Ex used the last remaining potion to restore his body.
It was powerful enough to heal him even if his entire body had been crippled beyond use.
‘All this, just to interrogate me…’
It probably wasn’t a true elixir, but the sheer healing power was close enough to leave him speechless. And the fact that Darius had casually used something this valuable for a mere interrogation was just as unbelievable.
“Seems like a waste?”
As Ex was thinking exactly that, Darius spoke indifferently from his chair.
He was wiping the blood from his hands with a handkerchief.
“Consider that payment for your contribution to the Demon Mansion Incident, along with the 1.2 billion El.”
“1.2 billion El…?”
“Your duel with Sir Griphoc.”
Those words finally revealed the culprit behind that whole miserable affair.
“Don’t tell me you were the one who bet 200 million El on me back then…?”
“I was. Got a problem with that?”
“No, sir. None at all… But, why would you put 200 million El on me…?”
“You wouldn’t have challenged him to a duel if you had no chance of winning.”
“You are absolutely correct, Your Highness…”
Ex had plenty he wanted to say.
Unfortunately, if he wanted to stay alive, he had nothing to say.
Especially now that there wasn’t a single healing potion left.
He hurriedly abandoned the uncomfortable topic and moved on.
“My contribution to the Demon Mansion Incident… So you knew about that too.”
“The way you desperately tried to erase every trace was rather amusing. Are you truly that afraid of me?”
“N-No, Your Highness. How could I possibly dare…”
“For reference, there are forty-two different magic devices in this room capable of determining whether a statement is true or false. They are making quite a racket.”
“To be completely honest, I’m very afraid of you.”
Darius’s words confirmed it.
Even with Ten Thousand Lies, lying to Darius had been impossible from the very beginning.
Seeing Ex reverse course without the slightest hesitation, Darius let out a single derisive snort.
“The only reason I have allowed you to remain alive until now is because you resolved that incident. Cleaning up the aftermath was no small task, though.”
Ex confirmed something else once again.
Darius had a truly awful personality.
The fact that he just had to slip in that little jab proved it.
After wiping the last of the blood from his hands, Darius spoke.
“Now talk. You possess information considered top secret even within the Imperial Family. Start by telling me how you came to know it.”
It was an extremely important question.
The answer would determine whether Darius chose to cooperate with him.
And Ex couldn’t lie anyway.
In that case, there was only one answer he could give.
“I know the future.”
He went straight through the front door.
***
“I’ll… be taking my leave, then…”
Ex looked absolutely miserable as he left the office.
He had been beaten until he was barely recognizable as a functioning human being.
Of course he had.
He’d stood in front of an Imperial Prince and started spouting nonsense about the ‘future.’
He survived only because Darius knew Ex had value. Otherwise, the only thing leaving that office would have been his corpse.
“Hmph. The future…”
After hearing Ex’s story, Darius sank into thought.
‘Princess Beatrice became a demon five years ago.’
He had suspected it for a long time.
But Beatrice had always adored and followed him.
He had never been able to bring himself to accept that she had become a demon.
‘Father isn’t sick. He’s been cursed.’
The Empress had already entered her eternal rest, and the Emperor now lay unconscious.
If he lost the Imperial Princess as well, Darius knew the loneliness would drive him mad.
So he had refused to accept the truth.
He had simply left things as they were.
‘The soul of my sister, Beatrice, is still intact.’
The conditions required to return her to normal were difficult and complicated.
For now, though, it was enough just to know that it could be done.
That alone lifted some of the crushing weight that had burdened his shoulders for years.
‘The incident five years ago was orchestrated by demons.’
Fury surged through him hard enough to make his molars grind.
Unfortunately, even Ex didn’t know exactly how the incident had been planned.
Darius wanted nothing more than to slaughter every last one of them, but the time had not yet come.
‘There will come a moment when everything can be turned around.’
Ex hadn’t told him what that moment would be.
‘I’ll make sure it happens.’
Yet there had not been even the slightest trace of a lie in those words.
“It sounds like something out of a dream…”
One corner of Darius’s mouth curled into a smile.
Beside him, Milia looked openly dissatisfied and deeply unconvinced.
Noticing her expression, Darius casually asked,
“You don’t like him?”
“…I still can’t trust him.”
From beginning to end, Milia had disliked everything about Ex.
“He’s nothing but a commoner of unknown origin. And someone like that dares to claim he’ll lift His Majesty’s curse…! As if he has any idea what Your Highness has endured these past five years…!”
“That is enough.”
At Darius’s reprimand, Milia lowered her head.
He knew why she had reacted so fiercely.
She had been at his side.
She had seen firsthand the kind of hell Darius had lived through.
“I do not believe everything he said either. If someone suddenly claimed he could see the future, who in their right mind would believe him?”
“Then why…?”
“I’m tired.”
For the first time in a long while, Darius spoke from the heart.
It was the first time since he had lost the ability to trust anyone.
“It has been five years. I’m tired of living every day doubting everyone around me.”
“Your Highness…”
“Everyone seems to have forgotten, but I am only seventeen years old. I still lack His Majesty’s ability and resolve to govern an empire. Coming to the Academy was little different from running away from the Imperial Palace.”
“That isn’t true! No one would ever question Your Highness’s ability to…”
“Listen. The magic devices are making noise again.”
“Urk…”
The truth-detecting magic devices, whose alarms only Darius could hear, were noisily warning him once more.
Caught betraying what she truly thought, Milia turned her head and fell silent.
Darius let out a long sigh.
He remembered Ex desperately trying to explain himself.
“Something interesting happened from the moment that bastard said he had seen the future.”
“Something… interesting?”
“Yes.”
Darius savored the brief silence before continuing.
“They were quiet. For the first time in a very long while, they were completely quiet. He talked endlessly, yet the room may as well have been silent.”
He recalled everything Ex had told him.
When Ex said he would lift the Emperor’s curse, when he said he would restore Princess Beatrice to her original self, when he said he could prevent the destruction of the Empire and the world.
“Not one of the forty-two magic devices made a sound.”
Ex had not told a single lie.
***
The meeting with Darius had been half a success.
Which naturally meant it had also been half a failure.
『Plausibility Penalty Acquired: Demon Race Infiltration Strengthened』
『Plausibility Penalty Acquired: Gremory Strengthened and Reinforced』
『Plausibility Penalty Acquired: Increased Factors Destabilizing the Empire』
『Plausibility Penalty Acquired: Identity Guaranteed to Be Exposed Later』
『Plausibility Penalty Acquired: Doomsday Scenario Strengthened』
‘I’m fucked.’
The Plausibility Penalties had exploded.
Of course they had.
He had openly revealed knowledge that he had no reasonable way of possessing.
If everything could have been solved by simply saying, ‘I know the future,’ Ex never would have needed to struggle this hard in the first place.
Every single penalty looked ominous enough that he couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of disaster awaited him.
He would have preferred a simple penalty that lowered his stats.
‘Should I just be grateful this is all I got…?’
Still, the success he had achieved was valuable enough to outweigh even these penalties.
There was now a new contact saved on his Mana Phone.
A direct line to Imperial Prince Darius.
In other words, Ex had acquired the card known as ‘Imperial Support.’
Granted, he hadn’t secured that support yet.
First, he had to fulfill the condition he had presented to Darius.
He had to ‘remove the Emperor’s curse.’
‘The schedule’s going to be tight.’
Ex looked at the calendar hanging on one wall of his room.
The Grand Festival was two weeks away, and the Tournament was three weeks away.
If he wanted to remove the Emperor’s curse, he would have to move quickly.
‘Taking the necklace from Andras would be faster, but…’
He had no intention of using that method this time.
Instead, he planned to do something no one would ever expect.
“Serry, open Setting Edit.”
『What setting would you like to edit?』
At long last, it was time to spend every Editing Point he had been saving.
“Add the ‘Purification Relic’ to the final reward of the Ancient Ruins.”
This was his third cheat.
***
Ex decided to head for the Ancient Ruins on Saturday, five days from now.
Before then, he needed to prepare everything required for exploring the ruins.
“You want me to buy all this for you?”
“Yes, Master.”
The next morning, Ex visited Roxwell in the faculty office and handed him a sheet of paper covered from top to bottom with a long list.
Roxwell slowly read through it.
“Ten kilograms of blasting explosives, a helmet-mounted magic lamp, fifty meters of exploration rope, ten types of fixed anchors… What the hell is this? You planning to infiltrate somewhere?”
One glance was enough to tell that the shopping list would cost a fortune.
Even a rough estimate put it well above 20 million El.
“So let me get this straight. You want me to buy all of this? With my money?”
“Yes, Master. You made a decent amount from that bet, didn’t you?”
“Did you leave your money with me for safekeeping or something? No.”
Ex had expected that answer.
He handed Roxwell another document.
“Master, take a look at this.”
“What is it this time?”
“My newly planned ‘Ancient Ruins Exploration’ project.”
Ex cleared his throat once and began his briefing.
“We’re currently in a situation where we have to ‘prove I rank first academically.’ Obviously, getting first place through ordinary credits alone is impossible. That’s why we were aiming for the Bonus Credits awarded for winning the Tournament.”
“So?”
“But that still leaves too much to chance. If I don’t win first place, it’s over. We need a backup plan. Fortunately, the Bonus Credit rules include this.”
The document contained the regulations governing Bonus Credits.
Ex emphasized the section labeled ‘Academy External Activities.’
“In other words, if I accomplish something honorable while representing the Academy, I can receive additional credits for it. And quite a lot of them, too.”
In the original story, the hero’s party had earned Bonus Credits this way.
They didn’t need the credits anyway, so Ex might as well take them instead.
“The ‘Ancient Ruins’ still haven’t been fully explored. Even now, artifacts that no one can decipher occasionally turn up there. So I’ll go there and conduct an exploration myself.”
Roxwell’s response to the entire briefing was succinct.
“You think they’ll let you?”
Naturally, it was a rejection.
“There’s a mountain of problems with this, but let’s go through them one at a time.”
Roxwell folded down his fingers one by one as he listed each issue.
“First, all students are currently forbidden from leaving the Academy. Second, there’s no way you’re exploring a place that even professionals haven’t managed to finish investigating. Third, and this is the most important part, why the hell am I paying for it?”
“So the third one is the most important.”
“You’ve probably already figured out the first two yourself.”
His faith in Ex showed up in the strangest places.
Ex lowered his voice, his expression turning serious.
“Master, this is an ‘investment.’ I’m not asking you to give me the money for free. I’m offering you the chance to acquire a share of whatever treasure I discover while exploring the Ancient Ruins.”
“You do realize you sound exactly like a con artist right now, don’t you?”
“A con artist doesn’t deliver results. I do.”
“That somehow makes you sound even more like a con artist…”
Roxwell let out a heavy sigh.
“Fine… Ninety-ten.”
“Wow. You’re putting up 20 million El and only taking ten percent? This unworthy disciple is deeply moved by his master’s generosity…”
“I get the ninety.”
“Why are you suddenly being like this, Professor? Let’s make it fifty-fifty.”
“You little bastard…”
They bickered for quite a while, right up until Ex realized he was genuinely on the verge of getting beaten again and finally backed down.
“Sixty-forty… This is tyranny…!”
“You think 20 million El grows out of the ground?”
“You tripled your money off one damn bet…!”
“What was that, punk?”
After the strange negotiation between master and disciple finally came to an end,
Roxwell called to Ex again, this time with the seriousness of the professor responsible for him.
“How are Elia and Lola doing? The three of you were close.”
That was an extremely difficult question for Ex to answer.
What had happened between the three of them yesterday had already spread throughout the entire Academy.
And considering Ex had recently become the center of every storm on campus, the rumors had traveled even faster than usual.
“Elia and Lola and I… Well, things aren’t like that anymore.”
When Ex saw Elia that morning, she hadn’t sat beside him.
She had deliberately gone somewhere else, acting as though Ex and Lola weren’t even there.
She was doing exactly what she had declared she would do yesterday.
“Lola’s taking it pretty hard.”
Seeing the change in Elia’s attitude had left Lola depressed.
Her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of guilt and self-loathing.
No matter how much Ex tried to comfort her, she didn’t get any better.
After hearing the explanation, Roxwell sighed and asked,
“What about you?”
“Me? I’m fine. Same as always…”
“You really have no idea, do you?”
“What?”
“Look.”
Roxwell handed Ex a mirror.
The Ex reflected in it had a surprisingly hard look in his eyes.
He looked like someone forcing himself to endure something far beyond what he could handle.
“You’re one of the very few bastards I actually acknowledge. So I’m saying this now because I’d rather worry for nothing than say nothing at all.”
Roxwell took the mirror back and sighed.
“If it gets too hard, say something. You’re not a hero, you’re definitely not the Hero, and you sure as hell aren’t some superhuman. You’re just a student with a shitty temper.”
“…”
“Every time I look at you, you seem like you’re being chased by something. Like you’ll die the second you stop running. If all you ever do is run for your life, sooner or later you’re going to break. And by the time that happens, it’ll already be too late.”
Hearing that left Ex with a complicated expression.
For some reason, it felt like Roxwell was saying those words to the person Ex had been in his previous life as well.
“This is the same damn thing. How long has it been since your last disaster, and you’re already bringing me another plan like this? How far are you going to push yourself before you’re satisfied? When exactly do you plan on resting? After you’re dead?”
“…Ha. I wonder.”
A self-deprecating laugh slipped out before Ex even realized it.
“I’ve tried that already. Turns out dying doesn’t get you any rest either.”
“…What the hell are you talking about?”
Rest.
Ex had never really thought about it.
He had never wished for it, either.
More precisely, he had never even been given the time to wish for it.
Ironically, that had been true in both his previous life and his current one.
Even in his previous life, he had only stopped after losing everything.
And even then, he hadn’t stopped by choice.
He had been forced to.
That was why Ex had never learned how to stop on his own.
“Master, aren’t you curious?”
So he decided to choose another way.
If he couldn’t stop, then he just had to run faster.
Run harder.
“The truth behind everything in this world.”
Until he finally crashed into something and shattered into pieces.
–TL Notes–
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