The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide - Chapter 297

Bell Maya’s endless mansion defense had already ripened to its peak, yet the inside of the mansion was endlessly quiet. So quiet that the chaos outside felt like an overblown fuss by comparison.

Saint Clarice steadied her heart as she walked down one such corridor.

‘…I haven’t fallen for Bell Maya’s sweet talk. I’m going to meet the captive Senior Ed inside, share the situation with him, and then…’

There was no one around to hear her, but the sight of her rationalizing to herself was pitiful in the extreme.

Passing the main hall staircase and reaching the upper floors, she saw a path leading all the way to the very top. The way each section was thickly plastered with all manner of perilous defensive magic circles was striking.

Excepting the imperial castle of the Kroel Empire, the place with the most stringent guard would be this very Rothstaylor Mansion. Saint Clarice immediately came to feel that this was no idle rumor.

Even setting aside these thorough defensive magic circles, the very people guarding the mansion were Lucy Mayreel and Yennekar Palerover. Seizing this place by sheer force alone would be no easy task.

Quite literally, unless it was through the defection of an insider.

“……”

Holding a tangled tumult of feelings, Clarice stood before the guest room. The guest room door, carved in intaglio with birds scattering feathers, looked lavish at a glance.

Before opening the door, Clarice took one deep breath. Inside was Ed Rothstaylor, completely incapacitated, awaiting help… so weakened that whatever was done beside him, he’d never notice a thing, lying asleep.

Of course, she didn’t harbor a single speck of self-interest, but she still found herself seized by the feeling that she ought to brace her heart for some reason.

Clarice pressed her lips tight, swallowed dryly, and finally took a step into that swirling torment.

Creak

“Oh, Saint Clarice.”

“…?”

And then, from beyond the door, Ed Rothstaylor, who had been sitting on the sofa by the window reading a book, offered a cheerful greeting.

Only then did Clarice realize she’d been deceived by Bell.

***

‘This is bad, this is bad…… It can’t get any bigger than this…… Really, I have to do something…!’

Yennekar’s pupils were spinning like whirlpools.

Honestly, she hadn’t imagined the situation would come to this. Even while shrieking in panic, in one corner of her heart she’d held the thought that maybe it would somehow resolve itself.

And no wonder. It was Lucy, and Clarice, and Lortel.

No matter how brilliant a strategist Bell Maya was, there was no reason to think she could handle so many outstanding figures all on her own.

So she’d held a strange hope in one corner of her heart that it would work out somehow.

But here was the reality. Her comrades, worth a thousand soldiers and ten thousand horses, had all (voluntarily) bent the knee under Bell Maya’s schemes.

As an insider, Bell Maya knew the members of the Rothstaylor Mansion all too well. Truly, information was more fearsome than force itself. Because she was as close as family, she had been able to hold them all in the palm of her hand.

“Terrifying…… Bell is terrifying……!”

Come to think of it, the same was true for Yennekar. The person she feared most was neither Silvenia’s headmaster nor the powerful figures of the imperial palace. It was when her mother, Saila Palerover, got really angry, that was the most terrifying.

Knowing one another well was that frightening a thing.

‘But now there’s truly no way out…… The person who can move most actively in the encampment right now is me.’

Yennekar lifted her head.

The figures of the distressed encampment members came into full view. In the old days, Yennekar too would have been among them wearing a worried expression, but it was different now. Somewhere along the way she’d become a member of the nobility, taking on the duties that came with her station.

She couldn’t just sit idle, leaving it to someone else to solve. The time for being a princess in a fairy tale ended with her school days.

“……”

Holding a tangle of complicated thoughts, Yennekar pressed her lips tight. Standing there like a lost lamb, sweat trickling down her face, wouldn’t solve a thing.

Now she truly had to step forward herself. She had to accept that.

“Hoo….”

Yennekar collected herself, then entered the imperial tent where Princess Penia was and spoke.

“I’ll enter the mansion myself.”

It was time to take a step forward.

***

“Takan. Support me from the outside while I break in from within.”

[ Are you really alright with this? It looks hard to control your strength while breaking through magic circles of that caliber. ]

“It’ll be fine if you adjust the firepower from outside as you support. Inside, I’ll mainly use mid-ranking spirits.”

To break through a defensive magic circle of that scale and enter, damage to the mansion was an unavoidable necessity. Fortunately, since the interior was all but devoid of people, there’d be no casualties, but the property damage couldn’t be ignored.

A saving grace was that Yennekar Palerover knew the interior structure well. She could roughly estimate where and how to enter to minimize damage as much as possible.

And above all, the important thing was that Yennekar Palerover was an insider of the Rothstaylor Mansion. Right now, that position mattered.

‘I can’t mobilize the outside forces at the encampment. If the mansion’s going to be damaged, I have to do it myself. That’s the only way to wrap it up as an internal affair of the mansion.’

Even if the mansion got wrecked all the same, it carried an entirely different meaning whether it was done by an insider of the mansion or an outsider. If it had to be done, Yennekar doing it was the correct judgment.

‘And… for some reason, I feel like if I do it, Ed will forgive me……! Yeah…!’

Yennekar couldn’t help feeling a little sheepish even as she monologued. Ed Rothstaylor was in fact an extremely generous person toward Yennekar, so it wasn’t wrong, but it felt like taking advantage of Ed’s warmth, which gave her an odd pang of guilt.

But the intent was good, so what could she do? Yennekar was moving thoroughly to rescue Ed and clean up the situation.

“You’re really going to enter the interior?”

“Yes, Princess. I can’t leave it any longer than this. I’ll break through the outer wall of the rear servants’ passage, counter the defensive magic circles, and approach the main hall.”

“The guest room is on the top floor, as I recall. If you’re going in anyway, wouldn’t it be better to enter from the upper levels?”

“Th-the upper levels of the mansion… have the valuables storehouse, and the corridors are full of all sorts of antique artworks…”

Yennekar swallowed back welling tears as she spoke.

“Um…… even if I’m a noble, I don’t have the confidence to pay for all that…… If I end up buried in debt, my family back in Pulan…… uhk…”

“…… I doubt Ed Rothstaylor would saddle you with such debt.”

“E-even so, it’s a matter of conscience…… Just because the other party forgives you doesn’t mean you can be reckless about it…”

Yennekar clenched both fists and thrust out her chest as she spoke.

“D-don’t worry, Princess. I’ll minimize the mansion’s damage, counter the magic circles, and subdue Bell too. I’ll wrap this whole thing up as an internal disturbance of the Rothstaylor Mansion…”

“S-Saint Clarice is already inside, though…”

“A-anyway…… I’ll handle it! Just trust me and wait!”

Compared to her Silvenia days, Yennekar’s newly heightened sense of responsibility was a deeply moving thing.

And yet, no matter how she had received a noble title, a person’s nature did not change so easily…… that oddly precarious feeling never quite faded.

Even so, the judgment itself was correct. If she really meant to force her way into the mansion, having an insider do it was unconditionally the right call.

At this point, the strongest combatant among the people of the Rothstaylor Mansion was Yennekar Palerover. That much couldn’t be denied.

When Penia gently closed her eyes, before long she could feel Yennekar drawing up her magic power.

It was the moment a peerless Elementalist of innate talent threw herself onto the scene to finally catch the maid who had raised an insurrection.

At this juncture, when the key figures had all fallen for Bell’s schemes (she’d done basically nothing), Yennekar was, in effect, the last remaining hope.

***

Boom! Crack!

Fwooosh!

The personnel of the encampment were all dumbstruck, watching the flow of Yennekar’s magic power.

They had heard tales of the prowess of the Rothstaylor Mansion’s Elementalist, Yennekar Palerover. But seeing that power manifest with their own eyes was an entirely different matter.

Yennekar Palerover broke straight through the mansion’s rear outer wall and entered. Soon the mansion’s defensive magic circles stirred up a storm of magic power to push the intruder back, but a single swing of the oak staff gripped tight in her hand neutralized them all.

Outside the mansion, the house-sized fire lizard Takan was supporting her with firepower. He was said to be holding back to minimize damage to the mansion, but a few flares of his flames alone wrapped an entire servants’ corridor in fire.

“And that’s him holding back…?”

The soldiers of the Holy Capital swallowed dryly.

Had Saint Clarice not been shielded by the Holy Blessing, the worry wouldn’t have been Bell, it would have been whether she’d be hurt by the aftermath of Yennekar’s magic power.

Crunch! Crack! Whoosh!

Crushing the magic circles carved into the corridor one by one, Yennekar turned her head slightly toward the encampment’s personnel.

Glimpsed amid the rising smoke, Yennekar’s figure was like a queen reigning among the spirits.

Considering her usual self, always fidgeting like a lost large dog, the majesty was at a level that simply defied comprehension.

“That an Elementalist of that caliber is a mere vassal at the Rothstaylor Mansion?”

It was indeed the truth.

She was an Elementalist of a caliber that would be revered anywhere in the empire, yet at the mansion where Ed and Lucy resided, she was merely one meaningful asset among others.

The swarm of rising elemental spirits filled the mansion’s corridors.

What was the queen of spirits, who commanded each of them like slaves, thinking now?

“I-I broke a lot more than I expected…! H-how…! C-can I even pay for all this?”

She was thinking about money.

Her mind already felt dizzy, but for now wasn’t the time for idle thoughts. Having entered, she had to push through to the main hall’s central staircase and storm the guest room where Ed would be.

Once she pressed deeper into the interior from here, she’d be out of sight from the outside. Yennekar took a deep breath, nodded to the personnel outside, and trudged inward.

“Dris!”

Fwooosh!

When the low-ranking wind spirit Dris, shaped like a sparrow, swept down the corridor, every defensive magic circle on the scene began bursting all at once.

They were inscriptions of the intermediate fire magic ‘Single-Point Blast’ that Ed had carved himself. Normally, with no magic power supplied at all, the magic circles were as good as nonexistent, but when someone with authority activated the central defensive magic circle, the spells took effect all at once.

Each one packed considerable power, enough that a moment’s carelessness meant being struck down in an instant.

Crash! Crack!

Crushing every magic circle one by one as she went was far too inefficient an act. Bell would already have noticed that Yennekar had entered the mansion.

So rather than drag things out, she had to resolve it swiftly and decisively.

“Tables and seventeen flowerpots…! Twenty-one exterior glass windows…! The scorched carpets…! Ah… for now, I can still keep it all within two gold coins…!”

Meanwhile, the calculator in Yennekar’s eyes was spinning furiously. She thought it might honestly be easier to fight if she’d been dropped into the middle of a monster field.

By this point, really, she ought to have realized.

No matter how much she smashed the mansion, the obligation to compensate for the damage fell on Bell, if anyone, there was no reason for Yennekar to shoulder it.

And Bell had already amassed an astonishing fortune for someone her age.

But regrettably, Yennekar Palerover was in no state to think that far ahead……

The first reason was that shifting responsibility onto someone else was impossible for the kind of person she was. The second was that the weight of her title had made her anxious. The third was that she was wrapped up in her duty to rescue Ed no matter what.

As a result, it was as plain as day where Yennekar’s thinking would flow.

‘If I can just reach the main hall…! Five gold coins…! I can wrap it up within five coins…! I can do it…! If it’s me…! I’ll smash Ed’s precious mansion to the absolute minimum…!’

Bang! Crash!

Even as she ran out of the servants’ passage and down the guest corridor toward the main hall, the calculator in Yennekar’s head was spinning furiously.

A world where you had to think of money and responsibility with every single action. So this was it, was this the world Lortel Kehelland had lived in? How peaceful a life she’d led, she who had spent her days admiring the highland scenery of Pulan.

Monologuing things that would’ve drawn nothing but a snort from Lortel had she heard them, Yennekar pushed through the guest corridor with the most bewildered look in the world.

“Aaaah! Dris! Leave the statue alone! No!”

“Kyaaa! The grandfather clock…! It was a gift from House Radek……! They’ll be hurt if it breaks…”

“The carpet! The carpet! The carpet’s on fire! Lacia! Put it out, please…”

…… Yennekar Palerover was already out of her mind.

She was skilled enough to counter the mansion’s defensive magic circles, but by the time she neared the main hall, she was already worn to a frazzle.

“Haah…… haah…”

If she just opened the stone door right in front of her, at last it would be the main hall. From there she’d race up the stairs and storm the guest room to take Ed back.

But the color had completely drained from Yennekar’s face.

“Seven…… eight…… nine coins…? I-it’s still fine. It’s still fine for now…”

[ Lady Yennekar, I’m sorry…… that grandfather clock from before seems to have completely broken……. ]

“Uuk… then twenty-seven coins…. No… make it a generous thirty coins…?”

[ The mid-ranking spirit Lord Lakerd…… smashed the stained glass in the parlor as well. ]

“Th-that was……! made by an Oldek craftsman himself……! Fi… fifty-seven coins….”

[ Also…… the ancestral portrait on the guest-room outer wall…… ]

“S-stop……! Stop… It’d be better to think about it later now… uuk… uuk…… uuuu…”

Yennekar pressed her forehead against the stone door, mashing at her temples.

Crash-crash-crash! Boom!

Before long, the blast magic circles she’d passed went off belatedly somewhere back down the corridor she’d come through.

Yennekar wore an expression like her soul had left her body, and simply decided to forget everything.

“F-first, first I have to put the situation in order… yeah…… that’s what matters…”

[ Lady Yennekar……. ]

“They say a true adult is someone who knows how to justify the means for the sake of the end. Today I…… I’ve become an adult…”

[ It’s not exactly wrong, but…… it’s bitter to hear……. ]

“N-no, wait. But the mansion getting wrecked…… come to think of it, wasn’t it the spirits and not me…? Dris, or Letika, Takan, Lakerd, Eras…… strictly speaking, couldn’t it be seen as you all being the ones who broke it…”

[ …? ]

“Spirits are beings subordinate to nature, so in a way it could even be seen as a natural disaster… couldn’t it…? All of this was just one accident that happened amid the flow of great nature… It’s truly unfortunate and regrettable, but it was force majeure…”

[ My lady. If you really start thinking like a grimy, jaded adult…… we’ll only grow sadder. ]

Flapping its tiny wings, Dris let out a sorrowful sigh.

It was probably just something the spirit said in passing, but the fact that Yennekar looked cornered enough to warrant it was pitiful all the same.

Yennekar caught her breath, regained her senses, and opened the stone door once more.

In any case, it was time to set aside the stray thoughts. Now was the time to give her all to rescue Ed.

Creak

The door leading to the east corridor opened, and the main hall came into full view.

The marble floor, polished to a gleam, was so spotless that the ceiling’s chandelier was reflected upon it.

The display cabinets lined along the outer walls were, for some reason, empty, and the paintings that had filled the walls had all been cleared away too. She didn’t know why, but for Yennekar, who hated breaking valuables, it was a fortunate thing.

The main hall, always so crowded with servants and vassals coming and going.

Today, seeing it empty with not a soul in sight felt uncanny to Yennekar, who had frequented this place as if it were her own home.

“If I were Bell, I’d be waiting here for the intruder…”

There were more exterior staircases leading to the upper floors, but in an emergency they were all sealed. One could force entry, but the blast magic circles inscribed within would collapse them all.

It was a conclusion Yennekar, who knew the interior defensive magic circle layout precisely, could readily reach. At this point, to reach the mansion’s upper floors with the least possible damage, there was no choice but to use the main hall staircase.

In other words, if she just sealed off this one spot…… every passage leading to the guest room would, in effect, be blocked.

Clack, clack.

And then, before long, she saw someone walk out from the stair landing up above.

Bell Maya.

The one who knew the traits of the mansion’s members through and through, and in effect the very perpetrator of this insurrection.

Yennekar owed Bell a great deal and shared many memories with her, so she did not particularly want to oppose her. Even so, with the situation having come to this, she had to subdue Bell by force.

“You’ve come, Lady Yennekar.”

“Bell….”

There was an elegance to her lofty bearing as she looked down at Yennekar from atop the main hall’s second-floor railing.

Having lived her whole life holding pride as a maid, she never lost her graceful comportment in any situation. The same held true even now, even with an insurrection raised and Yennekar storming in to subdue it.

For Yennekar, who couldn’t accept this farce, the very fact of facing off against her like this was far from welcome.

But Bell had finished readying her stance, as if to say her preparations to fight were complete. Magic power hung about the rapier in her hand, and with the magic power around her opposite hand she wielded the mansion’s defensive magic circles as if they were her own.

Right now, this mansion itself was beneath Bell Maya’s grip.

At last, the time had come to face the cause of this whole affair. It felt like a long way around, but in any case, someone had to face it. And now, in this very spot, everything had to be settled.

The opponent was clear.

The Rothstaylor Mansion’s foremost strategist.

Ed Rothstaylor’s closest confidant, Head Maid Bell Maya.

“You cannot pass beyond this point.”

“…No… why are you going this far, Bell…”

“I won’t say much. If you wish to reach the guest room, you’ll have to go through me.”

Before she was a seasoned strategist, Bell Maya was also a combatant with quite considerable fighting ability. Her rapier swordsmanship could trade blows even with seasoned warriors, and she could wield intermediate magic.

Even a top operative of an average mercenary band had no choice but to defer before Bell Maya. She wasn’t only intelligent, she’d reached a considerably high level in pure martial force as well.

But even so, she could never overcome Yennekar Palerover.

Yennekar knew that clearly too, which was why she could only hesitate when she saw Bell take up such a serious battle stance.