Are these... tears?

Hot liquid streamed down Karnella’s cheeks.

They certainly weren’t tears of worry over a junior being surrounded.

They were tears of joy.

The enemy formation had collapsed, leaving a wide-open gap!

“Go in! Go in!”

“Hormasi! To the left! I’ll support our junior—hey!”

Karnella ignored whatever the senior was saying and urged the dog forward. The three-headed hellhound charged across the arena, breathing sulfurous flames.

Now wasn’t the time to rescue the junior from the encirclement and pull out.

The enemy was in chaos.

That meant it was time to hit even harder.

“Senior!”

Amazingly, even while surrounded deep in enemy territory, the junior noticed Karnella’s movement with terrifying awareness.

His reaction was so fast it almost looked as if he had left everything to the griffin and was simply watching the field.

But that was impossible.

The charge the griffin had just displayed was a frenzied assault only a true rider could bring out.

Without rider and mount truly becoming one, that kind of majesty could never appear.

My junior is... far better at jousting than I thought!

Karnella had no choice but to admit it.

Perhaps, just perhaps...

...this junior might be a slightly better jousting player than Karnella.

To notice Karnella’s approach while rampaging like that!

SWOOSH!

Lee Han struck the ball cleanly and sent it flying. Karnella caught it and charged toward the goal.

—Waaaaaaah!

“Well done, junior! Far beyond what this Hormasi expected!”

“Phoneig did everything!”

“No need to be so modest! I understand!”

“No, Phoneig really charged on its own!”

***

“Wardanaz! Wardanaz! Wardanaz!”

Anglago waved a flag hastily made from his cloak and shouted. Several people supporting the Einroguard Jousting Club had already gathered nearby.

In arenas like this, the lunatics naturally clustered together, while the cultured, normal citizens of the Empire gathered elsewhere. As time passed, they inevitably separated.

“Hehehe! I like this young fellow!”

The drunken spectators took an immediate liking to Anglago.

“Lead us in some heckling! Make it spectacular!”

“!”

Anglago froze mid-wave.

Lead these strangers in heckling the Plaher City Jousting Club?

Could he really do it?

“Come on!”

“A-All right. Unfard, Unfard, far too weak indeed. A player whose meals get stolen, whose bed gets stolen, and who gets kicked out—Unfard.”

“You made it a song?!”

“Huh. The lyrics are catchy. They stick in the head. Let’s sing it together!”

As the people reacted enthusiastically, Anglago sighed in relief inwardly.

Thank you, Dalcard!

After plagiarizing his friend’s song, Anglago sang even louder. The surprisingly irritating tune made the Plaher City Jousting Club supporters heckle back in annoyance.

“Alpha!”

“Th-That song belongs to all of Einroguard!”

When Salco called out, Anglago instinctively blurted out an excuse.

But that wasn’t why Salco had called.

“What are you talking about?”

“Ah... no. Why did you call me?”

“Those bastards keep heckling Wardanaz. Isn’t there some way to stop them?”

Anglago, who had been waving the flag, looked slightly flustered.

“Weren’t you not that interested in jousting matches?”

“I’m not interested in the match itself. I simply want to ensure it proceeds fairly. Alpha. I’m telling you, I’m not interested in the match.”

“...”

Anglago narrowed his eyes.

Somehow, that sounded like a lie.

“There’s no way to stop heckling...”

“Wahahaha! Young fellows! You’re clever, but there’s still something you don’t know. There is a way to stop it!”

The drunken spectators laughed loudly and shouted.

Anglago asked in confusion.

“Yes? How do you stop heckling?”

“Easy! Everyone, follow me!”

Spectators who had bet silver on Plaher City’s defeat, spectators who already supported the Einroguard Jousting Club, and people who were simply drunk all mixed together and moved as a crowd.

As they moved, the spectators began sneakily picking up clumps of mud one by one.

...No way.

The sober Anglago felt a chill run down his spine.

No way!

“Tu-Tutanta. This is...”

“Hey, you bastards! If you’re weak, then shut up and watch instead of interfering!”

THUD!

The crowd that had rushed over began throwing mud at the opposing spectators.

Anglago screamed.

“This is illegal under Imperial law!!”

“Wahahahaha! Where does it say that? You throw some too!”

—These bastards! Have they gone mad from losing all the time?!

Few people would stay still when mud came flying at them.

The spectators, already in a foul mood from watching their side get crushed by a supposedly weaker opponent, immediately retaliated.

“Alpha! Alpha! We need to get out! These lunatics are—hey!!”

Anglago froze in horror at the sight of Salco in the distance.

Salco was creating mud with magic, distributing it to nearby spectators, and shouting,

“Bring down those cowardly bastards! Bring down those cowardly bastards!”

...You said you weren’t interested in the match, you bastard!!!

It had been better when Salco was indifferent to matches.

Anglago looked ready to cry.

***

“Senior. The stands seem noisy.”

“They’re always noisy. Focus.”

“It looks like they’re fighting.”

“They always fight. Focus.”

“It looks like a mud monster has been summoned.”

“They always summon one. Focus.”

“...”

Lee Han looked at Karnella the same way he looked at Professor Verdus.

That habit of only saying what one wanted to say was exactly the same.

Well, that’s not what matters right now.

Whether war had broken out in the stands or not, the arena itself was already in the middle of one.

The score difference was overwhelmingly in their favor, but the Einroguard students still wore cautious expressions.

They were beginning to feel their opponents’ hidden strength.

With a gap this big, they should be giving up by now...

The players from Plaher City’s Jousting Club were truly impressive.

Throughout the first half, even after the griffin rampaged across the field and trampled them, they didn’t give up and began holding on.

When mounts fell, they replaced them with new mounts.

When players fell, they replaced them with new players.

Usually, repeated substitutions like that would make a team waver, but their eyes still held tenacity.

“Why are they acting like this? Do they hate the idea of us winning even once that much?”

“What happened to make them so strong?”

The students spoke in confusion, never once imagining that the players had gone half-mad after losing to Einroguard first-years last year.

Perse licked dry lips and took out a water bottle to wet a parched throat.

After running throughout the first half, it felt as though all moisture had drained from Perse’s body. The monsters carrying them must have been even more exhausted.

“Wardanaz. How’s the griffin?”

Grrrrrr...

Phoneig made a sound as if it was fine, but Lee Han could tell it was deeply exhausted.

Running through the second half would be difficult.

“It seems tired.”

“Wardanaz must be tired too. It might be better to switch players and focus on defense.”

At Perse’s words, one beast and one person shot up.

The beast was the griffin.

The person was Karnella.

KRRRUNG!

“Taking out our top striker now is insanity, senior! How are we supposed to hold them off with defense alone?”

“But we can’t force him to keep playing.”

“He’s not tired! He’s not tired, right?! Look at those eyes!”

At Karnella’s support, the griffin sent over a slightly satisfied look.

It seemed this was the only mage here willing to take the griffin’s side.

However, the master coldly shook his head.

“Phoneig is tired.”

“No... no! Junior!”

Karnella committed the most disgraceful act an upperclassman could commit.

Karnella threw themself onto the dirt and rolled around while clutching the junior’s ankle. The other students turned their eyes away, unable to watch.

“Please! Just endure the second half!!!”

Even the griffin, which had looked satisfied moments ago, now looked disgusted.

Lee Han felt the same.

The opponent is a senior. The opponent is a senior...

While trying to pull his foot free—Karnella refused to let go with a jousting player’s tenacity—Lee Han spoke.

“Senior. Taking Phoneig out doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll lose.”

“We will lose! I can see it. Does this Hormasi look like someone being unreasonable?”

The dark elf senior sprang upright and spoke with blazing eyes.

“Yes...”

“If we only defend without attacking, Einroguard’s thin roster will lose the lead in no time, junior. Please trust me. If we lose this match too, I might have to transfer to Valdrogard out of shame!”

“No... I’m still going to attack.”

“...?”

Karnella, who had been shouting, paused.

“You said you’re taking out the griffin?”

“Yes. But I asked the unicorn beforehand whether it would be all right in case this happened. The unicorn said it would be fine. So I’m thinking of riding the unicorn in the second half.”

“...”

“...”

The seniors were shocked.

They knew Lee Han was taking care of a unicorn, but they had never imagined he had become close enough to ride it in a jousting match.

Perse quickly calculated and nodded.

“Everyone. One more thing.”

“What is it, Perse?”

“This must be kept absolutely secret from Professor Bendozol.”

“...Of course!”

The members nodded.

If Professor Bendozol heard about this, the professor might really collapse from a heart attack.

***

—What kind of bastard is that?!

The match ended with the screams of people who had bet large sums of money on the Plaher City Jousting Club.

Though not as destructive as the insane griffin, the unicorn was also an absurdly overpowered mount.

As it crossed the arena brilliantly with consecutive teleports, the Plaher City players couldn’t chase it as much as they wanted.

“W-We won!”

Anglago, who had gotten swept up in the fight and was in the middle of subduing enemy spectators, burst into cheers at the trumpet announcing the end of the match.

“Wardanaz! Wardanaz!”

“Tutanta! The match is over! Stop and let’s get out of here!”

“Wardanaz! Wardanaz!”

Despite Anglago’s shouts, Salco kept throwing mud at the enemy spectators alongside the newly made comrades.

As Anglago looked around, wondering how to stop this, he belatedly realized that the spectators in the upper seats were looking down at them with disgust.

Upon checking, Anglago saw that a large empty space had formed around their section of the arena.

Everyone else had moved away in revulsion.

...I-I was in the middle of lunatics!

Anglago, who had only been thinking about the fight, finally realized the situation.

To the cultured and decent spectators, Anglago must look exactly the same as those drunken lunatics.

How did I end up like this...!

Cursing his friend inwardly, Anglago resolved to escape as quickly as possible.

If the guards caught him and he ended up in Granden City’s temporary prison, Anglago might surpass the prince and rise in Einroguard’s second-year idiot rankings.

“...Student Anglago?”

At the familiar professor’s voice, every hair on Anglago’s body stood on end.

Forgetting that he was disguised, Anglago answered instinctively.

“P-Professor Garcia...!”

“...What exactly are you doing right now?”

Anglago turned around.

Salco stood atop a makeshift platform built ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) by the spectators, firing mud balls in rapid succession.

There was only one thing Anglago could say.

“...Watching the jousting match...”