[V5.5C2] Rikard Oks’ Classmates
Translated by Jodas 5.5: Tales of the PastRikard Oks took and passed the Wedge Tower’s entrance exam when he was twelve years old.
—So that there may be no more victims like his little sister, he wanted to become a first-class Monster Hunter.
—Then, if possible… Like that person he respected so much, he also wanted to be a gentle person who could make anyone smile.
With those convictions in his mind, Rikard devoted himself to his training in Lowein’s class. However, his two classmates in Lowein’s class both possessed strong personalities.
First was Frederik Lange. He hailed from a Monster-Hunting Family, just like the Okses.
Frederik was thirteen, one year older than Rikard, so Rikard always addressed him with some degree of respect.
Frederik was always smiling, but he rarely spoke. Even when he tried to talk to him, Frederik would only give noncommittal responses like ‘hmm’ or ‘I see.’
In his very first magic battle practice, he said these words to Rikard:
“Don’t drag me down, okay?”
He was a difficult person to deal with. No matter what Rikard said after that, Frederik would only give the same noncommittal responses.
They ended up rooming together in the dorms, but Rikard almost never saw Frederik spending any time in their room. When he wasn’t training, he’d be floating around with flight magic, then he’d fall asleep the instant he came back.
He lived a slovenly lifestyle, and his belongings were always scattered across the floor. As the heir to the Lange Family, he must have had someone else taking care of his surroundings for him.
When Rikard asked him to clean up after himself, Frederik responded with a strange curiosity.
“Isn’t the younger one supposed to take care of that stuff?”
Useless asshole.
In that case, Rikard had a suggestion.
“Do you mind if I stacked all of your belongings that are on the floor onto your bed, Frederik?”
“Do whatever you want.”
From then on, whenever Rikard saw something on the floor, he would throw it onto Frederik’s bed.
In the end, the bed ended up overflowing with stuff, but Frederik showed no signs of caring. It seemed that, if he felt tired, he would either fall asleep right where he stood or go commandeer a bed in the Medical Office. He truly was useless.
Regardless, Frederik was insanely strong. When it came to his use of flight magic, he was nothing short of a genius.
Flight magic users were a precious commodity. Especially considering that there were some Monsters that could fly, it was invaluable to have a mage who was capable of fighting in midair.
Therefore, Frederik had let that go to his head. He must have been doted on by the Lange Family… Or so Rikard thought, but he soon realized that impression had been mistaken.
One day, when Rikard noticed Frederik hadn’t eaten much, he pointed that out. Frederik’s face tensed, and he said this:
“…Isn’t it better to eat less?”
That was the sort of thing that, if an ordinary person heard it, they’d tilt their head, wondering what in the world he was talking about.
But as a member of a fellow Monster-Hunting Family, Rikard immediately understood the implication behind his words.
—He was saying that he wanted to leave less for the Monsters to eat.
The more meat he had on his bones, the more fat he had, the more a man-eating Monster would relish in eating him.
Therefore, he wanted to look as unappetizing to Monsters as possible.
…That was the thought process of a man who was all too familiar with man-eating Monsters. It was more than likely that this person had seen someone be eaten right before his eyes.
(Now that I think about it, I do remember hearing that a person from the Lange Family died horribly a few years back.)
While the Oks and Lange families didn’t have particularly close ties, they did share information as fellow Monster Hunters.
On such an occasion, he’d overheard once that someone from the Lange Family had died in battle. However, he didn’t catch any of the details.
It must have been a death gruesome enough not to be shared with kids, even a child of a Monster Hunting Family.
“Frederik, you…”
“What?”
The words caught in Rikard’s throat. Ultimately, he decided to just speak the first thing that came to mind.
“…You really are a Monster Hunter.”
The Monster Hunting Families have earned the ire of Monsters all over, and are far more likely to be targeted.
The Long-Limbed Lange and the Dark-Skinned Oks — Both families only give birth to children with those same distinctive traits. As if they were born to be targeted by Monsters.
“Anyone would be afraid of being eaten. But no matter what I do, I just keep getting taller. I hate it.”
No matter how much he starves himself, his famished body would continue to grow taller. As if under a curse.
Rikard similarly was born into the family of the Dark-Skinned Oks. His skin had always been dark since he was born.
“Why don’t you just give up and eat properly, then?”
“I don’t need it. The lighter my body is, the more advantageous it is for my flight magic.”
He was indifferent to his own well being, and the reason he refused to seek comfort and prosperity in his personal life was because he was unable to think of anything aside from killing Monsters.
He would fly faster than anyone else, evade every attack, and kill the Monster. He lived for that purpose alone — that was the creature known as Frederik Lange.
Continuing on, there was his other classmate: Helena.
She was an honest-to-god Saint, sent personally by the leaders of the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy.
The Ras Belch Orthodoxy preached that Monsters were an absolute evil, and they took an active role in Monster exterminations. As a result, they had a tendency to dispatch people with the potential to combat Monsters to the Wedge Tower.
Still, even among them, Helena was a unique case. The Church would not ordinarily release their grip on a Saint so easily. Due to Helena’s particular circumstances, however, the Church found it inconvenient to keep her around, so they dumped her on the Wedge Tower.
—What even was a Saint in the first place?
Long ago, Rikard’s father told him an answer laden with sarcasm.
“*A Saint is a title for someone who’s convenient to the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy.”
Originally, the title referred to people who were beatified for their contributions to the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy.
But as time went on, the title came to refer primarily to women who wielded the Ancient Magical Artifacts under the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy’s control.
As it was common for Ancient Magical Artifacts to drain the lifespan of their wielders, such a wielder was functionally a sacrifice to the Ancient Magical Artifact. But by granting the title of Saint and heaping praise upon these people, the Church could maintain its popularity and influence.
Furthermore, as people came to associate Ancient Magical Artifacts with Saints, it lent a degree of legitimacy to the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy possessing such powerful weapons.
In the present day, the existence of Saints was deeply intertwined with political matters.
For instance, the Ancient Magical Artifact ‘the Mirror of Bern’ is maintained by the Silver Saint of the Achenwall Ducal House.
The ‘Mirror of Bern’ was originally the property of the Dukes of Achenwall, meaning it could be used on the orders of their liege, the Emperor. However, once the owner of the ‘Mirror of Bern’ was designated as a Saint, then the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy now had a say in how this Ancient Magical Artifact was used.
It was those political maneuvers that created the Saints we know today.
That was just as much the case for Saint Helena.
“Um, Helena. About today’s battle exercise…”
“……”
“I would like to talk things through a little bit beforehand.”
“…All is as God decrees.”
Helena was, just like Frederik, thirteen years old. She was a frail, delicate, and beautiful young girl.
She always had her eyes half-closed and held her slender, elegant fingers in front of her in prayer as she stared at him. She didn’t move much, to the point that one could mistake her for a mannequin at times. She was beautiful, yet lifeless.
Occasionally, even when she did speak, she would only say something along the lines of “Such is the will of God,” without any sign of trying to communicate anything of value.
It wasn’t just that she did not engage in small talk. She gave the impression she didn’t even know what small talk was.
The rumor was Helena did not choose to come to the Wedge Tower herself. Rather, due to whatever circumstances, she’d end up forcibly sent here.
After all, a Saint chosen by an Ancient Magical Artifact was a precious asset to the Ras Belsch Orthodoxy. They weren’t the sort of human resources they would simply dispatch to the Wedge Tower.
Regardless, Helena had gotten herself wrapped up in a scandal that could not be allowed to leak to the public, and ended up dumped on the Wedge Tower.
Considering her talent for drawing out the full power of the Ancient Magical Artifact ‘Eurydice, the Cackling Foam,’ she was too much for the Church to handle. The scandal on top of that made it hard to justify keeping her in the Church.
Thus, it appeared that the church leaders aimed to buy favors by lending her out to the Wedge Tower.
All of that, of course, was simply rumors.
On one hand, there was Frederik, who always gave noncommittal answers with a smile. On the other, there was Helena, who resembled a mute, expressionless doll. Both of them were nothing alike, and yet they were all too similar.
Despite only being in their early teens, it seemed as if whatever personality they’d had to begin with had grown vanishingly thin, and they were on track to become creatures that lived only to accomplish a singular goal.
Neither Frederik nor Helena would carry a conversation. Talking to them was like talking to a brick wall.
Rikard wasn’t much of a talker himself, so his peers in other classes often remarked about how quiet Lowein’s class was.
Even when they met in advance of their magic battle exercise, they weren’t able to keep any discussion going.
Frederik wouldn’t say anything aside from “I’m going to charge straight in. You guys do whatever you want.” And Helena only closed her eyes and prayed silently.
Most concerningly, there was no one who was capable of bringing his fellow Apprentices together as a team.
As a result, there was no one to stop Frederik and Helena from doing whatever they pleased.
There was no chance of them ever coordinating a battle plan, yet thanks to their high individual strengths, the three of them were regarded by their peers as “weird, but talented.”
Rikard found that assessment exceedingly difficult to accept.
Frederik and Helena were the weird ones, not him.