“Halcyon Roost…!”
Inside her oxygen-deprived brain, which was struggling to function, that recent term surfaced. It was a place name like “Halcyon Roost” that the tester had shown during the exam. Without even processing it, the words slipped right out of her mouth.
“Halcyon Roost? What kind of place is that? Is it a landmark on the continent? I’ve never heard of it. Clearly, you lose.”
FFF let out a cold snort, and his other hand reached directly toward the girl’s neck. “I’ll just carry you to your master like this!”
Flap, flap, flap. Clatter, clatter.
A single hand could have circled that slender neck, but the movement failed. The fading girl suddenly heard a violent commotion from a certain direction, followed by the sound of rapid footsteps. The crowd began to stir, scream, and panic.
“Hey, what is this!”
The collar strangling her neck loosened, and Erika collapsed softly to the ground, coughing violently. Knowing full well it wasn’t time to rest, she struggled to force air into her lungs and squinted toward the source of the noise.
Nearby, a flock of birds of various species and vibrant colors had appeared out of nowhere, swarming and intercepting FFF.
“Aminos! What kind of bird-brained things are these!”
Chirp, chirp! Coo, coo!
“Erika Angelina, is this your doing? What did you do!”
‘It’s the french fries. I used the [French Fries] summoning code… to call the seagulls from the pier! The “Let’s go to the pier and get some fries” bond has been triggered—Bird Affinity MAX!!!’
Just kidding. She had no idea either.
“Gah!” The various large and small birds looked exceptionally furious, appearing like readers whose favorite novel had just been cut off mid-chapter or put on an indefinite hiatus.
Fearing she might become a target of their indiscriminate rage, Erika slowly stood up and began to tip-toe backward.
Beep!— Someone blew a horn or perhaps a whistle, creating a deafening, man-made noise.
“Ugh!” Erika covered her ears and hunched her shoulders. At that moment, someone was squeezing through the gaps between the students. The first thing to come into view was a pair of small leather shoes with polished, pointed toes, looking sturdy, efficient, and full of an explorer’s vitality.
The person who finally pushed through the crowd was a woman. She wore well-fitted brown leather pants, revealing a flat midriff with no trace of fat at the navel, and a waist that seemed small enough to be held in one hand. Her upper body consisted of a jacket over a white vest.
“Wittich, get back here! Stop running off and causing trouble!” The new arrival shouted at the flock of birds currently pecking away at FFF.
Her flowing, silky hair reached her back and was a rich blue-purple, trimmed neatly at the ends, giving her a mysterious yet vibrant youthful appearance.
The purple-haired woman placed a slender whistle—no thicker than a pinky finger—to her lips again. Beep, beep—!
The birds flapped their wings and took flight. Amidst the chirping and fluttering, the little pilots that had gathered scattered in all directions.
One of the larger raptors snatched up a white trench coat from the ground, air-dropped it to Erika, and then settled quietly onto the leather guard on the woman’s arm.
“Wittich, why did you fly off on your own? You aren’t usually like this.”
Flutter.
A beautiful young woman with dreamy blue-purple hair and a jacket was stroking a raptor the size of a human child. This strange scene looked unexpectedly natural and warm.
Looking closely, the girl’s ears were quite long and pointed. The pointed ears likely indicated she was an Elf. Between the delinquent-chic outfit and the mastery of raptors… oh, the corners of her eyes drooped lazily as if she hadn’t quite woken up, matching her amber pupils. There was also a tear mole beneath her eye.
Linking these keywords together, a name immediately escaped Erika’s lips.
“Borbeck—are you Cordelia Borbeck?”
“You should call me Professor Borbeck. That aside, are you a freshman? What are you doing here?”
Erika hadn’t expected the daughter of the Borbeck family to make her entrance this way. Although she didn’t know what the ‘Professor’ was talking about, this was undoubtedly a perfect chance to borrow some influence!
“I think you’d best choose a peaceful solution, FFF guy!”
“Ugh…”
Erika shrank behind Cordelia and shouted at FFF, whose clothes and hair were a mess as he wailed on the ground. To her surprise, the bird army didn’t seem to have shaved off much of his health bar; the guy was slowly climbing back up.
“A peaceful solution? Strip you bare and give you a beating? No, none of that matters now. Erika Angelina. I, Eph—Hais Eph—challenge you to a duel.”
The barbarian Eph wiped the blood from his face with his hand, looking as if he were wearing war paint. This scene made Erika think of cannibal legends. If she hadn’t been a trained actress with a disciplined posture, her legs would probably be shaking by now.
“A duel? What do you mean?”
“I mean a literal duel. Since the Professor is here, let’s have her act as the Arbiter.” Eph actually began to laugh. “Erika, you are the first woman to ever make me this angry. If this were our tribe, I’d have already thrown you onto a bed.”
Swish. Eph turned his gaze toward Cordelia Borbeck. However, Cordelia herself seemed puzzled by the situation. In sync with her bird, she tilted her head to the side.
“A duel? Hmm… so what does Erika Angelina think?”
“Please, Professor, bear witness. This will be a fair fight,” Eph said, cutting in first.
At this point, Cordelia shook her head and spoke:
“But Eph, you are Mithril rank, and this freshman is only Brass. It’s not fair at all. A duel can be established, but she has the right to draft a warrior of her own rank to fight in her stead.”
“Same rank… fine! But the condition is that the duelist cannot be an Ark student—including professors or board members—yet they must be internal Ark personnel. Furthermore, the duel takes place right here in one hour. How about it?”
“Those rules aren’t bad. Freshman, do you agree?”
Erika pulled her trench coat on, pulling it tight as if she were cold.
Although the rule allowing her to use a ‘Greater Summoning Spell’ to call for outside help was friendly to her, forbidding the summoning of students from this Academy meant that Emil or Evelyn had been excluded from her pokeball.
If even professors and board members were forbidden, then even those elderly mages who held goodwill toward her could not be called…
“You failed every subject and still got in; that was probably because of your connection to the board. But what about now? Do you have any other backers?”
Eph let out an unmasked “Heh heh heh” laugh, looking like a total minor-villain smallfry celebrating before the halfway point. However, by cleverly seizing upon the girl’s weakness—having just enrolled and having neither connections nor a network—his counterattack was unexpectedly troublesome.
“You can choose to refuse.”
“No, I accept!”
There was no reason to refuse. On the contrary, this was exactly what she wanted!