been urgently suggesting a solution, were cut off mid-sentence by someone who appeared suddenly.
Sensing danger, she immediately tucked her tail and hid behind my back.
Praising her animalistic crisis detection ability inwardly, I answered the person who had spoken to me.
“I am.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Dyke Osman, a fourth-year in the Swordsmanship Division.”
“I already know.”
“I’m also your evaluation match opponent.”
“I know that too.”
Dyke Osman put on a benevolent smile and extended his right hand toward me.
I glanced once at his outstretched hand, then silently extended my own right hand, quietly reinforced with arcane magic.
Squeeze. The moment I grasped his hand, I felt a strong pressure, and immediately I squeezed back with crushing force.
“Huh…?”
It was Dyke who pulled his hand away first at my grip, which was stronger than he expected.
“Stronger than I thought? And here I heard you were from the Magic Division.”
“Weaker than I thought. Weren’t you from the Swordsmanship Division?”
“H-hey! What kind of crazy talk is that…!”
The first to react to my provocation was Lulu, who was hiding behind my back watching the situation.
“…Weak, me?”
A beat late, Dyke tilted his head and asked me in a rigid voice.
“For someone so famous, you didn’t seem all that strong. As expected, rumors truly aren’t reliable information.”
The atmosphere flowing between us turned murderous in an instant, to the point where anyone encountering it could read the mood.
A current flowed as though lightning might strike at any moment.
Since this was in front of the Swordsmanship Division bracket, there had been quite a few people until just now, but most students had already sensed the ominous atmosphere and distanced themselves from me and Dyke.
“H-hey… why are you suddenly like this…”
Aside from Lulu stuck to my back trembling like a sewing machine, in reality it was just me and him facing off.
“Interesting bastard.”
Dyke forcibly relaxed his stiffened expression.
Then glared at me with eyes filled with even more hostility, looking ready to kill.
“I heard you caused some trouble for our juniors.”
“It wasn’t anything worth calling a favor. It was nothing much, so don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t get cocky about winning by surprise, you arrogant bastard.”
“Isn’t it better than getting cocky about winning against multiple opponents?”
“So you really are the crazy bastard they say you are.”
“Wasn’t ‘Mad Dog’ your nickname, Senior Dyke?”
“……”
The Mad Dog of the Swordsmanship Division.
Among the countless nicknames used for him in the Academy, there was no epithet that described Dyke Osman better than that.
The moment I mentioned his most famous nickname personally, his expression hardened.
People with the nickname Mad Dog usually flew into a rage when called a mad dog.
Naturally, Dyke was also one of those who followed that lineage.
“This bastard really wants to die….”
“Are you trying to get disqualified before the evaluation match even starts?”
“……”
Dyke’s fist, veins bulging, stopped in mid-air.
He had probably tried to resort to violence instinctively, but it seemed he immediately thought of what he would lose upon hearing my words.
He hesitated, unable to throw his fist at me.
The Academy revealed evaluation match opponents in advance only to give time to prepare accordingly.
Naturally, threatening or using violence beforehand to affect the match was grounds for disqualification.
Not only the grading of the evaluation match itself, but the subsequent academic discipline was by no means light.
Even a mad dog with nothing but muscles in his head wouldn’t want to get suspended less than a year before graduation.
Because even though the Academy usually hardly intervened in conflicts between students, they firmly handled disputes related to academic achievement.
“Hey, what’s with him? Is he crazy?”
“He’s acting like that against Dyke?”
“And he’s not even Swordsmanship, but Magic Division?”
Moreover, there were already quite a lot of eyes watching.
If he had drawn this much attention, there was no way Professor Oliver could cover up the violence he wielded, no matter what.
“Hoo, haa.”
The hulking man in front of me had at least the intelligence to think that far.
Dyke’s fist dropped downward as he regained his composure.
“Yeah. As you say, I can’t get disqualified now.”
“Wise thinking.”
“And if I hit you now, I can’t beat you ‘until you die,’ right?”
“……”
“Wash your neck clean and wait. If you run, then you’ll really know what dying means.”
Dyke left behind a laughable threat, then turned his two-meter hulking frame around and walked away.
It was a relief an unnecessary fight didn’t break out.
I had almost gotten disqualified before the evaluation match even started.
“H-hey, y-you, you, you….”
“Ah, sorry. I made you wait.”
“Are you really crazy?! Are you walking around with your life on the line?!”
Lulu, who had hidden cowering under Dyke’s pressure, raised her tail straight and shouted the moment he walked away.
“Why are you making such a fuss.”
“This isn’t fuss, it’s worry, you idiot! What the hell are you planning to do now?!”
“What can I do? We have to fight in the evaluation match.”
It was the resolve I had come to the moment I confirmed the name Dyke Osman written on the evaluation match bracket.
If things were the same as my previous life, he would probably graduate from the Academy without issue next year.
The moment that sight came to mind, I got the thought that I needed to fix his habits at least once before he left.
Even if I couldn’t make him pay the full price for all the atrocities he had committed during his four years at the Academy.
I intended to trample on his pride in front of everyone, at the very least.
I wouldn’t have wanted to waste time on something like this since I was busy.
But if a stage had been created where I could beat him legitimately like this, there was no reason to avoid it.
To the point where I even felt grateful to Professor Oliver for the first time, for using his authority to create this situation.
“Are you sane?! Fight? What fight! We need to go to the academic office right now!”
“Why the academic office again?”
“Obviously because the opponent was wrongly selected, so we need to ask them to cancel the evaluation match!”
“Forget it. It’s a waste of time anyway.”
This match was undoubtedly made through Professor Oliver’s intervention.
Besides, since all the other evaluation match brackets were already out, it would be impossible to modify just two people now.
Even if one or two students protested, they’d only get the answer that there was nothing they could do.
As soon as I explained that, Lulu’s expression came even closer to looking like she had eaten dirt.
“Th-then what do we do….”
“What do you mean what. I told you, we’ll fight in the evaluation match.”
“Th-then let’s just forfeit instead. We can make up for it in the final evaluation. I’ll help you then, okay?”
I was grateful that she was saying this much for my sake, but I had never thought of canceling the duel with Dyke from the very beginning.
I was simply calmly telling her what course of action I would take.
“The final evaluation is the final evaluation. This is this.”
“Just listen to me. I’m saying this because I truly care about you.”
“Why would I?”
“Why? Because I know what that bastard does every evaluation match! Of course you know too!”
As she said, Dyke Osman’s insane actions during evaluation matches were infamous.
Having been a student who committed all kinds of atrocities under Professor Oliver since his first year.
There was no way his vicious personality would be hidden just because it was an evaluation match.
Rather, the evaluation matches held twice a year were nothing more than an excuse for him to wield violence to his heart’s content.
In evaluation matches, Dyke Osman always beat his opponents until they died.
Not metaphorically, but literally.
The arena where evaluation matches were held had ‘death prevention magic’ cast on it, and students who received fatal wounds were transferred to treatment facilities the moment they were declared defeated.
It was one of the measures the Academy had put in place to minimize student deaths during tests.
And from the first semester evaluation match of his first year until now.
He had activated the death prevention magic six times in six evaluation matches.
It didn’t matter whether the opponent surrendered or whether the referee declared them unable to fight.
The Mad Dog’s violence had no reason. If one had to assign a reason, it would probably be that he wanted to be intoxicated by pleasure.
Of course, for Dyke to one-sidedly beat an opponent of similar skill in a midterm evaluation match where people of similar ability were matched was originally impossible.
A hulking frame over two meters tall and a huge greatsword. A burly body with muscles even in his head.
I would admit the man himself was strong to some degree.
Because there were already several powerful individuals in the Swordsmanship Division who could contend with him besides Dyke himself.
Just Prince Antonio of the second year possessed enough skill to handle someone like Dyke easily.
Unfortunately, Dyke’s evaluation match opponents were always selected from students he could easily handle.
To the point where in last year’s first semester evaluation match, a freshman who hadn’t even been enrolled for two months was matched against Dyke, a third-year.
There had been suspicions that Professor Oliver was involved before this, but this incident confirmed who was behind it.
I had wondered why someone as strong as Dyke stayed under Professor Oliver for four years.
Birds of a feather really do flock together, as they say.
“He already turns his opponents into bloody pulp every match, and since you picked a fight like that, he’s really going to try to kill you properly!”
“Of course he’ll come at me like that.”
“There’s not much difference in score between losing and forfeiting anyway! Is it so wrong to end this with your body intact?!”
“Lulu, what kind of strange things have you been saying?”
We had known each other for nearly a year, yet I had no idea she had so little faith in her friend.
No, rather, was it because she knew me too well?
At this point, Lulu wouldn’t know that I was already a 3rd Circle mage.
She wouldn’t have figured out that I could wield auxiliary weapons in preparation for close combat either.
Certainly, if I were the me from my previous life, it would be natural to lose to him.
But in this life, I couldn’t even imagine the sight of me losing to Dyke.
“Lose? What lose. I’m going to win.”
“…What?”
“I said I’m going to win.”
At my attitude displaying firm confidence, her drooping black ears perked up slightly.
“You can win?”
“I told you so.”
“Are you confident you won’t be beaten like a dog and transferred to the church?”
“Sorry, but I’m not a pervert who enjoys being beaten by men.”
“……”
I couldn’t say I didn’t understand the worried gaze she was sending me.
Looking at my capabilities and Dyke’s objectively.
It was a match between a mere 1st Circle mage and a mad dog of the Swordsmanship Division.
I hadn’t revealed to anyone yet that I had broken through to the 3rd Circle during winter break, planning to use it as a trump card.
This evaluation match would probably be the moment I used 3rd Circle magic in front of everyone.
“Just watch properly during the evaluation match. I can take him down without receiving a single wound.”
Lulu still sent me a look saying she couldn’t believe it, but she reluctantly nodded at my answer.
It was ten days before the evaluation match.