CH 198

Chapter 198

The Gates Incident was such a disastrous event that I absolutely wanted to do something about it, but I didn’t really know what. I finally had to pay the price for writing so many novels with tragic endings in which tons of people died.

A group of people was needed to prevent that dreadful situation or at least minimize the damage it would cause.

After all the Warp Gates were transformed into portals connecting to another world, travel using said Warp Gates would become completely impossible.

And the Capital had the largest amount of Warp Gates among all the cities on the continent.

As the capital owned the highest number of them, most people would die there as well, but ultimately, it was still the capital.

The Imperial Palace also had the largest group of combat forces, and Temple was located there, as well, so even if the damages were quite severe, the Imperial Capital itself was safe.

From that point on, they tried to destroy all the Warp Gates or somehow cut off their connection to the other world.

The Imperial Capital was the only place that was able to deal with the situation. With almost the entire continent thrown into chaos, leaving all territories that were part of the Empire completely disconnected from each other, only the Imperial Capital was unharmed.

After that, The Empire, with only the Capital remaining and Temple, began a long and exhausting fight to destroy the Warp Gates scattered across the continent or restore them to their original form.

I never really explained why the Gates just suddenly appeared.

They were just there all of a sudden—that was just how it was.

However, they added something called probability to this world.

There had to be some reason why the Warp Gates suddenly connected to a different world.

If I knew the reason, I could prevent the Gate disaster from happening.

That was probably the biggest punishment I received for writing the novel the way I did, skipping over explaining certain parts because it was just too bothersome.

I didn’t explain the most important thing about the incident, so I had to find out how it would happen on my own, if I could even do that.

Was that what it was all about?

If I didn’t find out, more than millions of people would die horrible deaths.

The conclusion of the Gate disaster was known, and yet its cause remained unknown.

My first idea was to just crush all the Warp Gates all over the whole continent.

However, that would be impossible.

I might be able to get rid of the Warp Gates in the Capital, but it was rather impossible for me to destroy all Warp Gates in every location. While I was busy traveling from place to place, they would just rebuild the Warp Gates.

To humans of this world, Warp Gates had become indispensable. If someone were to destroy them, of course they would retaliate against the ones who destroyed them, and they would just rebuild them.

In the original work, they gradually restored the Empire by destroying the Warp Gates and making them anew with magic.

If the Gates were destroyed or neutralized, those alien beings would no longer be able to come out of them.

Although the Capital was able to manage, ultimately, a lot of people still had to die.

As the Imperial Capital had the most Warp Gates, the place got invaded by the most monsters as well. The Capital had to suffer devastating blows.

If all the Warp Gates in the Imperial Capital got neutralized or destroyed before the Gate Disaster even happened, wouldn’t that mean that no monsters would appear in the Capital?

It was impossible for me to destroy all the Gates on the continent, but if I limited my range to the Capital, wasn’t that kind of possible?

Of course, I still didn’t know the real cause of the incident.

Even if I destroyed all of the Gates, something similar might still end up happening.

So it would be best to find out the actual cause of the disaster and prevent it from happening to begin with.

The next best thing would be to break as many Warp Gates as possible before things went to shit. However, there was also a chance that breaking the Gates in advance wasn’t a good idea. There was a possibility that something completely unexpected would happen.

Anyway…

First, I needed money and power.

I didn’t think just telling Bertus and Charlotte that by the time we would start our third year, all the Warp Gates across the continent would suddenly connect to a different world, leading to shit hitting the fan, meaning that we had to destroy all of them before that would happen, would lead to anything.

If I wanted to go that way, I needed to have concrete proof. Proof that what I claimed was definitely going to happen. I didn’t know whether I would be able to get something like that, but if I did, I could use it to persuade them.

Although there still seemed to be a lot of time until it would happen, there wasn’t.

I needed powerful forces that could take care of things beyond my reach.

Money… People…

And power…

—I had to acquire all three of those things.

* * *

“…So you want to start stall businesses at the stations?”

“…Put simply, that’s what I’m planning on doing. Isn’t that okay?”

Bertus looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression.

The next step in my plan to prevent a catastrophic crisis equivalent to the destruction of the world was asking a certain someone to open businesses at the magic train stations.

?.

Just what is this…?

Bertus looked pretty bewildered at my sudden suggestion before showing me a sinister smile.

“Your income has become dangerously unstable because of all the competition these days, hasn’t it?”

“Well, yeah.”

Bertus, of course, knew about the Rotary Gang and its source of income. I wasn’t really surprised about that. Quite the contrary, I was surprised that he let them be up to that point.

Bertus groaned as he nodded his head.

“It certainly does seem like I let areas with a high amount of floating population lie idle for far too long. It surely wouldn’t hurt to develop it a bit more.”

Bertus seemed to look positively at my suggestion.

“There also have been talks of chasing out all the vendors from the trains, as there have been many complaints raised by the passengers of the magic trains…”

“…Is that so?”

In fact, that wasn’t the first time that the issue had been discussed.

At my question, Bertus simply nodded.

“That’s right. I had been blocking them from taking any actions up to this point, but it seems like I don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Huh? You blocked them?”

What did he mean? Blocked? Bertus’s lips began to twist, as he saw the surprise on my face.

“The precious family members of one of my classmates are forced to live on the streets… No, well, they had inhabited the back alleys since a long time ago. Anyway, you would have been in trouble if you didn’t have a source of income, am I right? So I just told them to leave you alone.”

‘What?’

I… I felt seriously touched at that moment. No, I wasn’t supposed to feel touched!

“It’s rather disturbing for you to make that kind of face. I’d prefer if you wore your slightly rotten expression as usual.”

“…What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bertus seemed kind of petrified as if my touched expression was repulsive to him.

It looked like Berts valued me a lot more than I thought, taking care of me in ways that I didn’t even notice.

Yeah.

Having a villain on your side was actually pretty good, wasn’t it? He might be a son of a bitch, but that son of a bitch was my ally!

“Anyway, you obviously want a monopoly on this, right? But even if you guys get exclusive business rights, you don’t really have the capital to start these kinds of businesses, do you?”

Bertus was able to understand my greed but still asked if we were able to handle something like that.

“We’ll get investments.”

“Investments, I see. So you thought about that. In that case, from where?”

“For now, I was thinking the Merchants Guild.”

“Hooh ”

Bertus grinned as he looked at me.

“Were you secretly studying that field as well?”

“I don’t know if it’ll work out well, but I feel like it’ll be successful.”

It seemed strange to Bertus that I had come up with that kind of business plan and thought of a pretty plausible place to get investments.

I wasn’t actually thinking about those types of things too thoroughly.

No, really, I really wasn’t that kind of person. I had no idea how to run a proper business.

I just had the idea, and the ones who would run the actual operation would be some other guys.

There might be downsides to mixing other people into it, but there had to be someone in the Rotary Gang that had some business experience, and with all their experiences and expertise combined, they should be able to run the business decently.

I just needed to get permission.

“Alright. Nine to one.”

“…What?”

‘What to how many now?’

What did he mean by that? Bertus furrowed his brows when I got stunned by his sudden mention of numbers.

“If you thought you could get something like that for free, wouldn’t that be rather unrealistic? Should I just take the nine? Do you want to take one as your income, then?”

“No! No! No! One! It’s a matter of course that I should at least give you a tenth. Of course! I should! Man, I’m so slow-witted! I hear that a lot!”

“I’m not going to invest separately, you know? Are you still going to give me a tenth?”

“Of course! My, oh my (Aigo, aigoo). I feel sorry that you are only taking that little!”

“Is that so? Should I take two tenths, then…?”

“Tha-that’s what I’m talking about, my friend! Hoho! Goodness! Goodness, gracious!”

Bertus was looking at me as if every word that came out of my mouth at that moment seemed funny to him.

* * *

Reaper Scans

Translator – KonnoAren

Proofreader – ilafy

* * *

Bertus said that he would regard my proposal quite positively, although he added that nine to one condition. It seemed like I would get notified when everything was decided later.

Anyway, it was quite shocking to find out that things worked out the way they did wasn’t because the government just didn’t bother with us but because Bertus had blocked any actions they would have taken.

Of course, it probably wasn’t that big an effort for him, just one word from him would have sufficed, probably. Well, it was better than nothing.

There was no deep reason behind why I went to Bertus with my proposal instead of to Charlotte.

Because of Dettomolian’s shocking announcement the other day, I wasn’t confident that I would be able to look at Charlotte’s face properly.

I know we were just told that we would get married or something, but then I suddenly walked around the magic train station and thought of doing some commercial business there, so could you please give me permission to do so?

Doing something like that was out of the question!

I knew that I had nothing to worry about, but still.

Nothing to worry about.

Uhm.

Anyway, yeah!

In fact, after Dettomolian’s world-shaking revelation, there had been a slight change in my relationship with Charlotte.

“Uhm, ah… Reinhardt.”

“…Yes.”

“Well, erm… Classes are over, aren’t they?”

“Right.”

“So… Erm. Yes. I’m leaving now.”

“…Oh. Okay.”

Things had become ridiculously awkward between us.

Before, when we ran into each other, Charlotte would always smile brightly and give me a friendly greeting, but after, she would only laugh awkwardly.  We would smile and look at each other for a moment, but we would just end up passing by each other because we had no idea what to say.

Although we should’ve just assumed that the future Dettomolian saw was false, both of us seemed to have gotten quite confused trying to predict just how something like that would come to be.

I felt like I heard a prophecy that she would someday find out that I was Valier, which would lead to things taking a strange turn, and I had no idea how Charlotte was feeling about those things.

Anyway…

The weird result of those thoughts was that Charlotte and I became very awkward with each other because of the huge stone Dettomolian threw into the calm lake that was our relationship.

Ludwig, who was next to me and noticed that the atmosphere between Charlotte and me was a little strange, tilted his head.

“Did you two fight?”

“No, it’s not like that.”

It was Tuesday.

It was the day I had my swordsmanship classes, so I returned to the dormitory with Ellen after our classes.

Ludwig seemed to be worried that Charlotte and I had a fight when he saw us kind of avoiding each other.

“You both did a great job.”

“Ah… yeah. Goodbye.”

“ Yes.”

Scarlett bowed to me and Ellen before she returned to Class B’s dormitory with Ludwig.

Scarlett didn’t change in the way she did in the original, but that seemed fine in its own way. I could see that she was slowly changing.

I wished she would talk more comfortably. How long did she intend to continue being so overly respectful?

Nothing special happened in that day’s swordsmanship class. We didn’t hold another sparring match with the Orbis Class like the week before.

I sparred with Scarlett and Ludwig while Ellen watched us.

Without using my supernatural power, I lost to both of them.

While using my supernatural power, I had a slight advantage against Ludwig. On the other hand, I completely lost against Scarlett, thought it wasn’t as overwhelming as before. I had already predicted how Scarlett’s skills would develop, so in a way, it was an obvious result. While her potential wasn’t as overwhelming as Ellen’s, she was incredibly strong as well. She would play a big role during the Gate Incident.

She was nicknamed Spellbreaker due to her powerful anti-magic ability that could almost be called magic immunity.

Scarlett also had quite a fast growth rate, and Ludwig was the main character, so if I let my guard down even a little, the gap between me and Scarlett would only widen, or Ludwig would soon catch up to me.

Ludwig would probably catch up to me first. He was the main character, after all.

And Ellen was able to defeat all of us without even using her magic power. Overwhelmingly so.

In other words, we were able to measure our own combat capabilities.

Normally:

Ellen>Scarlett>>>>>Ludwig>Me when I’m at my best.

Ellen (Using Magic Body Strengthening)>>>>>>>Scarlett>Me (Using my Supernatural Power)>Ludwig

That was how it was. I wasn’t sure how much stronger I was with Tiamata, so I couldn’t really consider it properly.

Then there were those who had combat talents and trained, to add to it, which were Bertus, Cliffman, Erich, and Delphine. However, Delphine wasn’t technically a close-quarter combat-type fighter, as her talent lay in archery.

It was more than obvious that Cliffman and Bertus would also be much better than me in combat.

I sometimes felt Cliffman’s power on my own body during our spars, and while I hadn’t actually faced Bertus in a spar, he was similar to Cliffman in strength, or even stronger.

So what I was trying to say was that, in my state, I could only definitely win against Erich and Ludwig among Royal Class’ students with close-quarter combat talents.

A bastard who didn’t put much effort into his training and the late blooming main character…

What’s more, I had to use my supernatural power to win against them.

Although I had grown to a point that I couldn’t compare myself to how I was in the past, I was still very lacking.

I headed to Class A’s dormitory together with Ellen.

As we were walking back to the dorm, the scene that unfolded before my eyes seemed like I experienced a deja vu of what happened the previous week.

-Hey, why don’t we just tell a teacher?

-Ah… I don’t know… that dog bastard.

Those three idiot brothers sat there just like before.

Erich de Lafaeri, who had been beaten up by the Orbis Class, was again surrounded by Konno Lint and Cayer, his cheeks swollen.

Before, he provoked someone from the Orbis Class, saying that he would just end up beating him later anyway because they didn’t have any talents.

So I had told them not to pick any fights with them, which was when Harriet, who thought that I hit Erich, entered and started nagging me.

“Hey, go ahead first.”

“Yes.”

Ellen walked towards her room at my words while I headed to those guys. As I approached them, I could already clearly see that they were more than fed up.

“Hey, what did you do this time to get beaten up?”

It probably was the same pattern as before.

They had probably picked a fight with the Orbis Class and ended up getting beat up, returned to the Royal Class’ dorm, and would end up getting nagged by me again.

Erich frowned and shook his head.

“No, that’s not how things happened this time, okay?!”

“…It wasn’t?”

“Y-yeah! I didn’t do anything this time! A-are you going to tell me that I’m a crazy idiot again?”

He said that he didn’t do anything that time, so it wasn’t him who started the fight, that was why he yelled at me as if to tell me not to nag him.

“…Oh, is that so? Why are you yelling at me like that then, huh?”

How dare he yell at me with his eyes wide open?

“Ah, th-that’s not…”

Erich shut his mouth when I rather quickly approached him. I sat on the sofa across from him and folded my arms.

“What was it this time?”

If Erich told the truth… Did he actually get hit, even though he didn’t do anything? Before,  he was in the wrong, but things were different that time, weren’t they?

“Hey! I told you to cut it out!”

And I had another moment of deja vu.

I could hear Harriet’s voice echoing from behind me.

“You’re bullying the others again!”

Perhaps just having returned from her classes, Harriet looked at me with her eyes wide open.

‘No!’

Why was she actually doing that to me?

“No! Hey! I didn’t do anything last time and this time as well! I explained everything to you! Do you think I’ll just go beat up some kids when I get bored? I wouldn’t! It has been a while since I actually did something like that! Why do you keep doing this to me?”

Seriously, the last time I hit one of my classmates was when Heinrich said that he wanted to fight me, so I had punched him lightly! And we had honestly mutually agreed to that! If we went further back, then back when we were on the deserted island, I had hit Erich after he got more or less slaughtered by Scarlett when he bothered her and then tried to whine to me!

That had been so long ago!

Her expression changed slightly when she noticed that I was actually getting upset.

“Ah… Really?”

The corners of her mouth twitched strangely.

What?

That girl, did she think it was funny that I found her treatment unfair?

She was usually the one who would always get teased, but it looked like she knew the taste of teasing someone else.

It was as if she finally got a taste of sweet revenge.

Come to think of it…

Why are you doing this to me! Why are you doing this to me!

That was the phrase Harriet would always say when I teased her.

I was saying it that time around.

“Isn’t it obvious what a bastard like you, who only knows how to bully and beat up others, is doing right now? Don’t lie. It definitely was you.”

“No! I didn’t do anything last time and I didn’t do anything right now, okay? I know that the sins I have committed are endless, but I’m telling the truth!”

No fucking way!

She had figured out how to beat me at my own game!

While Harriet and I were bickering, Erich de Lafaeri’s expression grew more and more deadly pale.

He had come back to vent his anger, but in the end, he had just turned into a punching bag again.

In the end, Erich endured the shame and explained to Harriet that it wasn’t me who beat him up. I felt kind of sorry for him.

No, but I really didn’t hit him. I wasn’t lying.

“By the Orbis Class? Again?”

“Urg…”

Harriet’s pointed remarks made him contort his expression, but it seemed like he really got beat up by some Orbis Class guy. It seemed that it was also the guy who beat him up last time.

With my arms folded, I asked him something.

“What happened this time?”

Although it was rather difficult to trust Erich’s words, he said that he didn’t pick a fight with them like last time.

“No… I didn’t do anything this time… But after class… He hit my shoulder… all of a sudden…”

It seemed like Eruch was terribly embarrassed to explain the truth to Harriet and me. Cayer and Kono Linz were also looking at Erich with pity as he was explaining.

Harriet frowned.

“So, you’re saying that, last week, it was your fault that you got beat up, but this time, they just hit you for no reason whatsoever?”

“…”

Apparently, Erich was deeply hated by that Orbis Class guy who was attending his Class. So after class, the guy just punched his shoulder and picked a fight with him.

It certainly seemed like quite an unfair situation. I also understood Kono Lint for suggesting to go tell a teacher about it.

However, it looked like that bastard’s way to judge people was very twisted. It was true that Erich crossed the line the week before, but to go and pick a fight with him a week later…

“That guy sure is weird. Why did he beat you up even though you didn’t do anything?”

Harriet mumbled quietly while frowning.

She seemed to act a bit different from usual. The week before, as well, when she was nagging me, saying that she didn’t want to see me bully others anymore.

What should I say?

Had she actually evolved into a class president kind of character?

‘No, I absolutely hate that trope. I hate it as much as Ludwig’s cheerful, bubbly, righteous character.’

Harriet looked at me. Just looking at her expression, she seemed majorly grumpy.

“What… What?”

“Aren’t you angry?”

“…Huh?”

No, why should I be angry? I wasn’t even the one who got hit. Did she mean that I should be angry as a fellow classmate of the Royal Class?

I didn’t have that kind of sense of belonging, though?

What did she want from a demon prince who didn’t even have any sense of duty towards the demon realm?

What an idiot.

That was all I thought about that situation.

“That’s strange. I thought you would immediately take off to beat that guy up.”

“Why the fuck would I do something like that?”

“That’s the person you are, after all.”

“Not at all!”

Not only Harriet, but Cayer and Kono Lint were also looking at me like that.

‘Show us something! Reinhardt! You’re the hands-on kind of guy, after all! You didn’t even mind beating up our seniors either!’

I could read their thoughts quite clearly.

What was with their eyes that seemed as if they wanted me to do something? They looked like they were hoping that I would go cause some trouble like usual, right?

It seemed like they wanted to direct my troublemaking towards the Orbis Class.

Those expressions dripped with their desire for revenge.

Please cause trouble for them! Avenge us!

…What the fuck?

Was that, in a way, also a type of trust they had in me?

“Idiot. If you feel wronged, then you should just go tell a teacher, or train harder so that you can get your own revenge just a day faster. What do you want me to do?”

“I-I didn’t say anything!”

Oh, right.

He hadn’t said anything…

Erich seemed to feel more and more wronged.

Harriet murmured softly with a pouting look on her face.

“I know that the Orbis Class doesn’t like us, but aren’t they a little too much…? They did something to me as well.”

“…What? To you?”

Harriet didn’t just suddenly turn into a class president type of character.

She was already pretty pissed off because she had been beaten by the Orbis Class, but when she heard that they beat up another classmate as well, she got even angrier.

But Harriet actually got beaten by someone?

“Yes, in today’s Practical Destructive Magic Class, someone set off some lightning magic near me. They said it was a mistake, but… I think they actually meant to do that. Well, he got a demerit, though.”

“…Huuh.”

I felt something snap inside of me.

“Those… fucking bastards.”

I felt my patience completely snapping.

____